This is Uncool
Garry Mulholland
556 pages, including index
published in 2002

There's something simultaneously daft and arrogant about even attempting to compile a list of The 500 greatest singles since punk and disco, let alone turning it into a book and getting it published. It is something only a complete music obsessive would attempt; luckily enough for us Garry Mulholland might be the quintessential music nerd, he's a music nerd who can write well. Mulholland has a genuine passion for his subject, which always helps. He never sounds jaded or derisive in his writing here, the way so many pop music writers do.

It is this quality that transforms This is Uncool from an exercise in futility into something, if not useful, at least enjoyable; one man's taste in music laid out in chronological order. As emphatically stated in his foreword, Mulholland, did not do this to show off his music knowledge or to appear cool --even if at least some of his choices are typical of the professional rock listener/writer.

As the subtitle indicates, This is Cool starts in 1976, with the birth of punk in the UK, as well as disco in the States. Throughout the book Mulholland's musical tastes keep oscillating between these two musical poles. 1976 is when Mulholland's tastes in music were formed, when he was 13 and where his "own relationship with pop changed from liking stuff on Top of the Pops to complete obsession". He therefore seems to be about one generation or half generation ahead of me, with the music he heard as new and radical having already become golden oldies when I started paying attention to music a decade later. Simularly, the music of my youth, the stuff that went directly into my hindbrain without much distinction towards quality must've seemed like so much pap to him. His generation and mine share an approach to music neither of us share with the baby boomers who had been dominating musical tastes in the sixties and seventies. Which means I share a lot of the moments he mentions here, or at least recognise their significance.

The decision to list his choices in chronological order is a smart one, as it frees the book from being just a top 500 list, with endless wrangling over what should be on #349 or #272. Mulholland is reasonably consistent in his choices, with most of his choices as said falling either under "punk" or under "disco". Few true pop records are listed, even less rock or rock derivative songs. Many of the choices are well known, but there are also the de rigeur obscure releases no pop journalist could resist.

What exactly his choices are doesn't really matter, nor does it matter if you agree with them or not. What matters is that this is an enjoyable, personal romp through twenty-five years of pop history that will make you want to put up the music he's writing about.