Rocking My Life Away: Writing about Music and Other Matters [Hardcover]

Anthony DeCurtis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 1999

New in paperback
Rocking My Life Away represents nearly twenty years of writing by one of the premier critics of popular music in America today. In these pieces from Rolling Stone, the New York Times, and other publications, Anthony DeCurtis reveals his ongoing engagement with rock & roll as artistic forum, source of personal inspiration, and compelling site of cultural struggle. Including significant new work—liner notes commissioned for the Phil Spector box set and a spirited discussion with Peter Buck of R.E.M. about rock criticism, for example—DeCurtis also ventures with insight and power beyond the world of rock & roll. A joint profile of the political writers Neil Sheehan and Taylor Branch and provocative looks at the work of novelists Don DeLillo and T. Coraghessan Boyle round out this eclectic collection.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Rolling Stone contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis's collection of articles and essays often feels more like a scrapbook than a book, as it includes a number of well-written, but hardly deathless, record reviews and profiles. DeCurtis is on firmest ground in reprinting essays on late-'80s and early-'90s rock and rap controversies, although current updates on these ongoing cultural battles would have made welcome inclusions. A previously unpublished interview with R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck is at the heart of Rocking My Life Away, however, and it makes the volume worth buying. In it, longtime friends DeCurtis and Buck engage in a lengthy discussion that takes in everything from R.E.M.'s efforts to stay musically fresh in the face of immense success to the idea of remaining in love with new sounds into one's middle age to the aesthetic and political failures of Forrest Gump. The piece also serves as a welcome rejoinder to fans who question the validity of rock criticism as a whole, with Buck heartily praising the thought-provoking and entertaining nature of the best of the form. Visits with the Stones, Prince, and U2 are also eye-opening, if less surprising than the author's debriefing of Buck. --Rickey Wright

From Publishers Weekly

It's no coincidence that the most interesting contribution in this wide-ranging "greatest hits" package is an off-the-cuff interview with R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck, in which he and the author discuss at length the cultural value of such an endeavor as writing critically about rock and popular entertainment. Too often an assumption is made by and about writers for magazines such as Rolling Stone, where DeCurtis spent nearly a decade as an editor: the writer may want to define consumer taste, but generally his assignment is simply to reflect upon it. DeCurtis is something of an anomaly from the decades before popular culture became a province of social theoreticians, years when rock 'n' roll could be discussed as art. He defends the academic study of pop culture, in such essays as "Pop Goes to College" and his examination of Don DeLillo's Great Jones Street, but his work is informed by a gutsy street sensibility absent from that of DeCurtis's more academic peers. This unique blend of intellect and bravado might well lead readers to argue a point here and there, but that is the purpose of criticism. DeCurtis reminds us of this basic point with the ease of recalling a classic Keith Richards riff.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press Books; 1st edition. edition (September 7, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082232184X
• ISBN-13: 978-0822321842
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,435,125 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I grew up in New York City, where I currently live, though for two separate five-year periods I lived in Bloomington, Indiana, and Atlanta, Georgia. I attended Hunter College and then Indiana University, where I earned a PhD in American literature. I teach every fall in the writing program at the University of Pennsylvania and, beginning in the spring of 2007, I will also be teaching in the graduate Journalism program at the City University of New York. I won a Grammy in the "Best Album Notes" category for my essay accompanying the Eric Clapton bos set, Crossroads. I live with my wife, Alexandra MacDowell; my daughter Francesca Rose, and our wonderful Saint Bernard Gracie.