Talking to Girls About Duran Duran

May 3, 2010
In this tuneful coming-of-age memoir, the glamorous New Wave band Duran Duran presides spiritually over the all-consuming teenage male efforts to comprehend the opposite sex. Music journalist Sheffield (Love Is a Mix Tape) chronicles his passage through the 1980s in a series of chapters in which period groups—from headliners like Roxy Music and Prince to one-hit wonders like Haysi Fantayzee of “Shiny Shiny” semifame—provides musical accompaniment to his adolescent angst. They are the soundtrack to his fumbling attempts to dance or make passes at girls, to weather a winless stint on the high school wrestling team, to survive a summer job as an ice-cream truck driver. The relationship insights he arrives at—chiefly, the imperative of unquestioning submission to female whims—are no more or less cogent than the song lyrics he gleans them from. The book really shines as a collection of free-form riffs on the glorious foolishness of Reagan-era entertainment—the movie E.T., he writes, was about “a sad muppet who thought he was David Bowie”—and its weirdly resonant emotional impact. The result is a funny, poignant browse from a wonderful pop-culture evocateur.

May 1, 2010
Prequel to Rolling Stone contributing editor Sheffield's Love Is a Mix Tape (2007).

There's a truism in rock that a breakthrough hit the first time through will often lead to a sophomore slump. The author's second attempt to use favorite songs to reflect on and illuminate his life isn't really a disappointment, though it necessarily lacks the emotional power of Mix Tape. Where that memoir of the 1990s had a natural narrative arc, from the birth of love to the heartbreaking death of the author's young wife, this successor, which focuses on the'80s—the musical culture and the author's formative years—is more of a hodge-podge collection of essays straining for cohesion. Proceeding chronologically, with 25 chapters titled after songs released during the'80s, Sheffield pursues a general theme of how girls and boys talk about, think about and feel about music differently. There are incisive chapters on Hall& Oates, Paul McCartney and the Replacements ("they made good imaginary friends"), along with revelations about how the author was an altar boy until 16, never had a girlfriend until 19 and had a traumatic experience clipping his grandfather's toenails. Though the reader learns in passing about the author's remarriage, much of the talk about girls concerns his younger sisters,"the coolest people I knew." Where Sheffield's debut felt cathartic, some of this book seems comparatively glib—for example,"There are times in a man's life that can only be described as'times in a man's life.' The first time he experiences A Flock of Seagulls is one of them";"MTV was, roughly speaking, the greatest thing ever."

Those who loved the author's debut should enjoy this follow-up.

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June 15, 2010

Sheffield, a music journalist and the best-selling author of Love Is a Mix Tape, returns with another poignant, music-filled memoir. In 1980, he was 14 and a typical awkward adolescent trying to figure out who he was and how to converse with girls without seeming a total idiot. Here, Sheffield takes readers on a great ride though the ups and downs of being a teenager as he recounts the summer he spent in Spain as an exchange student, a job driving an ice-cream truck, his first concert, and his first real girlfriend, all set to the beat of the absurd and enduring songs of the Eighties. VERDICT Readers who were teens during the Eighties will love Sheffield's anecdotes, insights, and odd pop-culture trivia and will find themselves humming the tunes as they read. Those who don't remember this time period will be looking up the bands to find out more. An endearing coming-of-age story, perfect for music lovers and all who feel nostalgic for the music and moments that shaped their lives. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/10.]--Troy Reed, Southeast Regional Lib., Gilbert, AZ

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2010
Music journalist Sheffield is best known for Love Is a Mix Tape (2007), which dealt with the sudden death of his young wife. Here he revisits the decade everyone loves to hate, the 1980s. Sheffield makes a convincing argument that the eighties were ruled by inauthenticity in everything except pop culture, which accounts for why its music and films (especially those of John Hughes) continue to exert such influence. Here Sheffield takes the decade year by year, naming each chapter for the seminal pop song that defined his experiences during that time. The Go-Gos Our Lips Are Sealed leads off the chapter about his older, more knowledgeable sisters, who taught him how to dance and what to wear, while Madonnas Crazy for You introduces the summer he visited Lourdes, which leads into a discussion of the way his Catholic faith was the perfect preparation for being a pop fanlots of ritual, lots of ceremony, lots of private obations as we genuflect before our sacred spaces. Heartfelt and funny, this collection is most likely to appeal to fellow Gen Xers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)