Music-History & Criticism

Dead Kennedys routinely top both critic and fan polls as the greatest punk band of their generation. Their debut full-length, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, in particular, is regularly voted among the top albums in the genre. Fresh Fruit offered a perfect hybrid of...

A compelling portrait of composer-performer Julius Eastman's enigmatic and intriguing life and music. Composer-performer Julius Eastman (1940-90) was an enigma, both comfortable and uncomfortable in the many worlds he inhabited: black, white, gay, straight, classical music, disco, academia, and downtown New York. His music,...

The groundbreaking Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music (Continuum; September 2004; paperback original) maps the aural and discursive terrain of vanguard music today. Rather than offering a history of contemporary music, Audio Culture traces the genealogy of current musical practices and theoretical concerns, drawing...

If You're Feeling Sinister shows how Belle & Sebastian transformed themselves over the space of a decade, from a slightly shambolic cult secret into a polished, highly entertaining, mainstream pop group. Along the way, the book shows how the internet has revolutionized how we...

"A highly entertaining, well-written look at a city that played a major role in the history of rock and roll music. Kudos to Marty Jourard on a book of historical importance."-Kudzoo Magazine "Jourard tells the story so that you feel you are there in...

Engaging, clear and informative, this is the story of western music - of its great composers and also of its performers and listeners, of changing ideas of what music is and what it is for. Paul Griffiths shows how music has evolved through the...

One of the most respected and referenced books of its kind, this authoritative volume covers not only violins but other bowed instruments. It ranges from the earliest makers of stringed instruments -- Greek, Roman, and Egyptian -- to the latter-day masters of French, Italian,...

In this readable, well-researched history, a distinguished authority on musical instruments offers a concise survey of the evolution of trumpets, trombones, bugles, cornets, French horns, tubas, and other brass wind instruments. The story begins with such primitive contrivances as bark trumpets, conch shells and...

This masterful explorationof American roots music--country, rockabilly, and the blues--spotlights the artists who created a distinctly American sound, including Ernest Tubb, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Elvis Presley, Merle Haggard, and Sleepy LaBeef. In incisive portraits based on searching interviews with these legendary performers, Peter Guralnick...

Winner of the Oregon Book Award for General Nonfiction and Los Angeles Times bestseller "It makes good music sound better."-Janet Maslin in The New York Times "A fascinating look into the West Coast recording studio scene of the '60s and the inside story of...

Beethoven's sixteen string quartets are some of the most extraordinary and challenging pieces of music ever written. Originally composed and performed between 1798 and 1826, they have inspired artists of all kinds--not only musicians--and have been subject to endless reinterpretation. But what is it...

"Peter Doggett's book about the Beatles' split is a real page-turner." -- Annie Lennox "Enthralling... Impossible to put down." -- The Independent Acclaimed journalist Peter Doggett recounts the previously untold story of the dramatic final chapter in the lives, loves, and legal battles of...

Author: Joe DaviesISBN-10: 1108489842ISBN-13: 9781108489843Publisher: Cambridge University PressLanguage: EnglishPublished: 12/02/2021Pages: 320Format: HardcoverWeight: 1.59lbsSize: 9.61h x 6.69w x 0.75d

A fascinating journey into global politics that made classical music a proxy for power, inadvertently creating the "sound of Hollywood," and excluding hundreds of composers "[Mauceri's] writing is more exhilarating than any helicopter ride we have been on."--Air Mail "Fluently written and often cogent."--Barton...

A package of two maps charting the London of The Sex Pistols and their manager, Malcolm McLaren. In the main map, we explore the city as it was known to the Pistols, taking in childhood homes and schools, rehearsal spaces, venues and other sites...

A celebratory look at how the groundbreaking disco hit changed the world and became "one of the most influential records ever made". (Financial Times)Author: Dave ThompsonISBN-10: 1493049801ISBN-13: 9781493049806Publisher: Backbeat BooksLanguage: EnglishPublished: 08/01/2021Pages: 280Format: PaperbackWeight: 1.01lbsSize: 8.98h x 5.98w x 0.71d

Rhythm in the Rain is a nonfiction narrative about the jazz community in the Pacific Northwest that examines the people, places, and events that have made cities like Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, so popular among musicians. From the genesis of Jackson Street and...

Memphis Boys chronicles the story of the rhythm section at Chips Moman's American Studios from 1964, when the group began working together, until 1972, when Moman shut down the studio and moved the entire operation to Atlanta. Utilizing extensive interviews with Moman and the...

As the Seventies drew to a close and the media declared punk dead and buried, a whole new breed of band was emerging from the gutter. Harder and faster than their '76-'77 predecessors, not to mention more aggressive and political, the likes of Discharge,...

In recent years, Bj rk's artistry has become ever more ambitious and ever more respected. With the release of her conceptual app-album Biophilia in 2011, and a huge retrospective exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art coinciding with her most recent album, Vulnicura,...

"The Beatles White Album and the Launch of Apple" is the tenth book on the Beatles by critically acclaimed Beatles author/historian Bruce Spizer. His latest book covers all aspects of the Beatles 1968 double album titled "The Beatles," but more commonly referred to as...

In this remarkable book, Douglas Wolk brings to life an October evening in 1962, at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem - an evening at the height of Cold War tensions. In great detail, Wolk pieces together what took place (and what was recorded) that...

Every great song has a fascinating backstory. In Anatomy of a Song, based on the ongoing Wall Street Journal column, writer and music historian Marc Myers brings to life five decades of music through oral histories of forty-five transformative songs woven from interviews with...

The concepts of theorist Heinrich Schenker offer a unique method of structural analysis that differentiates between harmonic and contrapuntal functions of chords, emphasizing the relative significance of all tones in terms of motion and direction in the achievement of organic tonal unity.These sketches study...

