Long Players
Writers on the Albums That Shaped Them
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
In Long Players, fifty of our finest authors write about the albums that changed their lives, from Deborah Levy on Bowie to Daisy Johnson on Lizzo, Ben Okri on Miles Davis to David Mitchell on Joni Mitchell, Sarah Perry on Rachmaninov to Bernardine Evaristo on Sweet Honey in the Rock.
Part meditation on the album form and part candid self-portrait, each of these miniature essays reveals music's power to transport the listener to a particular time and place. REM's Automatic for the People sends Olivia Laing back to first love and heartbreak, Bjork's Post resolves a crisis of faith and sexuality for a young Marlon James, while Fragile by Yes instils in George Saunders the confidence to take his own creative path.
This collection is an intoxicating mix of memoir and music writing, spanning the golden age of vinyl and the streaming era, and showing how a single LP can shape a writer's mind.
Featuring writing from Ali Smith, Marlon James, Deborah Levy, George Saunders, Bernardine Evaristo, Ian Rankin, Tracey Thorn, Ben Okri, Sarah Perry, Neil Tennant, Rachel Kushner, Clive James, Eimear McBride, Neil Gaiman, Daisy Johnson, David Mitchell, Esi Edugyan, Patricia Lockwood, among many others.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"We are certainly not ready to say goodbye to the album," suggests New Statesman editor Gatti in this impassioned collection of writers' love letters to the music that changed them. While the convenience of streaming has transformed the way songs are listened to, Gatti argues that "listeners are returning to the album as an unbroken artwork... to be played from start to finish without interruption." For some writers, certain albums have been life-changing watersheds: by "embracing both happiness and catastrophe," Marlon James writes, Björk's Post helped him reconcile his identity and faith. Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star might have been a one-time collaboration, but to Teju Cole its "pure poetry... is permanently fresh and unflaggingly true." In an essay on David Bowie's Diamond Dogs, Neil Gaiman posits that sometimes there is no rationale behind why some albums resonate more than others. In his case, Bowie's album was his favorite "because it was mine." From Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No 2 to hearing the Beatles' Revolver for the first time, the revelations discussed brilliantly convey the power music has to shape individual lives. Music lovers will want to put this on repeat.
