Showing results by publisher "----RM Alexander" in History & Criticism

Lifelong fans and interested newcomers will love this stunning biography of Duran Duran by the bestselling author of Gold Dust Woman and Hammer of the Gods. In Please Please Tell Me Now, bestselling rock biographer Stephen Davis tells the story of Duran Duran, the quintessential band of the...

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.

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.

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.

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.

Beloved music critic Tom Breihan's fascinating narrative of the history of popular music through the lens of game-changing #1 singles from the Billboard Hot 100. When Tom Breihan launched his Stereogum column in early 2018, “The Number Ones”—a space in which he has been writing about every...

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...

The Indiana Jones of rock history and founding curator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum narrates the Hall's wild history and his quest to build its collection from scratch—from Ozzy Osbourne's country manor to Keith Moon’s childhood bedroom and Art Garfunkel’s personal archives—including stories about Debbie Harry, Mick Jagger, Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and more.

Die Königin des Rock'n'Roll. "Liebe hat mein Leben gerettet. Davon will ich erzählen." Tina Turner, die Königin des Rock 'n' Roll, wird bald 80 Jahre alt. Unter dem Eindruck einer lebensbedrohlichen Erkrankung, die sie aufgrund einer wunderbaren Wendung überwinden konnte, schildert sie erstmals ihre ganze Geschichte. "Private Dancer", "Simply the Best", "I Can't Stand the Rain" - jeder, der Tina Turners Musik hört, ahnt etwas von ihrer Energie. Ihr Lebenswille und nie versiegender Mut brachten sie aus der Enge der Kindheit in Tennessee auf die Bühnen der Welt.

Electric Ladyland is one of the greatest guitar albums ever made. During the recording process, Jimi Hendrix at last had time and creative freedom to pursue the sounds he was looking for. In this remarkable and entertaining book, John Perry gets to the heart of Hendrix's unique talent—guiding the listener through each song on the album, writing vividly about Hendrix's live performances, and talking to several of Hendrix's peers and contemporaries.

From the joyous communal connections fostered through shared auditory experience to the devastating impact of noise pollution in the deep sea, musician and author Damon Krukowski urges readers to reconsider the significance of sound and its role in both our personal and collective well-being. He looks despairingly at how the multipronged efforts of urban dwellers to mitigate city noise have led to increased isolation, loss of community, and a sense of physical detachment from one’s surroundings.

يطرح هذا الكتاب أسئلةً أساسيةً حول طبيعة الموسيقى بوصفها ممارسةً بشريةً، فالعالم يمتلئ بأنواع مختلفة من الموسيقى: الشعبية، والكلاسيكية، والجاز، والروك، والبوب، والكثير غيرها. بيد أن الكتاب يركز على أبعادها الاجتماعية والثقافية، مستكشفاً تطورها عبر الحقب، وموضحاً تأثير التكنولوجيا فيها، ودورها في سياقات العمل الاجتماعي والسياسي. ويناقش الكتاب أيضاً وضع الموسيقى في زمن العولمة؛ من دورها في إنهاء الاستعمار إلى أهميتها بوصفها وسيلةً للتواصل بين الثقافات.

في هذا الكتاب، يستعرِض إيلايجا والد نوعاً موسيقياً هو في صميم الثقافة الأمريكية. ويتتبَّع جذورَ هذه الموسيقى في الحقول ومعسكرات العمل والأناشيد الدينية، ويُظهِر التحوُّلاتِ التي شهدتها على يدِ فنانين محترفين مثل وليام سي هاندي، الذي جعل موسيقى البلوز فناً شعبياً قبل قرنٍ مضى. ثم يتابع والد تطورَ هذه الموسيقى من ما رايني وبيسي سميث إلى بوب ديلان وجيمي هندريكس، ويوضِّح تأثير التسجيلات الريفية، ويستكشف دورَ البلـوز في تطوُّر موسيقى الكانتري وموسيقى الجاز، ويلقي نظرةً على اتجاهاتِ الإيقاع والبلوز التي راجت في أربعينيات القرن العشرين وخمسينياته. وأخيراً، ينتقل والد إلى الحاضر، ويتطرَّق إلى تأثيراتِ البلوز على الشِّعر الأمريكي وعلاقة هذا النوع الموسيقي بالأساليبِ الحديثة مثل الراب.

Un bambino come tanti: silenzioso, non bello, con grandi occhi pieni di domande. Dal momento in cui il mondo si accorge di lui, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart non avrà più pace. Per farlo dovrà però rinunciare alla spensieratezza, alle amicizie, agli amori e persino alla salute, mentre per restare nell'orbita della sua vita eccezionale coloro che lo amano, come la sorella Nannerl e la madre Anna, si sacrificheranno fino ad annullarsi.

A Look at the History of the Emo and Indie Music Era. Explore the cultural, social, and psychological factors surrounding the genres.

In the '80s, the Birmingham, England, band Duran Duran became closely associated with new wave, an idiosyncratic genre that dominated the decade's music and culture. No album represented this rip-it-up-and-start-again movement better than the act's breakthrough 1982 LP, Rio. A cohesive album with a retro-futuristic sound—influences include danceable disco, tangy funk, swaggering glam, and Roxy Music's art-rock—the full-length sold millions and spawned smashes such as "Hungry Like the Wolf" and the title track.

Swallowing the chaos wrought by his public persona and digesting it as a grandiose allegory of self-redemption, Kanye sublimates his narcissism to paint masterstroke after masterstroke on MBDTF, a 69-minute hymn to egotistical excess. Sampling and ventriloquizing the pop music past to tell the story of its future–very much a tale of our culture's wish for unfettered digital ubiquity–MBDTF is the album of its era, an aesthetic self-acquittal and spiritual autobiography of our era’s most dynamic artist.

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...