Da Capo Best Music Writing 2005: The Year's Finest Writing on Rock, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Pop, Country, & More

by J.T. LeRoy

Book Overview

Da Capo 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 and more, 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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306814463
• ISBN13: 9780306814464
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Great book

I'll also go out on a limb and praise this book. Perhaps I have the advantage of hindsight, because I have only recently read this book - but there were lots of articles that really engaged my attention. I have read several of the books in this series - and strangely enough more articles in this edition ignited my enthusiasm, as cited in a previous review - the Dylan article by Robert Hilburn was outstanding and very revealing about an important artist. "The Shortwave and the Calling" by David Segal - made me go find the Wilco song and the actual "Conet Project" track that they used....... This is exactly what good music writing is supposed to do - make me want to go listen to the music, and find out more....

I'm sorry, but someone needs to defend this book

This may not be the best of the "Best Music Writing" series, but it's got a lot to recommend it. I don't care at all for Dave Eggers' self-indulgent books, but his remembrance of Big Country was sincere and heartfelt. If you're even slightly into Dylan, you'll find Robert Hilburn's interview with him about his songwriting process to be utterly fascinating. As to the complaint that the collection is "rockist," appealing to only a limited music sensibility, my attitude is "So what?" This is the kind of music that seems to strike the deepest chord with most of the best music writers. I do strongly agree that the book could have been longer. There's several dozen "other notable essays" mentioned in the back -- couldn't there have been room to include a few of them?