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Bradley Bosson's Reviews > Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011
Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011
by
by
Really enjoyed this book - even though it took me a while to get through it.
Firstly, I read this on a Kindle which was actually quite frustrating at the start when you’re flicking between the chapters and the list of individuals at the start if you’re like me and not familiar with all of the characters. This is definitely a book that’s better read in a physical format! There’s some great pictures as well which I’m sure are probably better on paper than viewed through a screen.
Lizzy Goodman does an amazing job at covering lots of aspects of the music scene coming out of New York from the late 80s all the way through to the early 2010s. It really helps add in the detail around how some of these bands came into existence, their influences and what shaped the scene more broadly. It also helps to tell the narrative of how the city and the music industry changed in quite a short space of time.
I’d count myself as quite a big music fan, particularly of some of the bands heavily featured in this book and I learned loads that I didn’t know about. Lots of the contributions are equally funny, outlandish and insightful - I particularly enjoyed Sarah Lewitinn’s thoughts and that of James Murphy as well.
What Lizzy has done exceptionally well in my opinion is get to the heart of how the Garage Rock revival was really one of the last great ‘scenes’ of band music, with a lot of the fundamental changes in the industry signalling a huge change in how artists create their music. I came away with a bit of new found respect for bands like The Killers and Kings of Leon, who might not be considered as particularly ‘underground’ but their stories speak a lot to how bands not in that scene really took their opportunity and became global superstars, with bands at the forefront (The Strokes, Jonathan Fire*Eater/The Walkmen, The Rapture etc) probably not reaching their potential.
More importantly, I’ve rediscovered some back catalogues I haven’t given a lot of love to, as well as added some more albums to the list of my regular rotation.
Firstly, I read this on a Kindle which was actually quite frustrating at the start when you’re flicking between the chapters and the list of individuals at the start if you’re like me and not familiar with all of the characters. This is definitely a book that’s better read in a physical format! There’s some great pictures as well which I’m sure are probably better on paper than viewed through a screen.
Lizzy Goodman does an amazing job at covering lots of aspects of the music scene coming out of New York from the late 80s all the way through to the early 2010s. It really helps add in the detail around how some of these bands came into existence, their influences and what shaped the scene more broadly. It also helps to tell the narrative of how the city and the music industry changed in quite a short space of time.
I’d count myself as quite a big music fan, particularly of some of the bands heavily featured in this book and I learned loads that I didn’t know about. Lots of the contributions are equally funny, outlandish and insightful - I particularly enjoyed Sarah Lewitinn’s thoughts and that of James Murphy as well.
What Lizzy has done exceptionally well in my opinion is get to the heart of how the Garage Rock revival was really one of the last great ‘scenes’ of band music, with a lot of the fundamental changes in the industry signalling a huge change in how artists create their music. I came away with a bit of new found respect for bands like The Killers and Kings of Leon, who might not be considered as particularly ‘underground’ but their stories speak a lot to how bands not in that scene really took their opportunity and became global superstars, with bands at the forefront (The Strokes, Jonathan Fire*Eater/The Walkmen, The Rapture etc) probably not reaching their potential.
More importantly, I’ve rediscovered some back catalogues I haven’t given a lot of love to, as well as added some more albums to the list of my regular rotation.
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