The 15 Best Music Books of 2022

Lavishing sustained attention on music is one way to show that you love it – here at Pitchfork, where we are perhaps a little biased, it is our favorite way – and each year brings a flood of great new music books giving the opportunity to do just that. The best music books, whether they are history, cultural criticism, memoir, or some hybrid of all three, give you new ears with which to listen. What follows is a list of favorites from 2022, picked by Pitchfork staffers and contributors. (If a few of the entries seem familiar, that’s because they are excerpted from past Book Club entries.) Happy reading!