Customer Reviews

DIVIDED LOYALTIES-EMM 23

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Poor Rob Jovanovic. Writing a celebrity bio of such a young guy must be tricky: how to tell the story without fawning, and what to say that might be worth reading a year from now. But this book is prosaic and tendentious, meandering pointlessly: the exact antithesis of Beck's songs.

The book is also irrelevant, except for the most gaga of fans. Beck tells his own story captivatingly. He connects with his listeners, not always emotionally, but in some dark, smokey recess of the brain. What more can his audience expect?

I'm a pretty big Beck fan, but this book rambled on and on. The author put in so much detail about people I slightly cared about, that I skimmed a lot of the material. It felt like a magazine article that had been padded up to make a book. I feel like I know very little more about Beck than when I started reading. I guess if you're into statistical information with regards to who played on what song and who directed which video (this information takes up half of the book) and what songs Beck played at each appearance, you'd like this book. As for me, I expected to learn more about Beck as a person and have more insights into his songs.

The first few chapters of this book were good, Jovanovic had material on Beck's childhood and how he started as a musician. Then as soon as the book gets to the part when Beck releases Mellow Gold it gets boring. I, personally do not like Jovanovic at all. He acts like he is a music buff. He says Cake copies Beck. If anyone has heard Cake, then they know they sound nothing like Beck. They're completely different and unique. He needs more information to back up claims like that. I didn't flip through the book before I got it, and the 2nd half is all boring nonsense about individual songs, videos and art. It wasn't about Beck as a person at all.

A tad boring, but If your a hardcore Beck fan, then it's worth a read.