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Da Capo Best Music Writing
Best Music Writing 2008
The ninth entry in the acclaimed series celebrating the best writing on every style of music, from rock to hip-hop, R&B to jazz, pop to blues, and more.
Best music writing is the definitive guide to the year in music writing, an annual feast of essays, missives, and musings on every musical style by critics, novelists, and musicians themselves. Culled from publications ranging from blogs to the New Yorker, the 2008 edition captures a year in music writing as diverse and riveting as the music it illuminates.
Writers who have appeared in Best Music Writing include: Greil Marcus, Sarah Vowell, Nick Tosches, Jonathan Lethem, Dave Eggers, David Rakoff, David Hadju, Lenny Kaye, The Onion, Gary Giddins, Jessica Hopper, Luc Sante, Kelefa Sanneh, David Byrne, Daphne A. Brooks, Jody Rosen, Anne Midgette, Sasha Frere-Jones, Elizabeth Méndez Berry, Alex Ross, Touré, Lynn Hirschberg, Chuck Klosterman, Elizabeth Gilbert, Jay McInerney, Elvis Costello, Susan Orlean, Mike Doughty, Lorraine Ali, and many more.
- GenresMusicNonfictionEssays
360 pages, Paperback
First published September 8, 2008
4 people are currently reading
54 people want to read
About the author
Nelson George
75 books117 followersNelson George is an author, filmmaker, television producer, and critic with a long career in analyzing and presenting the diverse elements of African-American culture.
Queen Latifah won the Golden Globe for playing the lead in his directorial debut, the HBO movie 'Life Support'. The critically acclaimed drama looked at the effects of HIV on a troubled black family in his native Brooklyn, New York. He recently co-edited, with Alan Leeds, 'The James Brown Reader (Plume)', a collection of previously published articles about the Godfather of Soul that date as far back the late '50s. Plume published the book in May '08.
He is an executive producer on two returning cable shows: the third season of BET's American Gangster and the fifth airing of VH1's Hip Hop Honors. George is the executive producer of the Chris Rock hosted feature documentary, Good Hair, a look at hair weaves, relaxers and the international black hair economy that's premiering at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
Nelson George serves as host of Soul Cities, a travel show that debuted in November 2008. on VH1 Soul. Nelson visited Los Angeles, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Memphis, New Orleans and the Bay Area. He eats food, visits historic sites, and hears lots of music. LaBelle, Robin Thicke, Babyface, Rafael Saadiq, Angie Stone and Jazmine Sullivan are among the many artists who talked with Nelson and perform. The second season starts shooting in Spring 2009.
Throughout the '80s and '90s George was an columnist for Billboard magazine and the Village Voice newspaper, work that led him to write a series of award winning black music histories: 'Where Did Our Love Go: The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound'; 'The Death of Rythm & Blues'; and 'Hip Hop America'. He won a Grammy for his contribution to the linear notes package on the James Brown 'Star Time' boxed set. George co-wrote 'Life and Def', the autobiography of his old friend Russell Simmons. He's also had a career writing fiction, including the bestselling 'One Woman Short', and the story, 'It's Never Too Late in New York', which has been in several anthologies of erotica.
As a screenwriter George co-wrote 'Strictly Business', which starred Halle Berry, and 'CB4', a vehicle for Chris Rock. His work with Rock led to his involvement with 'The Chris Rock Show', an Emmy award winning HBO late night series. He was an executive producer of Jim McKay's film, 'Everyday People', which premiered at the Sundance festival, and Todd Williams' Peabody award winning documentary 'The N Word'. In 2009 Viking will publish his memoir, 'City Kid', a look at the connections between childhood in Brooklyn and his adult career in Manhattan, Los Angeles and Detroit.
Queen Latifah won the Golden Globe for playing the lead in his directorial debut, the HBO movie 'Life Support'. The critically acclaimed drama looked at the effects of HIV on a troubled black family in his native Brooklyn, New York. He recently co-edited, with Alan Leeds, 'The James Brown Reader (Plume)', a collection of previously published articles about the Godfather of Soul that date as far back the late '50s. Plume published the book in May '08.
He is an executive producer on two returning cable shows: the third season of BET's American Gangster and the fifth airing of VH1's Hip Hop Honors. George is the executive producer of the Chris Rock hosted feature documentary, Good Hair, a look at hair weaves, relaxers and the international black hair economy that's premiering at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
Nelson George serves as host of Soul Cities, a travel show that debuted in November 2008. on VH1 Soul. Nelson visited Los Angeles, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Memphis, New Orleans and the Bay Area. He eats food, visits historic sites, and hears lots of music. LaBelle, Robin Thicke, Babyface, Rafael Saadiq, Angie Stone and Jazmine Sullivan are among the many artists who talked with Nelson and perform. The second season starts shooting in Spring 2009.
Throughout the '80s and '90s George was an columnist for Billboard magazine and the Village Voice newspaper, work that led him to write a series of award winning black music histories: 'Where Did Our Love Go: The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound'; 'The Death of Rythm & Blues'; and 'Hip Hop America'. He won a Grammy for his contribution to the linear notes package on the James Brown 'Star Time' boxed set. George co-wrote 'Life and Def', the autobiography of his old friend Russell Simmons. He's also had a career writing fiction, including the bestselling 'One Woman Short', and the story, 'It's Never Too Late in New York', which has been in several anthologies of erotica.
