Growin' Up

Top 5 reasons "High Fidelity" is essential:

1. Voluminous and spot-on pop-culture references.
2. The knowing that record obsessiveness can overwhelm one’s world and influence lives; i.e., how the relationship between men and music can be special, complicated, inspirational, and at times, self-defeating.
3. A prescient view of how the innocence and promise of youth can never quite be fulfilled, but that it can all turn out OK.
4. Yes, “Thunder Road” is the best opening track in rock and roll history.
5. Rob = Dennis, or the written soundtrack of my life. Up to a point..

High Fidelity is not great literature. It won’t go down as one of the most important books of the century, decade or perhaps even of 1996.

It is, however, funny, touching, and like holding a mirror up to my face and seeing my silhouette covered with words. Words that are not just recognizable, but defining: mix tape, obsessed, records, confusion, women, failure, redemption….

I spent countless hours with friends and colleagues at Wee Three Records in the Lycoming Mall, discussing or arguing:
* Who was better, Tom Petty or Graham Parker?
* If “Get it On (Bang a Gong)” has the greatest fade-out in all of rock music
* Whether “I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock and Roll)” was the best rock and roll song of the ‘70s
* Fred Sanford or Archie Bunker?
* If “Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads” is the best record ever made
* Ways the New York Giants will embarrass themselves next
* Whether Badfinger was the second coming of the Beatles (really)
* Shemp was no Curly, but still pretty good and way ahead of Curly Joe and Joe Besser
* Why Rush are great musicians but not a great – or even good – band
* That Willie Nelson never wrote a decent song after the early ‘70s
* Lemmon and Matthau or Randall and Klugman?
* Stax or Motown?
* Which will ruin baseball first, Astroturf or George Steinbrenner
* That the Police, the Doors and the Grateful Dead are the most overrated bands in history
* How and why our hometown resembled Mayberry and/or Hooterville of “Green Acres” fame
* That 1966 was the greatest year in music history
* If the songwriting team of Difford and Tilbrook (Squeeze) were the new Lennon and McCartney
* The greatest soul singers, the greatest debut albums, the greatest George Jones songs
* Why the girls we knew didn’t care about any of these things, and what this said about our relationships (or lack thereof)
The movie version of "High Fidelity," while good, does not quite hold up to the Hornby's novel. The British setting offers a great deal more truth, and there is no cartoonish Jack Black to muddle things up.

The novel touches all the bases; it nearly overwhelmed me with the shock of recognition.

And gave me the hope that despite all of my missteps, if I keep trying, maybe I could someday get it right.
Strictly 100 – Number 9: High Fidelity (the novel)