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Best Music Writing 2011 (Da Capo Best Music Writing)
by
Alex Ross ,
Daphne Carr
Best Music Writing has become one of the most eagerly awaited annuals of them all. Celebrating the year in music writing by gathering a rich array of essays, missives, and musings on every style of music from rock to hip-hop to R&B to jazz to pop to blues, it is essential reading for anyone who loves great music and accomplished writing. Scribes of every imaginable sor
...more
Paperback, 336 pages
Published
November 29th 2011
by Da Capo Press
(first published September 27th 2011)
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Guest editor Alex Ross (The New Yorker; author of The Rest Is Noise) does a fine job here assembling a omnivorous collection of pop, classical, and jazz essays. The most interesting pieces are the artist profiles, which include Ke$ha, Duke Ellington, Lady Gaga, Pantha Du Prince, Will.i.am (I daresay you'll respect him after reading "Will.i.am and the Science of Pop Domination" by Chris Norris), Nicki Minaj, Michael Jackson, The Runaways, and Nina Simone. If any or all of those sound boring, you'...more
“Best Music Writing 2011” is the twelfth in an acclaimed series of annual collections which celebrates the best writing on every style of music from rock to hop with all other long hair genres included. Short stories, which have appeared in various magazines and elsewhere, combine, giving insight into some of the backgrounds of artists who are still in the limelight, even though they may have left this earth.
Alex Ross, guest editor, is a music critic for the “New Yorker” and is the author of a...more
Ok, I couldn't put this book down. This was great. While I occasionally write a blog about music, this is some of the best stuff I have seen from persons who love both the vocation and the industry. Great stuff. Really bummed out that therestisnoise.com is on hiatus, but it may come back again. It may be a little too high-brow for my admittedly pedestrian tastes, however I find it well written and appealing. Give this one a read if you like music and like well-thought critical analysis of curren...more
I enjoyed this book very much. The editor Alex Ross is one of favorite music writers, and he's ade some great eclectic choices.
My favorites: The Grandest Duke, Why We Fight #5: Why Risks are Risky, Tour Diary Day Four: Rock and Roll is Dead, Jetlagged Manifesto (program note writers, observe!), Giant Steps: The Survival of a Great Jazz Pianist, The Honeymooners, The Fun Stuff.
Honorable mention I would have like included: Gonzalo Ruiz, Oboist, Restoring Bach
My favorites: The Grandest Duke, Why We Fight #5: Why Risks are Risky, Tour Diary Day Four: Rock and Roll is Dead, Jetlagged Manifesto (program note writers, observe!), Giant Steps: The Survival of a Great Jazz Pianist, The Honeymooners, The Fun Stuff.
Honorable mention I would have like included: Gonzalo Ruiz, Oboist, Restoring Bach
Highlights for me were James Woods exuberant and percussive deification of Keith Moon in "The Fun Stuff", Nancy Griffin's "The Thriller Diaries", Amy Klein's "Tour Diary Day Four: Rock and Roll Is Dead", Vanessa Grigoridas's "Growing Up Gaga", and my personal favorite "For The Record" by Jason Cherkis.
Impressively varied collection of writing. Many strongly written pieces and high standard. The weaker pieces did add to the breadth of topics discussed.
Really great stuff in here - one of the best from the series; look forward to reading the 2012 edition.
This book really delivers on the promise of its title. I was amazed at the scope of the music styles discussed and the variety of the voices used by its 30+ authors. Reading every one of those essays indeed makes you want to listen to the artists and songs they're about, whether you care any bit for Ke$ha, Richard Wagner and obscure early-20th century Greek singers or not. I especially liked Amy Klein's "Tour Diary Day Four: Rock and Roll is Dead", which makes one of the most straightforward and...more
As always, thought-provoking, inspiring, hard on the wallet--these volumes always send me out for new music--and moving. This one's especially good as a result of Mr. Ross' balanced hand and ear.
This is mostly great stuff -- I really loved the piece that shows the night when Neil Young and Miles Davis shared a bill together.
I am disappointed in this installment of Da Capo's Best Music Writing series. As Popular Music has atomized, so has the writing and writers are all too tempted to simply spill their seed on the ground as Jonathan Bogart does for 5,000 words about the marginal KE$HA. Justin Davidson's Beethoven article and Ann Power's thoughts on Wagner excepted, this book as a clotted snooze of hip writing that takes itself too seriously. I do not take is seriously enough for a full review.
Frankly, I knew almost nothing about much of the music that was discussed here. The most intriguing piece was the one about the making of Michael Jackson's Thriller video. There were only 2 or 3 pieces relating to classical music, which is my main area of interest and expertise. So while much of it was interesting, I had a hard time relating to the music or musicians that were under discussion.
Well done, Alex Ross. You made me care about classical after all! A well-assembled collection of concert reviews, profiles, think pieces and Ke$ha analyses. Perfect for our modern musical landscape, in which the top indie arbiter of taste gives respect to pop, pop musicians sample indie stars and people genre-hop and iShuffle it up with little discrimination.
I didn't read all the essays and a few were wanky, but several were great. I especially liked the one on michael jackson. worth a browse for sure.
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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Alex Ross has been the music critic of The New Yorker since 1996. From 1992 to 1996 he wrote for the New York Times. His first book, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, was published in 2007 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and became a national bestseller....more
More about Alex Ross...
Alex Ross has been the music critic of The New Yorker since 1996. From 1992 to 1996 he wrote for the New York Times. His first book, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, was published in 2007 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and became a national bestseller....more
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Feb 21, 2012 09:03am