Rating: 
Summary: Ambient soup
Review: "The century of aeroplanes," wrote the composer Claude D?bussy, "deserves a music of its own". That, in essence, is the theme of this book: the story of how music has evolved over the course of a new century.What is outstanding about The Ambient Century is the sheer breadth of the work. Mark Prendergast has an encyclopedic knowledge of musical genres and a refreshing willingness to look beyond traditional classifications. This allows him to find unexpected threads and connections, bringing together apparently unrelated figures such as D?bussy and Air, the Velvet Underground and Ravi Shankar, John Cage and the Beatles. In particular, it explodes the myth that modern music developed in response to the introduction of electronic devices such as amplifiers and tape machines. On the contrary, he shows that the groundwork for the electronic revolution had already been laid by the vision of composers such as Erik Satie, who had begun by emptying music of the jaded complexities of the classical genre. Long before technology made music omnipresent in our environment, it was Satie who invented the concept of what he called 'furniture music'. This is a big work, not one to be read in a single session. It is comprehensive and detailed, covering every genre of music from classical to folk to rap, techno and reggae. For each of its sections there is an extensive list of recordings for the reader to explore further. It is a book to dip into, to read and return to. Unsurprisingly, his liberal and eclectic approach has aroused the ire of some of the more narrow minded commentators, in those magazines whose auto-anal obscurantism has baffled a generation of genuine music lovers. Prendergast's views are confident and sometimes quirky. He is not afraid to praise artists who have the misfortune to be popular with audiences. Inevitably, readers will agree with some of his judgements and disagree with others. Given the comprehensive nature of the work, that is hardly surprising. Ultimately, the test of any music book is this: does it leave you wanting to go out and find the music and listen to it? In the case of The Ambient Century, there is no question. Prendergast's work is written with an unconcealed enthusiasm and love of his subject. On this basis, the book is a triumphant success.
Rating: 
Summary: Encyclopedic array of info; needs another editing
Review: For sheer volume of information about Minimalism, Ambient, and the key 20th-century composers and performers thereof, this book is invaluable. Almost every experimental composer I could think of had an in-depth listing in here. If you have any interest at all in this kind of music--a broad genre including Satie, Debussey, Cage, Riley, Carlos, Oldfield, Orbital, Chemical Brothers, Air, Miles Davis...and on--I highly recommend checking this book out. That said, there are faults with this book. One reviewer has already pointed out factual errors--I've found one too: John Cage was a professor at Wesleyan University in the '60s and '70s (I don't know the dates off the top of my head), and not, as Pendergrast states, at the University of Connecticut. There are also numerous typos and grammatical errors, all of which suggest that this book could use a copy editor and a couple of fact checkers. Let us hope for future editions.
Rating:
Summary: Tries too hard
Review: I got this book at the library thinking that it would focus itself on "Ambient" composers like Eno, Aphex Twin, et al. The preface seems to give that impression on the reader, but when I started looking at the rest of the book, I realized that Pendergast's definition of "ambient" seems to be the widest definition of the word that I have ever seen - I mean come on, are the Grateful Dead, Miles Davis, the Byrds, and Yes really ambient composers? I don't think so. I think that Pendergast uses the word "ambient" in a different way in the preface than in the rest of the book. In the preface, he uses the word to mean a type, of quiet, meditative, background-type music, but in the rest of the book, he uses it to mean any record with good production values. They're two different things. Also, he seems to fill the book full of meaningless trivia facts that don't really add anything to the scope of the book. I mean, do I really care what kind of engineering degress the members of Pink Floyd had? Is my understanding of Brian Eno's music heightened now that I know his middle name? No. So the guy can do his research. Big deal. Third, as other reviewers have already pointed out, there are loads of factual errors, typos, and misprints in the book. Anyone who has listended to ELP's "Brain Salad Surgery" will know that the song "Lucky man" is not on that record, contrary to what Pendergast says. So to all you would-be buyers of this book: You don't need a book like thas to understand the music. Just LISTEN to the music, you'll understand a lot more. And if you still fell curious, go to the library and look for it before you buy.
