Pop When The World Falls Apart: Music In The Shadow Of Doubt

I never hyped this book when it came out. I don't think I did anyway. It's good! It came out this spring. And I should mention it on here. Did I mention it on here? I don't think I did. It didn't seem to get reviewed anywhere much, and it should have because there is a lot of good writing in it. Duke University Press puts out some really groovy books. So, if you see it somewhere cheap, buy it!

“[T]he range of contributors in this collected volume refreshingly breaks the cult of expertise often surrounding popular music discourse and refrains from burying the reader under a barrage of cultural theory verbiage. Both entertaining and educational, this latest compilation in the series will appeal with equal measure to both critics and fans.”
- Joshua Finnell, Library Journal

"Pop When the World Falls Apart gazes deep into the abyss of pop fandom—its pleasures and fears, complexities and contradictions—and then dives right into the heart of it all. These essays enliven the sheer absurdity of loving music so much through the caustic precision of their insights. Read them and weep, and laugh, and sing."—Barry Shank, co-editor of American Studies: An Anthology and The Popular Music Studies Reader

"The best essays in this brooding, often brilliant collection both reflect and reflect upon struggle and trouble, whether it's the sonics of the Iraq conflict, the post-Katrina culture war threatening New Orleans's jazz scene, or the self-annihilation of those Nixon-era popmeisters, the Carpenters. Pop When the World Falls Apart is an indispensable document of what cultural criticism reads and rocks like during these hard and bewildering times."—Alice Echols, author of Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture

"The voices in Pop When the World Falls Apart are so strong the book raises a new question: which critics would you take to a desert island? Everyone will have a different answer. For me, it would be Tom Smucker, Eric Lott, and Scott Seward. They'd argue til the sun came up, full of smiles and exasperation; I’d get to listen."—Greil Marcus

Contributors: Larry Blumenfeld , Austin Bunn, Nate Chinen, J. Martin Daughtry, Brian Goedde, Michelle Habell-Pallán, Jonathan Lethem, Eric Lott, Kembrew McLeod, Elena Passarello, Diane Pecknold, David Ritz, Carlo Rotella, Scott Seward, Tom Smucker, Greg Tate, Karen Tongson, Alexandra T. Vazquez, Oliver Wang, Eric Weisbard, Carl Wilson