Music: styles and genres

A daring and imaginative novel based on the lives of The Last Poets, New York's legendary Hip-Hop pioneers from the ghettos.Even readers unfamiliar with The Last Poets' historic significance as building blocks of the hip-hop and rap movement, will...

Mama Phife Represents is an arresting document of the body's lowest depth of hurt, from a poet and mother who suddenly loses her son to Type 1 diabetes at the height of his musical career. It is a love letter from a grieving mother to her child.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers were going to be a one-time act for a friend's album release party.Forty years later the funk rock band is arguably one of the best known and the longest running in the United States.Everything that happened in 1983 set the...

Prince on Prince gets behind the controversies to tell the Prince story in his own words.Prince is among the most respected and influential entertainers of the twentieth century, breaking sexual, racial, and creative barriers throughout his almost forty...

Cash on Cash offers unprecedented insight into one of the most significant American cultural figures of the twentieth century.As an interviewee, Cash was an exemplary communicator to an astonishingly broad spectrum of people: always open and articulate,...

The life and career of Haitian American musician Jean Beauvoir, a member of the legendary New York City punk band the PlasmaticsJean Beauvoir joined the Plasmatics in 1979, playing bass and keyboards for the most notorious band to emerge out of the New...

The life of rock's most durable troubadour in his own wordsNeil Young on Neil Young: Interviews and Encounters is a revealing anthology of Young's most significant, fascinating, and entertaining discussions, declarations, and dreams, chronicling fifty...

BTS (aka Bangtan Sonyeondan) has become one of K-POP's most well-known singing groups. The seven-member Korean boy band formed in 2013 and has slowly grown to worldwide fame through their music. Despite slow beginnings, the K-POP group now has millions...

A comprehensive overview of the movement that defined both the music underground and the LGBT mainstream community.Through exclusive interviews with protagonists like Bruce LaBruce, G.B. Jones, John Waters, and many more, alongside a treasure trove of...

First published in 1982 as part of the Crass record album Christ: The Album, Penny Rimbaud's The Last of the Hippies is a fiery anarchist polemic centered on the story of his friend, Phil Russell (aka Wally Hope), who was murdered by the State while...

Lou Gramm rose from humble, working-class roots in Rochester, New York, to become one of rock's most popular and distinctive voices in the 1970s and '80s, singing and cowriting more than a dozen hits with the band Foreigner. Songs such as Cold As...

Few music groups have been able to sustain a fan base as passionate and dedicated as that of Pearl Jam, and this entertaining guide rewards those fans with everything they need to know about the band in a one-of-a-kind format. Packed with history,...

Murder Ballads Old & New: A Dark and Bloody Record is an exploration of an age-old topic - our human need to document the horrors of the world around us. The murder ballad, here expanded to include songs about traumatic loss in modern variants and...

Expand your aural and sensory experiences with Extreme Music. An exploration of tomorrow's sounds (and silences) today. is the culmination of decades of research into the sounds (and silences) that comprise the outer limits and conceptual expressions...

Think punk was only a boys club? Read about the women who were the punk revolution!Women have been kicking against the pricks of music patriarchy since Sister Rosetta Tharpe first played the guitar riffs that built rock-n-roll. The explosion of punk sent...

In his acclaimed book Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong, author Joseph Lanza explored the forbidden beauty and social importance of an otherwise shunned musical category. Now, in Easy-Listening Acid Trip, he...

In the early 1990s, Swedish death metal revolutionized the international music scene. Suddenly, the mild-mannered Scandinavian country found itself at the forefront of a new movement with worldwide impact thanks to bands such as Entombed, Dismember, and...

Francoise Hardy is best known in Europe for originating the famed "Y-Y" sound in pop music which began a cultural scene in the early 1960s. Her teenage success grew as she became a much-photographed fashion model and actress. Adored for her shy beauty...

Famous for its revolutionary aspects in musical, political, sexual identity and consumerist ideas, punk rock also has its lesser-known gangster ethos as well, explained here by players in the various punk gangs.The Los Angeles, Orange County, and South...

Out of the Basement tells the story of underground music (and mainstream rock that sometimes rose out of it) in post-industrial Rockford, Illinois. This is a bracing, candid, democratic, and cutting edge portrayal of a rust belt city full of...

"The definitive account of one of hardcore punk's most enigmatic figures." -Lucky Lehrer, Circle Jerks drummer In 1983, Circle Jerks bassist Roger Rogerson stole the band's van and dropped off the face of the earth. Thirteen years later, he came back,...

In the next installment of the greatest love story ever told, Glenn's mother is still living with him and Henry, until Glenn runs away. Henry, John, and Darryl comb a dozen familiar LA institutions to reunite our lovers. After being reunited during a...

This sequel to How to Rap breaks down and examines techniques that have not previously been explained-such as triplets, flams, lazy tails, and breaking rhyme patterns. Based on interviews with hip-hop's most innovative artists and groups, including Tech...

When he first started working on Pet Sounds, Brian Wilson said that he was going to write the greatest rock album ever made. That album, released in 1966, fifty years ago, changed the face of popular music. From conception and composition to arrangement...

