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A review by chelseamartinez
The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic by Jessica Hopper
3.0
There's a point about 80% through this collection where one of the pieces has the author remarking on the pieces she's been paid for in the past year; too many short and ultra-short "takes" and not enough long reads to be satisfying. And as a reader I felt the same way... the longer pieces were the best ones. But it's also a reminder that to survive as a music writer at all these days must be a struggle.
As for the shorter profiles, I haven't read music writing in ages! I remember, reading these pieces, particularly the ones about the author as a young person, about how invigorating it was to read Rolling Stone and zines et al. as a teenager and feel connected to a nebulous group of new music lovers... it might simply be that I'm out of practice reading the genre, but its probably that I can't technically still count myself in that group, that I missed that feeling reading these pieces. My favorites here though were those about Kendrick Lamar and Lana del Rey
As for the shorter profiles, I haven't read music writing in ages! I remember, reading these pieces, particularly the ones about the author as a young person, about how invigorating it was to read Rolling Stone and zines et al. as a teenager and feel connected to a nebulous group of new music lovers... it might simply be that I'm out of practice reading the genre, but its probably that I can't technically still count myself in that group, that I missed that feeling reading these pieces. My favorites here though were those about Kendrick Lamar and Lana del Rey