Da Capo Best Music Writing 2000: The Year's Finest Writing on Rock, Pop, Jazz, Country, and More - Softcover

Douglas Wolk writes about comics and music for publications including the New York Times, Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, Salon, and The Believer. He lives in Portland, Oregon. Peter Guralnick has written extensively about American music and musicians. His books include the prize-winning, two-volume Elvis Presley biography Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love, and the acclaimed Sweet Soul Music, Lost Highway, and Feel Like Going Home.

Like the teen pop stars who dominate the airwaves, a lot of today's music journalism really can't singAmuch less bring an audience to its knees with revelations. Blame it on corporations, commercials or MTV, but the sad fact is that the multi-octave featureAwhat Guralnick (Last Train to Memphis, etc.) calls "the long-form story"Ais headed for that library in the sky. However, the first edition of Da Capo's Best Music Writing series proves that it isn't going without a fight. Not surprisingly, hip-hop, the youngest popular music genre, generates the choicest copy. In "Hip Hop High," David Samuels charts the making of teen rapper Lady Luck with a short story writer's omniscient eye. On the flip side, Selwyn Seyfu Hinds profiles hip-hop bad boy and mogul Sean "Puffy" Combs. With simple sentences, well-timed fragments and direct quotes, Hinds makes Combs likableAno small feat. Considering teen pop's ubiquitous presence, it's odd (but oddly satisfying) that no paeans to Britney, Christina, Mandy or Jessica made the cut; however, Guralnick addresses teen pop's snot-nosed brother, rap-rock, with David Moodie and Maureen Callahan's behind-the-latrines look at Woodstock '99. Given Guralnick's notoriety and the recent release of Cameron Crowe's cinematic autobiography of his own years as a teen rock journalist, Almost Famous, this anthology has a better chance than most of making a commercial dent. More likely, however, it will end up only on the night tables of Lester Bangs's spiritual children. (Nov.)
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