Maceo Parker's signature style became the lynchpin of James Brown's band when he and his brother Melvin joined the Hardest Working Man in Show Business in 1964. That style helped define Brown's brand of funk, and the phrase "Maceo, I want you to blow!"...

Is there such a thing as a Hip Hop 'theology'? Drawing on interviews from those in the Hip Hop community, and a critical engagement with the theological and ecclesiological ruminations of over 8,500 songs, Hodge aims to paint a picture of what a Hip Hop...

Few music groups have been able to sustain a fan base over half a century that is as significant and devoted as those of the Beatles, and this entertaining guide to all things Fab Four rewards those fans with everything they need to know about the band...

Steve Adelman's humorous and engaging memoir reflects on his years as the director and owner of some of the world's most popular nightclubs, including the Roxy, Limelight, Tunnel, and Palladium in the heyday of clubs in New York City during the 1980s and...

Get inside the head of one of the most beloved musicians of our time, a longtime country music phenomenon turned titan of industry and cultural icon: Dolly PartonThis collection of quotes has been carefully curated from Parton's numerous public...

Like a long, funny letter from an old friend, an album of drawings by the legendary singer and activist for social justice, Joan Baez.Since retiring from active performing, Baez has focused her formidable talents on painting and drawing. This collection...

"This brave new musical, haunting and electrifying by turns, restores the mystery, the thrill to that shattering transformation that stirs in all our souls."-Charles Isherwood, The New York Times"The staggering purity of this show will touch all open...

Archival material from the 1990s underground movement that served as a "gateway drug to feminist history" for so many. (-Kathleen Hanna, Bikini Kill)Before the rise of the Internet or desktop publishing, the zine and music culture of the Riot Grrrl...

A consummate insider as the girlfriend of Lindsey Buckingham, Fleetwood Mac singer and guitarist, Carol Ann Harris leads fans into the very heart of the band's storms between 1976 and 1984. From interactions between the band and other stars-Mick Jagger,...

Madchester may have been born at the Hacienda in the summer of 1988, but the city had been in creative ferment for almost a decade prior to the rise of acid house. The end-of-the-century party is the definitive account of a generational shift in popular...

A tour diary of life on the road with one of Minnesota's greatest bands-with nearly 100 never-before-seen photographs"Don't bore us, get to the chorus" is Bill Sullivan's motto, which will come as no surprise to anyone who opens Lemon Jail. A raucous...

How sampling remade hip-hop over forty years, from pioneering superstar Grandmaster Flash through crate-digging preservationist and innovator MadlibSampling-incorporating found sound and manipulating it into another form entirely-has done more than any...

In this classic work of American music writing, renowned critic Albert Murray argues beautifully and authoritatively that "the blues as such are synonymous with low spirits. Not only is its express purpose to make people feel good, which is to say in...

The chapters deal with such compelling topics as the environment, race relations, the counterculture, the sexual revolution, the war in Vietnam, the appeal of punk rock, the fall of Richard Nixon, the rise of Ronald Reagan, the murder of John Lennon, and...

Discover the richness and beauty of Bali's many performing art forms.This book is a lavishly illustrated introduction to the most popular forms of traditional performing arts in Bali--among the most intricate and spectacular musical and...

Bob Dylan's cultural production in the second half of the twentieth century, his songs, but also his changing images and self-fashionings have informed and productively re/shaped certain images of America from outside and within. Refractions of Bob Dylan...

Presents a highly original and detailed investigation into the nature of American visual, musical and cultural influences on British youth between 1945 and 1960. It looks at the spread of youth culture, juke boxes, coffee and milk bars, dress styles and...

An outstanding anthology in which notable musicians, artists, scientists, thinkers, poets, and more- from Gustavo Dudamel and Carrie Mae Weems to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Paul Muldoon-explore the influence of music on their lives and workWhat happens when...

Before the nineteenth century, instrumental music was considered inferior to vocal music. Kant described wordless music as "more pleasure than culture," and Rousseau dismissed it for its inability to convey concepts. But by the early 1800s, a dramatic...

Music, and folk music in particular, is often embraced as a form of political expression, a vehicle for bridging or reinforcing social boundaries, and a valuable tool for movements reconfiguring the social landscape. Reds, Whites, and Blues examines the...

With extensive photographs and audio recordings, this guide to Balinese music showcases the history, culture and art of the gamelan ceremony. Bali has developed and nourished an astonishing variety of musical ensembles-called gamelan-comprising dozens of...

A singer once said 'his pitch was right on the nose: his word enunciation letter perfect: his understanding of a song thorough. He will be missed very much, not only by myself, but by his fans all over the world'. The singer was the legendary Frank...

A self-described "song-hunter," the folklorist Alan Lomax traveled the Mississippi Delta in the 1930's and '40s, armed with primitive recording equipment and a keen love of the Delta's music heritage. Crisscrossing the towns and hamlets where the blues...

Stunningly designed flexibound book profiling the top 40 most famous Australian pop and rock songs. What a famous song is about and what you think it's about aren't always the same thing. National Anthems names the top 40 classic Australian songs and...