Judging A Book By Beck's Cover

So this interesting.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2139740,00.html
I’ve been wondering about books and music for a while now. I have this hunch that the sure fire way to “sex up” books, especially for the MySpace generation, is to link them with music. Eggers has been doing it for a while now, and it seems to hit the right note (ha ha). Now Penguin, who are never one to miss a trick have come up with this idea. This notion of “cover versions” (yep, book covers designed by musicians) is just the kind of marketing pun that drives me to distraction. What’s brilliant about this is how it brings together so many levels of cultural capital (or to put it a less fancy way, this new pitch from Penguin brings the traditional game of “my record collection beats your record collection” together with the less-well-known battle of indie cred known as “my bookshelf beats your bookshelf”. A game, incidentally, that until recently was limited only to attendees of literary festivals, although Facebook offers a rather neat plug-in now which means you can tell everyone what you’re reading, and what your friends are reading. Which is pretty presumptuous when you come to think of it. Half the time I don’t even want to know who your friends are, let alone what the hell they’re reading! Sheesh. (Mind you, I'm dirty on Facebook right now since I discovered a virtual highschool reunion taking place amongst these so-called "friends" of mine). Nothing says “legitimacy” like literature. And nothing says indie cred like name dropping Beck, or that dude from Razorlight who’s dating Kiki Dunst. It’s like a game of celebrity Six Degrees of Separation for the literarily minded. I’m eager to know now how well these editions are going to sell. Can authors name drop bands and gain cred – undoubtedly. Now musicians can name drop books and look cultured. Everyone wins! Neal Pollack wrote an entertaining essay on this idea a while back. I should dig it up. Stay (i)tuned.