Into musical realms familiar and new

Best Music Writing 2011
Alex Ross, guest editor, and Daphne Carr, series editor
Da Capo Press. 336 pp. $16

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As a classical flutist, I had no idea I'd be interested in hearing Ke$ha's song "TiK ToK." But Jonathan Bogart's fun essay "Keep Tickin and Tockin Work It All Around the Clock" persuaded me to download it - if only to find out what he means by the singer's "party-past-the-point-of-fun agenda." Why she'd want to blow her speakers up remains a mystery. But that's only one of 32 articles and reviews Alex Ross chose for the 12th annual Best Music Writing anthology. In it, seasoned journalists, musicians, music critics, and enthusiasts cover the traditional genres - classical, jazz, country, metal, pop - as well as styles that blend and bend them.

The best music writing makes you want to listen to artists you have never heard before. It also makes you appreciate anew your old standbys and hear them differently, as is the case with Nina Simone's raspy and anguished voice, as described in the riveting essay by New York Magazine contributing editor Joe Hagen about her diary and letters. As Ross states in his introduction, he and series editor Daphne Carr looked for "pieces that led the reader into an unfamiliar realm or marked new paths on well-trod ground - pieces that assumed no prior knowledge, only a spark of curiosity." They definitely succeeded with this anthology.

I'm curious to test the theory of New York Magazine writer Justin Davidson, as explained in his essay "Beethoven's Kapow," which concerns the premiere of the Eroica Symphony. Davidson argues that modern concert halls with supposedly superior acoustics actually do a disservice to Beethoven's orchestral music. When the Philadelphia Orchestra performs the work Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at Verizon Hall, we'll have an opportunity to ponder whether "the most authentic, and exciting, way to hear Beethoven's symphonies would be in cramped rooms rather than in great, flattering halls." To follow Davidson's notions, we'd need to hear it performed in Perelman Theater or, better yet, someplace like Chris' Jazz Cafe to really get the "full-body experience" he prefers, but that's probably not going to happen.

Amy Klein's excellent blog entry "Tour Diary Day Four: Rock and Roll Is Dead" from her Tumblr blog highlights the under- and misrepresentation of women in popular music. Klein, a feminist punk rocker, begins her essay with an observation about women in a given issue of Rolling Stone, which "contains only one image of a 'token' woman holding an instrument." She then notices how many women musicians in that particular magazine are fully clothed (four). She writes: "[D]ammit, Rolling Stone, can't you try to be a little more fair to us? We are, after all, people too."

Klein's examples lead to a broader discussion - one that should be required reading - of women in mainstream media. In her conclusion, she asserts that "if we exclude women from our culture, from our opportunities, and from our collective conscience, then our country is going nowhere fast."

On a lighter note, pianist and blogger Jeremy Denk shares his gripes about poorly written program notes, those often tedious essays handed out before classical music concerts. Some notes are masterly mini-dissertations that can enhance our concert experience, but Denk humorously focuses on what makes program notes not great, the "Deadly Sins of program notes."

He draws us into his trauma with a light, conversational style: "Yes, I realize it's unfair to carp about program notes at 4 a.m. just because you're grumpy about being awake and stressed about practicing Ligeti Etudes! But this program note thing had been on my mind for a while." Denk lists four Deadly Sins, not seven, but they're traps writers can easily fall into: Historicization (focusing too much on the past), Making Generic (being too vague), Insider's Club (being too specific), and Domestication (being trivial).

Other subjects include new albums, film and concert reviews, and general musings in specific genres. In "The Long War," New Yorker critic Sasha Frere-Jones discusses Soldier of Love, Sade's smooth album of 2010. Loyola Marymount University journalism professor Evelyn McDonnell superbly dissects the movie The Runaways, about Joan Jett's "all-girl teenage band that busted down rock barriers." In "Darkness Invisible," Wendy Lesser, the editor of the Threepenny Review, gives us a concert review of Georg Haas' third string quartet, performed in complete darkness.

Country Music Television editorial director Chet Flippo asks, "Where is the heart and the soul and the core of country music these days?" Great question. He contends that "the music is all over the map. So are the artists. And so is the audience."

In this age of globalization, Flippo's words could apply to any genre, not just country music. Alex Ross' choices for Best Music Writing 2011 make us think more about what we're putting into our ears.