2008 Woodie Awards
The soundtrack of his life
Rob Sheffield's memoir is a musical mix of love and laughter
Richard Cherecwich
Issue date: 2/1/07 Section: Arts and Entertainment
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Who needs a diary when you have mix tapes?
The recording of songs onto a cassette tape works as a strikingly modern form of autobiography, and in his memoir, Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time, Rob Sheffield uses the mix tapes he's made all his life and hoarded in his closet and cabinets to tell the story of his life.
This is no James Frey hyperbolic memoir, though.
Love is a Mix Tape is the story of Sheffield's life, told one cassette at a time. It's about how Sheffield made mixes for church camp and how he lost his wife, Renee, to a pulmonary embolism after only five years of marriage. It's about how he survived being a young widower and how he survived life in general, told through his first love: music.
You may recognize Sheffield, either from his byline on Rolling Stone record reviews or from VH1 countdown shows. His uber-cool job of interviewing musicians is mentioned only in passing in the book. Instead, the focus is the music and the mixes that Rob made throughout his life and what he was going through at the time he made them.
Every chapter includes a track listing for the tape Sheffield refers to, allowing the reader to watch as a boy growing up outside of Boston becomes a tall, shy awkward grad student who makes tapes full of Big Star tracks for his future wife when he meets her in a bar.
Love is a Mix Tape is predominantly a story about Rob and Renee's courtship, marriage and the emptiness Sheffield felt after Renee suddenly dies while he's making her cinnamon toast in their apartment.
The writing is funny, knowledgeable and, above all else, honest. Sheffield's descriptions of the people and places around him aren't stunning, but through his choice of songs (everything from Hank Williams to Sinatra to Sugar Ray to Pavement), he brings an emotional force to the writing that gives a clear picture of everything going on around his life at the time.
You may have never heard some of the tracks, but you get an excellent idea about what they sound like and how they'll make you feel.
The recording of songs onto a cassette tape works as a strikingly modern form of autobiography, and in his memoir, Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time, Rob Sheffield uses the mix tapes he's made all his life and hoarded in his closet and cabinets to tell the story of his life.
This is no James Frey hyperbolic memoir, though.
Love is a Mix Tape is the story of Sheffield's life, told one cassette at a time. It's about how Sheffield made mixes for church camp and how he lost his wife, Renee, to a pulmonary embolism after only five years of marriage. It's about how he survived being a young widower and how he survived life in general, told through his first love: music.
You may recognize Sheffield, either from his byline on Rolling Stone record reviews or from VH1 countdown shows. His uber-cool job of interviewing musicians is mentioned only in passing in the book. Instead, the focus is the music and the mixes that Rob made throughout his life and what he was going through at the time he made them.
Every chapter includes a track listing for the tape Sheffield refers to, allowing the reader to watch as a boy growing up outside of Boston becomes a tall, shy awkward grad student who makes tapes full of Big Star tracks for his future wife when he meets her in a bar.
Love is a Mix Tape is predominantly a story about Rob and Renee's courtship, marriage and the emptiness Sheffield felt after Renee suddenly dies while he's making her cinnamon toast in their apartment.
The writing is funny, knowledgeable and, above all else, honest. Sheffield's descriptions of the people and places around him aren't stunning, but through his choice of songs (everything from Hank Williams to Sinatra to Sugar Ray to Pavement), he brings an emotional force to the writing that gives a clear picture of everything going on around his life at the time.
You may have never heard some of the tracks, but you get an excellent idea about what they sound like and how they'll make you feel.
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