Music Is History

That’s the problem with conspiracy theories of any stripe—they lead you to the One Big Epiphany, and the endorphin rush of that moment directs you to see everything that follows as following logically, which is in itself illogical.

Understanding history begins with learning history, and learning history begins with being able to see both inside yourself and outside yourself.

When you discover the source of a sample, work chronologically. Once you have identified the artist who produced that sound originally, go back to the earliest available moment in his or her career and start listening from there. You’ll encounter your sample along the way, but you’ll also get a full sense of that artist’s development. Return to Poi

It’s true that the past is different from the present. But understanding those differences before broadcasting value judgments, that’s the better goal.

What I learned, or what I relearned, is that the majority of people live only for the past.

they boost the value of the past, look back with rose-(or otherwise-) tinted glasses.

The fact was that behind every great individual, male or female, there was a supporting cast that was instrumental in the creation, communication, and execution of ideas, and that the very notion of solitary greatness had to be reassessed even as it was accepted as a motivational fiction.

if you spend any significant amount of time in the past, you realize that it never passes into the present in an unproblematic way. Error is, to some degree, inevitable, and much of history—meaning the recording and transmitting of history—is about how error is handled when it’s discovered. Do you admit it immediately? Dig in stubbornly? Explore th

My main goal in this book isn’t to substitute my analysis (which would be far from expert) for existing analyses. But I do want to help teach people to learn history by reminding them to question their reading habits, reassess where they locate authority, retain a healthy skepticism.