![](\"https:\/\/cdn3.pitchfork.com\/longform\/768\/Inner%20City%20Pressure.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Inner City Pressure: The Story of Grime<\/i><\/h2>\nBy\u00a0Dan Hancox<\/h4>\n
One night in 2007, an MC clash on UK radio captured two grime factions at war. In one corner was Ghetts, a lexical gymnast with a \u201csuper fast skippy flow\u201d; in the other, grime everyman Skepta, with his bullshit-free, exceedingly British plain-speak. According to Dan Hancox, author of this raucous new grime tome, Skepta\u2019s performance in the rap battle was akin to \u201cpunk trashing prog rock: why is long and convoluted inherently better?\u201d It\u2019s a\u00a0scramble-to-YouTube<\/a>\u00a0moment for the reader, one among hundreds of sharp, funny, jump-off-the-page anecdotes that the stalwart grime journalist fashions in\u00a0his latest book. Hancox positions grime as both a symptom and scourge of late capitalism, a rebuke to centrist politicians and their vision of a new, white, class-cleansed London. This vanguard scene is the underside of an inner-city gentrification program that was, we\u2019re reminded, \u201cnot organic, inevitable or natural.\u201d The result of years attuned to working-class anxieties in London,\u00a0Inner City Pressure<\/i>\u00a0is a landmark genre history. \u2013Jazz Monroe<\/p>\n Slits guitarist Viv Albertine wrote one of the best books ever about punk with her 2014 memoir,\u00a0Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys<\/a><\/i>. Her second book,\u00a0To Throw Away Unopene<\/i>d, is at once a sequel and another tale entirely. With the same biting honesty and a bit more poise, Albertine chronicles middle age while continuing to feel out of step with the world. She focuses on the two great loves of her life: her mother and her daughter.\u00a0To Throw Away Unopened<\/i>\u00a0emerges as a story about being a loner and being lonely, about dating (and not dating) in your 50s, and what you learn about your parents after they die. It is about dysfunctional families, \u201ccobbled-together\u201d intellectualism, and how women inherit the repression of their female ancestors. Its relatability can be oddly soothing: Is\u00a0Viv Albertine<\/i>\u00a0really posing the question, \u201cWhy is every man I go out with so bonkers?\u201d\u00a0To Throw Away Unopened<\/i>\u00a0is a worthy read for anyone left wondering more about the life-fabric of this crucial punk musician; best of all, it is not what you\u2019d expect. \u2013Jenn Pelly<\/p>\n Because jazz has\u00a0so much history<\/i>\u2014the Original Dixieland Jass Band put out the first jazz record more than 100 years ago\u2014it is easy to lose sight of what\u2019s going on in the present moment.\u00a0Playing Changes<\/i>, by NPR jazz critic Nate Chinen (formerly of the\u00a0New York Times<\/i>), takes stock of the most important trends in jazz since the turn of the millennium. The defining quality is fragmentation\u2014the best jazz artists working now never stay in one place for long, moving easily between sounds and eras and scenes. Extended sections on Kamasi Washington, Vijay Iyer, Robert Glasper, Esperanza Spalding, Brad Mehldau, and many more place their work in the context of musical innovations from the \u201960s, \u201970s, and \u201980s while still illuminating how it all fits together in the digital world. \u2013Mark Richardson<\/p>\n Steven Hyden thinks that the best Paul McCartney solo album is 1980\u2019s\u00a0McCartney II<\/i>, which to me is the mark of a man who is categorically insane. (It is 1973\u2019s\u00a0Band on the Run<\/i>, of course.) We all have these severely ingrained notions about classic rock because of the trumped-up size of its myth and its record-setting tenure on terrestrial radio. As such, arguing about which Zeppelin or Floyd or McCartney album we prefer is something of a pastime. The pages of\u00a0Twilight of the Gods<\/i>\u00a0could fill a bar for weeks with squabbles like these, at which point I would personally fight Hyden (whom I have\u00a0worked with professionally<\/a>) over many claims he makes in this book.<\/p>\n Inarguable, though, is that the mostly white, mostly male classic rock gods are dying; Hyden has to decide whether to close the door on that particular stairway to heaven. He focuses on rock\u2019s defining moments between\u00a0Sgt. Pepper\u2019s<\/i>\u00a0in \u201967 and Nine Inch Nails\u2019 bloated failure\u00a0The Fragile<\/i>\u00a0in \u201999, praising and interrogating the music with wit, emotion, and encyclopedic knowledge. Overlaid with sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking personal moments that elevate the book beyond mere compendium, Hyden has the power to make you look at power ballads, Styx, and even R.E.O Speedwagon\u2019s \u201cTake It\u00a0on\u00a0the Run\u201d in a new light. \u2013Jeremy D. Larson<\/p>\n > Robert Gordon\u00a0has written books about\u00a0Stax Records<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Muddy Waters<\/a>, but my personal favorites are his excavations of the Memphis underground.