Showing titles in History & Criticism

When Paul McCartney closed Live Aid in July of 1985, we thought he was rock's Grand Old Man. He was forty-three years old. As the forty years since have shown, he—and many others of his generation—were just getting started. This was the time when live performance took over from records. The big names of the '60s and '70s exploited the Age of Spectacle that Live Aid had ushered in to enjoy the longest lap of honor in the history of humanity, continuing to go strong long after everyone else in the business had retired.

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.

Utilizing his incomparable career and inspired collaborations with Talking Heads, Brian Eno, and many others, David Byrne taps deeply into his lifetime of knowledge to explore the panoptic elements of music, how it shapes the human experience, and reveals the impetus behind how we create, consume, distribute, and enjoy the songs, symphonies, and rhythms that provide the backbeat of life. Byrne’s magnum opus uncovers thrilling realizations about the redemptive liberation that music brings us all.

You can’t truly understand the last decade of the 20th century without a look at the muddy, electrifying rock music that would come to define it: grunge. For such a short-lived genre—at least in the mainstream—grunge had a lasting impact on American music and culture. It also provides a unique lens through which to examine the post-Reagan, pre-internet America of the 1990s. In the six lectures of The Story of Grunge, you’ll explore the rise and evolution of the genre, tracing it from Seattle subculture to MTV and the Billboard charts, all the way to its decline and evolution into new forms.

Fleetwood Mac has had a groundbreaking career spanning over fifty years and includes some of the bestselling albums and greatest hits of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. But the band's unique story is one of enormous triumph and also deep tragedy. There has never been a band in the history of music riven with as much romantic drama, sexual tension, and incredible highs and lows as Fleetwood Mac. Dreams is a must-listen for casual Fleetwood Mac fans and die-hard devotees alike.

Bestselling authors Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour tell the no-holds-barred history of the iconic music festival. Through hundreds of new interviews with artists, tour founders, festival organizers, promoters, publicists, sideshow freaks, stage crews, record label execs, reporters, roadies and more, Lollapalooza chronicles the tour’s pioneering 1991-1997 run, and, in the process, alternative rock’s rise–as well as the reverberations that led to a massive shift in the music industry and the culture at large.

It's February 1964 and The Beatles just landed in New York City, where the NYPD, swarms of fans, and a crowd of two hundred journalists await their first American press conference. It begins with the question on everyone's mind: "Are you going to get a haircut in America?" and ends with a reporter tugging Paul McCartney's hair in an attempt to remove his nonexistent wig. This is where The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 2 kicks off.

Although we have heard the music of J. S. Bach in countless performances and recordings, the composer himself still comes across only as an enigmatic figure in a single familiar portrait. As we mark the 250th anniversary of Bach's death, author Christoph Wolff presents a new picture that brings to life this towering figure of the Baroque era. This engaging new biography portrays Bach as the living, breathing, and sometimes imperfect human being that he was, while bringing to bear all the advances of the last half-century of Bach scholarship.

Ed Ward covers the first half of the history of rock & roll in this sweeping and definitive narrative - from the 1920s, when the music of rambling medicine shows mingled with the songs of vaudeville and minstrel acts to create the very early sounds of country and rhythm and blues, to the rise of the first independent record labels post-World War II, and concluding in December 1963, just as an immense change in the airwaves took hold and the Beatles prepared for their first American tour.

The year 1972 saw the beginning of a five-year span in which Stevie Wonder released five groundbreaking, critically acclaimed albums, garnering him more than half a dozen Grammys and more than 10 million albums sold, securing his place as one of the most important American musicians and songwriters in history. For the first time, uncover the untold story of an extraordinary artistic journey that shaped the greatest creative era in popular music history.

Acclaimed journalist Peter Doggett recounts the previously untold story of the dramatic final chapter in the lives, loves, and legal battles of John, Paul, George, and Ringo - a.k.a. The Beatles - from their breakup in 1969 to the present day. Called "refreshingly straightforward and highly readable" by the Daily Telegraph (London), You Never Give Me Your Money is the dramatic and intimate story of the breakup and aftermath of The Fab Four as it's never been told before.

This audiobook is not meant to be a band biography; it's a condensed guide of fun facts and information. If you are curious about what happened to that band you heard on the radio the other day, then download this audiobook!

Samuel Charters has been studying and writing about New Orleans music for more than 50 years. A Trumpet around the Corner: The Story of New Orleans Jazz is the first book to tell the entire story of a century of jazz in New Orleans. Although there is still controversy over the racial origins and cultural sources of New Orleans jazz, Charters provides a balanced assessment of the role played by all three of the city's musical lineages - African American, white, and Creole - in jazz's formative years.

Beyond the Mountains, Beyond the Woods… is a survey of modern jazz in Eastern Europe between the years 1956 and 1989. One of its aims is to challenge the idea that Soviet Communism and high quality modern jazz were mutually exclusive. The central part of the book is an A-Z of 124 musicians and bands from the ‘Eastern Bloc’ (the USSR plus satellite and non-aligned states). Here, over 300 albums are discussed. There’s also a substantial section on Various Artists compilations. Beyond the Woods… is written in an accessible style with little in the way of complex terminology and is ...

A Smörgåsbord of Sound is a survey of modern jazz in Scandinavia between the years 1949 and 1980. Its main section is an A-Z of 76 musicians and bands from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and America who helped to establish and develop the music in the region. Key recordings are assessed and the principal aim is to argue for the music’s significance and pleasure-giving potential in the current age. A central claim is that Scandinavian jazz eventually departed from the American model and created its own highly distinctive forms. A Smörgåsbord of Sound is written in an accessible style...

The Future Was Then is a survey of modern jazz in the USA between the years 1944 and ’54 and covers the major sub-genres – bebop, cool and West Coast jazz – as well as other developments such as Cubop, hard bop, chamber jazz and proto-Third Stream. Its aim is to highlight the work of modern jazz pioneers during the period, both famous and obscure, and in a lengthy A-Z close to 150 musicians are discussed. Also included is a chapter where the various types of early modern jazz are defined. The Future Was Then is written in an accessible style with little in the way of complex ...

Mansion Worlds is a survey of 379 Impulse! albums released between 1961 and 2023, which amounts to the bulk of the label’s output. Impulse! is frequently equated with the New Thing and ‘spiritual jazz’ and in particular the work of John Coltrane and his associates. But its discography covers a wide range of jazz and jazz-related music including hard bop, vocal jazz, urban blues, ‘psychedelic’ jazz, Mainstream, jazz-funk and Third Stream, making it one of the most interesting of the well-known jazz labels, especially as it wasn’t an independent concern like Blue Note and Prestige...

'Elastic Rock II' is a follow-up to Elastic Rock: A Survey of Jazz-Rock in Europe, 1968-80 and is an appraisal of jazz-rock in three further geographical areas during its most creative period, 1968-1980. The major part of the coverage consists of an A-Z survey of over 130 bands/artists from The Americas, Japan and Australasia. It concludes with a list of 51 Essential Jazz-Rock albums from the three regions. As with Elastic Rock I, the book is written in an accessible style and is aimed at both seasoned jazz-rockers and newcomers to the genre.

Despite an epic reputation for exhibitionism, drug taking, and drunkenness, through it all the Chili Peppers have continued to produce records that shock, challenge, and intrigue their fans. Jeff Apter tells the complete Red Hot Chili Peppers story, from their first meeting at a Los Angeles high school to the creation of such career-defining albums as BloodSugarSexMagik, Californication and By The Way.

The Uncanny Muse explores the history of automation in the arts and delves into one of the most momentous and controversial aspects of AI: artificial creativity. The adoption of technology and machinery has long transformed the world, but as the potential for artificial intelligence expands, David Hajdu examines the new, increasingly urgent questions about technology's role in culture.