Product Description

Since 1972, when he was eleven, Dylan Jones has been regularly buying records in a 30-year binge of glam rock, punk, disco and rap. His life is full of disparate pop stars and their disparate records. But now, the iPod has changed everything, because Apple CEO Steve Jobs and his chief designed Jonathan Ive's invention has enabled listeners to put all their music in one place. Dylan Jones' book is about the iPod, its astonishing effect on the music industry, its invention and marketing. It's also about how a little plastic and chrome digital music player no bigger than a mobile phone has irrevocably altered our relationship with music. This book features the design and creation of the iPod and the rejuvenation of Apple. It is also a history of Dylan Jones' personal journey through music, and his own obsessions with the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Burt Bacharach, punk, hip-hop, Van Morrison and U2. He selects the best 100 jazz records ever made and shows how to make your own definitive 175-song Beatles album. There are comprehensive lists and essays about what you could put on your own iPod. No longer will you have to bend to the whims of a record company's unalterable choices. With iPod, it's a scroll in the park, creating and collecting infinite playlists of your own with this wonderful memory box. Part personal memoir, part product history, part marketing manual, iPod, Therefore I Am is the literary love-child of Nick (High Fidelity) Hornby and Michael (Liar's Poker) Lewis.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #504627 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-27
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

EASY LIVING (August 2005)
'it's Jones's skill at weaving poignant memories with the songs he listened to that makes this compelling.'

Review
'Wise, witty and fabulously entertaining, Dylan Jones has written a must-read book about Steve Jobs' 21st Century jukebox - and why we fell in love with music all over again.' (Tony Parsons )

'Not only is this Jones's account of his 'journey through music' and a celebration of the infinite playlist, it's also packed with helpful hints on getting the most out of your own ipod.' (GLAMOUR (August 2005) )

'it's Jones's skill at weaving poignant memories with the songs he listened to that makes this compelling.' (EASY LIVING (August 2005) )

'an engaging, witty personal journey...Jones is a sharp observer of the social scene and an original music critic.' (Ed Smith TIMES (9.7.05) )

'Jones takes us on a journey from a misspent youth...throught Bowie to punk and discoe and all points beyond. He writes entertainingly about the kaleidoscope of musical trends over the past thirst years, and the fashioon crimes they have engendered...' (Mick Brown DAILY TELEGRAPH (23.7.05) )

'Witty and entertaining.' (AXM Magazine )

'A true music geek, his love of the little white box is matched only by his love of music and, through a highly personal journey, his years in the business mean his tales of derring-do have the weight to make for hugely entertaining reading. Lucky bastard.' (CITY LIFE )

'His observations on the cults of youth are also sharply executed, with am effortless, conversational tone. He writes with disarming wit about his passion for Roxy Music, which peaks when Bryan Ferry compliments him on wearing 'the most amazing trousers I've ever seen.'' (Sarah Boden OBSERVER (17.7.05) )

'As ipods are more addictive than crack, you'll find Dylan Jones's homage to the music world's pocket rocket utterly moreish.' (TATLER (September isse) )

'Jones writes with fervour abou the pop music from the seventies...Littered with anecdotes from fashionable London life, the book manages to leap fairly comfortably back and fourth through three topics: music, the creation of the iPod and Jones's own life story.' (Conor Sweeney IRISH INDEPENDENT (30.7.05) )

AXM Magazine
'Witty and entertaining.'

Customer Reviews

Quite interesting, but Make sure it's what you think
I was quite excited about this book after reading a glowing review in a British weekend newspaper. Overall, I was a little disappointed, but that may in part come from the fact that I'm not familiar with the author's style, and was one of those teenagers who spent most of their formative years of reading music magazines not having a clue what the authors were on about and feeling left out.

Granted, Jones is enthusiastic about the music, and this comes through in his writing, and he's far from a musical snob, which is almost refreshing, (even if you have to question his inclusion of albums like "Twentysomething" on a list of top 100 jazz records). The writing about music and the evolution of his taste contains mildly annoying details from Jones' own biography might come across as too personal and not really that interesting for some readers. If possible, I'd recommend you try to locate an excerpt of this book as a taster or flick through a few pages of the writing on music to see if it's your thing. I also get the feeling that this book will seem dated very quickly, in fact, though it has been published, some of it already reads dated.

