Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen in an Age of Musical Plenty

Ratliff shows the way to navigate the new cloud of music, and appreciate new music again Ben Ratliff might have had me in mind as he was writing this book at least people like me. I am old enough to have purchased most musical recording formats/media and knew how to select music by genre, which, in turn enabled me to know what music to select to listen to at any moment. My "owned" collection was large and extensive, but not all encompassing. I have found what Ratliff describes as a very deep comfort zone of what I think I like, but . Tortolita said Superb. Just superb. Ratliff writes beautiful prose while showing us how to enjoy music even more than we had ever thought possible, and we love music. This is an important book, in addition to being supremely enjoyable. With "every song, ever" always on tap, Ratliff maps out a fascinating territory where remote associates occur unexpectedly, and where sounds surpass the now-redundant genre labels. The old saw that talking about sex is like reading abou. "WE ARE LISTENING IN THE TIME OF THE CLOUD." This book has already been reviewed so I try to not waste anyone's time with yet another review, but this is a pretty cool book that also makes you think beyond the music you enjoy hearing. And for deep fans of recorded music, who listen to music at some length, this book is important. The author, Ben Ratliff a longtime music critic for the New York Times, approaches music with a different way to hear music of distinct types. With so much music

Ben Ratliff has been a jazz and pop critic for The New York Times since 1996. He has written three books: The Jazz Ear: Conversations Over Music (2008); Coltrane: The Story of a Sound (2007, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award); and Jazz: A Critic's Guide to the 100 Most Important Recordings (2002). . He lives with his wife and two sons in the Bronx

Slayer and Shostakovich, Ali Akbar Khan and the Allman Brothersnone of them are the same once Ben Ratliff’s ears get through with them. He also writes very well, a quality not at all common among those who write about music in general, a famously tricky subject Ratliff's takes on various performances, recorded or live, are often unpredictable, never pedantic or exhibitionistic, and in every case informative." August Kleinzahler, The New York Times Book Review"Ben Ratliff’s crystalline Every Song Ever digs under familiar categories of descriptionhere, from aesthetics and music criticismto open

The result is a new mode of listening that can lead to unexpected connections. Instead, we can savor our own listening experience more directly, taking stock of qualities like repetition, speed, density, or loudness. This new age of listening brings with it astonishing new possibilities--as well as dangers.In Every Song Ever, the veteran New York Times music critic Ben Ratliff reimagines the very idea of music appreciation for our times. And if we listen for more elusive qualities like closeness, we might notice how the tight harmonies of bluegrass vocals illuminate the virtuosic synchrony of John Coltrane's quartet. What is music in the age of the cloud? Today, we can listen to nearly anything, at any time. In the age of the cloud, the genre of the recording and the intention of the composer matter less and less. It is possible to flit instantly across genres and generations, from 1980s Detroit techno to 1890s Viennese neo-romanticism. When we listen for slowness, we may detect surprising affinities between the drone metal of Sunn O))), the mixtape manipulations of DJ Screw, and the final works of Shostakovich. Encompassing the sounds of five continents and several centuries, Ratliff's book is a definitive field guide to our musical habitat, and a foundation for the new aesthetics our age demands.