Rob Harvilla, host of the incredibly popular podcast 60 Songs that Explain the '90s, is an earnest and intelligent music critic, and his book might result in readers searching online for songs they can almost, but not quite, remember and belting Whitney Houston tunes alone in their living rooms. Like the misleadingly named podcast, 60 Songs that Explain the '90s features more than 60 songs, from hits as big as Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" to obscure fan favorites like Pearl Jam's "Yellow Ledbetter." And while there are a few moments that faithful listeners of the podcast will find familiar, the collection is no stale repackaging of the show; instead, it expands and contracts, covering similar ground in new ways.
Harvilla organizes the book around several big ideas, capturing multiple, often wildly disparate, voices. For instance, the chapter entitled "Villains + Adversaries" moves from Limp Bizkit (which "covers George Michael the way Attila the Hun covered Europe") to DMX, about whom Harvilla writes: "And this is the aching contradiction he embodies, and transforms, miraculously, into Not a Contradiction at All. The hurt, and the violent anger--the wildly entertaining stories of X hurting others--fuel the grace, and the humility, of these prayers, which in turn makes the hurt bearable." Harvilla will make readers laugh--or perhaps wince at embarrassing memories--but for those who lived through the 1990s, this book will be Very Necessary indeed (thanks, Salt-N-Pepa). --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian