Music

In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl's halftime show. The experience was so exhilarating that Bruce decided to write about it....

All golden ages are marked by periods of spectacular cultural flourishing, scientific exploration, technological achievement and economic growth; yet no two are the same. Their beliefs, societies and place in the wider world all vary. Despite this, all previous golden ages have ended.

A no-nonsense and helpful guide on how to cope with a slew of mental-health issues that are hell-bent on ruining the lives of millions of people worldwide....

They say there are no second acts in American lives, and third acts are almost unheard of. That's part of what makes Brian Wilson's story so astonishing....

In honor of the 10-year anniversary of The Heroin Diaries, Nikki Sixx’s definitive and bestselling memoir on drug addiction is now available on audio for the first time, read by Nikki Sixx....

From award-winning musician and composer Warren Ellis comes the unexpected and inspiring story of a piece of chewing gum....

NOFX: The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories is the first tell-all autobiography from one of the world's most influential and controversial punk bands....

Celebrate over 30 years of the world's most notorious rock band with the audiobook edition of The Dirt - the outrageous, legendary, no-holds-barred autobiography of Mötley Crüe....

Paul Kelly is a uniquely gifted storyteller, and here, using his lyrics as starting points, he reads stories of his life and his songs....

Even if you have listened to many of these illustrative pieces throughout your life you will never hear them the same way again after experiencing these lectures....

Billy Stanley, Elvis Presley's stepbrother, shares the untold story of the iconic singer's Christian faith—its deep influence on his music, films, relationships, commitment to his family and fans, and his love for the Gospel....

Originally published in 1978 as The Beach Boys and the California Myth, this groundbreaking study was both the first full-length book on the band and the first to recognize Brian Wilson as one of the most significant and influential artists of the twentieth century....

We all have a random collection of the things that made us—photos, tickets, clothes, souvenirs, stuffed in a box, packed in a suitcase, crammed into a drawer....

Iron Man chronicles the story of both pioneering guitarist Tony Iommi and legendary band Black Sabbath, dubbed "The Beatles of heavy metal" by Rolling Stone....

Lead singer and songwriter for the Red Hot Chili Peppers Anthony Kiedis gives us a searingly honest account of the life from which his music has evolved. Scar Tissue is a fascinating account of a fast-lane life, addiction, and a moving story of eventual recovery and redemption.

All You Need to Know About the Music Business has been universally regarded as the definitive guide to the music industry. Now Passman leads novices and experts alike through what has been the most profound change in the music business since the days of wax cylinders and piano rolls: streaming....

After more than two decades of research and travels, Christophe Lebold, who befriended the poet and spent time with him in Los Angeles, delivers a stimulating analysis of Cohen’s life and art.

Britain's empire has gone. Our manufacturing base is a shadow of its former self; the Royal Navy has been reduced to a skeleton....

From their beginnings as teenagers experimenting in a San Fernando Valley garage dubbed "The Hell Hole" to headlining major music festivals around the world, discover the whole story of Bad Religion's 40-year career in irreverent style....

Music critic and journalist Steven Hyden celebrates the life, career, and music of this legendary group, widely considered to be one of the greatest American rock bands of all time....

You can now develop your vocal power, presence, and influence on others and all within the comfort and privacy of your own home....

Bestselling authors Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour tell the no-holds-barred history of the iconic music festival.

Get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Megadeth’s iconic record, Rust in Peace, from the band’s lead vocalist and guitarist....

On the eve of his fortieth birthday, a professor of no discernible musical talent learns to play the guitar and investigates how anyone of any age might master a new skill.....

This lesson is broken into several chapters. The first part focuses on interval identification exercises, starting with grouped intervals and ending with all intervals mixed up....

All golden ages are marked by periods of spectacular cultural flourishing, scientific exploration, technological achievement and economic growth; yet no two are the same. Their beliefs, societies and place in the wider world all vary. Despite this, all previous golden ages have ended, whether it be because of external pressures or internal fracturing; too much hubris or too little wariness.

In Fantasies of Nina Simone, Jordan Alexander Stein examines the space between our collective and individual fantasies about Simone the performer, civil rights activist, and icon, and her own fantasies about herself. Stein outlines how Simone gave voice to personal fantasies through releasing dozens of covers of her white male contemporaries.

