Listen to This

Ross argues that the wall separating "serious" classical music from popular genres like rock, blues, and hip-hop is a relatively recent cultural construction, not a reflection of any inherent difference in artistic seriousness or complexity, and he spends the book tracing surprising lineages and echoes across supposedly separate musical worlds. Through essays ranging from Mozart to Bob Dylan to Björk, and from the American folk tradition to Brahms, he shows composers and performers borrowing, quoting, and reacting across genre lines far more than conventional music history, organized into tidy separate categories, usually acknowledges.

This matters because the classical-versus-popular hierarchy has shaped who gets taken seriously as an artist, which music gets institutional support and critical attention, and which audiences feel welcome in which concert halls, often for reasons that have more to do with class and cultural gatekeeping than with the actual music. Ross writes as an accomplished critic making a persuasive essayistic case rather than presenting a comprehensive musicological survey, so the book is best read as a series of illuminating, well-argued connections rather than an exhaustive account of any single genre's history.

Who should read it

Music lovers who feel unnecessarily fenced into one genre, or classical newcomers intimidated by the genre's reputation for exclusivity, should read this. It also rewards readers interested in how cultural hierarchies get built and maintained around art forms.

About the author

Alex Ross is an American music critic who has written for The New Yorker since 1996 and is known for writing about classical and contemporary music with unusual accessibility and range.