Analyzing the use of music in the novels: American Psycho, Another Country, Jazz Moon, The Dead Do Not Improve, and A Visit from the Goon Squad.

I finally recorded a new episode of my podcast 'Strange Currencies!' It has been almost a year. And the Podcasting side of my brain just hasn't been the same since I concussed myself head-banging at a Father John Misty concert. Har har. But seriously! This new episode is about the use of music in a few of my favorite novels. I start with an overly long preamble about the Yankees and a strange interaction I had with "The Thing" while rollerblading. Because I'm also doing this podcast to entertain myself. (my most loyal listener!) Then I get into the real shit shit (as Mobb Deep would singggg) The books and scenes I cover are

American Psycho: Bateman and company go to see U2 at "somewhere called the Meadowlands." The scene is fascinating for its mixture of humorous satire with an impressionistic passage of Bateman actually experiencing human emotion. Ellis alters his tone and writing style as easily as someone turning a dial on the radio: and has the book been seen enough as an ultra modern experiment in craft?

Another Country: Ida has her first gig in Greenwich Village. James Baldwin describes the transient intimacy between performer and audience through Ida's limitations as a singer: how in a paradoxical way a sincere failure is better than a thoughtless success on stage.

Jazz Moon: Trumpet player Baby Back Johnston came to Paris to be a star. And like 'Another Country,' we are the audience for his first gig, through the eyes of his boyfriend, Harlem expatriate Ben Charles. There's a lot to absorb in this moment: the frenetic scene at the Chez Le Roi, Ben's conversation with hip Parisians romantic about Harlem and actually wanting a performance from him, and his commentary on the debut as it happens: animated by the collaboration between Baby Back and the club's star singer Glo. A total trip into a moment in another time.

The Dead Do Not Improve: Jay Caspian Kang's determination to make violence his primary thematic concern with his debut novel results in a stylistic brew attempting to articulate confusion: a confusion which is entirely our own in modern life. The confusion is about our inability to even begin understanding what violence is : along with the mystery of where the deepest rage in people actually arises. There are possible explanations almost taboo to discuss: is it ethnic? Are we crazy because of our blood? Or is it alienation engendering an emptiness inside that popular culture could never fill? This book has stuck with me since I first read it when I was starting to get invested in novels & prose writing seven years ago. The scene discussed, toward the end of the book and utilizing Bone Thugs N Harmony's song "Tha Crossroads," hits me as a description of our communal angst in a time of broadcast violence.

A Visit from the Goon Squad: This episode is concluded by analyzing a scene which doesn't include music: but involves a conversation between two musicians. They were in the same punk band growing up. Now one is the President of a record label. And the other is walking into his office with a fish rolled up in paper: caught from the East River. A lucky fish. This scene is about power: the power of tangibility versus the power of contentment. How one is never actually winning over the other: there's a dance happening in this scene as one person needs validation from the other -- and then the reverse. Ultimately it explains how we even hear music to begin with: an artist making the decision to sign a contract and become part of the corporate world. Something we take for granted as a given: but in this scene we understand why: there's no personal philosophy like a skyscraper window with a perfect view of Manhattan. There's nothing like owning that view. And there's no escape from this collaboration. How someone's soul becomes a part of our playlists.