Although there are many books written about 20th century music, very few of them become bestsellers. Twentieth-century music itself is difficult to understand for most listeners, and even less is written about it. In particular, the more than 800-page "Cambridge History of 20th Century Music" mentioned above is intimidating not only to ordinary readers, but also to professional musicians. But Alex Ross’s Noise is a surprising exception. The title of "Noise" comes from two sources: one is from Hamlet's line "The rest is silence" in the last scene of Shakespeare's "Hamlet"; the other is taken from a passage by Cage: "No matter where we are, what we hear is Most of it is noise. When you ignore it, noise disturbs you, but when you listen to it, noise can be so fascinating." In the book "Noise", Ross wanted to do more than just provide an overview of the musical works of the 20th century, and more importantly, he wanted to interpret the turbulent history of the 20th century through music. In his own words: "This is a book about the fate of musical works in the 20th century" (p. 514). Here he integrates biography, history, music criticism, sociology, aesthetics, psychology and other methods, trying to understand the "cultural predicament" experienced by composers of art music (including classical, jazz, pop, and film) in the 20th century. ) (p. 185), conduct a non-teleological, multi-level and multi-dimensional analysis. The so-called "cultural dilemma" here has a broad meaning. It not only refers to the attitude of artists in the 20th century towards traditional aesthetic concepts and their understanding of the fundamental definition of art, but also includes political interference in culture, the erosion of modernity, the proliferation of commercialization, the mass The rise of entertainment and the increasing marginalization of classical music, the break between music value and function, the development of science and technology and the diversification of musical art are a series of crises commonly faced by composers in the 20th century.