what writers do you personally like/enjoy?

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they dont necessarily have to be current...... me, i like CSM - just got his shots from the hip book and the one on bowie with roy carr and like both a lot (although his use of then-hip slang is horrible. its like some new NME hack using hip hop slang in earnest).

― dickvandyke (dickvandyke), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 22:24 (twenty-one years ago)

six months pass...

Swygart! For President!

― Jole, Sunday, 23 January 2005 15:46 (twenty-one years ago)

hornby

― erv (Abe Froman), Sunday, 23 January 2005 15:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Big surprise, but Mr. Q. There are many others, though -- on this board (past and present), Jess, Mike D., Don, Dan P., Mr. Blount, Mr. Matos, Mr. Miccio, Nath, Leon, Chuck E., Scott, Al, Nate...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 23 January 2005 16:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I am surprised by many of the writers I like I read here while lurking and trolling. Ned is one (I enjoy your AMG reviews), Dominique Leone is the highlight of Pitchfork, Dave Queen is hilarious, Chuck E. and M. Matos sway me. Many people who post here too crack my shit up and induce me to run out to the record store. Non-ILMors--Sasha Frere-Jones, Greg Kot, Greil Marcus, Simon Frith, Richard Meltzer (The Aesthetics of Rock is one of the best rock books I've read), Lester Bangs, Julian Cope, Mikal Gilmore, Nik Cohn, Nick Kent, Monica Kendrick, and Robert Christgau.

― Hawley Griffin, Sunday, 23 January 2005 16:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Ned is one (I enjoy your AMG reviews)

Aw, thanks. One tries. But trolling? Wait, who are ya? You weren't that character on the Young/Skynyrd thread, are you?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 23 January 2005 16:31 (twenty-one years ago)

No! But I am a character, or was, on the best guitarists thread (he shares, derailing this one)

Oh and just yesterday I read your review of Let Love In. Nice!

― Hawley Griffin, Sunday, 23 January 2005 17:08 (twenty-one years ago)

I used to really enjoy John Leland back in the day (as they say). Can't say I've followed his stuff over the years since he left SPIN, tho'.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 23 January 2005 17:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Without sounding like a psychophant (sp?), I find the writing here on ILM more interesting, engaging and informative than in most music rags these days.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 23 January 2005 17:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I used to really enjoy John Leland back in the day

Hells yes. Leland wrote a page long review of "Bring the Noise" that singlehandedly introduced me to hip hop. I wish I still had the clip in my filing cabinet. Truly evocative writing that opened up a whole new world to me.

I find the writing here on ILM more interesting, engaging and informative than in most music rags these days.

agreed.

― john'n'chicago, Sunday, 23 January 2005 17:23 (twenty-one years ago)

frank kogan & mark sinker

― alext (alext), Sunday, 23 January 2005 17:24 (twenty-one years ago)

My two big role models re: music writing are Douglas Wolk and Sasha Frere-Jones. I think that they are very thoughtful, accessable writers with a good taste and a sense of humor. They both are pretty fair and level-headed. They have a nice, light touch with their language - very good with flow and economy. A lot of Sasha's writing in particular is very lyrical without seeming like he's working it overtime. I would like to be even half as good as they are.

As for less established writers, I'm a big fan of Mike "Eppy" Barthel and Abby McDonald.

― Matthew "Flux" Perpetua, Sunday, 23 January 2005 17:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Robert Christgau is number one. All others are number two or lower.

― miccio (miccio), Sunday, 23 January 2005 17:40 (twenty-one years ago)

So who's number zero? Or i?

Oh and just yesterday I read your review of Let Love In. Nice!

Why thank ya.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 23 January 2005 17:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Dylan, now, too, I guess, in his John Smith phase.

― Hawley Griffin, Sunday, 23 January 2005 19:30 (twenty-one years ago)

"...Soutine the painter, the Jimmy Reed of the art world."

Dylan seconded. (quote from Chronicles Vol One).

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Sunday, 23 January 2005 19:36 (twenty-one years ago)

"Warhol's name got batted around, too. Warhol, the king of pop. One critic in Warhol's time had said he'd give you a million dollars if you could find one ounce of hope or love in any of his work, as if that was important."

Hey, this guy's pretty good.

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Sunday, 23 January 2005 19:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I like Christgau's style, though I disagree with him about pretty much everything. I hate Dave Q's style. Each represents one end of a line. Put everybody else in the world somewhere on that line and you can chart my tastes and my aspirations as a rock hack.

