I’ve had occasion to write this post a number of times, but this Oxford American piece about Hiss Golden Messenger from a couple years back is just such a great example of why I love Amanda Petrusich’s music writing, and I’d like to point out two quick things:

Thing 1: In every AP piece, there are sentences that are put together so perfectly and are so insightful that I stop reading and physically look around to try to figure out what to do next. Do I read it to the person nearest to me? Do I tweet a link to the article and quote that line? Do I take up engraving so I can engrave it on something? Here’s one from the HGM article:

If you think about art long enough—what’s good and why, how it works on you—it becomes clear that every argument for or against a work is predicated on the notion that we’re all capable of saying something true.

The whole article is great, and that section is particularly incisive, but holy crap — that sentence totally stopped me in my tracks, and I decided I had to write a post to finally satisfy this “I have to do something!” impulse that’s hit me so many times before. So here we are.

Thing 2: I savor Petrusich’s music writing like fiction. There’s almost always a moment while reading an article she wrote when I realize that I don’t want it to end, scroll to the bottom to see how much is left, and portion out the rest deliberately, so I won’t accidentally wolf it down too fast. I felt similarly about her Do Not Sell At Any Price book, which I’d recommend buying before you finish reading this post, if you haven’t already.

That’s it. I don’t mean to go on and on, I just (as described above) had to say something. Do yourself a favor and keep an eye out for her articles in The New Yorker and elsewhere. They’re consistently fantastic.

Hiss Golden Messenger — “I’ve Got A Name For The Newborn Child” [Spotify/iTunes]