\u00a0It Came From Memphis<\/a><\/i>, first published in 1995, gets down deep and weird with local eccentrics and charmers far from the beaten path of Elvis Presley Boulevard\u2014pro wrestlers and bluesmen and unclassifiable raconteurs alike. True to its name,\u00a0Memphis Rent Party<\/i>\u00a0picks up this digressive tale and passes the hat around the room, bringing together profiles and interviews, some never published until now. Gordon\u2019s profile of Lead Belly and\u00a0the bluesman\u2019s\u00a0now infamous\u00a0Last Sessions<\/a><\/i>\u00a0is particularly gripping, as is his dive into the devil-tangled lore of Robert Johnson. He delivers equally indelible encounters with Townes Van Zandt, Alex Chilton, and Cat Power, in addition to shedding light on lesser known performers like fife master Otha Turner and legendary outlaw Jerry McGill\u2014all players in Memphis\u2019 beautifully unruly mythology. Gordon doesn\u2019t try to parse their mysteries and metaphors, but he gives you plenty to ponder. \u2013Rebecca Bengal<\/p>\n So I\u2019m writing a\u00a0thing<\/a>. I\u2019m calling it a \u201cthing\u201d because, well, the word \u201cbook\u201d freaks me out. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019m incredibly focused on this thing, but the magnitude of it isn\u2019t lost on me. Questlove\u2019s new book,\u00a0Creative Quest<\/i>, is helping me stay the course. In this self-help guide for creative types, the drummer, DJ, and bandleader offers tips on seeing your vision through and shares working philosophies he\u2019s picked up from his peers along the way. It\u2019s a fascinating read that sheds new light on Quest\u2019s 20-plus years in show business and how, despite all the accolades, he\u2019s still unsure of his own work. \u201cDecades into my career, with many albums and songs under my belt, I still don\u2019t know if I am truly creative,\u201d he writes in the introduction. Quotes like these give insight into why Questlove has achieved so much: Because he\u2019s still striving to be greater. \u2013Marcus J. Moore<\/p>\n In glam\u2019s archetypal close encounter, an alien falls to Earth and channels his apocalyptic energy into rock stardom\u2014but falls victim to fame, sex, and his own gigantic ego. Catherynne M. Valente puts a charmingly dizzying spin on that mythology in\u00a0Space Opera<\/i>, a novel whose hero, Decibel Jones, is a debauched, omnisexual, and all-too-human glam rocker years past his prime. The alien in the story is a roadrunner-looking envoy for a consortium of species from across the universe, a group now investigating whether earthlings are sentient. To prove they are, Dess and his band must compete in a sort of intergalactic Eurovision. If they come in last, humankind will be annihilated; if they don\u2019t, the race will be spared. And the odds are against them.<\/p>\n The book\u2019s timely messaging about xenophobia is as refreshing as its premise. But what really makes\u00a0Space Opera<\/i>\u00a0shine is Valente\u2019s writing\u2014all long, breathless sentences stuffed with colorful metaphors, British slang, and sci-fi weirdness emanating from some disembodied cosmic intelligence. That the prose can occasionally feel like a bit too much\u2014Dess\u2019 music is described at one point as \u201celectro-funk glamgrind\u201d\u2014only confirms\u00a0Space Opera<\/i>\u2019s glam-rock bona fides. \u2013Judy Berman<\/p>\n In a new volume of Bloomsbury\u2019s 33 \u2153 series, Berkeley-based singer-songwriter Ezra Furman dissects\u00a0Lou Reed\u2019s second solo album with a thoroughness and fervor that could only come from someone who has loved him for years. But Furman\u2019s take on 1972\u2019s\u00a0Transformer<\/i>, which opened Reed\u2019s glam period with both affectionately playful and disdainfully violent songs, doesn\u2019t merely heap praise on a complicated record, or even simply chronicle its creation. Furman seizes a better opportunity: to explore his own identity against the backdrop of Reed\u2019s legacy, and to probe at the album\u2019s failures alongside its triumphs. Particularly in the \u201970s, Reed made for a thorny queer figure; Furman, a\u00a0bisexual and gender non-conforming rock singer<\/a>, sees plenty of himself in the mess of music and biting quotables the New York icon left behind. That connection gives Furman a special acuity, allowing him to peel back the skin on Reed\u2019s most famous solo work and situate it within queer American history. Rarely does longform music criticism get this personal, but Furman\u2019s willingness to be vulnerable as he excavates\u00a0Transformer<\/i>makes his debut book an incisive and necessary read. \u2013Sasha Geffen<\/p>\n The stories behind certain records can be as evocative as the music they contain. Had\u00a0Astral Weeks<\/i>, Ryan H. Walsh\u2019s book on the creation of Van Morrison\u2019s beloved album, focused on that process alone, it would have been compelling enough in and of itself. But instead, Walsh uses the fact that Morrison was living near Boston in 1968 to turn his book into a sprawling account of the city\u2019s interconnected countercultural sects. Over the course of nearly 400 pages, Walsh covers Morrison\u2019s musical collaborators, television theorists pushing the boundaries of the medium, and a controversial local commune with an occasionally sinister history. This process of using\u00a0Astral Weeks<\/i>\u00a0(the book) to gradually encompass everything works because\u00a0Astral Weeks<\/i>\u00a0(the album) is the kind of record that actually encompasses everything. \u2013Tobias Carroll<\/p>\n For years, the written history of electronic dance music remained an odd patchwork, more hole than fabric. Fortunately, recent installments like Michaelangelo Matos\u2019\u00a0The Underground Is Massive<\/i><\/a>\u00a0and Felix Denk and Sven von Th\u00fclen\u2019s\u00a0Der Klang der Familie<\/i><\/a>\u00a0are finally filling out the narrative. But way back in 2002, a Spanish anthology called\u00a0Loops<\/i>\u00a0did a remarkably thorough job of summing up life beneath the disco ball. Long out of print,\u00a0Loops<\/i>\u00a0has\u00a0finally gotten a reprint<\/a>\u00a0(still Spanish-only, alas), and it\u2019s accompanied by a second volume (also in Spanish) by original co-editor Javier Bl\u00e1nquez. He\u2019s one of Spain\u2019s most incisive cultural critics, and one of the finest writers on electronic music in the world.<\/p>\n Loops 2<\/i>\u00a0tackles the unenviable task of summing up everything that\u2019s happened in electronic music in the past 15 years, from electroclash (remember that?) to the minimal boom (and bust) to EDM (cue fireworks). Bl\u00e1nquez is as committed a fan as this music has, but he\u2019s no blind booster. Locating Kraftwerk\u2019s 1974 album\u00a0Autobahn<\/i>\u00a0as the starting point of the pop-electronic canon, he reasons that the music must be going through a midlife crisis. \u201cThere\u2019s an expression that sums up the current moment: \u2018It\u2019s OK, but it\u2019s not what it used to be,\u2019\u201d he writes. And he\u2019s right, at least about the not-what-it-used-to-be bit; fortunately, those changes are precisely what he finds fascinating. As he writes of the impossible-to-classify music of Arca, \u201cHis music is surely the greatest lexical challenge to happen in electronic music recently: a demonstration that there are still regions unknown, newly explored areas that lie ahead, brimming with bogs.\u201d Consider this Bl\u00e1nquez pulling on his boots and plunging in. \u2013Philip Sherburne<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn2.pitchfork.com\/longform\/768\/To%20Throw%20Away.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTo Throw Away Unopened<\/i><\/h2>\n
By\u00a0Viv Albertine<\/h4>\n
![](\"https:\/\/cdn3.pitchfork.com\/longform\/768\/Playing%20Changes.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPlaying Changes: Jazz for the New Century<\/i><\/h2>\n
By Nate Chinen<\/h4>\n
![](\"https:\/\/cdn3.pitchfork.com\/longform\/768\/Twilight%20of%20the%20Gods.png\")
<\/p>\nTwilight of the Gods: A Journey to the End of Classic Rock<\/i><\/h2>\n
By\u00a0Steven Hyden<\/h4>\n
![](\"https:\/\/cdn4.pitchfork.com\/longform\/768\/Memphis%20Rent%20Party.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMemphis Rent Party: The Blues, Rock & Soul in Music\u2019s Hometown<\/i><\/h2>\n
By Robert Gordon<\/h4>\n
![](\"https:\/\/cdn3.pitchfork.com\/longform\/768\/Creative%20Quest.jpg\")
<\/p>\nCreative Quest<\/i><\/h2>\n
By\u00a0Questlove<\/h4>\n
![](\"https:\/\/cdn.pitchfork.com\/longform\/768\/Space%20Opera.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSpace Opera<\/a><\/i><\/h2>\n
By Catherynne M. Valente<\/h4>\n
![](\"https:\/\/cdn4.pitchfork.com\/longform\/768\/transformer.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
<\/p>\nTransformer\u00a033 \u2153<\/i><\/h2>\n
By\u00a0Ezra Furman<\/h4>\n
![](\"https:\/\/cdn.pitchfork.com\/longform\/768\/Astral%20Weeks.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAstral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968<\/i><\/h2>\n
By\u00a0Ryan H. Walsh<\/h4>\n
![](\"https:\/\/cdn3.pitchfork.com\/longform\/768\/loops%202%20copy.jpg\")
<\/p>\nLoops 2<\/i><\/h2>\n
By Javier Bl\u00e1nquez<\/h4>\n
![](\"https:\/\/cdn.pitchfork.com\/longform\/768\/in-on-the-kill.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn.pitchfork.com\/longform\/768\/3%20Kings.jpg\")
<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn2.pitchfork.com\/longform\/768\/voices-of-mississippi-cover_700.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn2.pitchfork.com\/longform\/768\/2_DevoClassicBrand.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn3.pitchfork.com\/longform\/768\/Palaces-Simon-Jacobs.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn2.pitchfork.com\/longform\/768\/Lemon%20Jail.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn3.pitchfork.com\/longform\/768\/Mad%20Skills.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn4.pitchfork.com\/longform\/768\/A%20Spy%20in%20the%20House%20of%20Loud.jpg\")
<\/p>\n