Greil Marcus
Peter Guralnick
Michael Gray
Nick Kent
Peter Doggett
Barney Hoskyns
Clinton Heylin

I will read almost anything by the first two on the list.

Just a thought: if there's anyone who thinks all music writing is rubbish, what are you doing here?

That period of time on Melody Maker was my particular favourite time. I was as influenced by his writing as I was by the music I listened to.

now more than back in the NME days. His old reviews of the likes of Siouxsie and the Banshees tended toward embarassingly excessive pretention. Whereas the recent BBC4 thing about singles he did was great I thought.

Charles Shaar Murray was one I thought highly of when he wrote in NME. He wrote in an exciting enthusiatic style. Also Nick Kent always fascinating in his day. And I used to enjoy Danny Baker's singles reviews in NME (again) - he often went for dance music, rather than the 'in' and hip new wave fare . Sheila and B Devotion 'Spacer' was one I recall being single of the week. Very good it is too.

The Guardian's Laura Barton has to be one of the finest writers around. Her Hail Hail Rock n Roll column never fails to deliver and she also turned me on to The Felice Brothers.
Respect..... as the youth of today may say.

Dylan Jones, commentator of male things generally, has written a very good book: I-pod therefore I am. Clearly a big music fan, he even goes to the extent of commending his choices, across the genres, that one could fil your pod with. I certainly followed up a number of his suggestions, particularly in some of the emptier areas of my knowledge, such as acid jazz. I found it both a good read and a good resource.
Richard Cooks "Encycopedia of jazz" is a fabulous book, given me recently by Mrs Path. Altho' it is just a ridiculously inclusive and dertailed list of key players, labels etc etc, it is somehow completely readable, as he rarely repeats his choice and way of describing what must be often similar artists. Lovely book.

I still think that Charles Shaar Murray is one of the best. If you're going to read anyone on Hendrix or the blues generally he's your man. From the same era I liked Mick Farren a lot. I could sometimes admire Nick Kent, but perversely I never felt, even in his most enthusiatic writings a love of the music, as demonstrated by CSM. Maybe it was because he was writing more about himself.
Ian McDonald was a fine writer and his death a few years ago was a sad loss. His anthologised works, The People's Music is recommended.
Peter Guralnick is a great writer. His 2 part Elvis biog is unsurpassed.
Greil Marcus can be excellent but sometimes I read his stuff and wonder what exactly he's writing about. Similarly with Lester Bangs.
Nigel Williamson who used to write in Uncut was pretty good. Very knowledgeable on Americana (am I allowed to use that word?) and I especially liked his interview with Shelby Lynne where the two of them got ver' ver' drunk. He seems to have disappeared.
Finally whatever happened to Melody Maker's Roy Hollingsworth? At time when a lot of MM writing was a bit staid Roy was notable for his enthusiasm. Then he too disappeared.

Only joking. Pious self-reverential clap-trap.
Bit like an older Chris Welch really. I even didn't like his stuff when he shared then loved musical tastes. (It's ELP time again, folks!)

(which sounds like a forgotten Seventies road movie)

Not all the best music writing is to be found in mags; Peter Guralnick has written a clutch of fine books that have stood the test of time extremely well, particularly Lost Highway and - still the definitive Southern Soul bible (hi, Lucas!) - Sweet Soul Music. Although more historical reportage than works of criticism, they still reach the core of their subjects in just a few paragraphs far more evocatively than thousands of column inches of Morlevian masturbation could ever manage. (Oops. Sorry, Dolly!)

I've just finished reading the two Lester Bangs anthologies and found that in his case the time test hadn't been so kind. Maybe it's an age thing, but rereading him now I much preferred the straight stuff (like his piece - more an essay, really - on Astral Weeks) over the prose firework displays he's best remembered for, most of which which seemed tiresomely juvenile rather than refreshingly youthful.

I read the intro last week and am giving it a bit more time before I move on. He just writes so well. Feel Like Going Home, Lost Highway, Barney Hoskyns' Say It One Time For The Brokenhearted and Jerry Wexler's autobiography, all on loan from my brother, sit on my bedside table, waiting for that moment when I finish my very wordy dissertation on the late work of Bob Dylan. Hi there, Archie.

I'm embarrassed to have left out Ian MacDonald from my original list...

for writing 'This is uncool' my favourite music book.

...is hit and miss with me. I respect him as he's extremely knowledgeable (even more so when compared to the current breed of NME hacks!) but the previously used phrase 'embarassingly excessive pretention' is a good sentence for some of his work, in my opinion.

As for Ian Penman, I couldn't believe the sheer bile in something he wrote about Frank Zappa in that Wire magazine. Can't say I've read much else of his, as I wasn't born when most of those mentioned were at their most prolific.

