Nick Hornby:Pop Novelist has A Problem
I went to see the new movie An Education today featuring a superb screenplay by English High Fideleity author and former The New Yorker popular music critic Nick Hornby. I am going to write about the soundtrack of An Education (mostly pre-Beatles French chanson and English pop) at a later date. For now I want to wonder what Nick’s problem is.
Hornby is a good writer the way Stephen King is -he is a good writer for a world that doesn’t much like to read and sure don’t like to think too hard. And that’s OK. It’s limited but OK in a limited way. But as a music critic he has crappy taste in music. He gets rock and gets soul, maybe gets reggae and dub, even blues and dance. But he is completely incompetent about hip hop and funk.
So are many people.
But not many people are considered the premier modern music scribe of 21st century.
I have just started reading Nick’s newbie Juliet, Naked and will get back with a review at some point. For now think about that:: Nick Hornby is your Grandmother.
