Showing titles in History & Criticism

Simon Critchley first encountered David Bowie in the early '70s, when the singer appeared on Britain's most-watched music show, Top of the Pops. His performance of "Starman" mesmerized Critchley: it was "so sexual, so knowing, so strange". Two days later Critchley's mum bought a copy of the single; she liked both the song and the performer's bright orange hair (she had previously been a hairdresser). The seed of a lifelong love affair was thus planted in the mind of her son, aged 12.

Washington Post national arts reporter Geoff Edgers takes a deep dive into the story behind “Walk This Way,” Aerosmith and Run-DMC's legendary, groundbreaking mashup that forever changed music. The early 1980s were an exciting time for music. Hair metal bands were selling out stadiums, while...

For a Kentucky rifleman who spent his tour trudging through Vietnam's Central Highlands, it was Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'". For a "tunnel rat" who blew smoke into the Viet Cong's underground tunnels, it was Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze". For a black marine distraught over the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., it was Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools".

The Everly Brothers—aka Don and Phil to fans with an intimate appreciation for them—seemed to exist almost as an apparition. Emerging within the formative era for young Baby Boomers during the blandly regimented '50s, they were a ubiquitous presence, clad in snug suits and skinny ties, hair neatly Brylcreemed, never raising their voices when they sang. The two prim-looking country boys with dark, curiously penetrating eyes and perfectly merged, honey-dipped harmonies, were oddly but comfortably settled as sentimental, soothing, sometimes lovelorn voices of a still-uncharted cultural turf.

Monolithic Undertow alights a crooked path across musical, religious and subcultural frontiers. It traces the line from ancient traditions to the modern underground, navigating archaeoacoustics, ringing feedback, chest plate sub-bass, avant-garde eccentricity, sound weaponry and fervent spiritualism.

Charly Hübner zeigt sein schriftstellerisches Talent. Selten wurde so leidenschaftlich über Musik geschrieben, selten so eindrücklich über den Effekt, den diese auf einen Jugendlichen haben kann. Dieses Hörbuch ist eine Schatzkiste voller Erinnerungen und Anekdoten eines Lebens, für das der Frontmann der lautesten Band der Welt seine berühmten Weisheiten geschrieben haben könnte: "I'm in love with rock'n'roll, it satisfies my soul". Ob als pickliger Jugendlicher in der Dorfdisko, wenn das erste Mal "The Hammer" gespielt wird, oder bei der Party nach der ersten Filmpremiere - immer ist Motörhead als Soundtrack dabei.

The human body is the primary instrument of war, yet those waging war often confront soldiers' bodies in a detached or merely intellectual way. In The Tenderness of Silent Minds, Martha C. Nussbaum, a leading thinker on emotion, morality, and justice, conducts a pioneering study of Benjamin Britten's musical representations of the tender male body amidst the brutality of war, and their ability to transform consciousness by evoking potent, non-personal emotions.

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

The definitive history of the rise and heyday of the revolutionary Greenwich Village music scene, based on new research and first-hand interviews with many of its legendary performers Although Greenwich Village encompasses less than a square mile in downtown New York, rarely has such a concise...

The must-read memoir from the visionary figure behind Manchester's legendary music scene, from The Haçienda to The Warehouse Project. Tales From the Dance Floor is an electrifying journey into the heart of Manchester’s music culture with its most influential promoter. Over the past three...

Millions of people know the name of the iconic country music artist, George Jones, but few people know that behind the man and his golden voice was a strong, feisty woman who not only saved his life from cocaine addiction, alcoholism, and other abusive and self-destructive behaviors, but also was instrumental in saving his soul. For the first time, in Playin' Possum, Nancy Jones reveals the true “insider” perspectives and little known poignant and as well as humorous stories about the country music icon.

How did hip-hop happen? To understand that, we have to go back to before the ‘birth’ of the culture.

Award-winning music journalist and author Stuart Nicholson takes the listener on an entertaining journey from jazz's early stirrings in America’s south through to the present day, when almost every country in the world has its own vibrant jazz scene. En route we meet a host of jazz heroes past and present, from Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Miles Davis, to Keith Jarrett and Kamasi Washington. Each chapter is accompanied by a playlist designed to provide a stimulating and enjoyable entry point to what has been described as the most exciting art form of all.

A GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, PITCHFORK, NPR, METRO AND HERALD SCOTLAND BEST MUSIC BOOK OF 2018 ‘The definitive grime biography’ NME ’A landmark genre history’ Pitchfork This audiobook is narrated by Ash Hunter, stage and screen actor who is currently playing Hamilton in the West End production...

Thirty years ago, Chuck Berry starred in the seminal music documentary Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock 'N' Roll, which profiled the legend during a star-studded concert celebrating his 60th birthday. Now comes the complete story behind one of America's most enduring and embattled icons. Compiled as an oral history by the film's producer, Stephanie Bennett, Johnny B. Bad combines interviews from the film's participants, including its music director - Keith Richards. These unique interviews and accounts paint a vivid and multifaceted picture of the artist.

After February 9, 1964, everyone wanted to be Debbie Gendler. She was one of a handful of lucky fans who were in the live audience for the Beatles' historic performance on the Ed Sullivan Show. Everyone has a story about where they were when they watched the appearance, but very few were there in-person—and even fewer would go on not just to meet the Beatles, but end up building a career around the band. But Debbie did.

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.

Jonathan Lethem treats Fear of Music (the third album by the Talking Heads, and the first produced by Brian Eno) as a masterpiece—edgy, paranoid, funky, addictive, rhythmic, repetitive, spooky, and fun. He scratches obsessively at the album's songs, guitars, rhythms, lyrics, packaging, downtown origins, and legacy, showing how Fear of Music hints at the directions (positive and negative) the band would take in the future.

No longer dismissed as relics of the hippie era, a new generation has lionized the Dead for creating a culture that paved the way for social networking, free music swapping, and the uncompromising anticorporate attitude of indie rock. Now, fifty years after the band first began changing rock 'n' roll both sonically and psychically, So Many Roads paints the most vivid portrait yet of the Grateful Dead, one of the most enduring institutions in American music and culture.

David W. Barber has delighted fans around the world with Accidentals on Purpose, When the Fat Lady Sings, and other internationally best-selling books of musical humor. His best-selling Bach, Beethoven and the Boys chronicles the lives of the great (and not-so-great) composers, exploring their sex lives, exposing their foibles, and expanding on our understanding of these all-too-human creatures.