As a screenwriter George co-wrote 'Strictly Business', which starred Halle Berry, and 'CB4', a vehicle for Chris Rock. His work with Rock led to his involvement with 'The Chris Rock Show', an Emmy award winning HBO late night series. He was an executive producer of Jim McKay's film, 'Everyday People', which premiered at the Sundance festival, and Todd Williams' Peabody award winning documentary 'The N Word'. In 2009 Viking will publish his memoir, 'City Kid', a look at the connections between childhood in Brooklyn and his adult career in Manhattan, Los Angeles and Detroit.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 11, 2019
I love these collection. You don’t need to just write album reviews. The best music critics have think purview with serious passion poured on top. Very inspiring! Big ups Jess Weiss and his piece on Soulja Boy who changed rap marketing forever on the 2000s.
Read
May 25, 2011I told my brother this week, "I'm pretty sure I have no use for, and no interest in, music reviews and/or criticism."
As a musician, writer, and voracious reader he recommended this series.
So I gave it a try, with high hopes.
Yuck! I have no use for it.
I'm so not the target audience that I won't give it a star rating.
I think I'd be interested to read about musicians I already love; interviews, biography and such... but that's it. And I could potentially enjoy it via film, with audio clips and such?
It feels similar to how learning too much music theory in my college conservatory of music started to ruin my love affair and "spiritual" / religious relationship with music. I went about unlearning my ear training so I could again listen to (and play) music without thinking "that's a perfect fifth, that's a minor seventh, that's a deceptive cadence, blah blah blah."
I wanted the music, but not the "math." I didn't need the intensive math to be a good player, and the rigorous training had actively hampered my listening enjoyment. (I didn't dislike music theory until I got way too much of it. An invisible line was crossed.)
Music will continue to be my religion, but apparently I will continue to not enjoy the analysis of it.
As a musician, writer, and voracious reader he recommended this series.
So I gave it a try, with high hopes.
Yuck! I have no use for it.
I'm so not the target audience that I won't give it a star rating.
I think I'd be interested to read about musicians I already love; interviews, biography and such... but that's it. And I could potentially enjoy it via film, with audio clips and such?
It feels similar to how learning too much music theory in my college conservatory of music started to ruin my love affair and "spiritual" / religious relationship with music. I went about unlearning my ear training so I could again listen to (and play) music without thinking "that's a perfect fifth, that's a minor seventh, that's a deceptive cadence, blah blah blah."
I wanted the music, but not the "math." I didn't need the intensive math to be a good player, and the rigorous training had actively hampered my listening enjoyment. (I didn't dislike music theory until I got way too much of it. An invisible line was crossed.)
Music will continue to be my religion, but apparently I will continue to not enjoy the analysis of it.
November 8, 2009
Completely underwhelmed by this. I had high hopes, to be fair, that this would be a collection of probing, playful musical and musical-cultural criticism. Mostly, though, it's artist profiles and popcultural trainspotting. Don't get me wrong, most of the articles are engaging and thorough, but there's little here that struck me as particularly artful or intellectual. Minor note: the number of typos in the text is distracting.
Faves:
"Dead Man Talking: 'Kurt Cobain: About a Son': A New Experimental..." by Sean Nelson (The Stranger)
"The Trouble with Indie Rock" by Carl Wilson (Slate)
"The History Book on the Shelf" by Tom Ewing (Pitchfork)
"Wu-Tang: Widdling Down Infinity" by Brandon Perkins
"Apparition in the Woods: Rescuing Sibelius from Silence" by Alex Ross (The New Yorker)
Faves:
"Dead Man Talking: 'Kurt Cobain: About a Son': A New Experimental..." by Sean Nelson (The Stranger)
"The Trouble with Indie Rock" by Carl Wilson (Slate)
"The History Book on the Shelf" by Tom Ewing (Pitchfork)
"Wu-Tang: Widdling Down Infinity" by Brandon Perkins
"Apparition in the Woods: Rescuing Sibelius from Silence" by Alex Ross (The New Yorker)
August 17, 2008
The usual stellar mix of good music writing. There are a few bummers (an unnecessarily long oral history of the band Mandrill), but mostly an eclectic mix of top flight essays, memoirs, profiles, zeitgeist-pondering think pieces, etc.. Loved Eric Pape's piece on music in the Republic of Congo, Jeff Sharlet's Lee Hays bio, Marke B's hilariously bitchy story about trends in gay music, and a bunch of others. Nelson George is particularly good at ordering the entries, which thread together solidly.
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March 10, 2010I mostly have thought of these "Best of" anthologies as pretty painfully square but this one was both a pleasure to read and chock full of insight. Also, I don't usually gripe about lack of copy editing but this seemed like it was rushed to the printers without a lot of oversight. Typos and spell check-type mistakes so frequent as to merit comment. Overall, kudos to Nelson George on making the rather dry "Best of" series feel lively, engaging and important.
January 21, 2009
Shit, man! Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker got "pimp slapped" (I don't think I even approve of using that phrase, but there it is), and HARD, and if you want to know about it, you have to read this book. Or at the very least, the first essay in it.
April 5, 2009
Like all Best Essays collections, a mixed bag. Bits on Sly Stone's repeated not-quite comebacks and the Pitchfork indie-band-of-week were great; others...well, it's easy to skip ahead. An ideal book for the subway commute.
October 16, 2008
This one turned out to be totally essential. I'm upgrading to Five Stars!
December 2, 2009
didn't quite read every essay, but there are some great ones on wu-tang, sly and the family stone, and daptone records
February 23, 2016
Not the best articles, in my opinion. Otherwise it would be a 4.
October 13, 2008
Not as good as the previous two years', but still inspiring.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews