Five Excellent Recent Books Blending Music and Personal Narrative
Music writing often combines the personal, political, and historical in new and inventive ways revealing the interconnectedness of these categories.
Josh Friedberg
Josh Friedberg is a music historian, teacher, singer-songwriter, and sometime radio DJ based in Chicago. He has a Master's degree in English from Northeastern Illinois University.
25 of the Best Country Songs of the 1990s
The sound of 1990s country was bigger and louder than ever before, and it reached far larger audiences than the genre had ever attained.
‘Becoming Ella Fitzgerald’ Expands the Cultural Memory
Judith Tick’s Becoming Ella Fitzgerald corrects much of the public’s understanding of the First Lady of Song, necessarily expanding the cultural memory.
The 25 Best Country Songs About Death
There is no genre with as rich a history of songs about many forms of death–by natural causes, murder, suicide, war, accidents, and so on–than country.
Self-Deprecating Nonchalance: ‘Prine on Prine’
The “interviews and encounters” in Prine on Prine reveal John Prine’s care for others, and his self-deprecation and nonchalance about his accomplished career.
10 Best Contemporary Books That Blend Music and Personal Narrative
Music and writing are both deeply personal but meant to be shared, as seen in these 10 best contemporary books that blend music and personal narrative.
James Baldwin Digs Into the Roots of American Music
James Baldwin’s writing about music illuminates the significance of racial slavery for all American music. Black American music can help America to move forward if used properly.
A Lost Revolution? 35 Years of ‘Tracy Chapman’
Today’s world needs a revolution. If Tracy Chapman teaches us anything, it’s that we need fundamental change to reckon with the issues she writes about.
12 Contemporary Books That Will Have You Rethinking Music History
The best contemporary music books on this list are specific and sweeping, creating new narratives that challenge dominant orthodoxy on music and its histories.
Racializing Rock: The ’60s and the White Sounds of ‘Pet Sounds’
The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds is not a racist text, but its impact was racist because it further encoded rock as a white genre, perpetuating the institutionalized prejudice that relegated African Americans to the margins of rock.
Universal Songs? Interpreting Stevie Wonder’s ‘Songs in the Key of Life’
Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life is 45 years old. It’s a towering masterpiece in the histories of soul, pop, American music, and Black music worldwide.
‘Blue’, ‘Tapestry’, and Oil: Or, Oil Capitalism in Two Key Singer-Songwriter Albums
Joni Mitchell’s Blue and Carole King’s Tapestry were fueled by petroculture, which powered the rise of feminism in music. How? Read on.