This long-esteemed book offers the reader a highly interesting glimpse of Beethoven, the man. There are a number of biographical studies of Beethoven, but nowhere else will you find such a convenient classified collection of his utterances and opinions. Through his own words emerges...

The definitive survey, combining current scholarship with a vibrant narrative. Carefully informed by feedback from dozens of scholars, it remains the book that students and teachers trust to explain what's important, where it fits, and why it matters. Peter Burkholder weaves a compelling story...

Whether you know him as Howard Coward, Napoleon Dynamite, or the Emotional Toothpaste, and are familiar with his work with the Attractions, the Confederates, or the Imposters, Elvis Costello's career has always been about reinvention and his vast catalogue of over 30 studio albums...

At the Hollywood Bowl, California on 25 September 2017 the final song of the final concert of the Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers 40th Anniversary tour was, almost inevitably, 'American Girl', the classic from the bands 1976 debut album. Seven days later Thomas Earl...

A first-ever book on the subject, New York City Blues: Postwar Portraits from Harlem to the Village and Beyond offers a deep dive into the blues venues and performers in the city from the 1940s through the 1990s. Interviews in this volume bring the...

If any man could be defined as the epitome of the modern jazz singer, it would surely be Jon Hendricks. His contributions to jazz were colossal: a hipster, a bopster, a comic and raconteur, a word-smith par excellence, and a fearless improviser, he took...

The fascinating story of Canada's most revered concert hall and the myriad artists who have graced its stage.Known for its intimacy and sense of occasion, a night at Toronto's Massey Hall is magical for both audiences and performers. For many musicians, playing the hall...

Works by the polymathic French author Victor Segalen, including a previously untranslated essay, a novel, and a libretto.Victor Segalen (1878-1919) had one of France's most curious literary careers, applying his imagination to musicology, ethnography, exploration, medicine, synesthetics, Chinese history, and the occult. This collection...

The Great British Recording Studios tells the story of the iconic British facilities where many of the most important recordings of all time were made. The first comprehensive account of British recording studios ever published, it is endorsed by and was written with the...

There has always been more to music in Boston than the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Jazz, for example, dates to the early 1900s, but it was in the 1940s and 1950s that it truly sparkled. The Boston Jazz Chronicles: Faces, Places, and Nightlife 1937-1962 is...

Walk the halls of the famous studio that produced hits for Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Sam and Dave, and Booker T. and the MGs. Soulsville, U.S.A. provides the first history of the groundbreaking label along with compelling biographies of the promoters, producers, and performers...

Jazz stories have been entwined with cinema since the inception of jazz film genre in the 1920s, giving us origin tales and biopics, spectacles and low-budget quickies, comedies, musicals, and dramas, and stories of improvisers and composers at work. And the jazz film has...

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...

Rock 'n Roll is the first music to span generations. What youth enjoyed in the '20s was ignored in the '30s. Music from the '30s was ignored in the '40s and so on - that is until Rock 'n' Roll hit the mainstream in...

Sleater-Kinney's 1997 album Dig Me Out is built on Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein's competing guitars, Janet Weiss's muscular rhythms, and layered vocals that teeter between an urgent, banshee-like vibrato and a lower accompaniment. Dig Me Out was the band's third studio album, but...

Exhaustively researched and packed with unique insights, this history journeys from the punk scene's roots in the mid-1960s to the arrival of "new wave" in the early 1980s. With a cast that includes Patti Smith, Pere Ubu, Television, Blondie, the Ramones, the MC5, the...

Johann Joachim Quantz's On Playing Flute has long been recognized as one of the most significant and in-depth treatises on eighteenth-century musical thought, performance practice, and style. This classic text of Baroque music instruction goes far beyond an introduction to flute methods by offering...

Cowboy Bebop is one of the most beloved anime series of all time, and if you ask its fans why, you can expect to hear about its music. Composer Yoko Kanno created an eclectic blend of jazz, rock, lullabies, folk and funk (to list...

A visual tour de force showcasing Toronto's vast concert history."Not sure there's ever been anything like this...The graphics are fascinating, the script is comprehensive. It's staggering what's been unleashed from the Vault." -- Gary Topp, promoter, half of the legendary duo the Garys"These pages...

A treasure trove of memorabilia, photos and writings, the Grateful Dead Family Album is both a candid family history of one of America's most enduring rock bands and a priceless time capsule of '60s rock culture and counterculture. Filled with anecdotes and never-before-seen photos...

While on a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, journalist and novelist Paul Hemphill wrote of that pivotal moment in the late sixties when traditional defenders of the hillbilly roots of country music were confronted by the new influences and business realities of pop music. The...

In this highly praised and seminal work, Alan Merriam demonstrates that music is a social behavior-one worthy and available to study through the methods of anthropology. In it, he convincingly argues that ethnomusicology, by definition, cannot separate the sound-analysis of music from its cultural...

"Jeff Tamarkin is an able guide through the tangled history of one of the Sixties' most musically visionary bands." --Rolling Stone From a renowned music journalist, a close-up portrait of Jefferson Airplane, chronicling the band's origins in 1965 San Francisco and their role in...

In the 1930s and 40s, a father-and-son team of folklorists hit the highways, byways and rural routes of the United States, traveling in a battered pickup truck laden with primitive recording equipment. John A. Lomax and his son, Alan, covered thousands of miles, stopping...

Awarded an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award in 1983 for excellence in writing about music, this volume of candid conversations with the late Claudio Arrau is both a subtle portrait of one of the world's great concert artists and a vivid exploration of his unique...

Learning from a virtuoso is something that any piano student would love to do. But while master classes are rare, this remarkable book allows us to share the thoughts, musical insights, and experience of the world's greatest pianists.In 28 separate interviews, these legendary artists...