Books that have influenced me most as a thinker and a writer about music: Joe Carducci's Rock And The Pop Narcotic and Greg Tate's Flyboy In The Buttermilk.

Byron Coley should put out an anthology, but it'd probably be the size of that William Vollmann book that McSweeney's released, the one that comes with its own shelf.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Sunday, 23 January 2005 19:51 (twenty-one years ago)

tobias c. van veen

― Lovelace, Sunday, 23 January 2005 19:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Without sounding like a psychophant?

Sycophant? Although a psychophant sounds kinda cool. :-)

There are too many people here and elsewhere I like. From Marcello, Simon R, Mark S, Geeta, Omar (quickly turning into one of my fave writers), Ned, Ethan, Jess, Patrin, Miccio, Matos... Of course Lester Bangs, Coley, Frith and Richard Meltzer. Also most importantly Marcus. NOT. hah. Not really writing about music but still two I admire immensely: Benjamin and Barthes.

― stevie nixed (stevie nixed), Sunday, 23 January 2005 19:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Dave Marsh has always been a huge influence on both my music listening and my writing. His Heart of Rock & Soul countdown of 1,001 "important" singles single-handedly got me interested in music journalism (prior to that, I was just a chart geek). Also, along with those mentioned above, Ann Powers and Jon Pareles always give me lots to think about when they write.

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:02 (twenty-one years ago)

richard meltzer, lester bangs, byron coley, jack cole, msp, michaelangelo matos, monica kendrick, andy battaglia, yancey strickler, geeta dayal, john litweiler, clinton heylin, legs mcneil, jon savage, greil marcus once or twice, john cage, tom pynchon, seth sanders, sasha frere-jones, jess, patrin, miccio, michael azzerad (yeah yeah), joe carducci, kyle gann (once a mentor), ian nagoski (sp? the halana guy), the blastitude.com dudes, tony rettman, and many many more.

― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Ned, thanks, I like your writing too. I like most of the above. Kinda burned out on listmaking at the moment. Funny the ones I know I can rely on for good writing, and* for recommending something I know I wouldn't like, thus their endorsements save me a whole lotta money! (Nobody on ILM, far as I know who's behind the screen names.)

― don, Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:31 (twenty-one years ago)

tobias c. van veen?

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:33 (twenty-one years ago)

i like ned's writing too.

― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:53 (twenty-one years ago)

i should've mentioned simon reynolds tho i hate his nyt article today. and kalefah sanneh is a good read too, even tho that rockism article was weak to boot.

― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 20:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Lester Bangs is a genius, but only when edited shrewdly. I dig anything he wrote for actualy publications (Creem, Village Voice), but I can't stand his Notes on... selections--too much meth.

I can't remember ever reading something in the New Yorker (Sasha Frere-Jones, Alex Ross) I didn't agree with or at least admire for its incision. But everything the New Yorker publishes is brilliant, eh?

Pitchfork has some great writers: Dominique Leone, Nick Sylvester, Mark Richardson, and formerly Chris Ott (who, I guess, now writes for Perfect Sound Forever) and William Bowers (I don't know where he is now).

As far as academic music criticism, I'm into to Walter Benjamin (Ben-hah-meen) and Roland Barthes (Bart/Bart-uh), but I just bought this mammoth collection by Teddy Adorno and I'm going to crack it open sooner or later.

The last book I read was Lost Joy by Camden Joy, and I really wanted to like it, but it just didn't do it for me. Maybe it just isn't a good collection. He's clever and obviously knows a lot about music, but he writes so much bullshit that you're never sure what's actually true. Maybe I'll try it again in ten years when I'm wiser. Oh well. ("Calling of the Fatwa" did make me almost piss my pants, though.)

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Sunday, 23 January 2005 21:35 (twenty-one years ago)

i dunno, i thot that recent mashup article in the new yorker was sorta pointless.

― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 21:41 (twenty-one years ago)

well, it was about two year late, i guess, but still kinda revelatory... for me, at least haha

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Sunday, 23 January 2005 21:50 (twenty-one years ago)

But everything the New Yorker publishes is brilliant, eh?

Well, I write for the New Yorker, so there goes that theory.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 23 January 2005 21:51 (twenty-one years ago)

tobias c. van veen?
-- Naive Teen Idol (matthewweine...), January 23rd, 2005 12:33 PM. (Naive Teen Idol)

from vancouver, writes about electronic music

― Shmool McShmool (shmuel), Sunday, 23 January 2005 21:52 (twenty-one years ago)

haha i always try to guess what listings you've written, alex. it's a fun game!

― hstencil (hstencil), Sunday, 23 January 2005 21:52 (twenty-one years ago)

That guy with the hat.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Sunday, 23 January 2005 21:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Mencken, Lewis Lapham, Barbara Ehrenreich.

― Matt Sipchen, Sunday, 23 January 2005 22:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Music writers: Christgau, Sasha Frere-Jones, Matos, Eric Weisbard (writes too infrequently these days), Ann Powers, early Greil Marcus (In the Fascist Bathroom era).

Favorite critics/columnists: Edmund Wilson, Pauline Kael, James Wood, Walter Benjamin, Gore Vidal, Christopher Hitchens, David Thomas, Andrew Sullivan, Daniel Mendelsohn.

As far as writers of fiction, way, way, way too many to mention. I'll just mention what I'm reading now: Balzac, Andrew Hollinghurst.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 23 January 2005 23:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Andrew or Alan Hollinghurst?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 23 January 2005 23:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Charles Krauthammer, Lucious Cornholt, Jerry Kramer, Noam Chomsky, Gene Sculatti, William Safire, Frank Rich, Margaret Carlson, I. P. Daly, C. P. Snow, Spengler, Stanislaw Lem, David Berg, Joe Bob Briggs, Carl Hiassen, Friedrich Durrenmatt, Frank Wedekind, Max Boot, Bill Clinton, Mark Ratner, Joe Eszterhas, Ted Kaczynski, Harlan Ellison, Xandor Korzibski, Mike Hunt, Fester Bestertester, John Wyndham, J. G. Ballard, Len Righi, Karel Capek, Gustav Meyrink, A. K. Dewdney, Tim LaHaye, Legs McNeil, Peter Laughner, Seymour Heiny, Stephen Glass, Seymour Hersh, Mark Twain, Algernon Blackwood, Kingsley Amis, Newt Gingrich.

― Harold Hill, Sunday, 23 January 2005 23:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Nonfiction/(mostly) non-music: Rebecca West, George W.S. Trow, George Orwell, Mim Udovitch, Susan Orlean, William Vollmann, David Foster Wallace, Ryszard Kapuscinski.

― Douglas (Douglas), Sunday, 23 January 2005 23:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I always liked Kitty Empire, for the name alone. And Simon Price because he always looks like a reject from Priscilla Queen of the Desert in a goth sort of way.

― Molly, Sunday, 23 January 2005 23:59 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

Kodwo Eshun.

― tV, Monday, 24 April 2006 18:12 (twenty years ago)

Kodwo seconded, but where he been?

musically, of the others mentioned above, I think Reynolds is still tops...only he and Marcello are capable of getting me to buy something with nothing but their big-ups to go on...

― hank (hank s), Monday, 24 April 2006 18:33 (twenty years ago)

Syck Nilvester, I.P. Daily, LaVar Arrington, Howard Zinn, Ralph Nader, William Safire, Alfred E. Neuman, Michelle Malkin, Richard Feynman, William Steinmetz, Roger Kaputnik, Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Erin Aubry Kaplan, Kevin Phillips, Alistair McClean, John Wyndham, Ben Dover, Al Gore, Franz Kafka, James Risen, Feindish Plot, Edgar Allen Poe, Rachel Carson, Alvin Toffler, Bruce Sterling, Tom Wolfe, Hunter Thompson, Pol Potrzebie and Axolotl.

― FesterBesterTester, Monday, 24 April 2006 18:53 (twenty years ago)

http://www.branchesquarterly.com/images/axolotl-RFein700.JPG
"The new White Stripes album is distinctly lacking in both execution and soul..."

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Monday, 24 April 2006 19:01 (twenty years ago)

Julio Cortazar to thread.

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Monday, 24 April 2006 19:19 (twenty years ago)

hahaha SHERBURNE OTM ON BOTH LEVELS and we're out

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Monday, 24 April 2006 19:28 (twenty years ago)

tim finney. everything he ever wrote on ilm about music i love (joni mitchell and talk talk come to mind) was the spottest on i have read about them. with his careful analysis he finds the right words to describe the details of the music which matter. a joy to read. the love comes through. when i think about ilm and mags it's like a live concert and a studio recording. and to feel the love the concert (and ilm) is better. for example lambchop, low and yo la tengo live are able to spread the love to the listener. as is tim with his writing.

unfortunately i have no relation to the music he usually writes about which is electronic dance stuff, i think.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Monday, 24 April 2006 19:36 (twenty years ago)

Have the various Alexes that post on ILM considered forming a band together? That'd be cool. Of couse, I notice that often you all seem to take the contrairian view -- or at least the curmudgeonly one. You all have a talent for advancing threads into surprising territory.

