Customer Reviews

It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is an unsuccessful combination of a travelogue, a history of country music, and an analysis of current trends in Americana. The historical portions are thinly researched, the analysis is at best trite and unoriginal and at worst confused, and the travel writing is a failed attempt to channel the mystique of the American road. Everything is in a blog style that is far too lightly edited. Despite Ms. Petrusich's clear affection for the music, she has nothing interesting or new to say about it. The only crumbs of insight come from artist interviews and quotes from other authors. There is plenty of great writing about country music and its history; off the top of my head, recent enjoyable reads include Havighurst's Air Castle of the Sky, about WSM; Colin Escott's Hank Williams bio; Gura's America's Instrument, about the banjo; and No Depression, in its magazine, anthology, and online forms. Check those out instead.

Kevin, above, was right. I didn't believe him and bought this book for my wife. She would read large portions to me so that we could jointly mock this one. Petrusich writes like she wants to be Greil Marcus when she grows up. She has his flatulent verbosity, but unfortunately, she missed out on delivering actual content, which Greil does do occasionally.

Petrusich uses adjectives as if she gets paid per use. This would be great if it added anything, but unfortunately, this books reads more like a thesaurus than a creative work. She has little to say and says it badly. This is a good concept that gets more or less ruined. Don't buy it.

Would have preferred more information on the newer music scenes but love the personal perspective on the more historical stuff. Great for someone looking for a crash course in American roots music with a younger voice.

IT STILL MOVES: LOST SONGS, LOST HIGHWAYS, AND THE SEARCH FOR THE NEXT AMERICAN MUSIC offers a fine history of all kinds of American sounds using interviews, road stories, and music criticism to trace the roots of modern American music form present to past. The blend of country, heavy metal, rock, folk and more offers a fine survey of the roots and influences of American sound and is an excellent guide for any general lending library.

If I could give this a zero I would. Amanda Petrusich is the most undeservingly arrogant writer I have ever come across. She is so desperate to appear smart and witty that everything she writes is stuffed with uncommon and inappropriate vocabulary. The result? She is neither witty nor smart. I'm fine if you want to rate music in a positive way and ignore the music you don't like, but if your goal is to constantly tear down artists then you have no place on someone's bookshelf. Maybe if you were a great musician or had some significant insight on why or why not a song or album is good or could be better. But she isn't, she's just a hack writer who loves bashing the creativity of artists who put themselves out there. There's a word for that kind of person: hater. That's exactly what Amanda Petrusich is.