Da Capo Best Music Writing 2003

Da Capo Best Music Writing

by Matt Groening (Editor), Paul Bresnick

It's here: the fourth and latest volume in the series that you have come to rely upon for your music reading fix. The 2003 volume will celebrate the year's best writing about music and its culture with a selection of pieces on a dazzling array of topics drawn from more than a hundred sources-remarkable essays by journalists and authors who are as serious about writing as they are about music.Past contributors have included:* Jonathan Lethem * David Rakoff * Mike Doughty * Lorraine Ali * Greil Marcus * Richard Meltzer * Robert Gordon * Sarah Vowell * Nick Tosches * Anthony DeCurtis * William Gay * Whitney Balliett * Lester Bangs * Rosanne Cash * Susan Orlean * David Hadju * Lenny Kaye * The Onion * Mark Jacobson * Gary Giddins * John Leland * Luc Sante * Monica Kendrick * Kalefa Sanneh

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Essays

336 pages, Paperback

First published October 8, 2003

About the author

Matthew Abram Groening is an American cartoonist, television producer and writer from Portland, Oregon.

Groening is best known as the creator of The Simpsons. He is also the creator of Futurama and the author of the weekly comic strip Life in Hell. Groening distributed Life in Hell in the book corner of Licorice Pizza, a record store in which he worked.

He made his first professional cartoon sale to the avant-garde Wet magazine in 1978. The cartoon is still carried in 250 weekly newspapers.

Reviews

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure what to expect when I got this from my sister one Christmas and I held off reading it under recently. I really enjoyed most of the essays; especially the ones about James Brown and Tom Waits respectively. I was disappointed with the jazz essays; I thought they were tedious and I didn't learn much about the genre. Oh, and for those who have read the essays or happened to read the article "Who's that Girl?" in the New York Times back in 2003, Amanda Latona (the artist profiled) is on YouTube and after hearing a couple of her songs, I now know why her career went nowhere :P

[KAOS · Rating 3 out of 5]

finally got around to this one. fantastic articles reprinted from magazines and newspapers in 2003 - my favorites were a profile of james brown, the history of NWA and LA rap, a spin article on why mexicans love morrissey, an interview with tom waits, and a profile on fat possum records and the old bluesmen that they record. a good compilation but i skipped the stuff on jazz, country and other genres that i'm not into. minor complaint, but valid enough: da capo really should have had someone proofread this thing. typos abound, and a few instances of missing punctuation. annoying.

[Jay Cruz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of note is Chuck Klosterman's Viva Morrissey!, a Spin article in which he profiled the odd Mexican adoption of the effeminate singer and Best Band in the Land by Bill Tuomala where he puts Van Halen as the underdog in a saturated punk rock world.