Perfect Sound Whatever

Some things about this book bothered me...writing style in some cases, the way the interviews were done...but overall it's well done and inspiring to see someone discovering music in this way. 3.5 stars.

one of the most niche books i've ever read but also one of the realest. it's one of those books that's extremely hard to sell to other people because of its framing but i've never related more to someone's verbalised anxieties and terrible breakup coping mechanisms.

the music is also fantastic.

As someone who also masks his life problems by obsessively discovering and collecting music, I can heavily relate to UK comedian James Acaster. Following the mental and emotional breakdown he had in 2016, James started to obsess over finding great music specifically from the year 2016 and 2016 only. His obsession over collecting, listening to, and diving into 2016 album releases was an emotional crutch to him that kept him moving forward and I find that extremely fascinating. Not only that but I found it extremely entertaining throughout too. He's definitely the kind of guy where discovering music excites him, no matter how experimental or weird it may be, and once he discovers something he loves, he has to tell everybody. I totally feel the same way. I love that about this book and I feel like it was written personally for music nerds like myself. How he weaves each album's origin stories with his own personal dilemmas and situations is awesome. We all need to be more like James. This really is the 2016 of books.

Even though he did not mention some of my favorite 2016 releases, including M. Ward's “More Rain,” Yesasyer's “Amen & Goodbye,” and Bat for Lashes' “The Bride,” I will cut him some slack. I do hope he's at least listened to those but that's okay if he hasn't, since he owns 600+ 2016 albums in his library at this point lol