Popular music Books

The rise and fall of Some Bizzare-the label that introduced the world to Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, and The The-is the great untold story of alternative music.Along with Factory, Mute, and Creation, Some Bizzare was the vanguard of outsider music in the...

Holy Ghost is the first extended study of free jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler, who is seen today as one of the most important innovators in the history of jazz.Ayler synthesized children's songs, La Marseillaise, American march music, and gospel hymns,...

"There were only a handful of people in the world who still really believed in Suede at the time, and five of them were in the band."Brett Anderson, Suede"Suede were Marmite at the time, and I was expecting the press to trash them. Every meeting I had...

"With this book, the Zappa fan will get a glimpse into Frank that I don't believe any other book written by him or about him expresses. And us Zappa fans love that. Thank you, Co." Steve Vai"I think the best way to start when somebody says something...

Part reference manual, part collector's guide, part critical overview, Wilcopedia is an insightful album-by-album, song-by-song guide to the music of the most important American rock band of the twenty-first century. It offers a thorough appraisal of the...

Compiled from over one hundred interviews and years of in-depth research, KEEP MUSIC EVIL tells the full, unexpurgated tale of the infamous psych-rockers The Brian Jonestown Massacre.'They didn't know what to do with us. Anton was drinking, like, a...

'I'm no stranger to failure, and I'm aware it can arrive at any minute-as it often has. You have to keep things close to your chest and be aware of what's really important: the work, not everything around it. If you have faith in the work, then the...

Return Of The King tells the story of a tumultuous period in the life of Elvis Presley. By 1967, The King Of Rock'n'Roll was all but washed-up, thanks to a string of bland movie roles and lackluster records. But within a year he had roused himself,...

'I was raised with an artist's mentality; my first 25 years were spent as somebody who wanted to live among graphics and artwork and illustration, and then for the next 30 years it was all music. Recently, I've reverted into the arts, combining...

'I can be scratching around at home on an acoustic guitar, or singing a funny little idea into my phone, and all of a sudden, it becomes a beautifulfully fledged song. And I'm asking myself, how did we do that again? I still find that...

'Here on the shore, twenty years later, my message in a bottle has reached dry land. Words about our life, his death but mostly love and our journey to the end.' - Olivia HarrisonOlivia Harrison presents Came the Lightening a book of...

'These guitars have been really good tools; they're not just museum pieces. They all have a soul and they all come alive.' Eric Clapton'In his own words, Clapton tells his story through the history of his instruments.'Rolling StoneInSix-String...

'When I wrote and recorded these songs originally, I never would have expected the fantastic audience response all these years later; it's amazing.' Jeff LynneThe music of Jeff Lynne is beloved by fans all over the world and...

Now Is the Time to Invent offers a definitive portrait of the vibrant indie-rock scene that flourished in the mid-1980s and reached its creative peak in the 1990s. More than 60 profiles and interviews, taken from the pages of the acclaimed independent...

The Go-Betweens recorded six albums that are among the finest work of the 1980s, earning them a reputation as the ultimate cult band and the lasting esteem of their peers, from R.E.M. to Sleater-Kinney. In 2000 they returned to making records - and...

In the 1950s and 1960s, Memphis, Tennessee, was the launch pad of musical pioneers such as Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Al Green and Isaac Hayes, and by 1968 was a city synonymous with soul music. It was a deeply segregated city, ill at...

Detroit 67 is the story of Motor City in the year that changed everything. Twelve chapters take you on a turbulent year-long journey through the drama and chaos that ripped through the city in 1967 and tore it apart in personal, political and interracial...

Leeds, 1980. Amid the violence and decay, the city was home to an extraordinarily vibrant post-punk scene. Out of that swamp crawled the Sisters of Mercy. Over the next five years, they would rise from local heroes to leading alternative band, before...

The legendary music impresario (and producer of bands likeThe Yardbirds and Wham!)tells his life story in a series of mesmerisingly candid vignettes.Sour Mouth, Sweet Bottom: Lessons from a Dissolute Lifeis the book Simon Napier-Bell's fans have always...

Black Vinyl White Powder is the definitive story of five decades of British Pop - now in paperbackWhether penning hits for Dusty Springfield, discovering Marc Bolan or managing a series of stellar acts ranging from the Yardbirds to Wham! - Simon...

When rock 'n' roll burst into life in the 1950s the shockwaves echoed around the world, amplified by images of untamed youth projected on cinema screens. But for the performers themselves showbusiness remained in control, contriving a...

