Listen to This

"Ross veers effortlessly from Mozart to Radiohead, and from Kurt Cobain to Bahms, bringing a pop fan's enthusiasm to the composers and treating the rock stars seriously as musicians . . . A joy for a pop fan or a classical aficionado."—The New York Times Book Review

"A posture of eclectic inquiry infuses this absorbing collection."—Amanda Heller, The Boston Globe

"A cause for celebration . . . Liston to This deserves to stand next to the best-written modern books on music."—Tom Nolan, San Francisco Chronicle

"Running through every piece is a spirit of adventure, common sense, joy, and, ultimately engagement."—Alan Moores, The Seattle Times

"Such a pleasure to read . . . a critic with an unusually wide frame of reference."—The Economist

"A love letter to sound . . . Ross deftly draws in the ears of the seasoned and the uninitiated alike, demystifying the traditions of music while celebrating its ability to transform . . . Undeniably essential."—Doyle Armbrust, Time Out (Chicago)

"It is rare to find a music critic who can write as authoritatively about Mozart and Schubert as he can about Radiohead and Björk . . . [Listen to This] is a reminder that a love of music need not—nay should not—be bound by category."—Toronto Star's "Ten Best Books of the Year"

"Lively and fascinating . . . Ross has a wonderful knack for catching the human gesture embedded in a musical phrase."—Ivan Hewett, The Daily Telegraph (London)

"Listen to This reveals . . . [Ross] to be the exact kind of critic his era needs . . . in other words, he's a thinker with style and stylist who thinks . . . Alex Ross is one of the great civilized pleasures anywhere on any subject."—Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News (Editor's Choice)

"No matter how complex his thinking, Ross renders it in lucid approachable language: as you read Ross's writing, you hear him talking to you."—Fred Cohn, Opera News

"So graceful, so pithy, so thoughtful, and full of insight . . . one cannot believe that anyone who loves music would not love Listen to This."—The Christian Science Monitor

"[Ross] reminds me of my other favorite music critic, Bernard Shaw."—Roger Ebert

"Vibrant . . . A celebration of what it means to be alive in a world of great music."—Kirkus Reviews

"Smart and thoughtful . . . The substantive, passionate writing contained in this book is a strong argument against the ossification of 'classical music.' It is also an argument for the continued relevance of the critic—somone who shows why we should listen to this, and why we should care."—Geeta Dayal, Bookforum

"In this brilliant collection, music critic Ross utilizes a wide musical scale—classical music in China; opera as popular art; sketches of Schubert, Bjork, Kiki and Herb—as a way of understanding the world. Featuring mostly revised essays published in the span of his 12-year career at the New Yorker, Ross offers timeless portraits that probe the ways that the powerful personalities of composers and musicians stamp an inherently abstract medium so that certain notes, songs, or choruses become instantly recognizable as the work of a certain artist. The virtuoso performance comes in the one previously unpublished essay, 'Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues', where Ross isolates three different bass lines as they wind through music history from the 16th-century chacona, a dance that promised the upending of the social order, through the laments of Bach, opera, and finally the blues. Ross nimbly finds the common ground on which 16th-century Spanish musicians, Bach, players from Ellington' s 1940 band and Led Zeppelin' s bassist John Paul Jones can stand, at least momentarily."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)