BARNEY HOSKYNS – God is in the Radio: Unbridled Enthusiasms 1980-2020
- Posted on 24-07-2021
"God is in the Radio: Unbridled Enthusiasms 1980-2020" by renowned writer Barney Hoskyns is an incredibly insightful and thought-provoking collection of various essays and articles on songs and albums that have had a profound impact on the author. This passionate blend of memories, anecdotes, music history, and biographical details is bound to make you sit up and take notice. Having written about music for forty years and contributed to such outlets as NME and MOJO while also having penned books himself, Hoskyns is in possession of a huge talent for picking up on many of the details that often pass us by unnoticed whenever we immerse ourselves in records.
These evocative pieces speak of a heartfelt passion and deep-seated love for music, and Hoskyns is simply a great writer who has an amazing talent for conveying in words how he feels about certain records, bands, and solo artists – and just as importantly why they make him feel the way they do. There is a synergy there of sorts, a give and take, if you will. A wider cultural and historical context is often provided whenever he perceptively explores a specific musical output. One occasionally detects a subtle sense of nostalgia and longing with respect to bygone eras of music, but as evidenced by the variety of records covered within these 287 pages, Hoskyns is clearly an inquisitive soul who is always curious as to what awaits right around the corner with respect to new happenings within the field of music. In other words, this is not what one would deem a bittersweet yearning for the past – it is much more well-balanced than that.
"God is in the Radio" is a heartfelt and elegantly written book on what it means to connect with music on a deeper, personal level and how it affects us. It offers valuable insight and is truly a joy to read, and personally, I consider the pieces on Robert Wyatt, PJ Harvey, Joy Division, Nirvana, Beach Boys, and Queens of the Stone Age to be particularly noteworthy, beautifully crafted, and ample reason for you to invest your time in it Simply put, there are things in this book that will make you marvel and wonder – and you will love it.