"MacDonald was that rarest of critics-- someone who could tackle musicological detail without boring or baffling the reader. And this, more than anything, is how Revolution in the Head achieves what the best music books do: pushing its readers away from the page and back to the records, however often they've been played. Like the music it so tenderly dissects, this book has sparked a forest of imitations, which often get the form right and fall at the content. It's become, like its subject, a wonderful monolith."
