Showing titles in History & Criticism

In an age of confusion, fear, and loss, Hanif Abdurraqib's is a voice that matters. Whether he's attending a Bruce Springsteen concert the day after visiting Michael Brown's grave, or discussing public displays of affection at a Carly Rae Jepsen show, he writes with a poignancy that resonates profoundly. 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.

In 1991, Metallica released their fifth studio album that would become known and beloved around the world as “The Black Album.” Since its release, it has sold 30 million copies, and become a towering monument in the pantheon of rock’s greatest records. Listeners will get unprecedented insight into the story behind an iconic album from one of the world’s most iconic bands through interviews with James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett, Jason Newsted, and “Black Album” producer Bob Rock.

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.

Let the Music Play: How R&B Fell in Love with 80s Synths is the overlooked story of how R&B, disco, and funk were transformed by the explosion of music tech in the era of ghetto blasters and Ronald Reagan. It traces how pioneers like Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock inspired a new generation of black musicians and producers to reinvent music with a whole new set of rules.

Thunderclap Newman stunned the music world in the summer of 1969 with the success of their wonderfully odd debut single "Something In The Air", which ousted none other than the Beatles from the top of the charts. They followed up with an LP described by Nik Cohn as "one of the finest, most truly bizarre albums of the era" before disintegrating just a few months after its release. This is the story of one of the most unlikely combos in popular music history, and of the four disparate characters who formed its core.

Like a killer returning to the scene of the crime, Elvis came back home to Memphis, where it had all begun. Eschewing the fancier studios of Nashville and Hollywood, he set up shop at the ramshackle American Sound Studio, run by a maverick named Chips Moman with an in-house backing band now known as "The Memphis Boys,"" and made the music of his life. The resulting work, From Elvis in Memphis, would be the finest studio album of his career, an explosion of mature confidence and fiery inspiration.

Welcome to the electrifying world of K-pop! From its origins in a once-overlooked corner of Asia to today's global superstars like BTS and BLACKPINK, discover how South Korea built an entertainment empire that's revolutionizing modern culture. This comprehensive guide reveals the fascinating story behind K-pop's meteoric rise and lasting impact.

Miles to Go is a frank and intimate exploration of Miles Davis' eccentric working life, drug habits, paranoia, depression, and subsequent recovery. Murphy explores Davis' troubled relationship with his children and the controversial role Cicely Tyson played in his life. The book also delves into the dynamics that made Davis' band work so well together, placing Davis' work in a historic, literary, and musical framework.

2025 ASSOCIATION FOR RECORDED SOUND COLLECTIONS AWARDS CERTIFICATE OF MERIT * AUDIOFILE MAGAZINE EARPHONES AWARD The audiobook edition of How Women Made Music: A Revolutionary History brings listeners closer than ever to their creative heroes. Featuring rare interview excerpts with Nina Simone...

As the first anthology to assess the nature of fan response and the band's enduring appeal, Fandom and The Beatles: The Act You've Known for All These Years defines and explores the key ways in which this particular pop fusion has inspired such loyalty and multigenerational popularity. 

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung contains the wild and brilliant writings of Lester Bangs—the most outrageous and popular rock critic of the 1970s—edited and with an introduction by the reigning dean of rock critics, Greil Marcus.

La biografía integral de Roger Waters, cerebro de una de las bandas más importantes de los últimos sesenta años, en un recorrido que va de su infancia—marcada por la desaparición de su padre en la guerra—a la ebullición cultural de la Inglaterra de los Beatles y los Stones y después. Syd Barrett, las giras, los discos, El lado oscuro de la luna, The Wall, David Gilmour, la militancia política y las peleas y polémicas de una carrera única que lo encuentra vital como siempre y tocando por todo el mundo a los 80.

In clear and entertaining prose, Plotkin explores a thousand years of music, introduces listeners to more than 100 great works, and profiles in depth many significant composers, including Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Dvoxak, and Mahler. He describes all the musical instruments in the orchestra, defines major musical terms, and makes music theory comprehensible for the uninitiated. There are also conversations with important musicians who offer fascinating insights about their art.

It’s October 1977, and the Rolling Stones are in a Paris recording studio. They’re under siege. Keith Richards’s legal troubles after his arrest for heroin possession threaten the band’s future, and the broad consensus among rock aficionados is that the band will never again reach the heights of Exile on Main Street.

Jazz is more than a musical genre. It is a movement, an escape, and a form of rebellion—one whose mystery you can uncover through the fascinating musicians that shaped its history. Jazz doesn’t easily fit into any category owing to its diverse roots, incredible flexibility, and passion for improvisation. It is, therefore, ironic, yet somehow understandable, that this mysterious genre, so different even from other Black-inspired music, should be so well-loved by millions of people across the globe

This is the fascinating story of music. How it started with a song and became one of our most beloved arts. Learn how early composers added modal rhythm to religious chants and turned them into something greater. Discover how the printing press standardized music and helped it spread across the globe. Witness the birth of musical theater, opera, and classical music and the explosion of popular freeform music such as rhapsodies and preludes.

Amid a background of wars and revolution, the 19th century produced many of the world's best-loved composers, including Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, and Tchaikovsky. Discover: Music of the Romantic Era charts the course of music through those turbulent but exhilarating times with 40 music excerpts. Light-hearted but authoritative, it tells the fascinating, often scandalous life stories of the 19th century's greatest composers and describes how they created musical history.

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. Track-by-track commentaries focus on the experience of the album from the listener’s point of view, drawing attention to the art and craft of Bush’s songwriting, production and sound design.

When Bruce Springsteen went back on the road in 1984, he opened every show by shouting out, "one, two, one, two, three, four," followed by the droning synth chords of "Born in the U.S.A." Max Weinberg hit his drums with a two-fisted physicality that cut through the swelling chords. With a rolled-up red kerchief around his head and heavy black boots under his faded jeans, Springsteen looked like the character of the song, and from the very first line ("Born down in a dead man's town") he sang with the throat-scraping desperation of a man with his back against the wall.

Breaking the global record for streams in a single day, nearly 10 million people around the world tuned in to hear Kendrick Lamar’s sophomore album in the hours after its release. To Pimp a Butterfly was widely hailed as an instant classic, garnering laudatory album reviews, many awards, and even a canonized place in Harvard’s W. E. B. Du Bois archive. Why did this strangely compelling record stimulate the emotions and imaginations of listeners?