Reviews for Psychological man

The average rating for Psychological man based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-05-30 00:00:00 Vad Onyx In the interest of full discloser: I wrote a chapter in this book. But I also taught from it half-a-dozen times. It has the virtue of speaking to the "theoretically challenged": you needn't have studied several years of music theory and you needn't be a 3rd-, 4th-, 5th-wave (or however many waves we're up to by now) feminist to follow what's being said. It's also not limited to the western-classical tradition: I learned a lot about such unfamiliar, extraordinarily talented and influential performers as Uum Kulthem (hard to imagine [literally] millions of mourners turning out for the funeral of an American singer) and Mercedes Sosa (hard to imagine an American performer lying in state in the US capital rotunda). Thanks to Youtube, it's also now possible to experience the various genres, styles, and performers quite easily, often in multiple examples (very interesting to hear both Mercedes Sosa and Joan Baez perform "Gracias a la vida," both separately and together). Those who are interested in hearing in new and unfamiliar ways might like it.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-01-02 00:00:00 Shannon Wagnon I was pretty excited to read this book, but I was disappointed overall. Disclaimer: This is NOT a book about music history or its impact on history. It is a music critic book. If you want a history book, find something else. I had seen the author in an interview, talking about the significance of Elvis on gender and image. The first two chapters were very interesting, mostly focusing on the John Wayne/Elvis Presley gender roles for young boys. I thought this was an excellent argument and a good historical argument. The author is not a historian. He is a music critic, a good one, but not in the terms of history. I felt that a lot of his arguments could have been better supported with some historical fact. For example, tying in female rock music and its impact on second wave feminism or how the second wave was reflected in music. Instead, he made more arguments about the different movements and styles in MUSIC rather than the joining of music and history (which to me goes hand in hand). A lot of the connections that he made between different artists or films felt rather stretched, and did not support the connection with more facts or theories. The stuff that he did have enough on, he rambled on and on. Overall, the book was a little long for the points that he made and it was not what I was hoping for.