Best Music Writing 2011 (Da Capo Best Music Writing)

Best Music Writing has 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 a music critic for the New Yorker and the author of the acclaimed bestseller The Rest Is Noise. He lives in New York City.

Daphne Carr is a music scholar and the author of Pretty Hate Machine. She lives in New York City.