7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The 20th Centurys Greatest Hits -- A Real Hit!, September 26, 2000
Everyone loves lists -- the best of, worst of, what's hot, what's not. We love to argue with the picks, think of what we would have added or deleted. Now Paul Williams has produced the ultimate thought-provoking list: The 20th Century Greatest Hits, a collection of forty essays comprising a unique "top 40" list of art worth remembering.
First things first. Paul Williams? you ask. No, not the chubby blonde-haired songster of the 70's, but Paul S. Williams who in 1966 at age 17 founded Crawdaddy! the first American rock magazine - precursor to Rolling Stone. He's been referred to as "legendary rock historian," "one of America's foremost writers of rock" and "our best rock journalist" by critics and musicians alike.
Williams is a prolific writer of "observation" books (some forty books in all, most available here on Amazon.com) that include insightful reviews of important musical artists that have influenced us over the past 30 years. He has written extensively about Bob Dylan (three books in print, with a fourth in the works.) He's also written about Neil Young and Brian Wilson and is the author of the best selling underground classic Das Energi. He's a keen observer; a mirror trying to reflect with crystal clarity what he hears and feels about not only music, but artistic events and those who create them.
"Great art, then, is not some objective phenomenon; it is an essentially subjective, and often profoundly spiritual, personal experience on the part of a person or many persons reading a book, listening to a recording, looking at a painting, watching a play or film..."
Williams has a way of touching your soul through his unique writing style and he's out done himself with this latest observation book. "It's a tease actually," he affirms because it's not a top 40 music review. It's a play on his own Rock and Roll: the 100 Best Singles, published in 1993. Only this book, The 20th Century Greatest Hits, is not limited to rock or even music. It's any work of art that he deemed memorable enough to make his "top 40" list of the century. He includes literature, music recordings, paintings and performing artists. In the book, he asks and answers the question "What is a unit of art?"
"...there are great artists whose works are performances before a live audience. I am a passionate appreciator of this type of art and have written a series of books about Bob Dylan as a performing artist in which I argue for the recognition of live performances, recorded or unrecorded, as works of art that can add up to a great and memorable body of work just as surely as artworks that endure as physical objects."
An odd mishmash of "art", you might think, when you first glance at The List and find Eleanor Roosevelt's Universal Declaration of Human Rights next to Winnie-the-Pooh and later followed by a concert performance of Umm Kulthum. Not to worry, once you read Williams' tantalizing and convincing arguments for their inclusion, you'll be thankful you found this gem.
The List also includes songs by the Beatles and Billie Holiday; works of Picasso and Matisse; books by Philip K Dick, Jack Kerouac and James Joyce; short stories of Borges and Sturgeon; a translation of The I-Ching; movies, poems, live performances and so much more.
"That's a primary purpose of the book is to talk about and to stimulate people to think about what art is and what that means to us personally," Williams says about his unusual selections. All I can say is, he's successful. He makes you want to run out and read, see or hear all of his choices. To me, that's a Real Hit! This collection deserves 5 stars for originality and expanding our view of what constitutes The 20th Century Greatest Hits.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Rambling and Weak, August 3, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: The 20th Century's Greatest Hits: A Top 40 List (Paperback)
I loved the concept of this book. I only wish I had read an excerpt before buying it. The choices are fine, even daring. However, instead of insight, the reader gets poorly written stream-of-consciousness ramblings that add up to nothing but the author's feeble attempt to justify his choices...some of which he hasn't even experienced himself. If you like trivia or history, do not buy this book. If you like an author who thinks he is hip, smart, and funny but is none of these things, go for it.
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