Music-History & Criticism

To mark the 60th anniversary of Fender, Backbeat's introduced a new, completely revised third edition of this bestseller. Fender guitars have long been the instruments of choice for artists such as Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. This book tells...

Gustav Mahler once said, "With song you can express so much more in the music than the words directly say. The text is actually a mere indication of the... hidden treasure within." Over fourteen years, from 1887-1901, he devoted his compositional output almost exclusively...

When one thinks of "great" classical music, we harken back to the nineteenth century and the Romantic tradition. The emotional resonance of nineteenth century has moved generations musicians and resonated with countless listeners. It has inspired artists and writers. But no writer until how...

When one thinks of "great" classical music, we harken back to the nineteenth century and the Romantic tradition. The emotional resonance of nineteenth century has moved generations musicians and resonated with countless listeners. It has inspired artists and writers. But no writer until how...

One-Track Mind: Capitalism, Culture, and the Art of the Pop Song brings together sixteen writers to weigh in on sixteen iconic tracks from the history of modern popular music. Arranged chronologically in order of release of the tracks, these essays zig zag across the...

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. Hounds Of Love invites you to not only listen, but to cross the boundaries of sensory experience into the...

Discover the Music that Changed Everything Embark on a complex and inspiring journey through the last 101 years as told through some of the most memorable hits and the artists behind them. Noah Lefevre, creator of Polyphonic, explores how our favorite music does more...

From rock'n'roll to contemporary pop, Mixing Pop and Politics is a provocative and entertaining mash-up of music and Marxist theory. A radical history of the political and social upheavals of the last 70 years, told through the period's most popular music. Mixing Pop and...

Towards the tail end of the 1980s, Neil Hannon: a talented singer/songwriter from Northern Ireland, formed his first line-up of The Divine Comedy. In 1989, he signed a deal with independent label, Setanta Records, which led to The Divine Comedy becoming the label's most...

Experimental film practice from an international and transdisciplinary perspective. Karel Doing is an experimental filmmaker and researcher who has worked across the globe with fellow artists and filmmakers, creating a body of work that is difficult to pinpoint with a simple catchphrase. In Ruins...

Neue Deutsche Welle (NDW), or "German New Wave," was made extraordinarily popular in the 1970s and 1980s by the likes of Nena's "99 Luftballoons" and Trio's "Da Da Da"-and then left as quickly as it came. Conventional wisdom among artists dictates that it's better...

How do digital technologies transform music? The answer depends on the lens of one's analysis: creation, promotion, or the experience of the listener. How Music Changed YouTubeshows that the reverse question - How does music transform digital technologies? - is also worth exploring: through...

Rolling Stone, Creem, the Village Voice, SPIN, Billboard, Stereogum, Pitchfork. How did the music journalists who write for these popular publications break into the business? How have they honed their writing and interviewing techniques? How have they managed to thrive amid major changes in...

Arnold's extremely demanding oeuvre, in which he combines orchestral brilliance with his sense of syntactic compositional unity, easily overcomes the prejudicial barriers of serious and light music. Perhaps Arnold's life is portrayed in his works like no other British composer's. Arnold's music is full...

""Songs of Kiwanis: With Words and Music of Songs for All Occasions"" is a comprehensive collection of songs compiled by the International Committee on Music. This book contains a wide variety of songs that can be used for different occasions, including meetings, conferences, celebrations,...

Turandot is a lyric drama written in three acts and five scenes by Giuseppe Adami. The story is set in ancient China and follows the princess Turandot, who has sworn to never marry any man unless he can answer three riddles correctly. The penalty...

""Creation Records Discovered In Egypt (1898)"" is a book written by George St. Clair. The book is about the discovery of ancient Egyptian records that document the creation of the world. The records, which were found in 1898, are said to be the oldest...

William Ashton Ellis (1852-1919) abandoned his medical career in order to devote himself to his Wagner studies. Best known for his translations of Wagner's prose works, Ellis also translated Wagner's letters to family and friends. In this 1899 publication, most of the letters are...

Acclaimed for treading new ground in operatic studies of the period, Simon Morrison's influential and now-classic text explores music and the occult during the Russian Symbolist movement. Including previously unavailable archival materials about Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky, this wholly revised edition is both up to...

Bob Dylan is an iconic figure in American musical and cultural history, lauded by Time magazine as one of the hundred most important people of the twentieth century. For nearly fifty years the singer-songwriter has crafted his unique brand of music, from his 1962...

Each entry in this New Grove series of composers and their operas is based on articles in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, that feature information on the lives of individual composers, their works, their librettists and interpreters, and the places where they performed....

With their insistence that form is a dialectical process in the music of Beethoven, Theodor Adorno and Carl Dahlhaus emerge as the guardians of a long-standing critical tradition in which Hegelian concepts have been brought to bear on the question of musical form. Janet...

Room 100 chronicles the tragic story of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, punk rock's very own Romeo and Juliet. Through a wealth of archival material, plus new and exclusive interviews from rock luminaries such as Television guitarist RichardLloyd, iconic photographer Robert Bayley, and PUNK...

When one thinks of "great" classical music, we harken back to the nineteenth century and the Romantic tradition. The emotional resonance of nineteenth century has moved generations musicians and resonated with countless listeners. It has inspired artists and writers. But no writer until how...

When one thinks of "great" classical music, we harken back to the nineteenth century and the Romantic tradition. The emotional resonance of nineteenth century has moved generations musicians and resonated with countless listeners. It has inspired artists and writers. But no writer until how...

