Amanda Petrusich
Amanda Petrusich is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of three books. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in nonfiction and has been nominated for a Grammy Award. Her criticism and features have appeared in the New York Times, the Oxford American, Spin, Pitchfork, GQ, Esquire, The Atlantic, and the Virginia Quarterly Review. Her most recent book, “Do Not Sell at Any Price,” explores the obsessive world of 78-r.p.m.-record collectors. She is the writer-in-residence at New York University’s Gallatin School.
The Startling Intimacy of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour
Even addressing a stadium of seventy thousand people, the singer seems to be speaking directly to you, confessing something urgent.
The Mysticism of Paul Simon
On “Seven Psalms,” the artist continues his spiritual seeking, imagining a divine presence only to interrogate its borders.
Joan Baez Is Still Doing Beautiful, Cool Stuff
At eighty-two, the folksinger has a new book of drawings and sleeps on a mattress in a tree.
The Sad Dads of the National
For two decades, the band has written music about the kind of sadness that feels quotidian and incremental—the slow accumulation of ordinary losses.
The Otherworldly Compositions of an Ethiopian Nun
Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, who died recently, wrote pieces that were elegiac, but suffused with a sense of survival: we are broken, we are wounded, we carry on.
Nick Cave on the Fragility of Life
The singer-songwriter believes that we are deeply flawed, impermanent creatures who can sometimes do extraordinary things.
The Transcendence of Laraaji
Much of New Age music exists somewhere between the intellectual avant-garde and wellness hooey. Laraaji shows that the genre’s best practitioners were truly radical.
Hayley Williams, Without a Guidebook
The singer-songwriter talks about growing up in the South, trusting your teen-age self, getting divorced and getting exhausted, and the search for a home.
David Crosby Understood the Sharpness of Despair
The musician was gifted, irascible, often disliked by his bandmates, free-flowing on Twitter, and possessed of a singular voice.
The Inescapable Charm of Steve Lacy’s “Bad Habit”
The track has the ruefulness familiar to anyone who has failed to take advantage of an opportunity, or has self-sabotaged their way out of something great.
Neil Young Embraces Imperfection
The singer-songwriter discusses his new album with the theme of climate change, his friendship with Rick Rubin, and recording melodies on his flip phone.
A Response to Bob Dylan’s “Philosophy of Modern Song”
There was something missing from the bard’s recent book. . . .
The Boundless Optimism of the Spice Girls
A twenty-fifth-anniversary reissue of “Spiceworld” reminds us how the band encapsulated—possibly even dictated—the grinning innocence of the late nineties.
Talking About Grief with Anderson Cooper
After my husband died unexpectedly this summer, I found comfort in Cooper’s podcast about death and loss, “All There Is.”
Will Sheff’s Lament for a Starry-Eyed Rock-and-Roll Dream
On “Nothing Special,” the artist, now forty-six, surveys the ecstasies and the devastations of getting older and giving up on some things.
Mile-a-Minute Plywood Painter Steve Keene Has a Retrospective
With more than three hundred thousand blobby canvasses in circulation, the Brooklyn artist has reproduced album covers from Coltrane to Kraftwerk, and has been commissioned to do original ones for Pavement, among others.
Zooey Deschanel and Matt Ward Believe in the Endless Summer
The two musical collaborators discuss their tribute to Brian Wilson, the best kinds of nostalgia, and their respective love for Sonic Youth and disco.
Jens Lekman Revises His Old Songs
What does it mean that recorded music has become easy to change and revamp?
The Startling Intimacy of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour
Even addressing a stadium of seventy thousand people, the singer seems to be speaking directly to you, confessing something urgent.
The Mysticism of Paul Simon
On “Seven Psalms,” the artist continues his spiritual seeking, imagining a divine presence only to interrogate its borders.
Joan Baez Is Still Doing Beautiful, Cool Stuff
At eighty-two, the folksinger has a new book of drawings and sleeps on a mattress in a tree.
The Sad Dads of the National
For two decades, the band has written music about the kind of sadness that feels quotidian and incremental—the slow accumulation of ordinary losses.
The Otherworldly Compositions of an Ethiopian Nun
Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, who died recently, wrote pieces that were elegiac, but suffused with a sense of survival: we are broken, we are wounded, we carry on.
Nick Cave on the Fragility of Life
The singer-songwriter believes that we are deeply flawed, impermanent creatures who can sometimes do extraordinary things.
The Transcendence of Laraaji
Much of New Age music exists somewhere between the intellectual avant-garde and wellness hooey. Laraaji shows that the genre’s best practitioners were truly radical.
Hayley Williams, Without a Guidebook
The singer-songwriter talks about growing up in the South, trusting your teen-age self, getting divorced and getting exhausted, and the search for a home.
David Crosby Understood the Sharpness of Despair
The musician was gifted, irascible, often disliked by his bandmates, free-flowing on Twitter, and possessed of a singular voice.
The Inescapable Charm of Steve Lacy’s “Bad Habit”
The track has the ruefulness familiar to anyone who has failed to take advantage of an opportunity, or has self-sabotaged their way out of something great.
Neil Young Embraces Imperfection
The singer-songwriter discusses his new album with the theme of climate change, his friendship with Rick Rubin, and recording melodies on his flip phone.
A Response to Bob Dylan’s “Philosophy of Modern Song”
There was something missing from the bard’s recent book. . . .
The Boundless Optimism of the Spice Girls
A twenty-fifth-anniversary reissue of “Spiceworld” reminds us how the band encapsulated—possibly even dictated—the grinning innocence of the late nineties.
Talking About Grief with Anderson Cooper
After my husband died unexpectedly this summer, I found comfort in Cooper’s podcast about death and loss, “All There Is.”
Will Sheff’s Lament for a Starry-Eyed Rock-and-Roll Dream
On “Nothing Special,” the artist, now forty-six, surveys the ecstasies and the devastations of getting older and giving up on some things.
Mile-a-Minute Plywood Painter Steve Keene Has a Retrospective
With more than three hundred thousand blobby canvasses in circulation, the Brooklyn artist has reproduced album covers from Coltrane to Kraftwerk, and has been commissioned to do original ones for Pavement, among others.
Zooey Deschanel and Matt Ward Believe in the Endless Summer
The two musical collaborators discuss their tribute to Brian Wilson, the best kinds of nostalgia, and their respective love for Sonic Youth and disco.
Jens Lekman Revises His Old Songs
What does it mean that recorded music has become easy to change and revamp?