Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
They initially conclude that hes cool.
But the more he talks, the more Rob has her doubts.
Tim is wrong, she says.
Rob casually responds, Big enough to know when that album came out, which was 1976.
(Reader, in case this isnt obvious, that albumtotallycame out in 1976.)
She clearly knows what shes talking about.
Tim still wont admit hes wrong.
This was the moment I felt fully seen in a way I hadnt in the previous incarnations ofHigh Fidelity.
This kind of thing has happened in other pop-cultural contexts, too.
And dont get me started on the way women are condescended to during conversations about sports.
Sports is probably the No.
Within the music industry itself, things are still lopsided in terms of gender.
The Inclusion in the Recording Studio?
The culture around us has reinforced the notion that music and the appreciation of it are a mans domain.
Its not that big of a deal.
No, because I dont give a shit, she responds.
Shrevie, who cares about whats on the flip side of a record?
I do!, he counters.
Music reallymattersto Shrevie, but to his wife, its just something she likes listening to and nothing more.
This is the bias, conscious or unconscious, that is still often brought to conversations about music.
Theyre the ones who reallygetit.
Annas a Simple Minds fan, Dick tells Rob upon introducing her them.
But I think shes beginning to understand why she shouldnt be.
A woman who knows of the Clash and how they affected the pop-punk that followed?
Wow, all things are truly possible!
This is a huge turn-on for him.
Like me, he loves music.
Like me, he is a meticulous mixtape- and playlist-maker.
Like me, he fixates a lot on his past.
I mean, obviously, thats bullshit, and Rob eventually acknowledges that what youre like is really important.
But that love language also tended to be spoken and interpreted most often by men.
I didnt think there was space for me to write the kinds of things he did.
Some critics have dinged this newHigh Fidelityfor being too repetitive of the original.
As I said inmy review, I think it diverges in enough ways that make it feel different.
Thats a better ratio than in any of the music-industry jobs cited in that Annenberg study.
Even in arguments with Cherise and Simon, she expresses herself but doesnt insist on proving shes right.
The new Rob doesnt have that issue.
She is, in a way, the kind of female Nick Hornby I always knew existed.
Finally, there is room for her.
