Description
Book SynopsisArguing that pop music turns on moments rather than movements, this title includes essays that pinpoint magic moments from a century of pop eclecticism, looking at artists who fall between genre lines, songs that sponge up influences from everywhere, and studio accidents with unforeseen consequences.
Trade Review“The EMP papers are a text radio, spilling out evidence of so many strange brilliant forays into the starry night of our common culture. Here’s where my American history—and yours—goes to find itself.”—Jonathan Lethem, author of
You Don’t Love Me Yet“[T]he papers featured in this volume are typically eclectic, eccentric and unorthodox while remaining highly readable and sometimes quite brilliant. . . . As original as it is refreshing and engaging,
Listen Again and, by implication, the work of the EMP Pop Conference, represents an important contribution to the serious consideration of pop music—essential reading in an era in which our experience and understanding of music is fragmenting, mixing and morphing at a bewildering pace. “ -- Alex Seago * American Studies *
“This collection of essays on subjects ranging from ORCH5, a Stravinsky phrase turned synthesizer blip that helped forge the sound of early hip-hop, to James McKune, a record collector who single-handedly invented the Delta-blues genre, deftly analyzes marginal and telling moments in pop history.
Listen Again is a brilliant reimagining of last century’s most accessible art form.” -- Nick Moore * LA Weekly *
"
Listen Again has the guiding vision and rigorous analysis that so much current journalistic and scholarly writing on popular music lacks. . . . The eclecticism on display here isn’t distracting; the book benefits by drawing on many perspectives. Instead of reading as a throwback to music criticism’s glory days,
Listen Again maps a future for the field." -- Geeta Dayal * Bookforum *
"Time and again, I found myself putting down the book to download a song or to search YouTube for a dimly recalled performer evocatively discussed here. But this isn't a book of pop trivia, a scholarly version of TV nostalgia shows. Anyone who wants to revisit the pop past will find enjoyment in
Listen Again, but learning and scholarship too." -- David Hesmondhalgh * Times Higher Education *
Table of ContentsIntroduction / Eric Wesibard 1
1. Whittling on Dynamite: The Difference Bert Williams Makes / W.T. Lhamon, Jr. 7
2. Searching for the Blues: James McKune, Collectors, and a Different Crossroads / Marybeth Hamilton 26
3. Abie the Fishman: On Masks, Birthmarks, and Hunchbacks / Josh Kun 50
4. The Kingsmen and the Cha-Cha-Cha / Ned Sublette 69
5. Ghoulardi: Lessons in Mayhem from the First Age of Punk / David Thomas 95
6. Magic Moments, the Ghost of Folk-Rock, and the Ring of E Major / David Brackett 103
7. Mystery Girl: The Forgotten Artistry of Bobbie Gentry / Holly George-Warren 120
8. “Is That All There Is?” and the Uses of Disenchantment / Franklin Bruno 137
9. Ghetto Brother Power: The Bronx Gangs, the Beatles, the Aguinaldo, and Pre-history of Hip-Hop / Benjamin Melendez, as told to Henry Chalfant and Jeff Chang 150
10. Grand Funk Live! Staging Rock in the Age of the Arena / Steve Waksman 157
11. The Sound of Velvet Melting: The Power of “Vibe” in the Music of Roberta Flack / Jason King 172
12. All Roads Lead to “Apache” / Michaelangelo Matos 200
13. On Punk Rock and Not Being a Girl / Lavinia Greenlaw 210
14. The Buddy Holocaust Story: A Necromusicology / Eric Weisbard 219
15. ORCH5, or the Classical Ghost in the Hip-Hop Machine / Robert Fink 231
16. White Chocolate Soul: Teena Marie and Lewis Taylor / Marc Anthony Neal 256
17. Dancing, Democracy, and Kitsch: Poland’s Disco Polo / Daphne Carr 272
18. How to Act Like Darby Crash / Drew Daniel 286
19. Death Letters / Greil Marcus 296
Acknowledgments 307
Contributors 309
Index 313