However, one great thing about this book are the chapters on the development and evolution of the iPod, iTunes and the whole kit and caboodle and I found these highly enjoyable. As they're spread out amid the other chapters, this is largely what kept me reading the rest of the book. If you're an iPod fanatic, or are interested in learning about what all the fuss over Apple has been over the years, then there is likely to be a lot in here to satisfy. The Sections on Steve Job's story, his obsession with Bob Dylan are amusing and insightful in a Secret-History of entertainment sort of way. The bits on British designer Jonathan Ives and his story at Apple are a good read too, and there is some information in here, anecdotal and otherwise, that you're not likely to have come across before. Overall, I was impressed by the writing about the evolution of the player and the consumer mega trends of recent years.

Parts of the book also explore the changes digital media have presented to the record industry, how music is consumed and marketed and specialisation, the future of the 'Niche' mass market, though there is room for more development here; no mention of the 'Long Tail' and other factors that are surely at play in the success of iTunes and in the reclaiming of content by the consumer revolt, most particurlarly in the area of music pricing and downloading. The recommendations on musical discoveries are useful and will be very interesting to some (perhaps the types walking around with the white earphones who only ever buy top 40 albums and have found that they could do with something a little less bland to fill up their 4 Gigs) - the final third of the book is made up of appendices of lists and recommendations for play lists. These are amusing lists and you have to admit that the selections or grouping are not as entirely 'muso' as they might be, so perhaps that's a plus for a book that could potentially be inaccessible for most. If you're already the type of person for whom a digital media player with a lot of space was actually a godsend that made your life genuinely easier and more enjoyable because you listen to so much music, rather than someone that bought an iPod because they were cool and trendy are the thing to have, then there's this is all likely to be too rudimentary for you.

This book will probably appeal to fans of High Fidelity and can you can definitely sense the trace of that book in here, though I won't put it on level-pegging with anything by Nick Hornby, and the reference to Liar's Poke is a bit of the mark too. I thought I might get away with the book without the dust-jacket, when transporting it about my daily business to read on park benches and in coffee shops, but the title is emblazoned in large lettering across the spine, so perhaps the paperback edition could benefit from more subtle design features; if the title weren't enough, the Rodin thinker-style figure with the white headphones is definitely likely to embarrass some.

Just press skip
As someone who is into music and technology, I found the idea of a book about music and technology irresistable. One written by an author almost exactly the same age as me should be full of familiar reference points.

Unfortunately, this is really a book about Dylan Jones and all the famous people he has met, and the trendy places he has been. Hardly a page goes by without some blatant name-dropping.
When he does mention iPods and other Apple products it is in terms which deserve a place in Private Eye's 'Pseuds Corner'.

The book is 342 pages long, but 90 pages are taken up with an index and appendices. The appendices are basically just lists of songs from the author's playlists. This includes a whopping 27 pages to list the '100 best songs from the 100 best jazz albums' and another 8 pages to list easy listening songs!

In the remaining 75% of the book can be found an entire chapter about an imaginary Beatles album, extended pieces about Bruce Springsteen and Van Morrison and more about jazz and easy listening.

While there are one or two interesting anecdotes, I found the whole book to be lacking an overall structure or theme. It feels like a number of essays or articles from magazines recycled and padded out with some bits and pieces of Apple history.

Other books where an author talks about their favorite music (Lost In Music by Giles Smith or This Is Uncool by Garry Mulholland) succeed because they are primarily about the music and details of the author's life are incidental and self-deprecating. This book fails because it is about the author and how he met Paul Anka/Yoko Ono/Paul Smith or bumped into Sid Vicious or had Bryan Ferry comment on his trousers and the music concentrates too much on a couple of artists and a couple of genres.

The book is all the more disappointing as my expectations were so high before reading it. The book is sub-titled 'a personal journey through music' but that journey is far too personal to be interesting to most other people.

Most reviews of this book I have seen in the newspapers have been totally positive, so I may be in a small minority by not enjoying this book. Or maybe, as editor of GQ magazine, Dylan Jones has lots of friends in the media who all write book reviews?

A personal journey through music
Maybe I'm biased, because clearly I'm about the same age as Dylan Jones, the author, but this is a wonderfully nostalgic trip through rock and roll history.

Jones' ongoing love affair with recorded music is documented, including the music he was listening to when he was stabbed near Kings Cross. The sort of thing you remember twenty years on. The trigger for this nostalgia is the task of loading his new iPod with sigificant songs. It's during this loading process that Jones not only realises that he has FIVE copies of Bowie's Hunky Dory album, but he also learns that many of the 'classic' albums are actually flawed, and he can selectively delete the 'filler' tracks. He also details 'Everest' the mythical last Beatles album that never was.

This musical journey is in turn interleaved with the Apple(tm) story, and the story of the development of the iPod(tm).

And the bok concludes with an extensive selection of 'important' tracks, in list form.

Surprisingly there are a couple of typo errors in the book, which I found jarring, but otherwise a really enjoyable read.