Ben Ratliff, Every Song Ever ** 1/2

In Every Song Ever, veteran New York Times music critic Ben Ratliff reimagines the very idea of music appreciation in this day and age ... [when] we can listen to nearly anything, at any time, from Detroit techno to jam bands to baroque opera.

I picked up this book expecting it to provide me with new ways to appreciate music by noting "unexpected connections" and surprising juxtapositions between disparate musical sources. The cover features recommendations from authors who have enhanced my listening experiences (Alex Ross, Simon Reynolds).

The basic premise of Ratliff's book is that the awesome breadth of music we encounter requires us to understand it without reference to the conventions of particular genres or to "the vocabulary and grammar of the composer." He wants to describe the elements "in a language that is not specifically musical." He uses concepts such as repetition, density, stubbornness, and sadness.

I found these concepts, and his use of them, too abstract to be useful to me. "Punk is busking and journalism and dogma and accountability and unity and the humanities. Metal is virtuosity and philosophy and disposition and rumor and misanthropy and science." Ratliff's best insights come when he is not being metaphysical but relying on specific knowledge of particular genres. The exception is the chapter on "Discrepancy," which drew my attention to places where there are "slight discrepancies in timing and attack between" bandmates. "They are all chattering around the beat; they can do this because they know where the beat lives. (It lives in Bill Wyman's bass line.)"

The book did lead me to one new artist (Okkyung Lee) and to another book that I may check out if I can accept its academic style (Music Grooves, by Charles Keil and Steven Feld).