Kelefa Sanneh

Kelefa Sanneh, a former music critic for the New York Times, and writer for the New Yorker, revisists the history of popular music from the 1970s to today in a series of essays focusing on genres. These genres include the venerable traditions of Rock, R&B, and Country as well as the upstarts Punk, Hip-Hop, and Dance. The final essay focuses on the amorphous genre of Pop.

Sanneh is a fan of all these types of music so he brings in his personal experience when discussing them. I find that appropriate since music is such a personal thing. Sanneh does a great job at summarizing the history and the struggles of artists within these genres to remain true to their style. He also notes that over the past 50 years that each of these genres is converging to create a new "pop" music even at a time when streaming music platforms should allow greater splits.

This was a fun an informative book for a music fan.… (more)

This is a book review of what began as a blog, Stuff White People Like by Christian Lander.

There are also some really valuable other articles in this issue. There is a run down on the government issues in Guinea, KDownfall the end of a west African dictatosship by Jon Lee Anderson, and a terrific article The Pink Panthers a Tale of Diamonds, Thieves and the Bakans about how crime in other countries is linked to the economic breakdown of Serbia and Montenegro. Also an excellent short story
by Ben Looney about a man who gives up on his job in favor of TV, which turns into his own reality show.
And last but not least, Think Small by Adam Kirsch, about "America's quiet poet Laureate" Kay Ryan (up to know I had not known anything about her.)… (more)