Best Music Writing 2011

by Ross, Alex; Carr, Daphne

• ISBN13: 9780306819636
• ISBN10: 0306819635
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-11-29
• Publisher: Da Capo

Summary

Best Music Writinghas 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 sort--novelists, poets, journalists, musicians-- are gathered to create a multi-voiced snapshot of the year in music writing that, like the music it illuminates, is every bit as thrilling as it is riveting.

Author Biography

Alex Ross is the music critic of The New Yorker and the author of The Rest Is Noise and Listen to This. He lives in New York City and has a website at www.therestisnoise.com. Daphne Carr is the author of Pretty Hate Machine. Her essays have appeared in Marooned: The Next Generation of Desert Island Discs and Listen Again: A Momentary History of Pop Music. She lives in New York City and can be found on the Web at funboring.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. xi
"Beethoven's Kapow" New York Magazine	p. 1
"Keep Tickin and Tockin Work It All Around the Clock"Exist Yesterday	p. 6
"The Grandest Duke" New York Review of Books	p. 20
"Growing Up Gaga" New York Magazine	p. 34
"The Mothership, lost in space" Washington Post	p. 53
"Excerpt from How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop" NPR.org	p. 61
"Curiosity Slowdown" Frieze	p. 70
"Meet Your #operaplot 2010 Winners" The Omniscient Mussel	p. 74
"A Pop Critic Takes on the Ring: Part 1, Das Rheingold" Los Angeles Times	p. 77
"Word" The New Yorker	p. 80
"Why We Fight #5: Why Risks are Risky" Pitchfork Media	p. 92
"Tour Diary Day Four: Rock and Roll is Dead" Amyandronicus.tumblr.com	p. 100
"Jetlagged Manifesto" Think Denk	p. 108
"Making Pop for Capitalist Pigs" Chicago Reader	p. 115
"The Underground Rises" Frontline's Tehran Bureau	p. 119
"Pantha du Prince" Groove Magazine	p. 126
"Wormrot, Defeatist, Mutant Supremacy, Psychic Limb and Curandera-October 3rd-The Acheron, Brooklyn" Sunyata: Mindful of Metal	p. 134
"Giant Steps: The Survival of a Great Jazz Pianist" The New York Times	p. 137
"William and the Science of Global Pop Domination" Rolling Stone	p. 150
"Notes from a Wedding" Washington Post	p. 161
"For the Record" Washington Post	p. 173
"The Curious Case of Nicki Minaj" Out	p. 183
"Gasping, But Somehow Still Alive': The Persistence of Meat Is Murder" Stereogum	p. 190
"Nashville Skyline: Searching for the Heart of Country CMT News	p. 194
"The Honeymooners" Oxford American	p. 197
"The Long War" The New Yorker	p. 210
"The 'Thriller' Diaries" Vanity Fair	p. 215
"The Runaways: Wild Thing" LA Weekly	p. 237
"The Fun Stuff" The New Yorker	p. 250
"Direction Nowhere" At Length	p. 265
"I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free: The Secret Diary of Nina Simone" The Believer	p. 272
"Darkness Invisible" The Threepenny Review	p. 291
Other Notable Music Writing of 2010	p. 297
List of Contributors	p. 303
Credits	p. 309
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