How Music Works

Reviews / Votes

It was wildly ambitious to try and turn this galaxy of theory into a readable work of scholarship but Byrne has done it, and done it with style. Brian Eno might as well cancel that book deal now -- Mark Ellen * * The Observer * * As well as being an investigation into the context in which music is made, How Music Works is an accomplished celebration of an ever-evolving art form that can alter how we look at ourselves and the world -- Fiona Sturges * * Independent * * Brilliantly original * * New York Times Book Review * * As accessible as pop yet able to posit deep and startlingly original thoughts and discoveries in almost every paragraph . . . this book will make you hear music in a different way -- Oliver Keens * * The Sunday Telegraph * * A very involving read - Byrne is good company - he has a gift for a telling analogy that makes complex points easily grasped -- Keith Bruce * * The Herald * * How Music Works is a melange of bookish musings on how music is shaped by the places it is played and the technology used to create and disseminate it -- Danny Eccleston * * MOJO * * An entertaining and erudite book . . . this is a serious, straight-forward account of an art from that also manages to be inspiring -- Peter Aspden * * Financial Times * * Given the vastness of the subject, calling a treatise How Music Works seems intellectually arrogant, but it could also be seen as disarmingly frank, a fresh perspective from a down-to-earth mind. David Byrne's book, although a self-conscious art object (backwards pagination, upholstered cover and so on) contains plenty of plain-spoken, sensible observations: a dichotomy typical of the man * * Guardian * * Incisive and intriguing -- Nick Curtis * * The Evening Standard * * How Music Works is not just a noticeably handsome book but a beguiling and hugely perceptive one too -- Jonathan O'Brien * * Sunday Business Post * *