Introduction: Who'll Write the Book of Love? Pop Music and Pop Prose
Eric Weisbard

I. Narratives

1. "And I Guess It Doesn't Matter Any More": European Thoughts on American Music
Simon Frith

2. US and Them: Are American Pop (and Semi-Pop) Still Exceptional? And by the Way, Does That Make Them Better?
Robert Christgau

3. How Come Jazz Isn't Dead?
Gary Giddins

4. Sister Rosetta Tharpe and the Prehistory of "Women in Rock"
Gayle Wald

5. The Birth of the Blues
Luc Sante

6. Richard Speaks! Chasing a Tune from the Chitlin Circuit to the Mormon Tabernacle
RJ Smith

7. Interrupted Symphony: A Recollection of Movie Music from Max Steiner to Marvin Gaye
Geoffrey O'Brien

8. Burnt Sugar: Post-Soul Satire and Rock Memory
Daphne A. Brooks

II. Authorship

9. Bits of Me Scattered Everywhere: Ray Davies and the Kinks
Robert Polito

10. Authenticity, Gender, and Personal Voice: She Sounds So Sad, Do You Think She Really Is?
Sarah Dougher

11. All the Memories Money Can Buy: Marketing Authenticity and Manufacturing Authorship
David Sanjek

12. Authorship Meets Downpression: Translating the Wailers into Rock
Jason Toynbee

13. Creativity and Band Dynamics
Deena Weinstein

14. "O Secret Stars Stay Secret": Rock and Roll in Contemporary Poetry
Stephen Burt

15. Compressing Pop: How Your Favorite Song Got Squished
Douglas Wolk

16. Rapping about Rapping: The Rise and Fall of a Hip-Hop Tradition
Kelefa Sanneh

III. Values

17. Bread and Butter Songs: Unoriginality in Pop
Ann Powers

18. Good Pop, Bad Pop: Massiveness, Materiality, and the Top 40
Joshua Clover

19. The Carly Simon Principle: Sincerity and Pop Greatness
Chuck Klosterman

20. Groove as Niche: Earth, Wind & Fire
Robert Walser

21. Unpacking Our Hard Drives: Discophilia in the Age of Digital Reproduction
Julian Dibbell

22. Lost in Music: Obsessive Record Collecting
Simon Reynolds

23. Topless at the Arco Arena: Looking for the Line between Abandon and Irresponsibility During the Dot-com Explosion
Tim Quirk

24. More Rock, Less Talk: Live Music Turns Off the Voices in Our Heads
Carrie Brownstein

25. The Persistence of Hair
John Darnielle

Notes

Contributors

Acknowledgments

Index

Eric Weisbard is the Senior Program Manager in the Education Department of Experience Music Project in Seattle. He is the former music editor at Village Voice and was a senior editor at Spin.