Genres & Styles

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...

Bob Dylan has always regarded himself as a songwriter: 'I am my words,' he wrote in 1964.Distilling a lifetime's passion and study, leading Dylan author, Clinton Heylin charts the development and first moments of genius of this unique artist whose songs...

Just like Memphis and Rock'n'Roll, Dusseldorf is regarded as the Mecca for electronic music. The capital of North Rhine-Westphalia became the centre of an analog electronic movement from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s. This is the oral account of the...

This is a completely revised and expanded second edition of The Broadway Song Companion, the first complete guide and access point to the vast literature of the Broadway musical for the solo performer. Designed with the working actor in mind, the volume...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780986377044Author Debbie GreenbergFormat PaperbackPage Count 190Imprint Jorvik PressPublisher Jorvik PressWeight(grams) 260gDimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm *...

What could be more punk rock than a band that never changed, a band that for decades punched out three-minute powerhouses in the style that made them famous? The Ramones' repetition and attitude inspired a genre, and Ramones set its tone. Nicholas Rombes...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780063251281Author Chris PayneFormat HardbackPage Count 496Imprint HarperCollins PublishersPublisher HarperCollins Publishers Inc

'A Landmark in Musical History' is John Luke Rose's title for the introduction to this extraordinary piece of theatre. It belongs to the German tradition of mystical writing, and a short note on the poem itself by Martin Swales and Timothy McFarland...

No change has had a more profound influence on the development of music-making over the last two decades than the growth of the historical performance movement. The notion that we can - and indeed should - perform music in the manner its composers...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781909526624Author Michael LangFormat HardbackPage Count 288Imprint Reel Art PressPublisher Reel Art Press

Pixies' career spanned just seven years before the pressures of the road and personality clashes tore the band apart. But in that time they became one of the pioneers of alternative rock and left a musical legacy that would inspire generations of...

From the smoke-filled coffeehouse of the 1950s folk scene, where she first performed, to the racially tense South of the early sixties, bringing support to terrorized African-Americans with Martin Luther King, Jr. Joan has been involved with some of the...

If I had not kissed anyone, or danced with anyone, or had a reason to cry, the music made me feel as if I had gone through all that anyway . . . the music attracted and repelled, organised and disturbed and then let us into the night, clusters of emotion...

In this Guide to Pelleas and Melisande, Maeterlinck's original play is reprinted in full, so that the opera lover can read the scenes that Debussy did not set to music. Hugh Macdonald's much praised English translation is published here for the first...

A Catholic high school near Boston in 1985. A time of suicides, gymnasium humiliations, smoking for beginners, asthma attacks, and incendiary teenage infatuations. Infatuations with a girl (Allison), with a band (The Smiths) and with an album, Meat is...

'How refreshing, to read a book about music written for a music lover and not a musicologist. In clear, lucid, entertaining prose, Jane Glover makes those of us who lack musical literacy better understand and appreciate Handel's divinity.' - Donna Leon,...

Bingo Lingo - the book which put the fun Into the literacy hour - is relaunching in a bright new edition. A sharp fresh design makes the content even more accessible and friendly. But the heart of the book remains a wonderfully clever collection of songs...

Richard Wagner remains, almost 130 years after his death, the most controversial composer in the history of music. Creator of huge and hugely ambitious operas, which have an immense immediate impact, as well as providing food for endless thought and...

From being transported by the sound of 'True Love' by Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly on the radio, as a small child living in condemned housing in ungentrified West London in the late 1950s, to going out to work as a postman humming 'Watching the...

A fascinating look at the gay and lesbian influence on the American stage by an internationally-recognized authority on the topic From the genteel female impersonators of the 1910s to the raucous drag queens of La Cage Aux Folles, from the men of The...

