Book Reports: A Music Critic on His First Love, Which Was ReadingIn this generous collection of book reviews and literary essays, legendary Village Voice rock critic Robert Christgau showcases the passion that made him a critic—his love for the written word. Many selections address music, from blackface minstrelsy to punk and hip-hop, artists from Lead Belly to Patti Smith, and fellow critics from Ellen Willis and Lester Bangs to Nelson George and Jessica Hopper. But Book Reports also teases out the popular in the Bible and 1984 as well as pornography and science fiction, and analyzes at length the cultural theory of Raymond Williams, the detective novels of Walter Mosley, the history of bohemia, and the 2008 financial crisis. It establishes Christgau as not just the Dean of American Rock Critics, but one of America's most insightful cultural critics as well. |
Contents
Why Postmodern Minstrelsy Studies Matter | |
Ken Emersons DooDah | |
David B Coplans In Township Tonight | |
Charles and Angeliki Keils Bright Balkan Morning | |
David Hajdus Positively 4th Street | |
Steven Hagers Hip Hop David Toops The Rap Attack | |
George Orwells 1984 | |
Richard Brautigans Sombrero Fallout | |
Robert Coovers Geralds Party | |
Normans Rushs Mortals | |
Sandra Newmans The Country of Ice Cream Star | |
Jerrold Seigels Bohemian Paris and T J Clarks The Painting | |
Christine Stansells American Moderns | |
Ed Sanderss The Family | |
Fred Goodmans The Mansion on the Hill | |
Susan McClarys Feminine Endings | |
Charlie Gilletts The Sound of the City | |
Kevin Averys Everything Is an Afterthought and Nona Willis Aronowitzs | |
Meltzers A Whore Just Like the Rest and Nick Toschess The Nick Tosches Reader | |
William Yorks Whos Who in Rock Music | |
James Millers Flowers in the Dustbin | |
Hanif Abdurraqibs They Cant Kill Us Until They Kill | |
Nick Toschess Hellfire and Robert Palmers Jerry Lee Lewis Rocks | |
Bob Dylans Chronicles Volume One and Dave Van Ronks The Mayor | |
Train | |
Carol Brightmans Sweet Chaos | |
John Heidenrys What Wild Ecstasy | |
Meredith Marans What Its Like to Live | |
C L R Jamess Beyond a Boundary | |
Nadine Strossens Defending Pornography Joanna Fruehs Erotic | |
Ten Books About the Financial Crisis | |
Raymond Williamss Long Revolution | |
Terry Eagletons Culture and the Death of God Culture | |
Common terms and phrases
academic aesthetic African African-American albums American Aretha Franklin artists audience band believes Berman blackface Bob Dylan bohemia bourgeois called celebrates collection Cooke’s Coover crucial Crumb doesn’t Dylan Eagleton early Ellen Willis especially essay fans feel fiction Frith Gerald’s Greil Marcus guitar Guralnick he’s Hell hip-hop human ideas inspired intellectual isn’t James jazz Jerry Lee Lewis journalistic Jump Jim Crow kids kind less Lester Bangs Lhamon literary lives Meltzer memoir minstrel minstrelsy modern Mosley musicians narrative never Noble Review novels Patti Smith political popular culture popular music prose published punk record rock and roll rock criticism Sam Cooke seems Seigel sense sexual Sharlet singers Smith social songs Springsteen story style tell theory there’s thing Tosches turned Village Voice what’s who’s Williams Williams’s Willis women writing York young
Bibliographic information
| Title | Book Reports: A Music Critic on His First Love, Which Was Reading |
| Author | Robert Christgau |
| Publisher | Duke University Press, 2019 |
| ISBN | 1478002123, 9781478002123 |
| Length | 416 pages |
| Subjects | › Literary Criticism / Books & Reading Music / History & Criticism |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |