Reviews for Act You've Known for All These Years

The average rating for Act You've Known for All These Years based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-01-16 00:00:00 Jemz Castillo Read this as much for the interesting parallel stories of Brian Wilson's Smile project, and the roughly contemporaneous recording at Abbey Road of Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn. ===================== Just re-read this, and found both (1) that the musical interest was even more than on a first reading, and (2) that the author's musical antipathy to Sgt Pepper (a sort of positional hostility stemming from his long-term investment in Dylan and punk) results in (a) his getting occasionally tiresome through the course of the bulk of the book, and (b) an especially tendentious and jettisonable concluding chapter. No one objects to his preferring Dylan or punk, nota bene, but criticize the Beatles for not being Dylan, and you mighy as well criticize Dylan for not being the Monkees. Heylin repeatedly expresses his disappointment with the song-writing (overall) of Sgt Pepper (which over time, starts to look simply like a Dylan fan's adoption of Dylan's expressed "didn't think much of it"). Whether we can really design the scales which will demonstrate that "And Your Bird Can Sing" and "Got to Get You Into My Life" are genuinely superior songs to "Good Morning, Good Morning" and "Fixing a Hole," I don't know. Heylin seems to wish that the Beatles would get beyond 'simple pop songs', yet when Harrison has a go at doing so ("Within You, Without You") ' nope, Heylin doesn't like that, either, dismissing it as "a turkey." Some of the nagging is a little rougher to forgive on a second reading. The general premise of the book (as I see it), though ' that there is value in stepping outside the space cadet glow with which this iconic album has been imbued ' does hold up; truly, there is hype ripe for the puncturing. Heylin quotes a "perhaps the most creative 129 days in the history of rock music"; puffery which only begins to crumble when one considers that those 129 days were the period that Ringo remembers learning how to play chess (though that is arguably a creative way for him to have passed the time). All in all, though one might wish that Heylin had had the chops and the fairness to write the book in some respects otherwise than he did, a worthwhile read.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-05-13 00:00:00 Boun PhommachanhWolpov Another book about my favorite band, the Beatles.  It's an older one, issued upon the 40th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper, and I read it during the 50th anniversary. The book attempts to place the album in the context of 1967, so includes the Beach Boys, Kinks, the Who, Pink Floyd, Dylan, Rolling Stones and all the usual suspects. Problem is that the writer can't decide what he ultimately feels about the album. He seems to be among those who say that Sgt. Pepper killed "pop" music - which is ridiculous. He also spends the last chapter blasting anybody who considers it one of the best albums ever released. The writer's style is also a hurdle - too clever by half, full of puns, inside jokes and references that miss the mark.  It was a timely read (it jogged my memory about Sgt. Pepper), but I didn't really get anything new from it. Just some slings and arrows from somebody who apparently believes he's above liking Sgt. Pepper. See more of my reviews at Ralphsbooks.