If a book called How to Write About Music sounds like something you’ve just got to read, chances are you’re already writing about music. That said, the perspectives shared throughout this 400-page compendium from the folks behind the sensational 33 1/3 series of album dissertations (published by Bloomsbury, edited by Marc Woodworth and Ally-Jane Grossan) is both useful and, particularly to emerging writers, enlightening.
Indeed, while presented essentially as a combination textbook/workbook, what lay within doesn’t instruct so much as it surveys various types of music writing while offering practical insights from some of the trade’s most renowned, influential (and, at times, pretentious) exponents.
Along the way the reader will encounter everything from critical reviews to personal essays to artist interviews and profiles to consolidated cultural studies of select musical touchstones and themes — in other words, everything from the most traditional forms of music writing to its most avant-garde expositions. There’s even a chapter on how to pitch a 33 1/3 series book, including sample proposals.
Ultimately, though, if How to Write About Music yields one unifying theme it’s that there is no one correct way to write about music, but the book nevertheless provides invaluable context and encouragement to those with a passion for the craft.
Between 1978 and 2006, Leonard Cohen produced a body of music that rivals among the finest in his entire canon. Also in this era, he saw his popularity grow exponentially as his albums resonated with critics and audiences on a major scale. No longer a fringe artist with a cult following, Cohen evolved into a full-fledged (if not most-unlikely) pop star.
Leonard Cohen Under Review 1978 — 2006 examines this era of the legend’s music, paying particular attention to the context within which it was created and why much of it remains so highly regarded. Like other documentaries in the Under Review series, assorted music journalists (like Robert Christgau and Anthony DeCurtis) as well as other subject-relative specialists (like Cohen’s official biographer, Ira Nadel) lend their perceptions and insights. If any songwriter invites such meticulous assessment, it’s Cohen, but thankfully these commentators don’t succumb to tedious, condescending analysis.
While it highlights each studio album from Recent Songs to Dear Heather, the film uses Death of a Ladies Man, Cohen’s ill-fated 1977 collaboration with Phil Spector, as its thematic spark. Described as nothing short of a “debacle,” the project is evidenced to show that Cohen could only be at his best when he didn’t compromise his creative intent or accommodate anything but his own muse.
The documentary’s most astute contention, though, is that Cohen’s latter day ascent in popularity could, in part, be attributed to the recognition afforded him by a series of tribute albums featuring more mainstream performers covering his works. In particular, the 1987 Jennifer Warnes LP, Famous Blue Raincoat, as well as the various artist compilations, I’m Your Fan and Tower of Song: The Songs of Leonard Cohen, exposed Cohen’s songwriting prowess to a mass audience. And after appreciating these interpretive versions from an arguably more palatable perspective, much of that mass audience then sought out their source.
That visibility, so goes the assertion, thus enabled Cohen, upon the 1988 release of I’m Your Man, to reach and ultimately appeal to an unprecedented number of listeners. Unanimously acknowledged in the documentary as a masterpiece, the album catalyzed Cohen’s music career while subsequent efforts—most notably, The Future, with its prophesied, apocalyptic motif—substantiated his newfound distinction. As well, his voice having taken on a deep and sobering tone around this time, Cohen invested gravitas into his songs that rendered him an affecting vocalist in his own right.
A clear and convincing case is made in Leonard Cohen Under Review 1978 — 2006 as to how and why the music Cohen produced in this era so crucially factors into his overall renown. There are, of course, a multitude of reasons why, at age 74, Leonard Cohen still draws sell-out audiences in venues the world over. Nevertheless, this documentary addresses a few of them quite well.
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