On the Records Hands the Canon Question to 80 Musicians

The canon tends to get assembled by critics, and it tends to come out looking the same. On the Records: 80 Musicians on Beloved and Overlooked Albums takes a different route, asking the people who play for a living what they reach for once the obvious answers are off the table.

Written by Brian Beck, formerly global head of music at Sonos, and Piotr Orlov, a journalist who teaches music history and writing at NYU, the book arrives Nov. 17 via Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Its contributors run across generations and genres: Brian Eno, Erykah Badu, Billie Eilish, Dolly Parton, Sonny Rollins, Philip Glass, Laufey, Tina Weymouth, the Roots’ Black Thought, Brittany Howard, Four Tet, Angélique Kidjo, Meshell Ndegeocello. The premise, though, is narrower than a favourites list.

What the entries share is an argument for attention. The picks include self-released cassettes, out-of-print records, and albums that simply never found their audience. Turnstile’s Brendan Yates writes about Gut Instinct’s 1992 tape Off the Deep End. Eno selects a 1982 gospel album by the Consolers. Black Thought chooses Amnesty’s Free Your Mind, a 1973 recording later issued by Now-Again. Parton writes about her mother’s music; Rollins contributes two Fats Waller recordings.

A national launch series begins Nov. 6 with radio appearances, DJ sets and in-store events. A portion of the authors’ proceeds will go to Deaf Defy and Deaf Child Worldwide. The result reads less like a corrective canon than a set of leads, which may be the more durable thing.