Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me
What Pop Music Rivalries Reveal About the Meaning of Life
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Narrated by:
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Ben Sullivan
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By:
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Steven Hyden
About this listen
Music critic Steven Hyden explores 19 music rivalries and what they say about life.
Beatles vs. Stones. Biggie vs. Tupac. Kanye vs. Taylor. Who do you choose? And what does that say about you? Actually - what do these endlessly argued about pop music rivalries say about us?
Music opinions bring out passionate debate in people, and Steven Hyden knows that firsthand. Each chapter in Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me focuses on a pop music rivalry, from the classic to the very recent, and draws connections to the larger forces surrounding the pairing.
Through Hendrix vs. Clapton, Hyden explores burning out and fading away while his take on Miley vs. Sinead gives listeners a glimpse into the perennial battle between old and young. Funny and accessible, Hyden's writing combines cultural criticism, personal anecdotes, and music history - and just may prompt you to give your least favorite band another chance.
©2016 Steven Hyden (P)2016 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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A Must-Read For Any PRINCE Fan
- By Bryan K. Chavez on 05-06-16
By: Alan Light
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Walk This Way
- Run-DMC, Aerosmith, and the Song That Changed American Music Forever
- By: Geoff Edgers
- Narrated by: Geoff Edgers
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Washington Post staff writer Geoff Edgers takes a deep dive into the story behind "Walk This Way", Aerosmith and Run-DMC's legendary, groundbreaking mashup that forever changed music.
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A MUST LISTEN/READ
- By Aron Teo Lee on 05-17-19
By: Geoff Edgers
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Uncommon People
- The Rise and Fall of The Rock Stars
- By: David Hepworth
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The age of the rock star, like the age of the cowboy, has passed. Like the cowboy, the idea of the rock star lives on in our imaginations. What did we see in them? Swagger. Recklessness. Sexual charisma. Damn-the-torpedoes self-belief. A certain way of carrying themselves. Good hair. Interesting shoes. Talent we wished we had. What did we want of them? To be larger than life but also like us. To live out their songs. To stay young forever. No wonder many didn't stay the course.
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INSIGHTFULL!
- By CLAUDIA R KENNEDY on 02-18-18
By: David Hepworth
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Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?
- Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock
- By: Gregory Alan Thornbury
- Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1969, in Capitol Records' Hollywood studio, a blonde-haired troubadour named Larry Norman laid track for an album that would launch a new genre of music and one of the strangest, most interesting careers in modern rock. Having spent the bulk of the 1960s playing on bills with acts like The Who, Janis Joplin, and The Doors, Norman decided that he wanted to sing about the most countercultural subject of all: Jesus.
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Hagiography not Biography
- By Keith Howard on 10-29-18
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Relentless
- The Memoir
- By: Yngwie J. Malmsteen
- Narrated by: Yngwie J. Malmsteen, Fred Berman
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Yngwie Malmsteen's revolutionary guitar style - combining elements of classical music with the speed and volume of heavy metal - made him a staple of the 80s rock scene. Decades later, he's still a legend among guitarists, having sold 11 million albums and influenced generations of rockers since. In Relentless, Malmsteen shares his personal story, from the moment he burst onto the scene seemingly out of nowhere in the early 80s to become a household name in the annals of heavy metal.
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Bloviations
- By David A. Kaplowitz on 12-29-19
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Seven Dirty Words
- The Life and Crimes of George Carlin
- By: James Sullivan
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In Seven Dirty Words, journalist and cultural critic James Sullivan tells the story of Alternative America from the 1950s to the present, from the singular vantage point of George Carlin, the Catholic boy for whom nothing was sacred.
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Carlin's CV with no Depth or Insight
- By Dubi on 01-23-14
By: James Sullivan
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Keith Richards
- The Unauthorised Biography
- By: Victor Bockris
- Narrated by: Adrian Mulraney
- Length: 20 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1992, Victor Bockris' celebrated biography was the first to recognize Richards' pivotal role in the legend of the Rolling Stones. Now that book on rock's most incredible survivor has been expanded. Here are the true facts behind Richards' battles with his demons: the women, the drugs and the love-hate relationship with Jagger. His struggle with heroin and his status as the rock star most likely to die in the 1970s. His scarcely believable rebirth as a family man in the 1980s. Illuminated with revealing quotes and thoughtful insights into the man behind the band that goes on forever.
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doesn't comapre to LIFE
- By A. Garofalo on 02-20-14
By: Victor Bockris
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Never a Dull Moment
- 1971 - the Year That Rock Exploded
- By: David Hepworth
- Narrated by: David Hepworth
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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On New Year's Eve, 1970, Paul McCartney told his lawyers to issue the writ at the High Court in London, effectively ending The Beatles. You might say this was the last day of the pop era. The following day, which was a Friday, was 1971. You might say this was the first day of the rock era. And within the remaining 364 days of this monumental year, the world would hear Don McLean's "American Pie", The Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar", The Who's "Baba O'Riley", Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven", and more.
