The Endless Refrain

Description

A veteran music critic and record reviewer illustrates how digital culture has throttled and debased popular music

In The Endless Refrain, former Washington Post writer and editor David Rowell goes deep into the psychology of the average listener – as well as the algorithms that function as today’s tastemakers – to explore the devastating effects that technology has on musicians and fans alike.

Making an incisive analysis of the economic and technological forces behind the rise of Napster, Pandora, Spotify, and iTunes, Rowell examines how contemporary currents of music consumption and production shut the doors on the organic creation of new music and trapped us in a whirlpool of repetition and stale nostalgia.

Combining personal memoir, interviews, industry research, and good old-fashioned critical passion, Rowell’s book is a pungent indictment of a music culture gone awry, crippled by nostalgia and subverted by the sinister hive minds of the internet.The Endless Refrain: Memory, Nostalgia, and the Threat to New Music
David Rowell
 
Opening Act
The Songs Remain the Same – how public music became a loop of repetition and familiarity
Side One
All Things Must Pass. But When? The age of the golden oldie … and beyond
Side Two
How Old Music Became New Again – licensing, content, the Internet, and the weaponization of copyright
Side Three
It Goes On and On and On and On – how nostalgia propagates itself through recursion
Side Four
Journey, Tribute Bands, and the World They Made – on the road with the weirdest people in music 
Side Five
OK Computer? – the rise of the algorithm and digital curation
Side Six
On the Road with the Dead – the rise of hologram performers and the future of re-animated undead music
Coda
Where Do We Go? – how we can reclaim new music in its glory and rebelliousness for a new generationDavid Rowell was for many years deputy books editor at the Washington Post. His book Wherever the Sound Takes You was described as “elegant .. wry” (Washington Post) and “compelling” (Kirkus). Stewart Copeland of the Police said that “David is the kind of critic who scares us musicians.” Rowell lives in Pittsboro, North Carolina.US