Tim Riley (music critic)
Tim Riley reviews pop and classical music for NPR, and has written for The New York Times, truthdig, the Huffington Post, the Washington Post, Slate.com and Salon.com. He was trained as a classical pianist at Oberlin College and Eastman School of Music.
Since 2009, he has taught digital journalism at Emerson College in Boston. Brown University sponsored Riley as its critic-in-residence in 2008. His first book was Tell Me Why: A Beatles Commentary, a critique of the Beatles' music, which The New York Times said brought "new insight to the act we've known for all these years". The book established Riley as an author of rock history critiques. His television appearances include Morning Joe, PBS NewsHour, CBS Morning and Evening News, MTV, and the History Channel.
Riley gave a keynote address at Beatles 2000, the first international academic conference in Jyväskylä, Finland. Since then, he has given lectures on censorship in the arts and rock history. His subsequent projects include the music metaportal Riley Rock Index and a biography of John Lennon, which was included in Kirkus Reviews' list of the Best Nonfiction of 2011.
In 2016, the National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Association awarded Riley the at LA's Millennium Biltmore Hotel as part of the Los Angeles Press Awards. The honor cited his .Books
- Tell Me Why: A Beatles Commentary,
- Hard Rain: A Dylan Commentary,
- Madonna Illustrated,
- Fever: How Rock 'n' Roll Transformed Gender in America,
- Lennon: The Man, the Myth, the Music - The Definitive Life,
- What Goes On: The Beatles, Their Music, and Their Time,
