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Everything We Do is Music: How 20th-Century Classical Music Shaped Pop
The worlds of pop and rock owe a much greater debt to the classical canon than we realise. A direct and fascinating lineage draws from the experimentalism of Pierre Henry to The Beatles' 'Tomorrow Never Knows', from Stockhausen to Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love' and from Bruckner to Sonic Youth via Glenn Branca. In Everything We Do is Music, Elizabeth Alker highlights the innovators of classical music and their fans and collaborators in pop who challenged the notion that such musical worlds were mutually exclusive. Alker shines a light on the rich tapestry that exists between their borders through exclusive interviews with Sir Paul McCartney, Steve Reich, La Monte Young, Nils Frahm, The Blessed Madonna, Jonny Greenwood, Soweto Kinch and Jean-Michel Jarre among others.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
September 23, 2026
Everything We Do Is Music - a title borrowed from John Cage - is subtitled How 20th-Century Classical Music Shaped Pop, which doesn’t really do justice to the imaginative scope of this book and the complexity of the story it tells. It might be more accurate to say that it chronicles how, in the 20th century and beyond, music was transformed by new technology, the boundaries between ‘serious’ and popular music began to be eroded, and the definition of what music is was extended. Alker surveys an extraordinarily wide range of music and musicians - Edgar Varèse, Frank Zappa, John Cage, Erik Satie, Brian Eno, the Beatles, musique concrète, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Kraftwerk, disco, Krzysztof Penderecki, Radiohead, La Monte Young, the Velvet Underground, funk, Pauline Oliveros, techno, No wave, Japanese ambient electronica, house, minimalism - and ‘joins the dots’ between them to reveal a complex web of interrelationships. It’s a dizzying celebration of musical innovation and experiment across genres and cultures.
Everything We Do… is strong on the historical context of all this experimentation. After 1945 musicians and other creative artists were keen to create a new future and challenge orthodoxy in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust. Composers like Stockhausen, and later on groups such as Kraftwerk and Can, were remaking German musical culture after the catastrophe of Nazism. The music of post-war Polish composers like Penderecki and Górecki was informed by the horrors of the wartime occupation, and, in Penderecki’s words, ‘forty-five years of living under a puppet government, when no politics was possible without asking Moscow’. The abrasive and dissonant sounds of the New York No Wave scene of the late 1970s seem like the natural product of a bankrupt, rundown and violent city. Japanese ambient music, or Kankyõ Ongaku, provided a much-needed counterbalance to the frenetic nature of daily life produced by the 1980s economic boom.
I have reservations about Alker’s use of the terms ‘classical’ and ‘pop’. Perhaps it’s convenient as an organising device, but it tends to reinforce a dualism which the musicians themselves were busy subverting. It even seems contrary to the spirit of her own book. I’m not sure how valid the term ‘classical music’ is in this context. Pierre Henry, Cage, Oliveros, Reich and Glass, for instance, were all formally trained composers, but ‘classical’? It might have been better to call everything experimental, from Tomorrow Never Knows to 4’33’’, and leave it at that. It is also clear from Alker’s text, despite the subtitle, that there was a reciprocal influence between the avant-garde and pop. The narrative she unfolds is slightly at odds with, and more fascinatingly knotty than, her structural framework. The Beatles utilised techniques from musique concrète, and Eno’s ambient music can be traced back to Cage, Oliveros and Satie, but Miles Davis and John Coltrane were among Steve Reich’s key influences, and the Philip Glass Ensemble had the volume and visceral impact of any rock group. Alker suggests that in America popular and classical music have always been ‘more closely entwined’ than in the European tradition as they ‘grew up together’. Although this is true, there is another and larger truth: classical composers always borrowed from folk music and, in the first half of the 20th century, Ravel and Stravinsky, among others, had already been influenced by jazz.
These minor points aside, this is a terrific book which combines scholarship, a passion for music regardless of genre, and a wonderful open-mindedness about what music is. I learnt a lot and it has returned me to some old favourites with freshly educated ears, as well as introducing me to a lot of music I hadn’t heard. You can’t ask more than that from a book about music.
Everything We Do… is strong on the historical context of all this experimentation. After 1945 musicians and other creative artists were keen to create a new future and challenge orthodoxy in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust. Composers like Stockhausen, and later on groups such as Kraftwerk and Can, were remaking German musical culture after the catastrophe of Nazism. The music of post-war Polish composers like Penderecki and Górecki was informed by the horrors of the wartime occupation, and, in Penderecki’s words, ‘forty-five years of living under a puppet government, when no politics was possible without asking Moscow’. The abrasive and dissonant sounds of the New York No Wave scene of the late 1970s seem like the natural product of a bankrupt, rundown and violent city. Japanese ambient music, or Kankyõ Ongaku, provided a much-needed counterbalance to the frenetic nature of daily life produced by the 1980s economic boom.
