Best Music Writing 2011

Best Music Writinghas become one of the most eagerly awaited annuals of them all. Celebrating the year in music writing by gathering a rich array of essays, missives, and musings on every style of music from rock to hip-hop to R&B to jazz to pop to blues, it is essential reading for anyone who loves great music and accomplished writing. Scribes of every imaginable sort--novelists, poets, journalists, musicians-- are gathered to create a multi-voiced snapshot of the year in music writing that, like the music it illuminates, is every bit as thrilling as it is riveting.

Alex Ross is the music critic of The New Yorker and the author of The Rest Is Noise and Listen to This. He lives in New York City and has a website at www.therestisnoise.com. Daphne Carr is the author of Pretty Hate Machine. Her essays have appeared in Marooned: The Next Generation of Desert Island Discs and Listen Again: A Momentary History of Pop Music. She lives in New York City and can be found on the Web at funboring.com.