Showing titles in History & Criticism

The definitive story of the slackers and shoegazers who reinvented rock. Twenty years after his acclaimed postpunk best-seller, Rip It Up and Start Again, Simon Reynolds tells the tale of what happened next: the underground explosion of noisepop, shoegaze, slacker rock and grunge that...

Brought to you by Penguin. From the author of Abbey Road comes the story of how enduring rock icons like Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen and many more have remained in the ever changing music game. When Paul McCartney closed Live Aid in July 1985 we thought he was rock's Grand Old Man. He was...

Spanning seven decades and with over 150 new interviews, including Richard Hawley, Arctic Monkeys, Self Esteem, ABC, Pulp, Def Leppard, The Human League, Toddla T, Cabaret Voltaire, Warp Records, Clock DVA, Heaven 17 and many more From dazzling electronic futurism to pioneering post-punk, via...

The finest book on Britain's most popular rock 'n' roll band 'Read on … It's all true' Noel Gallagher Featuring an exclusive interview with Noel Gallagher and bespoke artwork by celebrated Oasis album designer Brian Cannon Think Oasis was just Britpop and brawls? Think again. John Robb was...

 England's Dreaming is the ultimate book on punk, its progenitors, the Sex Pistols, and the moment they defined for music fans in England and the United States. Savage brings to life the sensational story of the meteoric rise and rapid implosion of the Pistols through layers of rich detail and exclusive interviews. This fully revised and updated edition of the book covers the legacy of punk 25 years later and provides an account of the Pistols' 1996 reunion as well as a completely new introduction.  

Fleetwood Mac have had a chart-topping career that spans over fifty years and includes some of the biggest-selling albums and greatest hits of the 20th and 21st centuries. But the band's story is one of enormous triumph and also unimaginable 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.

Musical Truth Volume 3 completes club and radio DJ-turned author/ researcher Mark Devlin’s trilogy of books, exposing the real nature of the corporate music industry and those that populate it.

Formed as a New York City hardcore band in 1981, Beastie Boys struck an unlikely path to global hip-hop superstardom. Here is their story, told for the first time in the words of the band. With a style as distinctive and eclectic as a Beastie Boys album, Beastie Boys Book upends the typical music memoir. Alongside the band narrative you will find rare photos, original illustrations, a cookbook by chef Roy Choi, a graphic novel, a map of Beastie Boys' New York, mixtape playlists, pieces by guest contributors, and many more surprises.

In this first of a groundbreaking multivolume set, THE MCCARTNEY LEGACY, VOL 1: 1969-73 captures the life of Paul McCartney in the years immediately following the dissolution of the Beatles, a period in which McCartney recreated himself as both a man and a musician. Informed by hundreds of...

The story of Stax Records unfolds like a Greek tragedy. A white brother and sister build a record company that becomes a monument to racial harmony in 1960’s segregated south Memphis. Their success is startling, and Stax soon defines an international sound. Then, after losses both business and personal, the siblings part, and the brother allies with a visionary African-American partner. Under integrated leadership, Stax explodes as a national player until, Icarus-like, they fall from great heights to a tragic demise.

Ted Gioia's History of Jazz has been universally hailed as a classic - acclaimed by jazz critics and fans around the world. Now Gioia brings his magnificent work completely up-to-date, drawing on the latest research and revisiting virtually every aspect of the music, past and present. Gioia tells the story of jazz as it had never been told before, in a book that brilliantly portrays the legendary jazz players, the breakthrough styles, and the world in which it evolved. Here are the giants of jazz and the great moments of jazz history.

Shapeshifting, collaborative, endlessly inventive and robustly empowering: Black music has transformed British culture and society, and gifted generations of Black Britons a powerful means to reject misrepresentation and find freedom and joy in sound. From the height of jungle and hip-hop in the...

A Classic Pop Music Book of the Year FEATURING A FOREWORD BY BOB GELDOF The authoritative, official inside story of 40 years of Live Aid, from Band Aid to today. In 1985, with £100+ million in his back pocket from Live Aid – the greatest rock concert the world had ever seen – Bob Geldof...

The follow-up to The McCartney Legacy, Volume 1, the most complete work on the life and work of Paul McCartney ever published. Volume 2 continues to paint the portrait of one of the world’s greatest musicians, his work post-Beatles, and his life from 1974 to 1980. By 1974 the Beatles were a...

From 1965 to 1995, the Grateful Dead flourished as one of the most beloved, unusual, and accomplished musical entities to ever grace American culture. The creative synchronicity among Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan exploded out of the early 60s roots and folk scene, providing the soundtrack for the Dionysian revels of the counterculture. Dennis McNally, the band's historian and publicist for more than 20 years, takes listeners back through the Dead's history.

Beatleness explains how the band became a source of emotional, intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual nurturance in fans’ lives, creating a relationship that was historically unique. Looking at that relationship against the backdrop of the sexual revolution, the Vietnam War, political assassinations, and other events of those tumultuous years, the audiobook critically examines the often-heard assertion that the Beatles changed everything.

Dancehall isn't just music. It's a philosophy, a survival strategy, a rebellion in riddim. Fire Inna Dancehall traces the collision of sound, style and struggle that created one of the most influential cultural movements of the past half-century. From inner city Kingston to the council estates...

A down-and-dirty chronicle of the birth and evolution of the Seattle grunge scene—from backyard skateboard ramps and underground hardcore clubs to worldwide phenomenon—as told by one of its founding fathers and lead guitarist of legendary alternative rock band, Mudhoney. In the late 80s and...

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. 

Nearly 20 years in the making, Can't Buy Me Love is a masterful work of group biography, cultural history, and musical criticism. That the Beatles were an unprecedented phenomenon is a given. Here Jonathan Gould seeks to explain why, placing the Fab Four in the broad and tumultuous panorama of their time and place, rooting their story in the social context that girded both their rise and their demise.