I have reservations about Alker’s use of the terms ‘classical’ and ‘pop’. Perhaps it’s convenient as an organising device, but it tends to reinforce a dualism which the musicians themselves were busy subverting. It even seems contrary to the spirit of her own book. I’m not sure how valid the term ‘classical music’ is in this context. Pierre Henry, Cage, Oliveros, Reich and Glass, for instance, were all formally trained composers, but ‘classical’? It might have been better to call everything experimental, from Tomorrow Never Knows to 4’33’’, and leave it at that. It is also clear from Alker’s text, despite the subtitle, that there was a reciprocal influence between the avant-garde and pop. The narrative she unfolds is slightly at odds with, and more fascinatingly knotty than, her structural framework. The Beatles utilised techniques from musique concrète, and Eno’s ambient music can be traced back to Cage, Oliveros and Satie, but Miles Davis and John Coltrane were among Steve Reich’s key influences, and the Philip Glass Ensemble had the volume and visceral impact of any rock group. Alker suggests that in America popular and classical music have always been ‘more closely entwined’ than in the European tradition as they ‘grew up together’. Although this is true, there is another and larger truth: classical composers always borrowed from folk music and, in the first half of the 20th century, Ravel and Stravinsky, among others, had already been influenced by jazz.
These minor points aside, this is a terrific book which combines scholarship, a passion for music regardless of genre, and a wonderful open-mindedness about what music is. I learnt a lot and it has returned me to some old favourites with freshly educated ears, as well as introducing me to a lot of music I hadn’t heard. You can’t ask more than that from a book about music.
November 25, 2025
Some chapters are great (Beatles, Sonic Youth, Japanese ambient music) while others are Phillip Glass-level of sleep-inducing. Glad I read it, though!
August 7, 2026
Don't let the naive title fool you, this is a surprisingly comprehensive and informative survey of the 20th century avant garde and it's influence on pop/rock music.
This isn't a textbook though, and doesn't explore the composition techniques of each composer in much detail, sometimes even making a few mistakes when it comes to serialism. This is to be expected, Alker isn't a professional musicologist.
That said, the value of this book is that it invariably exposes you to figures, groups and even entire movements that you probably wouldn't have known about. In that sense it's informative on a surface level.
Complaints: parts can be a bit overwritten. I found that the same descriptions of 'music' and 'sound' were being recycled throughout especially when it came to the ambient and minimalist chapters. We don't need an entire breakdown of how mixing works every time it's brought up. The constant anti-soviet undertones (overtones?) get annoying pretty quickly and the autobiographical analysis of each composer's music can be tedious-- some people just like making music they don't need a sob story!
This isn't a textbook though, and doesn't explore the composition techniques of each composer in much detail, sometimes even making a few mistakes when it comes to serialism. This is to be expected, Alker isn't a professional musicologist.
That said, the value of this book is that it invariably exposes you to figures, groups and even entire movements that you probably wouldn't have known about. In that sense it's informative on a surface level.
Complaints: parts can be a bit overwritten. I found that the same descriptions of 'music' and 'sound' were being recycled throughout especially when it came to the ambient and minimalist chapters. We don't need an entire breakdown of how mixing works every time it's brought up. The constant anti-soviet undertones (overtones?) get annoying pretty quickly and the autobiographical analysis of each composer's music can be tedious-- some people just like making music they don't need a sob story!
September 24, 2025
Fantastically well researched and intelligent book on electronic music and its influences. Covers all the bases from France to America to Tokyo from minimalism to Disco to trance.
Extremely impressive and very enjoyable analysis that finds the right level of detail and introduces you to a raft of new musical options. Great stuff.
Extremely impressive and very enjoyable analysis that finds the right level of detail and introduces you to a raft of new musical options. Great stuff.
October 13, 2025
I borrowed from the library then bought a copy! The best music book I've read since Charlie Gillet's Sound of the City which started by musical journey way back. This is as close as a chronology of my interests in the subsequent period. Elizabeth is one of those writers who goes beyond just a mere recitation of dates and titles but into the lives of the musicians. Poor old Theremins unrequited love will break hearts.
October 13, 2026
I listened to this as an audio book and I really loved it. I was excited to read it as someone who loves music of all genres. What I loved about it was the depth and detail that Elizabeth has gone into exploring the links in genres. I am now doing a deep dive into some of the music and artists I had not come across. Brilliant!!
November 13, 2025
4.67 - The author draws interesting strands of music together creating a musical map of the avant garde. Clearly explained and contextualised pioneers in classical and popular music, this is a great jumping off point for musical exploration
January 23, 2026
Loved this book. made a playlist of selected pieces cited in the book
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f-0t...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f-0t...
June 14, 2026
Some really good chapters on early electronic artists. The accompanying spotify playlist is a must listen.
February 25, 2026
Audio. Such knowledge and so well researched. I actually did a uni course on electronic music in the 80’s and this was way beyond the level we were ‘taught’
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews