Every Song Ever

Reviews / Votes

A music appreciation guide for our era ... Brilliant -- Dan Chiasson * New York Review of Books * What is remarkable about Ratliff . . . is his musical intelligence and his almost singular breadth of knowledge and sympathy for all kinds of music. He also writes very well, a quality not at all common among those who write about music in general, a famously tricky subject . . . [Ratliff's] takes on various performances, recorded or live, are often unpredictable, never pedantic or exhibitionistic, and in every case informative -- August Kleinzahler * New York Times Book Review * A remarkable new book . . . [Ratliff] goes leaping from Beethoven to Big Black, from Morton Feldman to Curtis Mayfield, identifying continuities while delighting in contrasts -- Alex Ross * New Yorker * The spectacle of an active mind processing a world in constant flux . . . Maybe, as Ratliff beautifully argues, the brooding aggression of metal obscures a deeper melancholy -- Hua Hsu * New Yorker * Incisive . . . Thanks to Ratliff's vast knowledge, what could have been a dry academic exercise is more like a trip into the world's coolest record store -- David Browne * Rolling Stone * Ratliff continually brings things down to Earth, thanks in part to his inclusive spirit and his masterful way of translating music through words . . . [his] exquisite language serves as a guide, revealing new ways to look at old favorites and spurring on explorations into songs unknown -- Ryan Dombal * Pitchfork * [Ratliff] reminds us, as he proceeds, of how urgently we need adventurous critics like him at a time when the notion of musical discovery has been appropriated by tech companies and sidelined in the chase for clicks . . . He wants to offer all readers a way to appreciate, even love, songs that no right-functioning recommendation engine would ever put in their earbuds . . . Ratliff celebrates the virtues of play and resistance, and knows that just as stabbing at a single note can fend off easy enchantment, so can seeking out lots of different sounds. It's a quest that just might expand your definitions of 'great music' in directions and at a rate you never thought possible -- Spencer Kornhaber * Atlantic * Ratliff proposes new routes across the teeming landscape: modes of attentive listening based on concepts or musical properties . . . Close listening is Mr. Ratliff's forte . . . [he] leans toward nontechnical terms and unshowy language, which he then nudges toward the profound or revealing . . . readers will often find themselves propelled to YouTube or Spotify to hear what he's writing about -- Simon Reynolds * New York Times * The pleasure of reading great music criticism - which Every Song Ever is - lies in following a seasoned explorer who unearths the hidden passageways amid music's intricate systems of interlocking tunnels. Ratliff's musical mind is as sharp as his musical tastes are catholic, and he switches theoretical approaches as quickly as he shuffles through a century's worth of recorded music . . . The connections that arise from Ratliff's exploratory methodology are at turns poetic and revelatory, and most certainly are not what ends up on the average playlist -- Eric Harvey * New Republic * Writing about music (not lyrics) isn't easy, and few do it as well as Ratliff . . . I was able to cobble together most of Ratliff's 'wasteful mastery' playlist, including songs by artists such as [Dean] Martin, Lil Wayne, Lou Reed, Fats Waller, Young Thug, and Nina Simone. It's a hoot, and it sold me on the book's central concept -- Devin Leonard * Bloomberg Businessweek * [An] illuminating and thought-provoking book . . . In 20 beautifully rendered essays on subjects like repetition, slowness, speed, sadness, virtuosity, improvisation, loudness, and intimacy, Ratliff establishes provocative and thoroughly unexpected connections between genres . . . Time and again, Ratliff, a master of enlightened juxtaposition, discovers connections that leave one mesmerized -- Jonathan Rosenberg * Christian Science Monitor * Ratliff is the finest music writer extant, and his survey of John Coltrane's ever-evolving style comes closer to capturing the nature of sound - what we hear, and how it affects us - than anything I know -- Nik Cohn, author of 'Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom' on Ben Ratliff's 'Coltrane' Every Song Ever jumps into the grand adventure of losing yourself in music, at a time when the technology boundaries have blown wide open. Ratliff brilliantly makes connections between the arcane and the everyday, pointing to sounds you've never heard - as well as finding new pleasures in music you thought you'd already used up -- Rob Sheffield, author of 'Love Is A Mix Tape' and 'Turn Around Bright Eyes' Everyone knows we live in an age when most people can listen to anything, anytime, anywhere. Whether that's depressing or mind-expanding depends ultimately on what kind of attention we pay. Ben Ratliff has the gifts to help us surf this wave of sonic information, not stand there mumbling at it in a grumpy-grampy way. After all, it's presumably not going to end until the electrical grid does -- John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of 'Pulphead' [Ratliff] has a knack for articulating how a song works . . . A model of music appreciation that feels engaged and expansive . . . [Every Song Ever] reignites our sense of longing for connection, allowing us to roam more consciously through the infinite channels online. We find new sources of energy and essence in places we never thought to look. We listen, as if for the first time, and take pleasure in the search again * Bookforum * This is a book about one exemplary listener's love for how many ways music can mean, set in sentences as forceful and subtle as Elvin Jones. Slayer and Shostakovich, Ali Akbar Khan and the Allman Brothers - none of them are the same once Ben Ratliff's ears get through with them. And your ears won't be the same once you get through Every Song Ever -- Michael Robbins, author of 'Alien vs. Predator' and 'The Second Sex' In this insightful guide to contemporary music appreciation, genre limitations are off the table ... Ratliff's scholarship shines; there's a lot to be said for a book on music appreciation that can draw apt parallels between DJ Screw and Bernstein's rendition of Mahler's ninth symphony * Publishers Weekly * It's fascinating how Ratliff can bring a fresh ear to such familiar music ... [he] makes unlikely connections that will encourage music fans to listen beyond categorical distinctions and comfort zones * Kirkus Reviews *