America, 2003: A country at war, its shiny veneer beginning to crack. Von Dutch and The Simple Life dominate. And on the cover of every magazine, a twenty-one-year-old pop star named Britney Spears. Tracking her every move for a third-tier gossip rag in Los Angeles was an unknown young writer taking whatever job he could while pursuing his distant literary dreams. He'd instead become an eyewitness to the slow tragedy of a changing nation, represented in spirit by “the coy it-girl at the end of history.”

This book is the first to explain, in clear and concise language, the anatomy and mechanics of the mysterious and complex bodily system we call the voice. Beautifully illustrated with more than 100 detailed images, Anatomy of the Voice guides voice teachers and students, vocal coaches, professional singers and actors, and anyone interested in the voice through the complex landscape of breathing, larynx, throat, face, and jaw.

Playlist Profits isn’t about chasing trends, buying fake streams, or dropping another song into the void. It’s about building an unstoppable machine that grows your career while you sleep. Inside this book, you'll discover a proven roadmap that helped me (Manafest) hit over 130 million Spotify streams, land Super Bowl placements, & build a real fanbase—not bots, not luck, but a system.

Through a series of interviews with a wide range of people connected to Pink Floyd in their earliest days (including Nick Mason, Peter Jenner, Jenny Fabian, Storm Thorgerson, Duggie Fields and Peter Whitehead), John Cavanagh paints a vivid picture of how this remarkable debut album was created. He brings to life the stories behind each track, as well as Pink Floyd's groundbreaking live performances of the time.

Non-fans regard Céline Dion as ersatz and plastic, yet to those who love her, no one could be more real, with her impoverished childhood, her (creepy) manager-husband's struggle with cancer, her knack for howling out raw emotion. There's nothing cool about Céline Dion, and nothing clever. That's part of her appeal as an object of love or hatred — with most critics and committed music fans taking pleasure (or at least geeky solace) in their lofty contempt.

On Saturday, June 28, 1986, George Michael picked up his tasseled leather jacket, walked out of London’s Wembley Stadium and cheerfully tore up five years of glittering pop history. He’d just disposed of Wham!, the band he’d formed with school friend Andrew Ridgeley when they were teenagers, and now, at 23, he knew he was all grown up. He just needed to convince everyone else.

He was the King of Rockabilly, and one of rock and roll's true pioneers. A groundbreaking guitarist, singer, and songwriter, Carl Perkins inspired countless musicians in country, rock, and pop music. Now acclaimed music writer Jeff Apter recounts Carl Perkins's remarkable life story—the triumphs, tragedies, and career highlights that include some of the most pivotal moments in music history.

This book charts the emergence of Kate Bush in the early-to-mid-1980s as a courageous experimentalist, a singularly expressive recording artist and a visionary music producer. Track-by-track commentaries focus on the experience of the album from the listener’s point of view, drawing attention to the art and craft of Bush’s songwriting, production and sound design.

Bitches Brew is still one of the most astonishing albums ever made in either jazz or rock. Seeming to fuse the two, it actually does something entirely more revolutionary and open-ended: blending the most avant-garde aspects of Western music with deep grooves, the album rejects both jazz and rock for an entirely different idea of how music can be made.

Vs. is the sound of a band on fire. The same confluence of talent, passion, timing, and fate that made “grunge” the world’s soundtrack also lit a short fuse beneath Pearl Jam. The band combusted between late 1992 and mid-1994, the span during which they planned, recorded, and supported their sophomore record. The spotlight, the pressure, the pace—it all nearly turned the thriving act to ash.

This book celebrates Madvillainy as a representation of two genius musical minds melding to form one revered supervillain. A product of circumstance, the album came together soon after MF DOOM's resurgence and Madlib's reluctant return from avant-garde jazz to hip-hop.

By June 1993, when Washington, D.C.'s Fugazi released their third full-length album In on the Kill Taker, the quartet was reaching a thunderous peak in popularity and influence. With two EPs (combined into the classic CD 13 songs) and two albums (1990's genre-defining Repeater and 1991's impressionistic follow-up Steady Diet of Nothing) inside of five years, Fugazi was on creative roll, astounding increasingly large audiences as they toured, blasting fist-pumping anthems and jammy noise-workouts that roared into every open underground heart.

