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Tim Riley on Muck Rack

Tim Riley

Verified
(He/Him)
Boston
As seen in: Emerson College, Here & Now Anytime, riley rock report, The New York Times, HuffPost, Goodreads, The Atlantic, The Conversation, The Courier-Mail, The San Diego Union-Tribune, WBUR-FM (Boston, MA), Upworthy, Arizona Daily Star and
Covers:  rock music, multimedia, criticism, rock, journalism, pop culture, classical, podcast, politics, npr, music, music history
Doesn't Cover: Eggplant
jumping streams, still undead

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Tim Riley’s Biography

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NPR CRITIC, EMERSON COLLEGE PROFESSOR and AUTHOR TIM RILEY reviews pop and classical music for the NEW YORK TIMES, the Los Angeles Review of Books, truthdig.com, NPR's ON POINT and HERE AND NOW, and many other publications. He was trained as a classical pianist at Oberlin and Eastman.

Since 2009, he has taught digital journalism at Emerson College in Boston. Brown University sponsored Riley as Critic-In Residence in 2008, and Jon Pareles hailed his first book, Tell Me Why: A Beatles Commentary…

Tim Riley’s Journalist Portfolio

Blacklivesmatter and Altamont

Blacklivesmatter and Altamont

review of JUST A SHOT AWAY by Austerlitz

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Lennon - By Tim Riley - Book Review

Lennon - By Tim Riley - Book Review

Challenging for biographers? Disorienting? Just a bit. Albert Goldman, whose demonically readable book "The L…

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13 Top Boston Area Professors, Deans, Directors & Presidents to Follow on Twitter & Why

13 Top Boston Area Professors, Deans, Directors & Presidents to Follow on Twitter & Why

Tim Riley — @triley60 — Riley is also a journalism professor, but one over at Emerson College. And he’s not o…

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Rock's Backpages - Riley archives

Rock's Backpages - Riley archives

Yo La Tengo: Fakebook (Bar None) Review by Tim Riley, Boston Phoenix , September 1990 Yo La Tengo's pop mothe…

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John Lennon: A Life And Legacy

John Lennon: A Life And Legacy

The musical heirs to John Lennon. We'll look at the Beatle's life and living legacy. In another time of turmo…

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Adrift in Cosmic Quarantine: Randy Newman Turns 77 - Los Angeles Review of Books

Adrift in Cosmic Quarantine: Randy Newman Turns 77 - Los Angeles Review of Books

RANDY NEWMAN'S SONGS carry a scorpion's sting, but he sings them with a piquant charm. He recently performed …

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Articles

Nothing Makes Me Older But the Birthmark

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By Tim Riley Verified
| riley rock report
Kristin Hersh turned 60 on August 7, and tours Britain next month. This would have seemed way out of reach when her band, Throwing Muses, released Hunkpapa in 1989. The album has grown customary, but somehow still sounds natural and even beyond its years in retrospect, as if they had it in them all along.
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Bending History's Arc

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By Tim Riley Verified
| riley rock report
Howard Zinn remains too popular among people who’ve only read one history book, and not nearly respected enough by plenty of academics who know better.
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Lose Some Sleep and Say You Tried

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By Tim Riley Verified
| riley rock report
Ian Curtis would have turned 70 on July 16. Ian Curtis would have turned 70 on July 15, and I covered the Substance compilation about eight years after he died at the age of 23 in 1980. I sense my intimidation in this essay, how hard it was to nail down how small the music made me feel at 28, and how big its implications felt. By the time I started at the Phoenix we thought of punk in the past tense, but it still held on somehow; like high school, it’s never over.
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Interview

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What was your first job as a journalist?

City Newspaper, Rochester, NY, weekly: neighborhood reporter, summer 1984

Have you ever used a typewriter?

Yes, fondly.

How is social media changing news?

Faster, less reliable, more focus on current DAILY events, less historical context.

Awards

Kirkus Top Biographies

2011 - Nonfiction

Best Nonfiction of 2011 Eric Liebetrau, Editor Choosing any “best-of” list is always a monumental undertaking, a task guaranteed to involve plenty of discussion, heated debate and perhaps even controversy. This year proved no less difficult, mainly due to the remarkable number of outstanding books published in 2011. Of course, you won’t hear any complaints from me—exposure to such important literature is the most rewarding part of my job. In addition to a selection of dynamic new voices, 2011 brought impressive new work from a cadre of heavy hitters—David McCullough, Joan Didion, Stephen Greenblatt, Claire Tomalin, Erik Larson, Candice Millard, Jonathan Lethem and many others. I personally believe each of the books on this list is significant, and I hope you agree. There are 63 books in 5 categories, alphabetized by title.

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Los Angeles Press Club Award

2016 - Cultural Criticism

Tim Riley’s book review of author Peter Guralnick’s “Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ’n’ Roll,” became Truthdig’s third book review to win first place at a L.A. Press Club awards competition. “Like his masterful biographies of Elvis Presley and Sam Cooke,” Riley wrote, “Guralnick’s “’Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ’n’ Roll’ traces a charismatic figure through a cockeyed career.” Riley’s category, best online cultural critic, also featured nominees from The New York Times, the Daily Beast and Asian Journal Press.

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