For the Rebecca West bit , although the nuancing by Patricia Lockwood is interesting 

(hat tip Dorian Lynskey)  

 Love is never wasted, because its value does not rest upon reciprocity

CS Lewis

 “The worst thing is a sanitised society ruled by the middle class. The working class and the real upper class have a lot in common. They know where they’re from, they like a drink, have a sense of humour. It’s the middle you need to look out for.”

Mark E Smith, Renegade.

Das Land ohne Musik

"The English are the only cultured nation without its own music (except street music)" 

-  Oskar Schmitz

(via Ed, identifying the more nuanced source of the famous "the land without music" claim, which sounds harsher and more contemptuous in German: Das Land ohne Musik)

This was the title of a 1904 book seemingly dedicated to this mystery: Das Land ohne Musik : Englische Gesellschaftsprobleme 

Here's an even larger portion from the book with the quotation above embedded:

''I have long sought to understand the nature of that lack which repeatedly becomes apparent behind so many English good qualities and has such a dulling effect. I have asked myself what is missing from this nation, perhaps kindness, love of humanity, piety, humour, aesthetic sense? No, all these qualities are present in England, some even more visibly than in our country. Finally I discovered something that distinguishes the English from all other civilised nations to an amazing extent, a lack which everyone admits – thus no discovery at all – but the implications of which have probably not yet been emphasised: THE ENGLISH ARE THE ONLY CIVILISED PEOPLE WITHOUT MUSIC OF THEIR OWN (apart from street ballads). That does not mean that they have less fine ears but that their whole lives are the poorer for it. To have music in oneself, even if ever so little, means being able to forget oneself and to tolerate dissonance, even linger with it, because it is resolved in harmony. Music gives us wings and makes everything miraculous easy to understand.''

Wonder how many people in England bought this insult in book form and how much indignation and disagreement it stirred up? 

An interesting discussion of the Schmitz quote and the fact that this was quite a common prejudice on the part of Germans in the 19th Century. 

Heinrich Heine, for instance, wrote: 

"These people have no ear, neither for the beat nor indeed for music in any form, and their unnatural passion for piano-playing and singing is all the more disgusting. There is verily nothing on earth so terrible as English musical composition, except English painting."

The phrase "Land Without Music" has been picked up by other people over the years for books about English music traditions 

" Criticism is exciting just because there is no formula to apply, just because you must use everything you are and everything you know that is relevant, and that film criticism is particularly exciting just because of the multiplicity of elements in film art."

Pauline Kael, 1963

The last bit applies just as well to pop music, since the  music is only one element in the pop (or rock for that matter), so there's an embarrassment of perspectives from which you can approach the object of scrutiny 

 “We live in an age when you say casually to somebody 'What's the story on that?' and they can run to the computer and tell you within five seconds. That's fine, but sometimes I’d just as soon continue wondering. We have a deficit of wonder right now.” 

   ~ Tom Waits

“We want to leave a wound” 

- Pete Townsend 

“We won’t let our music stand in the way of our visual act”’.

- Pete Towsend 

(via Peter Stanfield)

 "Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a window pane" -- George Orwell, Why I Write

Hmmm, do we agree with this? Not the first bit but the "one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality" bit. Really not sure about that George. Certainly, if enforced, this edict would eliminate 90 percent of Great Rock Writing from consideration as even "readable". 

As for "good prose is like a window pane"....

I actually am generally into the idea of lucidity and directness as virtues and find it easy to switch between newspaper-style writing and bloggoid infolded type stuff -- and also kinda enjoy the challenge of seeing if you can get ideas across without them seeming capital "i" Ideas -- but for some writers Style=Voice=the Message = something they don't want to sacrifice. It's that old idea that a writing about rock'n'roll should be rock'n'roll.

If you think about it "style" = anything in a piece of prose that is an impediment to instant understanding, clear transmission of data. a totally style-less piece would be utterly lucid but lack all flavour and personality  (utter lucidity = US Today type writing). Conversely, the more stylish / styled a piece of writing, the harder it is to read at speed and the smaller its readership will be.

It's a trade-off

"Twenty years ago Greenberg was listening to painters; now he's talking to them. The result is a formula for what painting should look liked"

- Carl Andre on Clement Greenberg