In our latest Paper Trail interview, Jenn Pelly chats with Sup Pop Records co-founder Bruce Pavitt, whose new book Experiencing Nirvana features photos of the band’s pre-fame tour of Europe in 1989.
"We need music criticism because people like writing it and people like reading it. It’s as simple as that. Why do we need blogs about World of Warcraft? Why do we need people who want to talk about knitting? There’s a number of things that, if you’re outside of that culture, it seems strange or unnecessary. If you’re in it, though, it feels very necessary. They give meaning to life, they make you happy, they give you something to do."
— Author Devon Powers makes a case for music writing in her conversation with Eric Harvey about her book Writing the Record: The Village Voice and the Birth of Rock Criticism.
Author Alan Light talks about his new book The Holy or the Broken– which chronicles the improbable trajectory of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”, from it’s original 1984 version, to Jeff Buckley, to Shrek, to Bon Jovi, to “American Idol”– in our latest Paper Trail.
(Source: Spotify)
Marc Masters talks to Alan Licht about his new book Will Oldham on Bonnie “Prince” Billy in our latest Paper Trail.
"By choosing mainstream music as the tests for MPEG audio, audio engineers actually produced a format that doesn’t conform to universals of human hearing, but does conform very well to the record industry. In other words, a small number of mastering engineers have determined what good recordings will sound like."
— Author Jonathan Sterne talks to Eric Harvey about his new book, MP3: The Meaning of a Format, in our latest Paper Trail.
Author Jonathan Lethem talks about his book on Talking Heads’ Fear of Music in the latest installment of our Paper Trail feature series.
