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dievalzam's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
3.75
ursineultra's review
3.0
As with most essay collections, extremely hit and miss. Everything interesting enough, except for the two that read like book reviews.
lizzybaby's review
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
1.5
I only really liked the three essays by Anne Enright, Maggie Nelson and Ottessa Moshfegh
bengriffin's review
3.0
Slightly disappointed in this. Normally I get so engrossed in people talking about the music they love, whether I know it or not, that I immediately fill with warmth and usually have to go and see what they're talking about. So many of the essays in here just didn't do that though, with the writing or experiences being too idiosyncratic for anyone but the writer to relate too. It's always going to be the case with collections that you're not going to click with everything in it, but this just had more misses than others. There's maybe a handful I enjoyed, with the absolute highlight being An Essay in Eight Mixes, but the rest just kind of washed over me. The others that landed best were the ones that stuck closest to the premise of challenging the historic narrative of music and music writing being written by men, for men, but so many are just personal nostalgia that it's basically no different to listening to boring old white dudes chat about their music. Absolutely worth seeking out for the few great essays within, just don't expect this alone to be as revolutionary and game changing as the blurb would have you believe.
floraelmcolone's review
4.0
Covers such a wide variety of genres and experiences, I love how much it taught me about genres I don’t listen to as much + their history. Favorite essays were Leslie Jamison’s (god talking about how trying to impress men has made her unsure of what music she even truly likes….. yeah) and Maggie Nelson’s <3 and probably others that I’m forgetting bc I’ve been reading this at the register during my shifts over the course of like a week lol