Rock is the Triumph of Aural Culture Over Literary

Stephen Metcalf writes that pop music is the triumph of aural culture over literary. But he does so much more elegantly than I could.

"All pop criticism is bad. Like a boring dinner guest, it’s garrulous and name-dropping. Under the pretense of informing you, it glories in your ignorance. It reeks of junk-strewn garrets and a degrees in semiotics from Brown."

Stephen Metcalf writes a rambling, and remarkable review of Geoffrey O'Brien's "Sonata for a Juke Box: Pop Music, Memory, and the Imagined Life.