"[The Reverb series] swerves the more predictable biographies and traditional histories of popular music. Instead, books published under Reverb focus on situating popular music in much broader historical and deeper cultural contexts. Alex Coles skillfully achieves this with his imaginative, radical history of the crooner . With each chapter saturated with references, the frequent illustrations do well to bring a sense of humanity to the crooner's lived life . Crooner is undoubtedly a book written with passion for crooning, but Coles balances that passion with measured insights and a carefully crafted narrative. More than mindful listening at a cool distance, Coles offers a closeness that is personal, perhaps quasi-fanatical. With little to no abstract metanalysis that would explain crooning away into a confusing fog of theory, Coles's post-critical writing delivers a rich, vibrant genealogy of crooning. This accessible study will appeal to casual fans of music, and not exclusively fans of crooning, while also holding court in academic circles for those looking to follow Coles's idiosyncratic tracing of the crooked timber of crooning.

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