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Granta: The Magazine of New Writing #76
Granta 76: Music
Published in the U.S. since 1979, Granta is a handsomely illustrated paperback featuring outstanding articles that illustrate a theme. The Music issue examines how music is made and what it means — from plainsong to bounce. Contributors include Philip Pullman, Luc Sante, Nicholson Baker, Robyn Davidson, Amit Chaudhuri, Daniel Menaker, Ian Jack, Richard Sennett, and Andrew O’Hagan.
320 pages, Paperback
First published December 19, 2001
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About the author
Ian Jack
139 books10 followersIan Jack is a British journalist and writer who has edited the Independent on Sunday and the literary magazine Granta and now writes regularly for The Guardian.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 3, 2011
Pretty wide-ranging collection from a long-standing literary journal, all devoted (as the title suggests) to music. Some of this was well-executed, some struggled to hold my attention. Greil Marcus never fails to deliver some quality material, and his contribution, a piece on Harry Smith's Anthology Of American Folk Music (something of a pet topic for him) is a typically excellent work. Richard Williams' exploration of Frank Sinatra's mob ties was interesting as an explication of something I had heard about but never fully explored. And Julian Barnes' "The Silence" was an unexpected, yet successful, piece that is a sort of speculative biography of Sibelius from the first person perspective.
Not everything works as well. Nik Cohn's take on New Orleans hip hop would be pretty good if he didn't rely on utilizing so much street slang in his own work without really contextualizing it as the vernacular of the individuals about whom he's writing. I mean, I know it is consciously, but there's something weird about a fifty-something white British guy use "nigga" and "soljas" in so seemingly casual a manner. As somebody whose taste in classical music leans far more heavily on contemporary permutations of the style (a.k.a. - a philistine), much of the work on Mozart and Bach slipped by me, though they may well have been better suited to a reader more inclined towards that style.
Not the most even effort, but not awful.
Not everything works as well. Nik Cohn's take on New Orleans hip hop would be pretty good if he didn't rely on utilizing so much street slang in his own work without really contextualizing it as the vernacular of the individuals about whom he's writing. I mean, I know it is consciously, but there's something weird about a fifty-something white British guy use "nigga" and "soljas" in so seemingly casual a manner. As somebody whose taste in classical music leans far more heavily on contemporary permutations of the style (a.k.a. - a philistine), much of the work on Mozart and Bach slipped by me, though they may well have been better suited to a reader more inclined towards that style.
Not the most even effort, but not awful.
March 1, 2018
The highlights are the pieces by Nik Cohn, Ian Jack, Alan Rusbridger and Greil Marcus. Nick Hornby's piece is also worthwhile but insubstantial.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews