Customer Reviews

Music Lust: Recommended Listening for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Nic Harcourt has been a mainstay at influential KCRW in Santa Monica for several years, and has broken many bands to his wide audience. I believe I first heard White Stripes, Coldplay, Nelly McKay, Sigor Ros, and many many others on his show before they got started playing everywhere. He is also, along with others at KCRW, a top music supervisor for film and tv. This gives him a unique ability to recommend a very wide range of music in many genres, and apply that music to many moods and conditions. In this book, he does it fabulously. If you're like me, you'll read it just to find a few new morsels to try that you might not be aware of. If you're not a hard core music fan, but just love to get turned on to new stuff, this book will really send you to the "music" section of amazon or your nearest music store to pick up music that will blow your mind and change your life. Highly recommended!

BOOK LUST, influential Dj Nic Harcourt's take on Nancy Pearl' BOOK LUST is a excellent guide for those who wish to pursue music that may wander outside of mainstream tastes.

As host of KCRW'S aptly named Morning Becomes Eclectic, the author plays the role of tastemaker, by playing new and exciting music that falls under the radar of the average music fan. This book acts as a guide to help people explore the same artists, even if they do not have access to his broadcasts. Through the book, he is able to share some of his personal history that illuminates how his tastes have formed over the years as well as inform the reader with a musical history lesson and a generous helping of trivia.

Though my tastes run parallel quite often to the author's, and I was aware of a majority of the artists and albums listed, I still found the book to be fascinating reading. I wholeheartedly recommend it to seasoned musical explorers and novices alike.

a very fine read from a man who really knows how to break music down into categories you would have never even thought of. you name it, it's there. thanks, nic.

I am so utterly dissapointed with Nic Harcourt's book, Music Lust. He is the host of a terrific, incredibly influential public radio show, Morning Becomes Eclectic, yet instead of writing an inspired, insightful book on modern music he decides to present a cheap, poorly written overview of music of the past century. None of the artists are covered with much depth. The interior art direction is cheap and tacky. Some bands mentioned come out of nowhere. (Alanis Morrisette? Give me a break).

Nic is an extremely well respected musical afficionado--instead of giving us original opinions on past artists or promoting current progressive musical movements/artists, we get semi-glossed, poorly written pop music history. He is not even entirely accurate, proof that probably someone else convinced him to write this drivel. For example, "The eighties was a difficult period for [the Grateful Dead], with several members of the group dying as a result of drug abuse and tragic accidents." (A) No Grateful Dead band members died in the eighties. (B) The one ex-member that died in the 80's, Keith Godchaux, died in a car accident in 1981. He hadn't been a member of the Dead since 1979. The other death in the group, apart from Pigpen in the 70's, was Brent Mydland, who passed away in the early 90's.

What the hell is Harcourt doing writing about bands like the Dead anyway? That style of music has never been covered or appreciated on his show, so why are they mentioned here? The Dead deserve a rightful place among rock music legends, but this just goes to show how Harcourt blew it with this book.

Harcourt can't even give the reader a properly researched overview, let alone a well-written one. His writing style is simplistic to the point of childlike. I felt I was reading an 8 year old's introduction to the history of pop music. The only positive aspect is that band names are highlighted in bold so the reader can skip over all the pages and bands that don't interest them.

Nic I hope you're next book is more focused and inspired. I want to be turned on to new music, not given a cheap and hasty rehash of past artists. I'll consult Rolling Stone or far more authoritative opinions than yours for this.

I will admit that I don't listen to Nic Harcourt's show, in fact I don't listen to the radio at all, so I don't have anything to say about him based on him playing or not playing music I like on his show.

On the other hand, I have read his book, and it's a fun read, nothing major, and if you want to learn more about the artists listed, try and find a biography about them, or check out their back-catalouge. Nic has come up with lists of his favorite records/artists in multiple genres and also lists his favorite albums from several of his favorite artists.

A good book and worth picking up.

Interesting book with compiled lists of various genres, etc. that I will check into, BUT, one glaring error on Nic's part is the exclusion of Cream and Eric Clapton. Personal choices aside, I find it hard to understand how he could possibly overlook "Disraeli Gears", which Cream released in 1967 to much praise, not to mention the single "Sunshine Of Your Love". Clapton was involved in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers (one album) and in The Yardbirds (one album) and gets hardly a passing mention in this book when he should have had an Icon chapter, also. "Clapton is God" wasn't a made-up slogan without something to back it up. I'm sure Harcourt was trying to save space since his book would have been much bigger had he found the need to include more selections, but to leave out Eric Clapton and Cream? You get 3 stars from this child of the 60's, Nic.

A friend gave me this book, I think I'd heard of Harcourt, but I'm not sure. Anyways, I pick it up from time to time, and yes, there is some good info in here, however, I have to take issue with the author over his exclusion of the band X in the book! I mean COME ON! With the quality of music that he covers through the book, and he pretty much gets it right, but there is NO WAY that one can cover as much ground as he does and NOT mention the band X, which is one of the greatest bands EVER! cheers.

This is the DJ who singlehandedly ruined a once great radio show, KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic, formerly hosted by Tom Schnabel and Chris Doritas. Harcourt's Brit-Pop content free taste is unlistenable, especially at 9:00 AM. He's a genius at ferreting out silly, souless crappola. Happy reading.

An irritaing morning DJ from a corrupted "public radio" station presents his mingy design for living as some sort of guide for the truly clueless.

Be forewarned, by the time you've worked these records into your life, he'll have moved onto another trend and will look down his nose at you. You'd do better asking a 16 year-old for musical advice, at least they mix genuine passion with their self-regard and trend-hopping.