Nothing has brought English soccer more immediately into the American mainstream than Ted Lasso, which captivated the nation in thirty-four episodes over three seasons. But before there was Jason Sudeikis's lovable and, at first, hapless AFC Richmond, there was Watford Football Club, a team...

Popular music and its listeners are strongly associated with newness and youth. Young people can stay up late dancing to the latest hits and use cutting-edge technology for listening to and sharing fresh music. Many young people incorporate their devotion to new artists and...

From 1974 to 1984, Trouser Press - once billed as "America's Only British Rock Magazine" but later called by some "the bible of alternative rock" - provided enthusiastic coverage of independently made and released music as well as artists from many genres: glam, punk,...

Challenging residual doubts about Vaughan Williams's role and significance within twentieth-century music and culture, this book places and explores his life and music in their broad musical, cultural, social, and political contexts. Chapters by scholars from a range of disciplines re-evaluate the composer's life...

There has never been a group as influential as The Beatles - that much is beyond dispute. What is rarely mentioned however, is how that influence continued with the four individual's post-Beatles careers. In 'REAL LOVE: 500 Beatles 'Solo' Cover Versions That You Must...

Mick and Keith learned fast. Initially Rhythm 'n' Blues purists who believed that only ageing black Americans could write decent songs, they released their first original song 'Stoned' (a group-composed near-instrumental) as the UK B-side of their version of Lennon-McCartney's 'I Wanna Be Your...

Against the odds, 90125, released towards the end of 1983, was Yes' best-selling album. Yet it was never intended to be a recording by one of the 1970s rock dinosaurs, but a combination of commercial expediency and luck saw an album by a new...

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the death of Elise Hall, a pioneering musician in the history of the saxophone.The saxophone is a globally popular instrument, often closely associated with renowned players such as Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, or more recently, Kenny...

This volume brings together contributions from a wide range of international academics and practitioners. It traces innovations within classical music practice, showing how these offer divergent visions for its future. The interdisciplinary contributions to the volume highlight the way contrasting ideas of the future...

Between 1977 and 2012, INXS went from touring the Australian pub scene to conquering the world with their unique hybrid of rock, pop and funk. Despite soaking up a vast number of influences along the way, INXS transcended all music scenes, retaining their individuality...

Popular music and its listeners are strongly associated with newness and youth. Young people can stay up late dancing to the latest hits and use cutting-edge technology for listening to and sharing fresh music. Many young people incorporate their devotion to new artists and...

This illuminating study of classical music offers a unique perspective on the works of some of the greatest composers in history. Max Graf's insightful commentary sheds light on the meaning and significance of each piece, making this book a must-read for any music lover.This...

A chronological analysis of the studio album output of two amazing icons, Dolly Parton and Stevie Nicks, spanning the years 1973 - 2022.Author: Primo ScagnettiISBN-10: 8374371005ISBN-13: 9798374371000Publisher: Independently PublishedLanguage: EnglishPublished: 01/20/2023Pages: 86Format: PaperbackWeight: 0.22lbsSize: 8.00h x 5.25w x 0.18d

Since the early 1960s, Nashville has been known worldwide as the "Music City" for its robust country and gospel music industries. For over 40 years now, Nashville has also been home to a thriving hotbed of rock, blues, rap, and Americana music. "The Other...

The Oklahoma Cowboy Band was the first western string band in the nation to broadcast over the radio and appear on vaudeville, drawing large audiences throughout the Midwest and Northeast. The band began in Ripley as Billy McGinty's Cowboy Band and first played over...

The extent to which Cornelius Cardew has been a central figure and a force for new ideas in music forms the backbone to this book. Cardew's diverse body of work and activity is here given coherence by its sharing in the values and principles...

Carlos Ch vez (1899-1978) is the central figure in Mexican music of the twentieth century and among the most eminent of all Latin American modernist composers. An enfant terrible in his own country, Ch vez was an integral part of the emerging music scene...

Why are some of the most beloved and frequently performed works of the late-romantic period--Mahler, Delius, Debussy, Sibelius, Puccini--regarded by many critics as perhaps not quite of the first rank? Why has modernist discourse continued to brand these works as overly sentimental and emotionally...

The Music of Malaysia, first published in Malay in 1997 and followed by an English edition in 2004 is still the only history, appreciation and analysis of Malaysian music in its many and varied forms available in English. The book categorizes the types of...

In 1950, as Arnold Schoenberg anticipated the publication of a collection of 15 of his most important writings, Style and Idea, he was already at work on a second volume to be called Program Notes. Inspired by this idea, Schoenberg's Program Notes and Musical...

From the time he began recording with the Velvet Underground in the 1960s until his death in 2013, Lou Reed released nearly 50 original albums. In Sweet, Wild and Vicious, Jim Higgins delves into each one, with descriptions, details, analysis and appraisals that will...

Before launching the iconic Texas blues-rock trio ZZ Top, a young Billy Gibbons was hustling through the Lone Star State with a band named the Moving Sidewalks. The small-time band had the chance of a lifetime when they opened for legendary rock guitar maestro...

A new concept for understanding the history of the American popular music industry. Blacksound explores the sonic history of blackface minstrelsy and the racial foundations of American musical culture from the early 1800s through the turn of the twentieth century. With this namesake book,...

A small town Florida teenager discovers punk rock through a loaned mix tape and punk music and culture slowly takes over all aspects of his life. His new passion causes him to form a band, track down out-of-print records that he loves and begin...

Drawing on both archival documents and original interviews, this zine explores the music of the era's bands, including Bad Brains, Cro-Mags, Agnostic Front, False Prophets, Urgent Fury, No Thanks, and Reagan Youth. At the same time, the scene is situated within the broader social...