There are some writers not as well known as the ones mentioned here but I've always loved their work, such as Daryl Easlea and David Buckley. Mark Blake is excellent too. Am familiar with Ian Macdonald's 'Revolution In The Head' and that's excellent. Am currently reading Peter Guralnick's 'Last Train To Memphis' and that is exceptional. Peter Doggett is generally a fair, balanced writer too.

I quite like Chris Welch- some might see him as being a bit 'soft' compared to the likes of CSM and Nick Kent but his review of Jethro Tull's 'A Passion Play' is as stinging (and cuttingly accurate) as most anyone else's I've seen from that era. Derek Jewell, though, even though he seems to love a lot of the bands I do, went rather over-the-top with the praise.

I tend to dislike writers who seem to view themselves as being more important than the music they are reviewing so by that token, my least favourite contemporary writer has to be someone like Alexis Petridis, but the writing I read on NME's website from some of their reviewers is often dreadful yet staggeringly pretentious, too. Not fussed on Lester Bangs either, to be honest. Some of his works are just hatchet jobs (like the vicious treatment he dished out to the previously mentioned ELP, for example) rather than considered criticism.

I like the great NME writers of the 70s - Kent, Shaar Murray, Ian Mac, also Brian Case who was always funny. Some of the early Q writers were good too, though can't remember names. There was one guy called Pete Erskine who was a Little Feat fanatic so I always read him - I think he had a sad end - drugs/prison/early demise? Anyone know what happened to him?

There is a good book about the rock press actually - "In their own write" - features our Heppo. An excellent read.

Most music writing doesn't really encourage me to re-read, but here's two that are on the shelves for re-reading:

Simon Reynolds - Rip It Up and Start Again, great untangling of the post-punk era. Authoritative discographies.

Greil Marcus - Mystery Train - great on Elvis, Band, Robert Johnson, Sly Stone..

And not yet read but much-hyped - Alex Ross The Rest Is Noise -Listening to the Twentieth Century - waiting for the paperback. Mostly about modern classical but delves into Radiohead etc.

Yes, he was good. And Miles, a real 60s raver, so it seemed,to BC's more beatnik stance, as well

Nothing much to say about him other than thinking he deserves a name check, because I always enjoyed reading his stuff.

Nick Kent- excellent Brian Wilson and Nick Drake pieces are both very re-readable. Colin Irwin, Chas Murray (love of the blues is inspiring), Giles Smith and Stuart MacConie (both extremely funny), Nick Hornby, always thoughtful and honest.

For me Ian Mac is my favourite, was definately slightly pretentious and wordy but nevertheless wonderful. Peoples Music (writings on Nick Drake, Laura Nyro and Miles Davis are exceptional), Revolution in Your Head is inspirational and will make you hear The Beatles music as you have never heard it before. Also his evaluation of Neil Young's "On The Beach was probably initially responsible to restoring it to its rightful place as one of Young's best recordings. His love and feel for music over the years have cost me a fortune sending me often scurrying off to the Record Store to listen to his recommendations and you know what?? More often than not, he was right on in his assessments.

Paul Morley, (his) book NOTHING is a (pile of) tripe, his writings are rambling and incoherent, but (he ) would probably argue that that was the whole point (you dummies)and beside from that he is a Stopfordian and continually ran the place down in his NOTHING book. Nobody runs down my home town without a deserved good bollocking.

And dont even start me on Ian Penman.

The anthology of his work, 'Shots From The Hip', is absolutely essential reading for a music fan. His writing was often (and continues to be) more rock n' roll than the musicians he writes about.

His Rythm Oil [sic] is the best book I know on the music of the Deep South; lyrical and elegiac. Other posters have rightly mentioned Guralnick, whose two Presley volumes are peerless.

And is it just me or is Greil Marcus just un petit peu pretentious?

I think his work can occasionally be rather impenetrable, but he's genuinely trying to elevate rock criticism to the level of Literature, and usually succeeding. Mystery Train is seminal in this regard.

I went to a book signing in 1997 for Marcus' Invisible Republic and the guy in front of me wanted him to sign a copy of his 'What is this shit?' review of Self Portrait. When my turn came, I gently suggested that it wasn't that bad an album. He looked at me sternly like I'd just said the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard, and said without smiling and managing to make it sound like a question rather than a statement, "Really. I disagree."

I now believe that he's right. Self Portrait is utterly awful.

Published in 1969 - a classic book which I go back to again and again. A brilliantly distilled history of rock music from pre-Bill Haley through to 1966. Cohn's writing is stylish and witty, and he's a great detector of bullshit.

...to have a book by Tom Hibbert about 60s records and record collecting in general. Also continue to find his article about bottom of the bill prog acts he wrote for Mojo in 1994 very amusing indeed. There's a great interview he did with Roger Waters where he asked Roger 'are you the gloomiest man in rock'...

so, it's Quantick for me