Pete Crighton came of age in the early/mid 1980s in the shadow of HIV/AIDS. Growing up in Toronto, he was terrified that his friends and schoolmates would find out that he was “different” at a time when being gay felt like a death sentence. His only comfort was music, the songs a balm to his painful adolescence. Struggling to make sense of his sexuality and fear of the disease stifled Crighton as a sexual being. Instead of exploring sex, he began curating a massive music library.

The power and influence of Grace increases with each passing year. Here, Daphne Brooks traces Jeff Buckley's fascinating musical development through the earliest stages of his career, up to the release of the album. With access to rare archival material, Brooks illustrates Buckley's passion for life and hunger for musical knowledge, and shows just why he was such a crucial figure in the American music scene of the 1990s.

With a career spanning over fifty years, Tom Waits remains one of rock’s great enigmas; a chameleon-like survivor who, like Bob Dylan and Neil Young, has achieved long-term success while retaining cult credibility and outsider mystique. Lowside of the Road, by Barney Hoskyns, offers a unique, affectionate and penetrating portrait of Waits spanning from Closing Time to Orphans, and beyond. Based on extensive research and deep critical insight, Hoskyns' definitive account of Waits' life and work is an outstanding exploration of this notoriously private artist and performer.

The apex of critical praise and commercial success is a metric achieved by a select few. In 2020, Cardi B became synonymous with “record breaking” as her debut album Invasion of Privacy went five times platinum and became the longest charting record by a female rapper in history. From streaming and charting to views, likes, retweets, and shares, Cardi dominates.

Despite its polarizing reception from critics at the time of its release, Sandinista! is often considered one of the greatest albums of all time. Nevertheless, critics and fans have spent over 40 years debating whether the album would be better as a 12-track LP. This book entertains that idea and considers what is lost or gained in the process.

The recording sessions for Let It Be actually began as rehearsals for a proposed return to live stage work for the Beatles, to be inaugurated in a concert at a Roman amphitheater in Tunisia. In this thoroughly researched book, Steve Matteo delves deep into the complex history of these sessions.

Bob Dylan arrived in New York one winter morning in 1961. His music and spirit would go on to capture the hearts and minds of a generation, but what no one knew then was that, like so many before him, Dylan was concealing his Jewish origins. For Harry Freedman, Dylan’s roots are the key to grasping how this complete unknown burst onto the scene and reinvented not only himself, but popular music. The instinct for escape and reinvention has defined Dylan’s long career.

'In Never schetst Astley zijn eigen merkwaardige rise and fall and rise, deels als ooggetuigenverslag van de eigthies-popcultuur, deels als muzikale zedenschets van het digitale tijdperk.' OOR 'Ik had me met beroemd zijn niet erg op mijn gemak gevoeld, maar ná het beroemd zijn wist ik niet wat ik met mezelf aan moest. Oppervlakkig gezien was ik enorm opgelucht dat ik van de hele toestand af was. Het was alsof ik vrijgelaten was.

Thunderclap Newman stunned the music world in the summer of 1969 with the success of their wonderfully odd debut single "Something In The Air", which ousted none other than the Beatles from the top of the charts. They followed up with an LP described by Nik Cohn as "one of the finest, most truly bizarre albums of the era" before disintegrating just a few months after its release. This is the story of one of the most unlikely combos in popular music history, and of the four disparate characters who formed its core.

Derided as one-hit wonders, estranged from their original producer and record label, and in self-imposed exile in Los Angeles, the Beastie Boys were written off by most observers before even beginning to record their second album—an embarrassing commercial flop that should have ruined the group's career. But not only did "Paul's Boutique" eventually transformed the Beasties from a fratboy novelty to hiphop giants, its sample-happy, retro aesthetic changed popular culture forever.

Fascinating, far-reaching, and definitive, THE LAST GREAT DREAM is the ultimate guide to a generation-defining countercultural movement, an Underground 101 course for newcomers and aficionados alike.