David Byrne is a Scottish-born Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and cofounder of Talking Heads. He has been the recipient of many awards, including an Oscar and a Golden Globe. The author ofBicycle Diaries and The New Sins, Byrne lives in New York City.
"From the former Talking Heads frontman, a supremely intelligent,
superbly written dissection of music as an art form and way of
life...Byrne touches on all kinds of music from all ages and every
part of the world... Highly recommendedanyone at all interested in
music will learn a lot from this book."
"Kirkus" (Starred Review)
"In this fascinating meditation, Talking Heads frontman Byrne
("Bicycle Diaries") explores how social and practical context, more
than individual authorship, shaped music making in history and his
own career... his chapters on Heads recording sessions are some of
the most insightful accounts of musical creativity yet penned. The
result is a surprising challenge to the romantic cliche of musical
genius... Byrne s erudite and entertaining prose reveals him to be
a true musical intellectual, with serious and revealing things to
say about his art."
"Publishers Weekly" (Starred Review)
David Byrne is a brilliantly original, eccentric rock star, and he
has written a book to match his protean talents ... What s best
about [it] is that Byrne concentrates on his own experience, from a
teenage geek splicing layers of guitar feedback on his father s
tape recorder (he had a mild self-diagnosed case of Asperger s
syndrome, he writes) to arty if neo-primitive rock star with the
early Talking Heads at CBGB to increasingly sophisticated,
globe-wandering art-rocker, happily collaborating with all manner
of world musicians and pop-technological innovators. John Rockwell,
"The New York Times Book Review"
"Endlessly fascinating, insightful, and intelligent."
June Sawyers, "Booklist" (Starred Review)
"[How Music Works is] the book [Byrne] was born to write. I could
make a good case for calling this "How Art Works" or even "How
Everything Works.""Cory Doctorow, "Boing Boing"
"Byrne explores a whole symphony of argument in this extraordinary
book with the precise, technical enthusiasm you'd expect from the
painfully bright art school-educated son born in Scotland, raised
in the States of an electrical engineer, occasionally mopping his
fevered brow in the crestfallen manner of a 19th-century poet...
It's fascinating."Mark Ellen, "The Guardian"
"'How Music Works, ' is as engaging as it is eclectic: a buoyant
hybrid of social history, anthropological survey, autobiography,
personal philosophy, and business manual, sometimes on the same
page... We re changed. Even for the most ardent explorers (and
Byrne is one) this is some seriously unknowable territory.""The
Boston Globe"
By all accounts, Byrne s style and energy are as apparent on the
page as on the stage. Kathryn Schulz, "New York Magazine"
[Byrne] wraps his keen cultural insights in a sheath of self-aware
subjectivity and unapologetic personal conviction, with just the
right amount of conversational candor Maria Popova, "Brain
Pickings"
""How Music Works" is a good read for anyone interested in art and
technology and how creativity has been transformed in the digital
age."Bryant Frazer, "Studio Daily"
Truly dazzling, covering a staggering scope of topics ... Almost
every page [is] a song. Jason Heller, "The Onion A.V. Club"
In the course of "How Music Works," Byrne integrates his discussion
of all the issues of recording and live performance into a personal
account of his own career. Although this book stops short of
turning into a memoir or autobiography, fans seeking a
behind-the-scenes account of Byrne's life and times won't be
disappointed ... An essential guide to performance and recording,
honest and up-to-date, and filled with both practical advice and
insightful commentary. Ted Gioia, "The San Francisco Chronicle"
Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Jay Z, even Daniel Lanois have all given
us books in recent years. And they ve all been interesting and
worth reading. But none of them is as good as David Byrne s book
... He weaves his account of the evolution of music from animals to
humans and the history of changes in the way music studios work
into the most accessible and unpretentious narrative of such a
story that I have yet come across. David Rothenberg, "The Globe and
Mail"
A decidedly generous book welcoming, informal, digressive, full of
ideas and intelligence and one has the pleasant sense that Byrne is
speaking directly to the reader, sharing a few confidences he has
picked up over the years. Tim Page, "The Washington Post"
An accomplished celebration of an ever-evolving art form that can
alter how we look at ourselves and the world... a meticulously
researched and hugely absorbing history of music Fiona Sturges,
"The Independent"
An entertaining and erudite book, from a figure who has spent his
career proving that those two adjectives can happily coexist ...
The chapter on the economics of music should be required reading
for all 16-year-olds tinkering with their GarageBand software and
dreaming of dollar signs, while the section on How to Make A Scene
is nothing less than a manual for urban regeneration through pop
culture ... A serious, straightforward account of an art form that
also manages to be inspiring. You could do a lot worse than use it
as a thinking-outside-the-box management manual or a college
primer. Art and Society 101: Stop Making Sense. Peter Aspden,
"Financial Times"
David Byrne deserves great praise for How Music Works. It is 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
Telegraph"
Smart and impeccably researched ... A text to read and pick through
time and again ... all this is what you d expect, and hope for,
from the foremost heady apologist of pop music. It s a must-read
for anyone who has ever felt moved by a catchy tune and wanted
more. James Ramsay, "BlackBook"
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