Listen to This (Paperback)

One of "The Telegraph"'s Best Music Books 2011

Alex Ross's award-winning international bestseller, "The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century," has become a contemporary classic, establishing Ross""as one of our most popular and acclaimed cultural historians." Listen to This," which takes its title from a beloved 2004 essay""in which Ross describes his late-blooming discovery of pop music, ""showcases the best of his writing from more than a decade at" The New Yorker." These pieces, dedicated to classical and popular""artists alike, are at once erudite and lively. In a previously unpublished""essay, Ross brilliantly retells hundreds of years of music""history--from Renaissance dances to Led Zeppelin--through a few""iconic bass lines of celebration and lament. He vibrantly sketches""canonical composers such as Schubert, Verdi, and Brahms; gives""us in-depth interviews with modern pop masters such as Bjork""and Radiohead; and introduces us to music students at a Newark""high school and indie-rock hipsters in Beijing.
Whether his subject is Mozart or Bob Dylan, Ross shows how music expresses the full complexity of the human condition. Witty, passionate, and brimming with insight, "Listen to This "teaches us how to listen more closely.