Devon Powers

Writing the Record In 2013, University of Massachusetts Press published Writing the Record: The Village Voice and the Birth of Rock Criticism. In the monograph, a reworking of her doctoral thesis, Powers provides a deeply researched analysis of the challenging relationship between critics and the rise of pop culture in the 1950s through the 1970s. To tell this story, she focuses on the careers of Richard Goldstein and Robert Christgau, both writers at New York's famed Village Voice.

Powers was influenced to study the topic because of her own work as a music journalist. She says she tested many of her ideas about the social function of music criticism in a regular column she wrote for PopMatters titled More Than Words: Musings on Music Journalism. Powers employed ethnographic research methods, visiting forecasting companies such as Sparks & Honey and conducting dozens of interviews to collect material for the book.