This Will End in Tears: The Miserabilist Guide to Music

Description

This Will End in Tears is the first ever and definitive guide to melancholy music. Author Adam Brent Houghtaling leads music fans across genres, beyond the enclaves of emo and mope-rock, and through time to celebrate the albums and artists that make up the miserabilist landscape. In essence a book about the saddest songs ever sung, This Will End in Tears is an encyclopedic guide to the masters of melancholy-from Robert Johnson to Radiohead, from Edith Piaf to Joy Division, from Patsy Cline to The Cure-an insightful, exceedingly engaging exploration into why sad songs make us so happy.

In my early teens, the capes and tights of my comics-bred youth fell away, replaced with an explosion of sound from GUNS 'N' ROSES, BLACK SABBATH, S.O.D., INXS, THE DESCENDENTS, and THE MISFITS. In short order I began playing bass and started a staple-bound fanzine (Chinchilla Smile) to celebrate my favorite indie-pop bands. Music has been a passionate part of my life and depressing music makes me particularly happy and I routinely sweep hours away in record stores and online looking for new artists to feed this miserable addiction. I'm a singer and a songwriter and have written for Prefix Magazine and was responsible for music coverage across 8 cities while an editor at AOL CityGuide. I have been an editor for over ten years and was most recently the online editorial director at Gourmet.com, the online extension of Gourmet Magazine.

"A comprehensive, sharply written journey through the music of sadness, of every stripe and from every genre...Whether read straight through or dipped into at random, in times of despair or not, this is a most helpful musical sourcebook through every kind of blue." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Highly entertaining." -- Publishers Weekly "For the meticulously melancholy music fan in all of us, a celebration of songs with a dark side. This Will End in Tears gathers the downest, doomiest sounds in rock, soul, jazz, the blues, and any music that can put a serious chill in your evening." -- Rob Sheffield, author of Love Is A Mix Tape and Talking To Girls About Duran Duran "Sad sacks of the world: Rejoice! Adam Brent Houghtaling has ingeniously compiled the ultimate guide to this cruel world's maestros of miserabilism. The feel bad book of the year!" -- Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum, co-authors of I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution "Breaking up is hard to do, but not when you've got a book like this to help you make the saddest playlist of all time. Now, someone pass me a Kleenex...and that Elliott Smith album." -- Leslie Simon, co-author of Everybody Hurts and author of Wish You Were Here "Sad songs say so much, but Adam Brent Houghtaling has a lot to add to the conversation. This Will End in Tears is a book well worth wallowing in." -- Mark Yarm, author of Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge