What is the meaning of the depth Patrick Bateman goes into about music in American Psycho?

Submitted by ChairmanUzamaoki t3_10n19ev in books

Now I know he wants.....to fit....IN. So when it comes to clothes and stereo equipment and all that other shit where he drops 50 brand names a page it makes sense that he is a superficial human that really has little interest in anything other than impressing and showing superiority over others.

But then there are full chapters dedicated to music, and it doesn't seem superficial, it comes off as if he really enjoys the music and analyzing it. Am I missing something? Does he see music the same way he sees brand name designer suits? Cause there seems to be a huge difference between his opinions on music and literally every other consumer product he mentions.

Also, I've not read the book in over a year so my memory of it is hazy despite having read it a couple times and it being one of my favorite books. There are some details I don't remember, but every reread I just think to myself: what tf is it about this music that makes Bateman seem almost human as opposed to everything else which makes him seem like a shell of a human putting on a facade?

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DarthDregan t1_j66i1ck wrote

He memorizes reviews to have something to talk about when he interacts with people.

All part of the mask.

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j66jikf wrote

Damn really, it's just memorization of another's words???

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AtLeastThisIsntImgur t1_j6755te wrote

I've only seen the film but that was my take too. He was reciting reviews in order to make himself look insightful and cultured.

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codykonior t1_j688ztu wrote

TIL I’m Bateman.

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AtLeastThisIsntImgur t1_j68bexq wrote

I guess we're all a collection of other peoples opinions.

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codykonior t1_j68mfyi wrote

Yeah, I guess we’re all a collection of other people’s opinions.

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RedUlster t1_j67p6g8 wrote

Yeah, it’s the same with how to wear a suit and who to tip at a salon, there are parts of the book where you hear other characters say the same thing verbatim, which is a hint towards the reveal at the end.

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drelos t1_j67v8ra wrote

Yeah it is the structure of Rolling Stone reviews or other magazines of that time, when the book appeared it was more evident because every review approached in a similar way. Bateman has learned to mimic that in order to appear more 'common' or 'friendly',

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TheChocolateMelted t1_j67us2o wrote

>Damn really, it's just memorization of another's words???

He memorises Zagat restaurant reviews too if I recall correctly ...

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j687po9 wrote

There is no fuckin way the foods he talks about are real lmao I always thought it was just an amalgamation of fancy sounding ingredients, because most of the things sound horrible

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Vorpishly t1_j689kxc wrote

It’s all real.

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j689xam wrote

peanut butter soup, yummy

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Vorpishly t1_j68afxj wrote

It’s actually a west African dish.

https://inthekitch.net/peanut-butter-soup/

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TheChocolateMelted t1_j68b54r wrote

Honestly don't remember the actual foods - apart from when his fiance puts sushi on a plate to spell out his friend's initials - so they could have been made up. There's also a point where he becomes frustrated with it all and just says it's overpriced with almost nothing on the plate. :-)

But what was it? The topics on The Patty Winters Show become increasingly crazy ... Not even sure whether I picked them up when I read the book, but someone listed them here once.

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craigsauer t1_j68j974 wrote

I remember laughing out loud at his mention of cherimoya sorbet and trying to explain to a friend why it was funny.

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compaqdeskpro t1_j68m05m wrote

That's not the vibe I get, all I can see is him rambling on about music and his guests are uncomfortable or unimpressed at best, or laughing at him at worst, and then he lashes out. I think he cares about music.

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minskoffsupreme t1_j69ta0n wrote

It also shows you how desperate he is to be seen as knowledgeable and cool. However, those around him largely see him as irrelevant.

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jimmbolina t1_j66d5zu wrote

Maybe the music chapters are little reminders that the shell/facade of a man still feels?

I personally just took it as an extension of his obsession with the way he is perceived by others. Music is one thing he can invest in that adds to the facade he's cultivating. Not to mention the artists he talks about are all famous at the time so maybe it's just him mirroring the rest of the USA's infatuation with celebrities.

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j66g8vo wrote

Could be, but in my opinion (which i haven't read it in a while) was always that music was the one thing that made him have a genuine feeling beyond trying to be #1 and better than everyone else.

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WizardOfBushwick t1_j68e9i2 wrote

The problem is the music is shallow. Even the one thing he maybe likes is superficial pop music. It just adds to the profound shallowness of his character.

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jimmbolina t1_j66gfnf wrote

This is true.

Maybe you're on to something about the "genuine" of music in a world of materialism.

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j66gzrp wrote

Very much a possibility. thanks for the response :)

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TheChocolateMelted t1_j67uggz wrote

Of course, there's an album that he buys three times because he wants to have it on every format ... Which brings it back to materialism.

Fro me, the music chapters show how he has to over-analyse everything, deconstruct it and take it apart instead of just enjoying it. Look at the praise he dumps on Huey Lewis and the News ... All those superlatives! Is that a fair, honest, appropriate assessment?

(Aware of the irony of over-analysing the music chapters after what I've just written!)

Edit: They also give us the scene in the filmed version where he monologues about Genesis (?). Pure brilliance!

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j687sco wrote

aw man, the film is one of the greatest ever made. His performance as Bateman was next level. Thanks tom cruise 🤣

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TheJester0330 t1_j69079u wrote

I disagree, his opinions on the music are shallow, and often miss the point. To use Hip to Be Square, Patrick sees it as a song about conformity, about how it's better to fit in then be an individual or buck the status quo.

Huey Lewis wrote the song satirically, it's meant to make fun if "squares" as it comments are people losing what makes them unique. Patrick doesn't understand this though because like everything ss he can only understand the surface level interpretation

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jimmbolina t1_j6asgr3 wrote

Could be. But just because he's interpreted the song wrong doesn't mean he can't have genuine feelings towards it.

I dunno. I just love talkin about books.

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DrManface t1_j66fthb wrote

It’s shallow, commercial pop music. There’s nothing particularly deep or interesting enough to rant on for paragraphs about, that is if you’re someone who isn’t one of those alien yuppies, much like the design and texture of a business card.

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j66h81r wrote

But his obsession with it is above everything else in his life, excluding murder. It may be superficial to us, but other than his murders, it's the only other "mainstream" consumer product that has entire chapters dedicated to him talking about it.

Not saying you're wrong, but always got a sense of something else being there for him when it came to this shit mainstream music

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Mr_Jek t1_j66tax3 wrote

I think it’s a combination of both these things; the only non-violent thing that really stirs any sort of response that’s remotely emotional is pop music that’s catchy, but only exists at surface level; it’s a reflection of him in a way. His charisma and image mirrors the catchiness of commercial pop music, but when you dig under the surface there’s nothing there, just a hollow emptiness. He can only engage emotionally with something that reflects his shallow pool of emotional triggers.

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OutWithCamera t1_j66ei8r wrote

I haven't read the book but the movie I think helped illustrate the MC's fixation on popular materialism - the business cards and furnishings, the music....every thing in this guy's world is a prop of some sort that is a part of his fantasy.

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j66gf3j wrote

You are correct, but imo the book highlights the music way more than the rest of it. Like it isn't uncommon for a dozen brand names to be mentioned on every page, but when it comes to music the author has multiple chapters that are literally only about the music and what Bateman thinks about it. It's similar but imo not the same vein as he sees the rest of consumer America.

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sybil_vain t1_j66jdko wrote

To my memory, and it's been a while since I read it, it almost felt like him trying to be deeper than he really is? Like the things he talks about sound like they're directly pulled from reviews or magazine articles or interviews, and as mentioned, they're almost always talking about the most "commercial" album of whatever artist he's talking about. It's like he knows there's supposed to be something there, and it's something he's supposed to feel deeply, but all he can do is parrot what he's heard about the least challenging music available.

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j66jzlc wrote

That makes a lot of sense him trying to be deeper, but i wonder why he honed in on music to make him seem deeper? I would have assumed his obsession with consumer products would have been most important to be knowledgeable on, other than ending the apartheid ofc.

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sybil_vain t1_j66lwdi wrote

I kind of figured it might be because he knows it's normal to have some kind of connection to music? Like he's got the clothes and consumer goods as a way to show off on material level, and then he can use the art he displays in his apartment and the music he seems to know a lot about to make himself seem cultured, but in a way that doesn't really take any reflection or real emotional connection on his part.

Or maybe he just does love commercial pop music and he goes on and on about it because it's the only thing he feels a connection to?

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DandaDan t1_j67qqv6 wrote

Worth knowing that Bret Easton Ellis has a podcast in which he mainly talks about and reviews movies, but music and books also feature. It's a real pleasure listening to someone as eloquent and knowledgable on pop culture as BEE.

So I think one reason he chose pop music is simply because it is something he is super familiar with and can easily write and talk about.

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OutWithCamera t1_j66h7by wrote

Understood, I think I started to read the book an eon ago but my recollection is that the endless detailed analysis of pop music made it unreadable for me, I simply could not deal with pages of discussion about a Huey Lewis and the News tune. I think one of the things about the movie that struck me was the way scenes of his home were annotated like an IKEA catalog.

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Cultural_Election118 t1_j66q05g wrote

> scenes of his home were annotated like an IKEA catalog.

Wasn't that Fight Club?

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OutWithCamera t1_j66qnts wrote

Haha entirely probable! Oops

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OutWithCamera t1_j69kfff wrote

I have conflated this aspect of both these movies before, I think I first watched both about the same time and the obsession with the material world in each is kind of striking to me, combined with the way the movies concluded that left the viewer (in my case anyway) wondering what was real and what was only in the MC's heads.

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tundrapanic t1_j67qxly wrote

Maybe commercial pop music will ultimately turn you into a psychopath?

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Mr_McGibblets t1_j66jmxr wrote

I haven’t read it in forever, but I still remember both the book and the movie somewhat. I remember thinking they weren’t his actual opinions, but memorized critic reviews. I also seem to remember him narcissistically thinking Bono was singing directly to him?

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j66knth wrote

That's ehat someone else said! Him having memorized a real music critic's opinion is actually pretty mindblowing and makes complete sense.

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HammerOvGrendel t1_j66vm10 wrote

The "what" is just as important as the "why" in this. Consider that he's isn't talking about the kind of music that hipsters of his day would discuss (Punk, New Wave etc), he's going on about the most middle-of-the-road, superficial, mass-market pop music. More or less the equivalent of using hard-core foodie terminology to discuss instant noodles in that he understands the form but none of the content. There's even a scene where somehow he gets tickets to see what I understand was meant to be U2 (before they went fully mass-market pop) and he doesn't get it at all, all he can talk about is the singers poor muscle tone and having to be around working-class people.

This might not be so immediately obvious to us now because there has been a trend in music criticism to take "disposable" pop more seriously and discuss it in the way that "serious" rock music writers did. But I think at the time of writing this would have read as much more jarring and as more evidence of Bateman's emptiness.

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Gorilla1969 t1_j66hdos wrote

He has no idea how to interact normally with other human beings. So he came up with this scripted narrative about something he actually enjoys and spouts it off to anyone he can in an attempt to seem "normal" in their eyes. He's trying to act casual and get his potential victims to relax, but he can't hide his weirdness and the awkward stilted monologue sets off alarm bells, despite his best efforts.

The boy just ain't right.

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j66kq24 wrote

According to others, his music chapters were literally him memorizing critic reviews to regurgitate them...

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Gorilla1969 t1_j66l1ts wrote

Oh that's right! It's been so long since I read this book.

Ever creepier. Like a robot trying to blend in.

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zedatkinszed t1_j66l28g wrote

He's a Psychopath. He's Glib. His choice of music are all hyper produced, shallow, just like him. His Huey Lewis bit is a lecture on conformity. They are him manufacturing himself by proxy - which is what psychopath's do. They have no identity of their own so they need to find and borrow/steal bits from other people's to make themselves real. Andrew Cunanan is a good RL example of this.

The music is a stable thing he can fix on and a material icon of success (Phil Collins' story in Genesis for example, sort of mirrors his own in his family).

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Mrzimimena t1_j688qul wrote

Cause he memorized someone elses review of it because he can't form his own opinion because everyone is the same and he desperately wants to be different.

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T001300S t1_j66et34 wrote

In my opinion It's all just part of his mask of sanity, he's obsessively engaged in anything that hides his inner.self, like his morning routine, all part of keeping the mask up. It's also a way to keep victims at ease while preparing in the case of Paul Allen.

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j66gt4l wrote

Yeah, i see what you're saying but when it comes to consumerism he normally mentions a dozen brand names on a page, but the music gets entire chapters about what he thinks of them.

He has verrrry long takes on music and his casual mentions of multiple brand names for suits and stereos shows a stark contrast on the amount of time he spends analyzing the music

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Ramoncin t1_j67yps7 wrote

For me, it's a symptom of his obsessive behaviour. You can also see him trying to find meaning in the shallowest of things -comercial pop music- as a vindication of himself. Be defending shallow music he was implying there is more to him beneath his looks and attitude, which are also pretty shallow.

Of course, the music he defends so passionately HAS artistic value. Just not in the ways he thinks it does.

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sasha_dvanov t1_j68opf5 wrote

Everyone who is writing that it’s part of Bateman’s masquerade is right - but what needs to be added to that explanation is how insanely detailed and verbose the music sections are. This was Easton Ellis’s real stroke of genius—he pushed this idea, like Bateman’s concern with fashion labels and fancy dining, to a comical extreme. This is what makes the book such a uniquely interesting (enjoyable wouldn’t be the right word) version of the “Diary of a Madman” genre and not just the dull equation of consumerism with psychosis. And now I’m remembering how hilariously composed and loquacious Bateman’s list of “Issues facing the world” is in the first chapter 😆. Everything Bateman does is hilariously over-verbose. Easton Ellis really found a unique artistic approach in this book.

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thechosenronin t1_j66cpyg wrote

EDIT: wrong story nevermind 😵😵😵

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jimmbolina t1_j66dccv wrote

Did you read the same book? It's not sonatas. It's pop. Are you thinking of Alex in A Clockwork Orange?

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thechosenronin t1_j66fbmg wrote

Agh no I just misremembered lol. My analysis is null and void.

I was going to say though in a world of brand names and materialism, music is one of the only truly genuine things so...it seems like killing and listening to music are the only things that make him feel truly alive.

Psychopathic as he is, he's unable to derive meaning and fufillment from benevolent or altruistic activites.

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j66g3lg wrote

> Because if his actions had a soundtrack, it would not be Mozart.

Funny you say that, cause when I hear Mozart I think of Hannibal murdering and eating people 🤣 but I know he is a totally different type of killer than Bateman

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Librarywoman t1_j67zeb2 wrote

Sort of like all the brutal women killing is in the mind of the author. It was just a little too gleeful for me to think he wasn't enjoying it, too.

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j687m6w wrote

That was my exact thoughts too. The only things there are entire chapters dedicated to are pop music and murder.

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Joe_Doe1 t1_j6892oe wrote

The music reviews perform two functions in the book.

  1. They normally come directly after a gruesome murder and they provide the reader with a breather and change in tone.

  2. They're probably the only places in the novel where Patrick shows genuine emotion or excitement. He kills pitilessly and without feeling. Music is the only place where he shows some passion, or his approximation of passion.

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Coolhuman1505_ t1_j66nknj wrote

I have not read this book but now I’m interested, is it any good?

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j66v5xc wrote

If you have seen the movie, yes.

If you have not seen the movie, YES.

It's in my top 3 stand alone novels of all time. I have reread it maybe 5-10 times over the past 15 years.

Any time I want to get back into reading I pickup one of three books: American Psycho, I Am Legend, or Fight Club. 3 of the greatest stand alone novels in my dumb opinion. The stories, prose, and subtlety is fucking genius. I love them with a burning passion.

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BoiledStegosaur t1_j671wh9 wrote

Try Mcarthy’s The Road next - it might fit your taste.

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j6882ri wrote

I remember reading that years ago, I'll reread and see how it is now that I'm older. Why would that one fit in with these three?

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meowkitty84 t1_j67ctyu wrote

It is but very disturbing. I got half way through and thought it's not that disturbing... people must be soft. But God, by the end I was traumatised. Im glad I read it though. I think the movie was a great adaptation.

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Rahm89 t1_j68nnbl wrote

It really depends on your taste in literature. I personally enjoyed it but it certainly didn’t strike me as some kind of masterpiece, the praise for it is a bit overblown. If it wasn’t for the movie, I’m not even sure I would remember it today.

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AshnodsBong t1_j66uv40 wrote

Patrick lives an extremely hollow life and i think those chapters are him taking the things he knows lots of regular people look up to and value and attempting to pull higher meaning out of them

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j66vjnn wrote

My point was why dedicate multiple chapters to music? There are no entire chapters (iirc) dedicated to clothes, stereo equipment or evem restaurant reservations. When he talks about music, everything else seems to evaporate away, unlike the rest of his consumer bullshit. But apparently he was memorizing other music reviews and regurgitating them which makes way more sense in the fitting in terms.

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AshnodsBong t1_j66vsu5 wrote

I think its like in moby dick how many chapters are dedicated to long rants about whaling which seem boring but beneath the surface is a man taking the only greater power he can actually comprehend (whales/music) and using that to try and interpret the wider world. But because Patrick is only dedicating himself to pop music and surface level concerns he's never going to discover his sense of humanity.

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magvadis t1_j66wpba wrote

Honestly, sometimes, I think authors just want characters to have fixations that they can derive character out of if they are obsessive and the obsession probably has more to do with the Authors actual brand of personal knowledge.

Like, William Gibson made his character in Pattern Recognition know clothing dramatically well....but I just think he personally had that specific obsession and used it because it didn't cost him time for research.

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the_hung_gardener t1_j6766ki wrote

I think music is the only thing he truly understands, he's confident and knowledgeable about every bit of music he listens to. It cements him in reality, even when his sanity is floating away into the void

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BigOldComedyFan t1_j68urkv wrote

I don’t think they are actual reviews at all. Because he praises bands like Huey Lewis and the news with glowing terms, something you would not find in magazine reviews. I think he comes up with his own opinion in the style of a legit review but his musical taste is super shallow (Huey, Phil colons, whitney Houston)

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YodaScrotum t1_j694yoa wrote

I'm on my first read through of American Psycho now. I'm about 2/3 of the way through.

Patrick's relationship with music is interesting. He gives by far his most detailed (although still artificial feeling) explanations when talking about music, and has his walkman with him throughout the day, even when it would not provide any social benefit. In contrast, he states openly that he does not like live music (he says so while organizing a date, and another time at the U2 concert).

My theory is that he avoids live music for two reasons, the first being practical: incase he needs to give an opinion on a specific performance, he would not have an already written review to rely on, and can't/won't come up with an interpretation of his own.

The second is more abstract, but I think there's something there: music might be the only thing left that can make Patrick feel. For example, during the concert he and Bono lock eyes, and it is a momentary but intense experience for Patrick. These moments of intense feeling may highlight to him his inability to feel in other areas of life, so he avoids them all together. By sticking with CDs, he can rely on reviewers to do the feeling for him, and avoid coming to terms with his own ability to feel.

...or maybe I'm just talking out my ass. Either way, his clear interest in music paired with his disinterest in live music is interesting to think about.

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j6b9rnh wrote

According to othrr comments, they are memorized reviews of said songs. Additionally someone mentioned Ellis is a huge fan of pop music according to his podcast, so he may have written these out of a personal passion for music

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QueafyGreens t1_j6962up wrote

I always took it to be a dig at the reader, like you just burned through the most heinous murder scene that took 10 pages, and now you find reading about popular music for 4 pages a tedious ordeal.

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StoicComeLately t1_j69dxp6 wrote

Patrick Bateman's existence is incredibly mundane. Outside of appearances (clothes, physique, being seen at the best restaurants) nothing matters to him. There is absolutely no mention of family until close to the end (and these brief glimpses into his family give us a bit of insight as to how he ended up this way without really being a sole "reason" for his state). The people closest to him are as vapid as he is (probably moreso). And because of this, they pay absolutely no attention to what are very likely cries for help. A recurring theme in the book is the absolute conformity of his peer group --everyone wears wool suits, slicked back hair, and horn-rim glasses-- to the point that no one can tell anyone apart, which aids him in his ability to blend in and get away with the killings. It's a very well written commentary on the socio-cultural state of the time. Another interesting aspect to this book is Bateman's dissociative perspective in terms of his victims and personal attachments (if you can call them that), while he speaks passionately about pop music. He goes into tactile diatribes about Genesis, Whitney Houston, and Huey Lewis, but is emotionless when it comes to the murders and even attire (which he obsesses over). He speaks endlessly about clothes and designers, but even as he passes judgement on the attire of others and obsesses over his own, he does not seem to extract any joy from it. It's just something he does almost robotically. Pop music seems to be the only thing he actually enjoys, though even his reviews on the subject seem detached. Despite being descriptive to the point of being almost flowery, they are written in the passive voice.

EDIT: Sorry for the wall of text. I pulled this from my Goodreads review.

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[deleted] t1_j6aur6n wrote

It’s been a while since I read it, but I think I felt like they were breathers between acts of extreme violence to let the reader get over a shock or relax before being hit with one.

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typewriterchimp t1_j6e0w6d wrote

Instead of memorizing music reviews, today’s Bateman might just memorize ChatGPT essays. Similarly hollow.

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Thin_Professional_98 t1_j674bha wrote

No one ever brings up the idea that the character is on the spectrum and desperate to pass for non-divergent.

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j687xyv wrote

lol this is the only take in this thread i 101% disagree with

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Thin_Professional_98 t1_j688so5 wrote

Psychopaths don't have emotional reactions.
They don't value objects, and they don't obsess about details.

Neurodivergents on the other hand...

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Machiniac t1_j66bu1k wrote

There is no meaning beyond the surface level, it’s not that deep.

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j66ftj9 wrote

Why would an author dedicate multiple chapters analyzing music if it meant nothing? It's not like it's a passing paragraph, there are several chapters.

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Machiniac t1_j66ml53 wrote

It means something of course. He likes music and is obsessed with surfaces. But it’s not that deep. Not being deep is the meaning.

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Rowyn_Raycross t1_j6744ts wrote

I thought it was to lull the reader into a spiral of boredom just before throwing you back into a super-mega-ultra-violent scene. It takes place in the MTV era as well as music magazines being pretty popular. Having an “intellectual” conversation about music in order to have one toe in mainstream pop culture seemed to fit the character for me. Bateman had obsessive compulsive behaviors which included hygiene, working out, music, and killing. The first three are pretty mundane, but the last one is so inhumane and absolutely intolerably extreme. It’s one book I’ve not wanted to read a second time. I haven’t seen the movie (except for a few scenes that end up on social media a lot) because I couldn’t see how a movie could possibly be made to be anything like the book yet still be watchable.

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ChairmanUzamaoki OP t1_j6880pr wrote

Ah thr boring beofre the storm is interesting, because you are correct in that these chapters, now that I reread, I pretty much skim. I used to look for something deeper, but never could find anything

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