Showing titles in History & Criticism

Over one million copies sold! Have you ever wanted to learn more about hymns, but weren’t sure where to start? Bestselling author Robert J. Morgan shares the incredible stories behind the beloved traditional hymns of faith. Each week millions of Christians around the world use hymns composed...

Seemingly granted ‘classic album’ status within days of its release in 1997, OK Computer transformed Radiohead from a highly promising rock act into The Most Important Band in the World – a label the band has been burdened by (and has fooled around with) ever since. Through close musical analysis of each song, Dai Griffiths explores the themes and ideas that have made this album resonate so deeply with its audience, and argues that OK Computer is one of the most successfully realized CD albums so far created.

No period in the history of rock music offered such an abrupt shift in prevailing tastes as the 1990s. While just a short while before, radio and MTV were clamoring for hair metal bands, suddenly alt-rockers such as Jane’s Addiction, Nine Inch Nails, Faith No More, Primus, Smashing Pumpkins, and of course, Nirvana, brought a sea change not just in what the most popular bands sounded like, but also in fashion, politics, and seemingly all aspects of pop culture.

Drawing on new research and enlivened by Touré's unique pop-cultural fluency, I Would Die 4 U relies on surprising and in-depth interviews with Prince's band members, former girlfriends, musicologists, and even Bible scholars to deconstruct the artist's life and work. Prince's baby boomer status allowed him to play a wise older brother to the latchkey kids of Generation X. Defying traditional categories of race, gender, and sexuality, he nonetheless presented a very traditional conception of religion and God in his music.

Formed in Hermosa Beach, California, in 1978, for eight brutal years Black Flag made and played brilliant, ugly, no-holds-barred music on a self-appointed touring circuit of America’s clubs, squats, and community halls. They fought with everybody: the police, the record industry, and even their own fans. They toured overseas on pennies a day and did it in beat-up trucks and vans. Spray Paint the Walls tells Black Flag’s story from the inside, drawing on exclusive interviews with the group’s members, their contemporaries, and the bands they inspired.

A modern take on a classical icon: this “luminous book” (Susan Orlean, New York Times bestselling author of The Library Book) tells the story of when, where, and how Chopin composed his most famous work, uncovering many surprises along the way and showing how his innovative music still...

By 1976, Elton John was the best-selling recording artist and the highest-grossing touring act in the world. With seven #1 albums in a row and a reputation as a riveting piano-pounding performer, the former Reggie Dwight had gone with dazzling speed from the London suburbs to the pinnacles of rock stardom, his songs never leaving the charts, his sold-out shows packed with adoring fans. Then he released Blue Moves, and it all came crashing down.

White Limozeen (1989) was a commercial recovery after Dolly Parton's first major failure two years previously with the release of Rainbow. This book is a case study in how an album is sold and a persona constructed. The album had a complex relationship to the country music genre at a time when the genre was in the middle of major sonic and cultural shifts, and it represents how country music saw itself. This question of identity was especially relevant since White Limozeen was produced by Ricky Skaggs, the bluegrass prodigy who was in the middle of his own genre-widening experiments.

Welcome to the electrifying world of K-pop! From its origins in a once-overlooked corner of Asia to today's global superstars like BTS and BLACKPINK, discover how South Korea built an entertainment empire that's revolutionizing modern culture. This comprehensive guide reveals the fascinating story behind K-pop's meteoric rise and lasting impact.

In Elvis Presley: A Southern Life, one of the most admired Southern historians of our time takes on one of the greatest cultural icons of all time. The result is a masterpiece: a vivid, gripping biography, set against the rich backdrop of Southern society - indeed, American society - in the second half of the 20th century.

A poignant, funny, and lively memoir of sexual awakening, music, and discovering one's true self. 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...

This title offers a superb investigation of what is arguably Johnny Cash's greatest album, focusing on his enduring mythology. When Johnny Cash signed to Rick Rubin's record label in 1993, he was a country music legend who, like his fellow Highwaymen Willie, Waylon and Kris, remained a fondly regarded yet completely marginalized Nashville figure, unheard on the radio and unseen on the charts. Cash's odyssey from oldies act to folk hero pivots on his first American Recordings album, a document of almost unbearable solitude and directness.

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.

Pet Sounds is, rightly, one of the most celebrated pop albums ever released. It has also been written about, pored over, and analyzed more than most other albums put together. In this disarming book, Jim Fusilli focuses primarily on the emotional core of the album, on Brian Wilson’s pitch-perfect cry of despair. In doing so, he brings to life the search for equilibrium and acceptance that still gives Pet Sounds its heart almost four decades after its release.

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.

An intimate portrait of Handel’s life and inner circle, modeled after one of the composer’s favorite forms: the fugue. During his lifetime, the sounds of Handel’s music reached from court to theater, echoed in cathedrals, and filled crowded taverns, but the man himself - known to most as the composer of Messiah - is a bit of a mystery. Though he took meticulous care of his musical manuscripts and even provided for their preservation on his death, very little of an intimate nature survives.

Black metal is a paradox. A noisy underground metal genre brimming with violence and virulence, it has captured the world's imagination for its harsh yet flamboyant style and infamous history involving arson, blasphemy, and murder.

When Dave Hickey was 12, he rode the surfer's dream: the perfect wave. And, like so many things in life we long for, it didn't quite turn out - he shot the pier and dashed himself against the rocks of Sunset Cliffs in Ocean Beach, which just about killed him. Fortunately, for Hickey and for us, he survived, and continues to battle, decades into a career as one of America's foremost critical iconoclasts, a trusted, even cherished no-nonsense voice commenting on the all-too-often nonsensical worlds of art and culture.

An exuberant, uniquely accessible, beautifully illustrated look inside the enigmatic art and craft of conducting, from a celebrated conductor whose international career has spanned half a century. John Mauceri brings a lifetime of experience to bear in an unprecedented, hugely informative...

Paper Cuts is the inside story of the slow death of the British music press. But it's also a love letter to it, the tale of how music magazines saved one man's life. Ted Kessler left home and school around his 17th birthday, determined 'to be someone who listened to music professionally'. That dream appeared forlorn when he was later arrested for theft behind the counter of the record shop he managed during acid house's long hot summer of love.