It's just the normal noises
Subtitle: Marcus, Guralnick, No depression, and the mystery of Americana music
By: Timothy Gray
Series: New American canon  : the Iowa series in contemporary literature and culture; New American canon
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 227
ISBN-13: 9781609384883
Subjects: Popular music; History and criticism; Criticism and interpretation; No depression; Musical criticism; Americana (Music)
Description: "Roots rock, Americana, alt country: what are they and why do they matter? Americans have been trying to answer these questions for as long as the music bearing these labels has existed. In It's Just the Normal Noises, Timothy Gray examines a wide array of writing about roots music from the 1960s to the present. In addition to chapters on the genre-defining work of Guralnick and Marcus, he explores the influential writings of Grant Alden and Peter Blackstock, the editors of No Depression magazine, and the writers who contributed to its pages, Bill Friskicks-Warren, Ed Ward, David Cantwell, and Allison Stewart among them. A host of memoirists and novelists, from Patti Smith and Ann Powers to Eleanor Henderson and Dana Spiotta, shed light on the social effects and personal attachments of the music's many manifestations, from punk to alt country to hardcore. This book is for everyone who's heard in roots rock the sound of an individual and a nation singing themselves into being."--Back cover.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references ( pages 209-220) and index.
Table of contents: title: Hip Americana : the cultural criticism of Greil Marcus; title: "Life's little ups and downs" : Peter Guralnuick and roots biography; title: "Searching for a truer sound" : No depression magazine; title: "Learning to live on your own" : growing up in DIY America.