History & Criticism

In this intimate and open account—nothing like any rock-and-roll memoir you’ve ever read—Alex Van Halen shares his personal story of family, friendship, music and brotherly love in a remarkable tribute to his beloved brother and band mate.

Discovered at last, the legendary lost manuscript of Grateful Dead co-founder and primary lyricist Robert Hunter, written in the early 1960s—a wry, richly observed, and enlightening remembrance of “the scene” in Palo Alto that gave rise to an incredible partnership of Hunter and Jerry Garcia.

The story of how jazz arrived at the pinnacle of American culture in 1959, told through the journey of three towering artists—Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans—who came together to create the most famous and bestselling jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue....

David Byrne’s incisive and enthusiastic look at the musical art form, from its very inceptions to the influences that shape it, whether acoustical, economic, social, or technological, is now updated with a new chapter on digital curation.

From 1965 to 1995, the Grateful Dead flourished as one of the most beloved, unusual, and accomplished musical entities to ever grace American culture....

Legendary rock journalist Mick Wall delivers definitive insight into America's bestselling band of all time, exploring their meteoric rise to fame and the hedonistic days of the '70s music scene in LA, when American music was taking over the world....

I Want My MTV tells the story of the first decade of MTV, the golden era when MTV's programming was all videos, all the time, and kids watched religiously to see their favorite bands....

Fleetwood Mac's classic 1977 Rumours album topped the Billboard 200 for 31 weeks and won the Album of the Year Grammy....

In the second half of the 20th century New York was the source of new sounds, including the Greenwich Village folk scene....

An audiobook reflecting on the meaning of the revolutionary band Nirvana, their leader Kurt Cobain, and the band's personal, musical and cultural contexts in the '90s.

Weaving together more than a hundred interviews with Davis's bandmates, family members, friends, and peers, this book powerfully reconstructs Davis's extraordinary life and career.

An energetic and explosive oral history examining emo’s pop culture takeover from 1999-2008, featuring exclusive interviews with My Chemical Romance’s Mikey Way and Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump....

After more than two decades of research and travels, Christophe Lebold, who befriended the poet and spent time with him in Los Angeles, delivers a stimulating analysis of Cohen’s life and art.

Ted Gioia's History of Jazz has been universally hailed as a classic - acclaimed by jazz critics and fans around the world....

Revised and updated with new material for fans of the band and this beloved rock classic, Hammer of the Gods is the gold-standard biography of the band Led Zeppelin.

In essays that have been published by the New York Times, MTV, and Pitchfork, among others—Abdurraqib uses music and culture as a lens through which to view our world so that we might better understand ourselves, and in so doing proves himself a bellwether for our times....

From Pieces to Weight: Once Upon a Time in Southside Queens is a violent and introspective memoir that reveals not only 50 Cent's story but the story of a generation....

A riveting look at the transformative year in the lives and careers of the legendary group whose groundbreaking legacy would forever change music and popular culture....

¿Sabía qué sucedió en el estreno de La traviata o que Bach murió ciego y que Stravinski sufría de hipocondría severa?... Girando en torno a prodigiosos creadores y a algunas de sus obras indispensables, este relato echa una ojeada a la trastienda de sus muchos acordes....

Picking up where Under the Big Black Sun left off, More Fun in the New World explores the years 1982 to 1987, covering the dizzying pinnacle of LA's punk rock movement as its stars took to the national - and often international - stage....

In 1992, the Screaming Trees were expected to become the next big band to come out of the Seattle music scene during the heyday of grunge. Except it never happened....

This is the first comprehensive history of the disc jockey, a cult classic now updated with five new chapters and substantial additional material. It's the definitive account of DJ culture, from the first record played over airwaves to house, hip-hop, techno, and beyond....

In 1785, when the great German poet Friedrich Schiller penned his immortal “Ode to Joy,” he crystallized the deepest hopes and dreams of the European Enlightenment for a new era of peace and freedom, a time when millions would be embraced as equals....

Music can move us and tell stories of faith, struggle, or love. It is common to all cultures across the world. But how has it changed over the millennia? Robert Philip explores the extraordinary history of music in all its forms, from our earliest ancestors to today’s mass-produced songs....

Pastor Robert Morgan’s goal is to keep these traditional hymns vital and meaningful to all generations. Then Sings My Soul will help listeners reacquaint themselves with 150 beloved hymns of the faithful....

In this intimate and open account—nothing like any rock-and-roll memoir you’ve ever read—Alex Van Halen shares his personal story of family, friendship, music and brotherly love in a remarkable tribute to his beloved brother and band mate. In his rough yet sweet voice, Alex recounts the brothers’ childhood, first in the Netherlands and then in working class Pasadena, California, with an itinerant musician father and a very proper Indonesian-born mother.

In Live Dead, musicologist John Brackett examines how live recordings—from the group's official releases to fan-produced tapes, bootlegs to "Betty Boards," and Dick's Picks to From the Vault—have shaped the general history and popular mythology of the Grateful Dead for more than fifty years.

By turns fascinating, funny, and bizarre, this book offers insight into the peculiar choices and idiosyncratic psychologies of hundreds of top musicians from the 1960s to the present. Originally published more than two decades ago to great success, it's been out of print for years and has now been completely updated and expanded to feature dozens of exclusive interviews, including conversations with groups like The Black Keys, The Killers, Twenty One Pilots, Coldplay, Cage the Elephant, and Vampire Weekend.

When Miranda Sawyer interviewed Liam Gallagher in 1994, his gag wishing Damon Albarn would die of AIDS became front-page news all over the world. This fascinating pop history, exploring the moment British music suddenly meant everything, explains why. Picking out twenty key songs, delving into the surprising stories behind them and their unlikely creators, UNCOMMON PEOPLE takes us back to when Jarvis Cocker became a national hero, films like Trainspotting were international hits, rave became what everybody did - and it felt like the revolution was happening.

Few bands in rock history have proven to be as enduring and influential as Led Zeppelin. And during the '80s, there was an overabundance of "Zeppelin disciples," or, as guitar great Gary Moore once put it, Led Clones.