Saturday, December 22, 2012 at 10:00 AM
On subjects familiar (Beethoven's Fifth) and obscure (notoriously tight-lipped cult artists), our favorite writing about music dove deep and showed us new ways to love the sounds in our lives.
Staff Picks: Our Favorite Music Books Of 2012
Nishant Choksi
In 2012, writers who tackled musical topics dove deep, got weird, burrowed into a niche; we joyfully followed them to depths we never would have expected when the year began. We devoured works of criticism, history, biography and the Zen of John Cage and Tony Bennett. While many of our favorite books about music published this year exposed some previously unknown corner of the world, some of the subjects are so familiar already (the lives of James Brown and Marian McPartland, the first four notes of Beethoven's fifth symphony) that the fact that we now have new, authoritative works on them is the surprise. Like the best writing about music, each of these ten books, selected by NPR Music's staff and presented in alphabetical order by author's last name, kept us bouncing between the page and the stereo, reveling in that rare magic of music expressed perfectly in words.
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Filed in:
Two Songs That Led Keith Carradine From Screen To Broadway
It was music that jump-started the Deadwood star's career and drew him to his latest Broadway role.READ MORE
'Las Caras Lindas': To Be Black And Puerto Rican In 2013
The complex identities navigated by black Puerto Ricans play out in the music of two artists.READ MORE
Then The Curtain Opened: The Bracing Impact Of Stravinsky's 'Rite'
The ballet premiered in 1913, provoking a response just as striking as the music and dance.READ MORE
Clairy Browne's Rock 'N' Soul Bus Rolls To The U.S.
Browne and her band, The Bangin' Rackettes, are a flamboyant retro ensemble from Australia.READ MORE
Leonard Bernstein's 'Rite of Spring' Thrill Ride
Watch the conductor take flight leading the London Symphony in Stravinsky's iconic score.READ MORE
First Listen Live: Queens Of The Stone Age, '...Like Clockwork'
Watch the band debut its intense and unpredictable new album live in concert at The Wiltern.READ MORE