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A blast from the past
- By Amazon Customer on 07-30-16
By: David Hepworth
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Here We Are Now
- The Lasting Impact of Kurt Cobain
- By: Charles R. Cross
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Simply stated, Kurt Cobain changed the cultural conversation in his all-too-brief life, and even after his shattering death. With interviews and commentary from all corners of the pop culture universe, from the people who knew Cobain to those who continue to help his legend grow, Here We Are Now explores what a singular life meant, and how that meaning can be measured, when and if it can be.
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An amazing afterword on culture post Cobain
- By Rebecca F. on 06-11-15
By: Charles R. Cross
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The Walrus and the Elephants
- John Lennon’s Years of Revolution
- By: James A. Mitchell
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In late 1971 John Lennon left London behind and moved to New York, eager to join a youth movement rallying for social justice and an end to the Vietnam War. Lennon was quickly embraced by radicals and revolutionaries, the hippies and Yippies at odds with the establishment. Settling in Greenwich Village, the heart of Manhattan's counterculture, the former Beatle was soon on the frontlines of the antiwar movement and championing a range of causes and issues.
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I wish you were still here
- By Kazuhiko on 12-09-13
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The Simpsons
- An Uncensored, Unauthorized History
- By: John Ortved
- Narrated by: John Allen Nelson, Justine Eyre
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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John Ortved's oral history is the first-ever look behind the scenes at the creation and day-to-day running of the television phenomenon known as The Simpsons, as told by many of the people who produce it.
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Great Content, Awful Reading
- By JH Easton on 03-13-11
By: John Ortved
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Unchained
- The Eddie Van Halen Story
- By: Paul Brannigan
- Narrated by: Mike Lenz
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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From the moment their hugely influential 1978 debut landed, Van Halen set a high bar for the rock 'n' roll lifestyle, creating an entirely new style of post-'60s hard rock and becoming the quintessential rock band of the 1980s. But the high-flying success was fraught with difficulty, as Eddie struggled with alcohol and drug addiction while simultaneously battling David Lee Roth over the musical direction of the band, eventually taking the band in an entirely new direction with Sammy Hagar and scaling new heights, before that iteration of Van Halen disintegrated.
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Please don't read other audible books
- By Mike on 02-01-22
By: Paul Brannigan
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Dig If You Will the Picture
- Funk, Sex, God and Genius in the Music of Prince
- By: Ben Greenman
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Ben Greenman, New York Times best-selling author, contributing writer to The New Yorker, and owner of thousands of recordings of Prince and Prince-related songs, knows intimately that there has never been a rock star as vibrant, mercurial, willfully contrary, experimental, or prolific as Prince. Uniting a diverse audience while remaining singularly himself, Prince was a tireless artist, a musical virtuoso and chameleon, and a pop-culture prophet.
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Reads like a indepth career review & analysis
- By herb on 05-18-17
By: Ben Greenman
What listeners say about Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Phillip
- 09-05-16
Lots of Fun
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
This book examines so many fun, interesting rivalries, and generates lots of good conversations. So, yes, I would recommend this to a friend, because it would be great to discuss and debate these pop cultural ideas.
Did Ben Sullivan do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?
Ben Sullivan is fine as the narrator, but there were some definite mispronunciations of band names, album titles, etc.; this really isn't that big of a deal, but when it happens, it just pulls you out of the book to remind you that this isn't the author reading it, but someone "playing" the author. Having learned about this book from a radio interview with the author, Steven Hyden, I kind of think this was a missed opportunity to simply just use the author as the narrator; I think it would have made it just a bit more authentic.
Any additional comments?
The first rivalry discussed in this book, Oasis vs. Blur, is the weakest of them all. It's a strange choice to begin with, because it's probably the most niche and least interesting. Full disclosure: I'm an Oasis fan and I really didn't connect with this chapter at all. My suggestion, either power through this one, or just skip it, because there is lots of better material after it.
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- Noam
- 03-21-19
Great title but not very good overall
Got this book because I love music a lot. However the book isn't very interesting other than a few nice details here and there. I couldn't finish the book...
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- Ali G.
- 10-21-20
too many ancedotes
i liked the concept of this book and overall i enjoyed it, but for me there were too many other stories and anecdotes. chapters went on for far too long
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- Olivia
- 08-08-16
Great Book.
This book made the music lover inside of me laugh, raise an eyebrow, and sometimes stir uncomfortably. Your Favorite Band is Killing Me is a deep yet light-hearted think piece. I highly recommend it.
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- Laura Bellefontaine
- 06-03-24
Great
I loved it. It was like a very long article on the history of music feuds. Very interesting. I think it needs to be updated. But it’s great.
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- Bill
- 05-16-21
an excellent and personal take on pop music
checked this out after listening to the Rivals podcast. very cool to here some of the stories told in a more personal way. Steven is the best critic in the indie world
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- Matthew Sssss
- 02-14-17
Good Title (Mediocre Story)
I had high hopes for this book. I had hoped that it would address all the pop-culture music comparisons we all know. Instead the book spent most of the time describing why these types of comparisons exist without trying to answer them. Sure, final decisions are personal, but I was looking forward to reading an attempt.
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1 person found this helpful