The Noise Is Restful

I don't remember which of my friends I must have seen toting Alex Ross's book The Rest Is Noise a few months back, but it looked "craveable" (in the words of Whorange style maven Tula Jeng). So I picked it up on its recent softcover release and dove into it.

Ross makes 20th century "classical" or "made by composers" music accessible by re-embedding it in the historical times it was made in and the personal lives of the people who made it. And as a sometime maker of music in a popular idiom, with tangential forays into stranger stuff, I have a certain interest in how other people have done things.

Not to mention the fact that a great deal of the popular music I enjoy has either been influenced by composers, or has influenced composers. Some of what seemed striking or strange about 20th century high-art music is now so taken for granted that we're all soaking in it anyway.

At the moment I'm listening to Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians, and some of the echoes (whichever direction you think they go in) with Eno, or Talking Heads, or Sigur Ros, are easy to hear. On the subway this morning I took in Olivier Messiaen's Quartet For the End Of Time. Last night it was The Rite Of Spring, and sure, I'm aware that my catching up with the Rite marks me as someone VERY late to this party, but what the heck.

Ross is totally engaging about why any of these things might be interesting, at least in terms of intellectual or musical history ... and his enthusiasm is compelling enough to make trips to the music store worth it. Indeed, there's a substantial audio area on his web site where one can listen to clips of many of the things he talks about in the book or venture further afield to Napster or wherever. He makes playlists and recommends things to download and all kinds of good stuff.

Plus he's totally gay and now he's my fantasy musical boyfriend.