Actually forget it then. You'd all want to be the lead singer.

― Chris O., Monday, 24 April 2006 19:45 (twenty years ago)

Sasha Frere-Jones, Thomas Bartlett, Chris Ott.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Monday, 24 April 2006 19:46 (twenty years ago)

but we are all one, chris. different emanations of the one alex. i'd try the handclaps in that band.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Monday, 24 April 2006 19:55 (twenty years ago)

To answer more seriously: I definitely like Sasha's writing tremendouly, because he makes it seem so damn easy. Others on my adoration list: Frank Kogan, Rob Harvilla, Douglas Wolk, Charley Cross, Peter Guralnick, Rob Tannenbaum, Kelefa Sanneh (the best among the folks in my age group), Nick Catucci, Katy St. Clair, Chuck Klosterman, Billy Altman, Eric Boehelert (who sorta still counts), Jody Rosen, John Pareles, Tom Moon and Ben Ratliff. Props to three others I admire to no end: Brian Hiatt, Matty Karas and Chris Nelson ... three consummate pros.

― Chris O., Monday, 24 April 2006 19:56 (twenty years ago)

tom clancy

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Monday, 24 April 2006 20:04 (twenty years ago)

by "personally" do we mean enjoy their company?

― strongo hulkington is a guy with a belly button piercing (dubplatestyle), Monday, 24 April 2006 20:07 (twenty years ago)

I definitely like Jason Gross and Dominique Leone as far as music critics go. Also Dom Passantino. Generally, I don't have any critics I really can't stand.

― Harrison Barr (Petar), Monday, 24 April 2006 20:09 (twenty years ago)

Tick Sylvesterbester

― 0-9808, Monday, 24 April 2006 20:28 (twenty years ago)

someone else who hasn't been mentioned yet. john darnielle. best review of a record ever. i mean that piece on amnesiac.

not to forget fred solinger. best blog writer on music fullstop. how come that his blog vain, selfish and lazy is still more or less on the dark side of the moon? i will never understand.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Monday, 24 April 2006 20:29 (twenty years ago)

Charles Dickens. Bleak House rules.

― Harold Skimpole, Monday, 24 April 2006 20:33 (twenty years ago)

do you have a link to john darnielle on amnesiac (which i think is a terrible record)?

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 24 April 2006 20:53 (twenty years ago)

no, it's gone. i think i have it somewhere on the other comp. if you don't like the record what's the point?

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Monday, 24 April 2006 20:58 (twenty years ago)

k-punk = MY BLOGGA 4 LIFE. He may be batshit insane but he's not wrong.

― XFOLI8R, Monday, 24 April 2006 20:59 (twenty years ago)

well it's not a given that darnielle likes the record either (since i haven't read the review). anyway i like radiohead so i guess that's the point.

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 24 April 2006 21:02 (twenty years ago)

Three great critics not mentioned yet: Tom Carson, John Leonard, James Wolcott.

― Martin Van Buren (Martin Van Buren), Monday, 24 April 2006 21:07 (twenty years ago)

sorry jed, i couldn't find it on the 2nd computer. it wouldn't have persuaded you anyway. as amnesiac is obviously even stronger than the review. my album of the zero years. it foreshadows the current frightening situation the world is in.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Monday, 24 April 2006 21:50 (twenty years ago)

Eshun has disappeared from the music scene somewhat as he never was a scenester -- he's a writer. (Though you still see his words in i-D & the Face occasionally, of course The Wire). _More Brilliant than the Sun_ is a technophilosophic treatise in machinic parts as well as serving as an interplanetary guide to posthuman music.

http://www.jahsonic.com/KodwoEshun.html

― tV, Tuesday, 2 May 2006 18:46 (twenty years ago)

More Brilliant Than the Sun by concept engineer and earthbound human-shaped solid Kodwo Eshun is what ILM theorist tV calls "a technophilosophic treatise in machinic parts."

― Andy_K (Andy_K), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 19:02 (twenty years ago)

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