The Best Bathroom Book Ever for Music Lovers
Offers a great conversation starter and a wild adventure for any music lover
Do you know that the song “Good Vibrations” has appeared on 37 different Beach Boy albums? Or that in fact, all told, the band has released 400 songs on 77 albums? Now I know what you’re thinking. Has Tom Genes been overdosing on Wikipedia again? Not exactly. In fact, I’ve been fascinated by the above facts and hundreds of others I discovered in the best rock and roll bathroom book ever made, Infographic Guide To Music by Graham Betts. The book written (if that’s the right word for it) came out in England in 2014.
It’s a treasure trove of musical facts depicted graphically. It will help you pass the time without you really even have to read a single paragraph. Brilliant! Need a conversation starter? How about what song do you want to be played at your funeral? Well if you picked Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” you would have chosen the most popular funeral song of all time. But the conversation will really get started when you talk about the other songs people have chosen for their departure ceremonies. Sure ‘Danny Boy” makes sense for the population born and died as Daniel, but really, the Police’s schizophrenic “Every Breath You Take” and Zeppelin’s maudlin “Stairway to Heaven?” (number 7 all time!).
Or perhaps your family can discuss all the musical families that made an impact on the music scene. You might argue over who was the best (The Isley Brothers), fret over who sold the most (Bee Gees) and even chat about those you didn’t even know we're a family (The Shangri-Las). It’s a book of endless trivial detail on every musical genre presented in mostly easy to follow pictures that often times change your perspective of the facts. For example, opera fans will probably be stunned to learn it isn’t really over when the fat lady sings. In fact, only 7 of the world’s 30 most popular operas conclude with the female lead singing the show to an end.
The infographic phenomenon, that's been sweeping through all things digital, is put to good use throughout this book in mostly clever and humorous ways like the Michael Jackson timeline (I got a kick out of the depiction of “Dangerous”) and the chart on rock and roll marriages and the songs they inspired. Did you know “Norwegian Wood” was written for John Lennon’s first wife Cynthia Powell? There are times however when a closer look is warranted and you are usually rewarded with a revelation. Like the interesting two-pager called The Changing Sound Of Jazz. Here the chart’s legend needed numerous checks before the graphic’s main point was revealed. But once a fundamental understanding was achieved, it became eye-opening to realize that early jazz by the likes of Miles Davis in the 1950s was in large part covers of show tunes; however, by the time Ornette Coleman came on the scene, original compositions made up the bulk of jazz releases. Now if I can just figure out a way to improvise that into an impressive dinner conversation.
There are over 100 infographics to keep you entertained on your throne for years. Just about everyone imaginable is covered from rappers who have been shot to songs about Jesus on YouTube. Betts’ artwork is produced as a smallish 5x7 hardcover that is easy to transport on those reunion weekends when you need to argue over which Beatle was the most successful with his solo career (George fares surprisingly well) or Who was the greatest band never to have a number one hit in America. Right, The Who!
