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12th out of 37 books
—
3 voters
This Will End in Tears: The Miserablist Guide to Music
Sad music moves us like nothing else, and despite its gloomy nature it also has the curious power to make us happy. In This Will End in Tears: The Miserabilist Guide to Music, author Adam Brent Houghtaling explains why, while offering up a compendium of history's masters of melancholy and the greatest sad songs of all time, featuring artists across genres and through time-...more
Paperback, 416 pages
Published
August 7th 2012
by It Books
(first published November 29th 2011)
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I’m happy I read this book! At first I didn’t know what to expect from it. It’s a well put together book. There are biographies of singers and songwriters known for sad songs, essays, the science behind depression and music.
Some of the singers I didn’t know, but thanks to Youtube and Itunes, I discovered Nick Cave, Jacques Brel, and heard Nico. I already knew Morrissey, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline (her biography movie starring Jessica Lange is very wrong), The Cure and Joy Division, but I also got...more
Some of the singers I didn’t know, but thanks to Youtube and Itunes, I discovered Nick Cave, Jacques Brel, and heard Nico. I already knew Morrissey, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline (her biography movie starring Jessica Lange is very wrong), The Cure and Joy Division, but I also got...more
Part of me wants to rate this book more highly than 3 stars. There is a tremendous amount of information presented on the artists and topics Houghtaling covers. The author takes the somewhat unique approach of alternating between topics like "Born to Be Blue: The True Color of Misery" or "Suicide, It's a Suicide: Self-Harm and Song" and the progression of his encyclopedic artist entries. So for example, we get the Suicide chapter, a song essay ("Gloomy Sunday"), and then he picks up where he lef...more
This book has got an excellent concept; the organization is stylish and intriguing: it's a collection of essays about individual artists, songs, pieces of music, and categories of music interspersed with an alphabetically organized list of artists.
Some of the chapters include "Breaking Up, Breaking Down, Cheating, and Divorce," "Decay, Disintegration, Disease," and "Seasonally Affected: Falling Leaves, Falling Snow, FallingTears." The book culminated in a list of the 100 saddest songs. Individua...more
Some of the chapters include "Breaking Up, Breaking Down, Cheating, and Divorce," "Decay, Disintegration, Disease," and "Seasonally Affected: Falling Leaves, Falling Snow, FallingTears." The book culminated in a list of the 100 saddest songs. Individua...more
Okay, while I cannot even come close to guaranteeing that this book would be amazing to, well, most of you, to me it was amazing. Adam Houghtaling should be my new music buddy. The contents of this book are precious to me.
Houghtaling embraces those who pour their hearts into their cup o' lyrics, then flush the proverbial cup out with corrosive chemicals, aching guitar riffs and paralyzing vocals.
I have had a pained heart (and in some cases, wept to) eleven of the top hundred saddest songs . I th...more
Houghtaling embraces those who pour their hearts into their cup o' lyrics, then flush the proverbial cup out with corrosive chemicals, aching guitar riffs and paralyzing vocals.
I have had a pained heart (and in some cases, wept to) eleven of the top hundred saddest songs . I th...more
2 likes · like · see review
On most days, though it's not exclusive, I tend to connect with sad or introspective sounding music above all else. It's the eternal question summed up so brilliantly by the character Rob Gordon in High Fidelity: "What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns or watching violent videos; that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands, of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain,...more
An interesting guide to getting your feet wet in the "miserablist" genre of music, though it's wise to keep in mind that the descriptions in this book ultimately reflects one person's tastes (or one range, if he did crowd-sourcing).
The Top 100 list in my copy actually only has 99--"Death Letter" by Son House was listed twice. But by that point in the book I was almost wondering if it was a charm: after reading an A-to-Z list of artists where roughly 80% killed themselves either directly or passi...more
The Top 100 list in my copy actually only has 99--"Death Letter" by Son House was listed twice. But by that point in the book I was almost wondering if it was a charm: after reading an A-to-Z list of artists where roughly 80% killed themselves either directly or passi...more
Keeping in mind this is just one person's perspective on music, I still enjoyed this book! It was missing a lot of artists/songs I consider to be considerably depressing, but I think this was a pretty good selection covering a wide variety of genres. And on the plus side, it's given me a bunch of new artists to check out. Nice! I did like the arrangement of the book around different themes, and it was cool to get some background information about artists/songs I'm not familiar with.
Oct 29, 2012
Bookation13
marked it as to-read
this book caught my attention. as music lover you can't go wrong with this book. haven't read the book yet, giving it a 5 stars . example I've seen john Waite -missing you... if your not genuinely moved by this song / have you in tears then don't bother reading the book hehe jm.. it's always good to learn things .. a must read :)
As a music lover, I really enjoyed this book. It was neat to hear the stories behind some of my favorite songs and artists. There were even some I had never heard of before, and after reading this book I had to go explore iTunes so I could create some new playlists. While the title may be depressing, this is a fun read!
Aug 08, 2012
Judy
marked it as to-read
I have actually added this to my list so that my musical friends (Mike, are you there? :-) will be aware of it, if you aren't already. This was Highly Recommended in a recent email from Kirkus Reviews: http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-rev...
This book describes how "sad" music actually can (using brain chemistry) make people happy. As someone who enjoys it now and then I found some new selections through the book and I enjoyed the explanation of how this type of music can effect people.
Great analysis of sad songs and why we enjoy them...as well as bands/performers that usually sing or perform sad songs. This ranges from The Smiths to Portishead to John Dowland. Really interesting stuff.
The last bit of the book is a list of what he considers to be the 100 most Sad songs. It is a great list...except for ONE duplicate.
The last bit of the book is a list of what he considers to be the 100 most Sad songs. It is a great list...except for ONE duplicate.
You know how sometimes when you're sad, you need to listen to really sad songs? This is the ULTIMATE guide to music for every type of misery!
1 like · like · see review
Great concept, but so many mistakes in the editing. This may have worked better as a Tumblr project. At least most bloggers there check to make sure that they didn't transpose dates, miss names, miss parts of sentences....
Really interesting, and I am only knocking a star off due to the misprint at the end of the book (one song appears twice in the "100 Saddest Songs" list at the end of the book).
Good for the music fan. Paints a better understanding of sadness in songs. Also serves to give recommendations to what to listen to when you're heartbroken.
May 21, 2013
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Nov 27, 2012 07:56pm