23. Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music

Category: 50 Books

23. Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music edited by Nona Willis Aronowitz

This is a collection of Ms. Willis’s articles she wrote for The New Yorker in the late ’60s and ’70s while she was the pop music critic. The articles are some of the best writing I’ve come across. Every idea, comparison, and critique is so well-crafted, so thought out that her intent, meaning, whatever, is crystal clear. There is not a single bloated paragraph. What’s great is she’s a fan of the music, so there’s no condescension, none of that “these kids today and their music.” kind of thing. Best of all though, is that her critiques are honest. So while she was a fangirl of Bob Dylan, she was also quick to point out when one of his albums was weak. I can appreciate that honesty. She never kissed ass and I think that’s so cool.

My only beef with this book is that it’s separated into six different sections: World-class Critic,  The Adoring Fan, The Sixties Child, The Feminist, The Navigator, The Sociologist. And the articles were put into these different sections. The only problem with that is she was all of those things at the same time, so it didn’t seem to matter what section the article was categorized as. I could see maybe you could have broken up the book into two categories, maybe The Adoring Fan and World-class Critic. I don’t know. I would have preferred if the book had been put together chronologically instead. That is just me being picky and has nothing to do with Ellen Willis’s amazing writing.

Since this book is article after article of rock music criticism, it’s not a book you pick up and read from cover to cover (well, maybe you do, but I do not.) I found it best to read an article or two between the books I was reading. Kind of a way to cleanse my reading palate.

 

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