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Caryn Rose

Caryn Rose

Caryn Rose is a music writer, archivist, and historian known for her focus on punk rock, classic rock, and early innovators of the genre, as well as her reportage of live concert performances. She was the co-founder of the award-winning website Five Horizons in 1995, which documented Pearl Jam’s concert history and established a documentation format for live performances which is now widely in use. She has reported on Bruce Springsteen for Backstreets Magazine since 2003, and authored the travelogue Raise Your Hand, about his 2012 European tour. Her first novel, B-Sides and Broken Hearts (2011), tells the story of how a woman’s life was changed the night Joey Ramone dies. In 2022, she published Why Patti Smith Matters as part of the University of Texas Press’ Why Music Matters series. 

Rose regularly writes for publications such as Pitchfork, NPR Music, Vulture, Salon, Pollstar, and Billboard, among others. She had a regular feature in the Village Voice documenting live music history in New York City, and is also known for her lengthy song ranking features for Vulture where she reviewed and rated the entire catalogs of U2 and Bruce Springsteen. In 2018, she authored five essays, ranging from Aretha Franklin to Joan Jett, for the anthology Women Who Rock, and in 2017, she contributed an essay on Maybelle Carter to the essay collection Woman Walk the Line. An inveterate New Yorker, she currently makes her home in Detroit. 

 

Caryn Rose online

10 articles

List of articles in the library

By date | By artist | Most recently added

Patti Smith's Journey to Horses: A Timeline

Retrospective by Caryn Rose, Vulture, 13 November 2015

PATTI SMITH'S Horses, which turned 40 this week, is such a perfectly formed rock-and-roll artifact that it's difficult to imagine that Patti didn't just wake up ...

Led Zeppelin, New York Dolls: Behind the music on Vinyl: Martin Scorsese's premiere gets the New York Dolls right — and Led Zeppelin so wrong

Comment by Caryn Rose, salon.com, 15 February 2016

Set inside the New York music industry in 1973, Vinyl is a fascinating and frustrating chronicle of the era. ...

The Replacements: Bob Mehr: Trouble Boys – The True Story of the Replacements

Book Review by Caryn Rose, salon.com, 14 March 2016

The new biography, Trouble Boys, is an unflinching, uncompromising look at the band and the legend ...

David Bowie: The David Bowie tribute concerts

Review by Caryn Rose, Live Nation TV, 5 April 2016

LAST JANUARY, when promoter Michael Dorf announced that he'd finally received permission from David Bowie to be the subject of his annual tribute benefit concert, ...

Behind the music on Vinyl: Patti Smith, more Magic Tramps and Springsteen, who's "like an approachable Dylan"

Film/DVD/TV Review by Caryn Rose, salon.com, 11 April 2016

On the ninth episode of HBO's series about the '70s music scene, ACR considers swiping the Boss from Columbia ...

Chuck Berry, Keith Richards: "Chuck has his own way of showing appreciation": Concert documentary Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll offers a candid insight into Chuck Berry

Retrospective by Caryn Rose, salon.com, 20 March 2017

Keith Richards worked like a dog to get Chuck Berry's 60th-birthday concert right and Berry treated him like one ...

Chuck Berry: The Complicated Truth About Chuck Berry

Memoir by Caryn Rose, MTV.com, 20 March 2017

How I figured out a way to love his music in spite of his often-unsavory story ...

U2: In Trump's country: U2 takes Joshua Tree politics back on the road

Live Review by Caryn Rose, salon.com, 16 May 2017

30 years after their blisteringly political album and tour, U2 opts for subtle anti-Trump imagery over big speeches. ...

Aretha Franklin: Honoring Aretha Franklin, legendary "Queen of Soul," the greatest singer of our time

Obituary by Caryn Rose, salon.com, 16 August 2018

The following is a chapter from Women Who Rock: Bessie to Beyoncé, Girl Groups to Riot Grrrl (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2018), edited by Evelyn ...

Pete Townshend: Empty Glass

Retrospective by Caryn Rose, 68 to 05, May 2021

PETER DENNIS Blandford Townshend tells you everything you need to know about his first real solo album*, Empty Glass, with the (literally) iconic cover image: ...

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