The Rest is Noise

I've been waiting for The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross, music critic for the The New Yorker, for at least a year. I finally got my hands on a copy a week ago, and it's magisterial, a wonderful, heady sweep of a century's music and how it effected, and was effected by, political events.

His site has an extensive range of samples which accompany the text, which makes the whole experience vastly richer.

But I have to say, I couldn't resist the temptation to trigger them all at once and turn up the speakers.

You try...