Exploring the explosion of the Who onto the international music scene, this heavily illustrated book looks at this furious band as an embodiment of pop art. 'Ours is music with built-in hatred.' - Pete Townshend, cofounder of the...

The compelling story of one of America's most adventurous jazz musicians.Ornette Coleman's career encompassed the glory years of jazz and the American avant-garde. Born in segregated Fort Worth, Texas, during the Great Depression, the...

Time Out of Mind is one of the most ambitious, complex, and provocative albums of Bob Dylan's distinguished artistic career. The present book interprets the songs recorded for Time Out of Mind as a series of dreams by a single singer/dreamer. These...

'Bob Batchelor writes with great eloquence and insight about the Doors, the greatest hard-rock band we have ever had, and through this book, we plunge deeply into the mystery that surrounds Jim Morrison. It is Batchelor's warmth and...

'I always thought I would get into painting, but I got waylaid by rock 'n' roll...' - Chrissie HyndeFeaturing oil paintings by Chrissie Hynde, Adding The Blue presents nearly 200 original artworks for the very first...

I can't wait to read this book and figure out how he does it all! Keep going, David! Brian 'Head' Welch (KoRN)In this follow-up to his 2013 memoir My Life With Deth, Megadeth bassist and co-founder David Ellefson carries on where he left off, charting...

How have a group conceived as a shortlived commodity outlived so many of their contemporaries? Why are The Monkees still important, and what does this tell us about their music, their TV show, and our understanding of popular culture today?Despite being...

'The closest we'll ever get to a straight up Bowie autobiography - but who'd ever want anything straight-up from Bowie?' Rolling StoneIn 2002, David Bowie and Mick Rock created Moonage Daydream, the defining document of the life and times of Ziggy...

'This is a way of putting my life out there, because if I were to write a memoir, there'd be five volumes before I got to The Beatles. So I'm going at it this way, through photographs and quotes. And this is, I feel, a better way for me to do it.' -...

Little Girl Blue is an intimate profile of Karen Carpenter, a girl from a modest Connecticut upbringing who became a Southern California superstar. Karen was the instantly recognizable lead singer of the Carpenters. The top-selling American musical act...

'Songs That Saved Your Life - The Art of The Smiths 1982 -87' reveals the stories behind every track (including unreleased out-takes), catalogues all the group's UK television, radio and concert appearances and features interviews with original band...

"A Prelude To Sorrow is a concept record, though not in the sense that most people have come to know the form. Ours is not a story where each song acts as a chapter. The inspiration lays in the supremely dark reality that was the passing of our drummer...

Was John Lennon meeting Paul McCartney more significant than John Lennon meeting Yoko Ono? Rubber Soul or Revolver? Which Wings album was Paul McCartney's solo pinnacle?In 100 brief chapters, John M. Borack discusses and ranks the greatest...

In Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, John Corabi recounts his life from the mean streets of Philadelphia to the Sunset Strip. Take a look behind the scenes at Corabi's time fronting Mtley Cre, Union, and The Dead Daisies, as well as his time playing rhythm...

Frank Bello, bassist with the legendary New York thrash metal band Anthrax since 1984, has sold over ten million albums, travelled the globe more times than he cares to count, and enthralled audiences from the world's biggest stages. His long-awaited...

With dozens of full-color illustrations!This is a retrospective of musical poetry by heavy metal guitarist and frontman, Matt Pike, which spans twenty years beginning in 1998 with the album Art of Self Defense up to the latest release, the 2019...

In Double Talkin' Jive legendary drummer Matt Sorum takes music lovers behind the scenes of a remarkable life in rock. Sorum, whose albums have sold tens of millions of copies around the world, provides an honest, engaging account of the highs and lows...

If you're looking for the events that inspired the lyrics to all my songs? Those stories are in this book. If you're looking for what I did when I was younger? That's in here. What changed me, made me stop hating and hurting? It's all here. This is my...

Life in the Stocks: Veracious conversations with musicians & creatives is a collection of rock 'n' roll stories taken from the iTunes chart-topping podcast, Life in the Stocks-hosted by UK-based DJ, presenter, and writer, Matt Stocks (Ex-Kerrang!...

Featuring a foreword from legendary director Martin Scorcese, Woodstock: Interviews and Recollections combines stories, anecdotes, and perspectives from dozens of musicians and filmmakers about the making of the Academy Award-winning documentary...

Featuring never-before-seen photographs of U2 on their first US Tour, Bad Brains, Black Flag, Danzig, The Descendants, Fugazi, The Damned, The U.K. Subs, and many, many moreSince 1981, Chris Barrows has taken pictures of bands at their concerts,...

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...

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...