Tim Riley’s latest book is What Goes On: The Beatles, Their Music, and Their Time (2019), co-written with Walter Everett, from Oxford University Press. He recently launched the riley rock report audio newsletter. See his personal website, timrileyauthor, for details.
CONTRIBUTOR ARTICLES
“Cats Are Indescribably Wonderful, Shostakovich’s Fugues Less So”: On Elizabeth Wilson’s “Playing with Fire: The Story of Maria Yudina, Pianist in Stalin’s Russia”
Tim Riley reviews Elizabeth Wilson’s new biography “Playing with Fire: The Story of Maria Yudina, Pianist in Stalin’s Russia.”...
Who Needs a “National” Music?: On Joseph Horowitz’s “Dvořák’s Prophecy: And the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music”
Horowitz’s book brims with detailed examples but its larger argument is unconvincing....
The Darwin of the Classics
A new biography of Milman Parry, who transformed our understanding of Homer, and oral culture in general....
Adrift in Cosmic Quarantine: Randy Newman Turns 77
The great singer-songwriter has spent a lifetime turning bluesy snark into pop gold....
The Gigantor of Art
Alex Ross’s new book on Wagner teases out the great conductors many contradictions....
No Success Like Failure
Tim Riley reviews a new biography of Nick Lowe....
Return of the Unrepressed
Tim Riley on how the Beatles and John Lennon puncture nostalgia....
Dylanizing the Great American Songbook
Tim Riley on Bob Dylan’s “Triplicate” (2017)....
The American Sputnik: Van Cliburn Heats Up the Cold War
Tim Riley reviews two new books about pianist Van Cliburn....
