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In Every Song Ever, the veteran New York Times music critic Ben Ratliff reimagines the very idea of music appreciation for our times. As familiar subdivisions like "rock" and "jazz" matter less and less and music’s accessible past becomes longer and broader, listeners can put aside the intentions of composers and musicians and engage music afresh, on their own terms. Ratliff isolates signal musical traits—such as repetition, speed, and virtuosity—and traces them across wildly diverse recordings to reveal unexpected connections. When we listen for slowness, for instance, we may detect surprising affinities between the drone metal of Sunn O))), the mixtape manipulations of DJ Screw, Sarah Vaughan singing “Lover Man,” and the final works of Shostakovich. And if we listen for closeness, we might notice how the tight harmonies of bluegrass vocals illuminate the virtuosic synchrony of John Coltrane’s quartet. Ratliff also goes in search of "the perfect moment"; considers what it means to hear emotion by sampling the complex sadness that powers the music of Nick Drake and Slayer; and examines the meaning of certain common behaviors, such as the impulse to document and possess the entire performance history of the Grateful Dead.
Encompassing the sounds of five continents and several centuries, Ratliff’s book is an artful work of criticism and a lesson in open-mindedness. It is a definitive field guide to our radically altered musical habitat.
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Previews available in: English
Showing 6 featured editions. View all 6 editions?
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1
Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen in an Age of Musical Plenty
Feb 14, 2017, Picador
paperback
1250117992 9781250117991
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2
Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen to Music Now
2017, Penguin Books, Limited
in English
1846146860 9781846146862
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4
Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen in an Age of Musical Plenty
2016, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
in English
1429953594 9781429953597
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5
Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen to Music Now
2016, Penguin Books, Limited
in English
1846146844 9781846146848
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6
Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen to Music Now
2016, Penguin Books, Limited
in English
1846146852 9781846146855
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