Da Capo Best Music Writing 2006

Da Capo Best Music Writing

by Mary Gaitskill (Editor), Daphne Carr

Whether you count yourself a member of the hip-hop nation, bang your head yearly at Ozzfest, wear a cowboy hat, or dance to the top twenty, you're sure to find something to love in Da Capo Best Music Writing 2006. Gathering a rich array of writing by music journalists, novelists, and scribes from a wide range of sources-highbrow literary quarterlies to 'zines and blogs--Da Capo Best Music Writing is a multi-voiced snapshot of the year in music writing that, like the music it illuminates, is every bit as thrilling as it is revealing.

Genres: Music, Essays, Nonfiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published October 23, 2006

About the author

Mary Gaitskill is an American author of essays, short stories and novels. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories (1993 and 2006), and The O. Henry Prize Stories (1998). She married writer Peter Trachtenberg in 2001. As of 2005, she lived in New York City; Gaitskill has previously lived in Toronto, San Francisco, and Marin County, CA, as well as attending the University of Michigan where she earned her B.A. and won a Hopwood Award. Gaitskill has recounted (in her essay "Revelation") becoming a born-again Christian at age 21 but lapsing after six months.

Reviews

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This year's guest editor Mary Gaitskill opens the 2006 edition by explaining that although she knows that DeCapo is *supposed* to highlight the best music writing of the year, she took an approach that was more along the lines of creating "a mix tape of sounds a person might hear in life."

Now don't get me wrong; DeCapo is always a worthwhile read, and I really like certain stylistic things that Gaitskill did with this edition; it's a great idea, for instance, to intersperse the longer essays with single-paragraph review blurbs. However, using only Mike McGuirk's work to do so seems a bit lazy, especially given that it's only average as writing goes, and to rely so heavily on one journalist's work definitely goes against any kind of "mix tape" effect. And since Gaitskill isn't really using the DeCapo forum to highlight *the best* music writing of the year per se, she feels ok going with some standard issue selections from the most obvious, go-to writers of this form such as Griel Marcus and Robert Christgau. Did we really need Christgau to tell us that Billie Holiday is the first lady of song? ("Every good thing people say about her is true?")

I think not. The best music writing moves beyond praise of long since culturally sanctioned artists--either by creating a new understanding of those artists or, preferably, venturing into less well traveled territory altogether. I would have loved to have read, for instance, the unselected essay on how Kanye West got an honorary degree in African American Studies in 2006, but instead I got Tom Ewing's analysis of "Eleanor Rigby," a Beatles song that has been around for over 40 years. This year's edition left me wondering what on earth has been going on with the music scene in New Orleans lately, but I did get to learn that Kimberly Chun finds Dolly Parton a relatively apolitical performer compared to the Dixie Chicks--an observation I might have safely made on my own, were it worth pondering much at all.

There are some notable exceptions to the been-there-done-that syndrome of this edition. There's an amazing essay by Moustafa Bayoumi on how American forces use music to torture suspected terrorists and prisoners of war. Katy St. Clair reveals the surprising but enduring bond between Huey Lewis and developmentally disabled people, and toward the very end of the book, Monica Kendrick and David Marchese are allowed to explore some of the more fascinating things going on in heavy metal. But for every interesting essay, there's one featuring reheated feminism, dusty rock journalism, and/or two-dimensional icon worship.

In other words, if this were a mix tape, it'd have some good tunes you'd never heard before, but just as many that you'd heard one too many times.

[Dylan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was paging through it in the library when I heard my friend's laugh a few aisles over. I went over to say hi and he was looking at a 15 century scientific woodcut of a hippo eating a crocodile. I forgot where i picked up this book so I checked it out and it turns out there's stuff in it I don't mind knowing about. Fancy that. Half pleasing overall.

[Emily]

did you know that if you go to a huey lewis concert, 70% of the audience will be developmentally disabled? seriously. he is the bruce springsteen of people with special needs.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am pleasantly surprised! Nearly every piece in this broad-ranging book is worth reading. I never knew Mary Gaitskill was so hip to the jams.

[Cynthia]

Five words, Huey Lewis and the News.