Showing titles in History & Criticism

Time Must-Read Books of 2024 Independent Best Non-Fiction Books 2024 Mojo Books of the Year 2024 "A vibrant, multifaceted portrait of a music enigma" Guardian "A powerful portrait" Irish Independent "Displays a bracing rigour and an exhilarating curiosity about its subject, coming closer than...

Have you ever wondered how off-key you are while singing in the shower? Or if your Bob Dylan albums really sound better on vinyl? Or why certain songs make you cry? Now, scientist and musician John Powell invites you on an entertaining journey through the world of music. Discover what distinguishes music from plain old noise, how scales help you memorize songs, what the humble recorder teaches you about timbre (assuming your suffering listeners don’t break it first), and more.

A must-read for old-school hip-hop heads and burgeoning fans alike Time 'Hip Hip is not History, it's Our story. Brilliant book' Craig Charles 'Hip-Hop Is History melds a detailed chronological retelling of the genre's story with occasionally hair-raising memoir ' Guardian 'Sharp and lyrical...

The untold story of a British institution ‘Brilliant.’ Alan Johnson ‘Compelling.’ David Kynaston ‘The beer drinkers’ Bill Bryson.’ Times Literary Supplement Ferment Magazine’s Best Beer Book of the Year Pete Brown is a convivial guide on this journey through the intoxicating...

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. It wasn't because the band didn't have great songs—indeed, the Trees were revered for their ability to write a great song that was both artistically original and commercially viable, which is no easy task. Other Seattle bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden were fans of the Screaming Trees, playing shows with them and collaborating on albums, long before their own bands broke through into the mainstream.

The Beatles landing in New York in February 1964 was the opening shot in a cultural revolution nobody predicted. Suddenly the youth of the richest, most powerful nation on earth was trying to emulate the music, manners and the modes of a rainy island that had recently fallen on hard times.

Standing at the crossroads – the Mississippi crossroads of Robert Johnson and the devil’s infamous meeting – Mark Radcliffe found himself facing his own personal crunch point. Aged sixty, he had just mourned the death of his father, only to be handed a diagnosis of mouth and throat cancer...

Brought to you by Penguin. 'A sparkling debut by an outstanding and gifted author. A brilliant guide to Russia of the past and the present, set around an extraordinary search for the heart, soul and lost keyboards of centuries gone by.’ PETER FRANKOPAN 'An extraordinary, cadenced journey into...

Suzi Ronson was working in a Beckenham hair salon in the early seventies when Mrs Jones came in for her weekly shampoo and set. After being introduced to her son David and his wife Angie, Suzi finds herself at the Bowies' bohemian apartment and is soon embroiled in their raucous world. Having crafted his iconic Ziggy Stardust hairstyle, Suzi becomes the only working woman in David's touring party and joins the Spiders from Mars as they perform around the globe.

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.

In 1979, 2 Tone exploded into the national conscience as records by The Specials, The Selecter, Madness, The Beat, and The Bodysnatchers burst onto the charts and a youth movement was born. 2 Tone was black and white: a multi-racial force of British and Caribbean island musicians singing about social issues, racism, class and gender struggles. It spoke of injustices in society and took fight against right wing extremism. The music of 2 Tone was exuberant: white youth learning to dance to the infectious rhythm of ska and reggae; and crossed with a punk attitude to create an original hybrid.

Foreword by James Murphy 'Literally changed the course of my life' James Murphy When someone says, 'you have to know your history', this is it. A pop culture classic for over two decades, now fully refreshed and updated as part of White Rabbit's Deep Cuts series, Last Night a DJ Saved my Life is...

'Superb and timely' KATE MOSSE 'Impressive, important, deeply moving' SARAH WATERS 'Brilliant' ANTHONY HOROWITZ What role could music play in a death camp? What was the effect on those women who owed their survival to their participation in a Nazi propaganda project? And how did it feel to be...

Human beings have always made music. 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. This is a truly global story. Looking to Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and beyond, Philip reveals how musicians have been brought together by trade and migration and examines the vast impact of colonialism.

An exploration into the question of greatness from the Chief Classical Music Critic of the New York Times When he began to listen to the great works of classical music as a child, Anthony Tommasini had many questions. Why did a particular piece move him? How did the music work? Over time, he...

A four-thousand-year history of music that reveals how songs have shifted societies and sparked revolutions. “A dauntingly ambitious, obsessively researched labor of cultural provocation.” ―Los Angeles Times Histories of music overwhelmingly suppress stories of the outsiders and rebels who...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER DISCOVER MARK RONSON’S ELECTRIFYING MEMOIR ABOUT HIS DJ DAYS IN ‘90s NEW YORK Mark Ronson was born a night person. With hedonistic creatives for parents, parties became his playground. Yet, having moved to New York City from London at a young age, he always felt...

In 1987, four friends from London - Paul Oakenfold, Danny Rampling, Nicky Holloway and Johnny Walker - took a weeklong holiday to Ibiza. What they saw there and brought back home would give rise to a new global music and counterculture movement. As the '80s drew to their close, with Thatcherism holding the nation tight in its grip, something funny was happening right across the jungle of Britain's nightlife scene. People were dressing down, not up, to go to clubs. And they were dancing right through the night armed seemingly with only bottles of water.

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. 

Kaleidoscopic culture critic Chuck Klosterman rewrites the history of reality in an “ingenious” (Kirkus Reviews) work of speculative nonfiction based on a question that has never been considered or (in all likelihood) even asked: What if The Beatles had only developed a cult following while...