Rating:
Summary: Tries too hard
Review: I got this book at the library thinking that it would focus itself on "Ambient" composers like Eno, Aphex Twin, et al. The preface seems to give that impression on the reader, but when I started looking at the rest of the book, I realized that Pendergast's definition of "ambient" seems to be the widest definition of the word that I have ever seen - I mean come on, are the Grateful Dead, Miles Davis, the Byrds, and Yes really ambient composers? I don't think so. I think that Pendergast uses the word "ambient" in a different way in the preface than in the rest of the book. In the preface, he uses the word to mean a type, of quiet, meditative, background-type music, but in the rest of the book, he uses it to mean any record with good production values. They're two different things. Also, he seems to fill the book full of meaningless trivia facts that don't really add anything to the scope of the book. I mean, do I really care what kind of engineering degress the members of Pink Floyd had? Is my understanding of Brian Eno's music heightened now that I know his middle name? No. So the guy can do his research. Big deal. Third, as other reviewers have already pointed out, there are loads of factual errors, typos, and misprints in the book. Anyone who has listended to ELP's "Brain Salad Surgery" will know that the song "Lucky man" is not on that record, contrary to what Pendergast says. So to all you would-be buyers of this book: You don't need a book like thas to understand the music. Just LISTEN to the music, you'll understand a lot more. And if you still fell curious, go to the library and look for it before you buy.
Rating: 
Summary: Ambient Music gets an intelligent outline.
Review: I read Mark Pendergast's book because I am an academian and a musician that is considered an ambient style artist. I opened this tome and was not only well educated, but well humoured. Mark uses an easy to understand language and quite clear opinions on the accessibility of the music which can be hard to glean from most publicity driven media. I gathered a deep understanding of the history and the observable cross-fertilization that birthed Ambient music. I learned some new things that helped to explain the connections between Ambient, Classical music, Rock , Jazz and Indian music. I was inspired by the breadth of historical investigation and the easy to read style of Mark's writing. I thouroughly recommend this book to anyone who would like to see a clear line from Mahler to the present given in a unpretentious manner. Personally this book has inspired my conceptual outlook on my last few recording projects with such as qtip (of A tribe called quest) and I'm sure it will inspire all who strive to create and enjoy Ambient music of this century and the following.
Rating:
Summary: Moslty filler with no American ambient artists mentioned
Review: I wasn't so impressed with this book for two reasons. One being the content which is about 100 1-2 page biographies of mostly non-ambient composers, frankly I don't really see the point of this. Ok maybe some of these composers were an influence or had some sort of impact on ambient music in the future but I think this could have been covered in a single chapter instead of using it to fill most of the book, plus most of these composers have had extensive material written about them already so why bother? I think it would have been far more interesting if he had done 100 biographies on real ambient artists.
My second reason is probably the bigger issue I have with this book and which is typical of anything on this topic coming out of the UK is its total lack of coverage of anything that has occurred in the North American scene. No mention of Steve Roach or Robert Rich or anyone else from that genre. Ok their are a couple of Americans but isn't it interesting that all of the ones mentioned have worked with Brian Eno or Peter Gabriel or are based in the UK? Personally I think the definitive book on ambient music has yet to be written.
Rating:
Summary: Best all-around history of this subject.........
Review: Prendergast is a thoughtful and thorough writer......his book on Irish music (Isle of Noises) was comprehensive and superb. This one is similarly definitive......it is hard to imagine anyone significantly surpassing it for coverage of the field up to this point (it missed the boat carrying Autechre, Oval, Stereolab, Mouse on Mars, and "glitch" techniques). But whatever blanks are to be noted here can be filled in by any intelligent reader with access to a search engine.
Rating: 
Summary: More like a band recommendation list
Review: Really isn't anything beyond a list of records the author enjoys. Extremely noticable gaps in artist's careers (Focuses entirely on the "ambience" in Miles Davis' "Miles Ahead" and completely ignores the fusion years. Listen to Summertime and then listen to Yesternow. How is Summertime even remotely close to ambient?) and even completely lacking artists (If the Residents don't qualify for "Eskimo" but Jimi Hendrix does for "Electric Ladyland" then I've been grossly misinformed).
Book has almost nothing to do with Ambient music as a genre and everything to do with the records the author enjoys. All Music Guide does just as well at explaining it and that's just plain sad. Interesting only for fairly good record recommendations to new fans, and perhaps those interested in production.
Rating:
Summary: Encyclopedic, Insightful, yet inaccurate.
Review: The "family tree" of 20th Century music that Prendergast draws is deep in thought, yet lacking correctness on the minutiae. These failings leave the reader at times frustrated with these inaccuracies. Hopefully, a second edition can be drafted to allow the mistakes to be corrected. It seems that they slipped through the cracks, simply because the book is so encyclopedic, that tiny (yet important) facts get left either unsaid, or misstated. Intellectually, it's a masterpiece meal, but unfortunately, the detail and factual wine's been kept next to the oven, and the bread is burnt. Fortunately for the book, its breath of fresh air in insight makes up for this. If the facts were fixed this book would be off the scale.
Rating:
Summary: Very Light
Review: This is much more of a "who I think is cool" book than one with any information or analysis. Good for those who want to name-drop, but not for real students of music.
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