Showing results by publisher "Random House Audio" in History & Criticism

For half a century, Michael Jackson’s music has been an indelible part of our cultural consciousness. Landmark albums such as Off the Wall and Thriller shattered records, broke racial barriers, amassed awards, and set a new standard for popular music. While his songs continue to be played in...

The fascinating story behind the making of Bruce Springsteen’s most surprising album, Nebraska, revealing its pivotal role in Springsteen’s career—now with a new afterword Soon to be a major motion picture starring Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) “Brilliant . . . For fans of American music...

The inspiration for the Play It Loud exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art "Every guitar player will want to read this book twice. And even the casual music fan will find a thrilling narrative that weaves together cultural history, musical history, race, politics, business case studies...

Show biz memoir at its name-dropping, bridge-burning, profane best: the music industry’s most outspoken, outrageous, and phenomenally successful executive delivers a rollicking memoir of pop music’s heyday. During the 1970s and '80s the music business was dominated by a few major labels and...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER A MULANEY READS PICK A kaleidoscopic history of the Grateful Dead that explores the American counterculture through the life of iconoclastic frontman Jerry Garcia, and his merry band “By writing this book, Jim Newton informs the rest of the world what Deadheads have...

An exuberant, uniquely accessible, beautifully illustrated look inside the enigmatic art and craft of conducting, from a celebrated conductor whose international career has spanned half a century. John Mauceri brings a lifetime of experience to bear in an unprecedented, hugely informative...

Sequel to Grammy-nominated bestseller Under the Big Black Sun, continuing the up-close and personal account of the L.A. punk scene 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 L.A.'s punk...

Tune In is the first volume of All These Years—a highly-anticipated, groundbreaking biographical trilogy by the world's leading Beatles historian. Mark Lewisohn uses his unprecedented archival access and hundreds of new interviews to construct the full story of the lives and work of John...

“All men become brothers . . . Be embraced, ye millions!” The Ninth Symphony, a symbol of freedom and joy, was Beethoven’s mightiest attempt to help humanity find its way from darkness to light, from chaos to peace. Yet the work was born in a repressive era, with terrified Bourbons...

From the critically acclaimed author of Temperament, a narrative account of the most defining moments in musical history—classical and jazz—all of which forever altered Western culture "A fascinating journey that begins with the origins of musical notation and travels through the...

An entertaining and deeply nostalgic dive into how female pop stars broke through the music industry in the 2000s and altered the cultural landscape forever, from the Ringer writer and Every Single Album podcast cohost “Hit Girls bridges our butterfly-clipped, bedazzled past with today’s...

One of America’s finest historians shows us how Bob Dylan, one of the country’s greatest and most enduring artists, still surprises and moves us after all these years. Growing up in Greenwich Village, Sean Wilentz discov­ered the music of Bob Dylan as a young teenager; almost half a century...

A behind the scenes look at the music that is currently the soundtrack of the globe, reported on and written by Leila Cobo, Billboard's VP of Latin Music and the world's ultimate authority on popular Latin music. Decoding "Despacito" tracks the stories behind the biggest Latin hits of the past...

From the award-winning filmmaker and graphic novelist comes the untold origin story of the multimillion-dollar AFROPUNK Festival—beginning not with big stages or brand sponsorship, but with one Black kid’s search for belonging in the nineties New York City punk scene “A memoir that belongs...

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: THE NEW YORK TIMES, NPR WINNER OF THREE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARDS Finalist for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction A stirring account of how music bears witness to history and carries forward the memory of the wartime past SUNDAY TIMES OF...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 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—now updated with a new chapter on digital curation. “How Music Works is a...

does eminem matter? On assignment for his first cover story for Rolling Stone, the very first national cover story on Eminem, Anthony Bozza met a young blond kid, a rapper who would soon take the country by storm. But back in 1999, Eminem was just beginning to make waves among suburban white...

An acclaimed, career-spanning collection from a fiercely feminist and revered contemporary rock critic, reissued with new material Throughout her career, spanning more than two decades, Jessica Hopper, a revered and pioneering music critic, has examined women recording and producing music, in...

From one of the world's most beloved and respected public intellectuals comes a sweeping work of musical criticism, examining the distance between the performer and their audience "Not since Virgil Thomson have we had a music critic with as wide ranging a view as Edward Said."—Studs Terkel...

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER The Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and editor of The New Yorker gathers his writing on some of the essential musicians of our time—intimate portraits of Leonard Cohen, Buddy Guy, Mavis Staples, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, and more. The...