Today, Metallica are known as consummate musicians, but it wasn t always that way. Their early career is marked by a gradual evolution from garage thrash to sophisticated, progressive heights an evolution driven by their bass player, Cliff Burton, who...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780593230640Author Fat JoeFormat HardbackPage Count 288Imprint Random House IncPublisher Random House USA Inc

Puccini's La boheme is one of the most beloved and enduring operas of all time. In this guide, William Ashbrook evaluates the opera's initial reception, the reasons for its wide appeal and Verdi's influence on the composition. Nicholas John discusses the...

The most wide-ranging and provocative look at punk rock as a social change movement told through firsthand accounts.Punk rock has been on the frontlines of activism since exploding on the scene in the 1970's. Punk Revolution! is the most wide-ranging and...

Peter Guralnick, dean of rock-and roll-storytellers, writes in the introduction to Johnny's Cash & Charley's Pride, "Peter Cooper has always been in the mix." Whether spending time with Johnny Cash or Kris Kristofferson, playing bass for Loretta Lynn,...

Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème is one of the most frequently performed operas in the world. But how did it come to be so adored? In this book, author Alexandra Wilson traces La Bohème's rise to fame and demonstrates that its success grew steadily through...

BBC Radio 6 Music is the place for alternative music - and this is the quiz for its fans. From indie pop and iconic rock to trip hop, electronica and dance, these questions will test your knowledge of the last 60 years of floor-fillers, cult classics and...

**THE PERFECT GIFT FOR BILLIE EILISH FANS** A celebration of Billie Eilish's refreshing outlook, creativity and independence. We all want a bit more Billie in our lives! Billie...

What was Mozart really like? Wild? Sublime? Responsible? Fun-loving? Bright? Foul-mouthed? Reading these sparkling new translations of Mozart's letters, we learn in his own words that he was all of these and much more. Here is the composer at his most...

Sheffield in the late-1970s was isolated from what was happening in London in the same way that Liverpool had been in 1963. A unique generation of electro-experimental groupings evolved in the former Steel City around Cabaret Voltaire and The Future. The...

Banana Splits brings together a wealth of fun, easy ways intopart-singing. There are echo songs, conversation songs, call andresponse, rounds, chants and much, more more! Banana Splits brings together a wealth of fun, easy ways into...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781608871445Author Richard BienstockFormat HardbackPage Count 378Imprint Insight EditionsPublisher Insight Editions

In this eagerly anticipated book, Boris Gasparov gazes through the lens of music to find an unusual perspective on Russian cultural and literary history. He discusses six major works of Russian music from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, showing...

When singer-songwriter Nick Drake died of a drug overdose in the autumn of 1974, he left behind only three well-received but modest selling albums. Today, he is recognised as one of true geniuses of English folk music, with millions of fans worldwide and...

"Looking at Terry's photographs is like gazing through a window at the most extraordinary and exciting moments of my life."ELTON JOHNElton John and iconic photographer Terry O'Neill worked together for many years, taking in excess of 5,000 photographs...

During a decade that defined progressive rock, 1973 was a pivotal year. Influential bands like Yes, Genesis, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull, The Electric Light Orchestra and King Crimson released some of their best-selling albums and there was a...

He came from Outer Space...It was the greatest invention in the history of pop music - the rock god who came from the stars - which struck a young David Bowie like a lightning bolt from the heavens. When Ziggy the glam alien messiah fell to Earth, he...

Traversing power metal, acoustic introspect and finally settling on their breakthrough cinematic sound, Finnish heavyweights Nightwish are the leading name in the sumptuous world of symphonic metal. Having tackled numerous high-profile line-up changes,...

**Finalist in the Outstanding Music Education Resource Category for the 2023 Music & Drama Education Awards** HerStory: The Piano Collection presents invaluable repertoire by remarkable female composers across the ages. This important collection is...

The Show That Never Ends is the behind-the-scenes story of the extraordinary rise and fall of progressive ("prog") rock, epitomised by such classic, chart-topping bands as Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull and Emerson Lake & Palmer, and their...