The context for pop music has shifted to the Web. “It’s the pictures that got small,” Norma Desmond famously quipped in Sunset Boulevard, when faced with the inconvenient truth that Hollywood had ...

In the old days, consumers of music were able to flip through liner notes of an album in order to ascertain precisely who was behind their favorite tracks. Now, after a digital hiatus, new technology ...

I wanted to hear “Song to Jutta,” so I bought a copy of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s first album. I was surprised to find that the liner notes were written by my friend Ann Moses. I called Ann. “Did ...

Joni Mitchell was onto something. You don't miss liner notes until you don't have them. I admit: Many liner notes leave me cold, for two reasons. First, they're way too detailed, especially in jazz.