Product Description

"This book uniquely and successfully sustains a cohesive analysis of the work, career, and reception of a single artist. That the artist is Neil Young, one of the most confounding and mysterious of rock stars, is an added bonus. Finally someone will explain what's been going on all these years!" -- Daniel Cavicchi, author of Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning among Springsteen Fans

As a writer in Wired magazine puts it, Neil Young is a "folk-country-grunge dinosaur [who has been] reborn (again) as an Internet-friendly, biodiesel-driven, multimedia machine." In Neil Young and the Poetics of Energy, William Echard stages an encounter between Young's challenging and ever-changing work and current theories of musical meaning -- an encounter from which both emerge transformed.

Echard roots his discussion in an extensive review of writings from the rock press as well as his own engagement as a fan and critical theorist. How is it that Neil Young is both a perpetual outsider and critic of rock culture, and also one of its most central icons? And what are the unique properties that have lent his work such expressive force? Echard delves into concepts of musical persona, space, and energy, and in the process illuminates the complex interplay between experience, musical sound, social actors, genres, styles, and traditions.

Readers interested primarily in Neil Young, or rock music in general, will find a new way to think and talk about the subject, and readers interested primarily in musical or cultural theory will find a new way to articulate and apply some of the most exciting current perspectives on meaning, music, and subjectivity.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1270992 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Review
"...a fascinating and unique reading of Neil Young's music...." -- Literary Review of Canada, November 2005

About the Author

William Echard is Assistant Professor in the Department of Music and Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture at Carleton University. He lives in Ottawa, Ontario.

Customer Reviews

Not rock criticism, but a good academic study of a rock musician
Like Susan Fast's Led Zep book, Echard's book about Neil Young is a book by a college professor that is published by an academic publisher. It's an academic study. There are lots of footnotes.

So I hate to see this book criticized by reviewers for being what it is, an academic study. It is not for everyone. It is not INTENDED for everyone.

Once you realize that it defends highly original ideas about how guitar solos are meaningful artistic gestures, you can appreciate it for what it tries to be (semiotic analysis) and not what you might hope it is (rock criticism). And it's damn fine semiotic analysis.

I don't give it five stars because it doesn't give equal time to all phases of Neil Young's career.

briljant
I am halfway , it's not easy but how the writer goes in depth with
some Neil Young issues .............it ' s amazing and very profound !

It's even more difficult as english is not my mother language!

So i am gonna read it three times at least!

The book I was waiting for : neil young and the Poetics of Energy !!!
That's a study , not a book, and I love it !

Enjoy ,

Marc

Not what I Expected
Too technical about the music and not enough on the background of the lyrics. Also repeats information in earlier books on Neil Young.