Eric Weisbard on music criticism, Spin in the 90s, and creating the Pop Conference

This episode features the veteran music critic and academic Eric Weisbard, author of the new book Songbooks: The Literature of American Popular Music. This conversation covers his career from early days in the San Francisco critic scene of the late 80s/early 90s, his work as a key writer at Spin in the mid-90s, his experience co-editing the influential Spin Alternative Record Guide from 1995, his time at the Village Voice and the EMP museum, creating and running the Pop Conference for many years, and his career as a professor at the University of Alabama. If you're interested in the culture and history of music criticism, you're gonna want to listen to this one.