History & Criticism

Between 1972 and their first break-up in 1976 (and then again following their 1979 reunion), Roxy Music were arguably the most exciting, ambitious and vivacious bans in the land - a core four piece of vocalist Bryan Ferry, guitarist Phil Manzanera, horn...

From a Los Angeles hospital bed, equipped with little more than a laptop and a stack of records, James "J Dilla" Yancey crafted a set of tracks that would forever change the way beatmakers viewed their artform. The songs on Donuts are not hip hop music...

For better or worse, The Bee Gees' music and image has long been synonymous with the 1970s, and the career trajectory of brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb in that ten-year span meanders between dizzying highs and devastating lows. The Bee Gees...

Tax & Drugs & Rock'n'Roll is the story of how an influx of British pop stars in the early 1980s was a significant catalyst in the miraculous transformation of Ireland from poor, downtrodden and insular to rich, confident and outward looking. In the space...

Formed in 1964 and still going strong in 2020, the Who are one of the most popular and enduring bands in the history of rock. The legendary debut album My Generation and a string of hit singles paved the way for Live At Leeds, hailed as the best live...

For jazz historians, Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings mark the first revolution in the history of a music riven by upheaval. Yet few traces of this revolution can be found in the historical record of the late 1920s, when the records...

A snakeful of critical venom aimed at the composers and the classics of nineteenth- and twentieth-century music. Who wrote advanced cat music? What commonplace theme is very much like Yankee Doodle? Which composer is a scoundrel and a giftless bastard?...

'No musician or music lover should be without it.' BBC Music MagazineRobert Schumann was far ahead of his time: his music anticipated a multitude of trends that would spread in the 150 years after his death, and almost every major composer who followed...

From his allegiance to punk rock in his adolescence to becoming an essential voice on music and culture, Kelefa Sanneh makes a deep study of how popular music unites and divides us. Distilling a career's worth of knowledge, he explores the tribes music...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781637610008Author Bruce SpizerFormat PaperbackPage Count 192Imprint Imagine & WonderPublisher Imagine & Wonder

Let legendary rock manager Simon Napier-Bell take you inside the (dodgy) world of popular music - not just a creative industry, but a business that has made people rich beyond their wildest dreams. He balances seductive anecdotes - pulling back the...

In 1949, immigrant recording engineer Moses Asch embarked on a lifelong project: documenting the world of sound produced by mankind, via a small record label called Folkways Records. By the time of his death in 1986, he had amassed an archive of over...

Released in October 1997, the "Flaming Lips' Zaireeka" was met with some critical praise and more general puzzlement. The album comes as four separate CDs intended for playback at the same time. Which means, of course, that four CD players are required...

Featuring blues artists of every era, from pioneers like Ma Rainey, through legends such as Muddy Waters and B. B. King, to new stars like Keb' Mo' and Shemekia Copeland. Charting the history of the blues from its rural roots in the American...

This electrifying vinyl edition creates a new and edgy definition for "album art." Produced in collaboration with Colors magazine, it brings together more than 500 remarkable records from the collection of Alessandro Benedetti and Peter Bastine.This book...

What resonated about "Endtroducing" when it was released in 1996, and what makes it still resonate today, is the way in which it loosens itself from the mooring of the known and sails off into an uncharted territory that seems to exist both in and out of...

Without Beethoven, music as we know it wouldn't exist. Who was this titan of world culture? 'You want to build a Beethoven library? There can be no better starting point... Brilliant.' John Suchet, Classic FM presenter Through 100 recordings,...

The most iconic concert hall in the world celebrates 150 years with a stunning review of history's finest performances and performers. Opening with a personal letter from Queen Elizabeth II, this beautiful book celebrates 150 moments that have shaped The...

Leonard Bernstein was arguably the most highly esteemed, influential, and charismatic American classical music personality of the twentieth century. Conductor, composer, pianist, writer, educator, and human rights activist, Bernstein truly led a life of...

In Elvis Presley, one of the most admired Southern historians of our time takes on one of the greatest cultural icons of all time. The result is a masterpiece: a vivid, gripping biography, set against the rich backdrop of Southern society--indeed,...

A tale of forbidden love and inevitable death, the medieval legend of Tristan and Isolde recounts the story of two lovers unknowingly drinking a magic potion and ultimately dying in one another's arms. Critics have lauded Wagner's Tristan und Isolde for...

A new biography of which paints the most well-rounded and factually accurate portrait of the composer to date Ralph Vaughan Williams ranks among the most versatile, influential, and enduringly popular British musicians of his era. Throughout his...

Taking cue from the do-it-yourself attitude of their country's punk movement, Britain's up-and-coming heavy metal bands that comprised the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) were not content to wait for record labels to come knocking. Instead, they...

I thought it was a great cultural movement, the music, the look, they're things that have shaped who I am... Paul Weller The skin-suede era was the most rigorously smart and pedantically correct in the history of working class street style...

Under the Big Black Sun explores the nascent Los Angeles punk rock movement and its evolution to hardcore punk as it's never been told before. Authors John Doe and Tom DeSavia have woven together an enthralling story of the legendary West Coast scene...

The first official account of the iconic record label. An NME Book of the Year 2013 * A Rough Trade Book of the Year 2013 * A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year 2013 This Mortal Coil, Birthday Party, Bauhaus, Cocteau Twins,...

The drum kit has provided the pulse of popular music from before the dawn of jazz up to the present day pop charts. Kick It, a provocative social history of the instrument, looks closely at key innovators in the development of the drum kit: inventors and...

In Britain during the late 1970s and early 1980s, a new phenomenon emerged, with female guitarists, bass-players, keyboard-players and drummers playing in bands. Before this time, women's presence in rock bands, with a few notable exceptions, had always...

This title explores a key hip hop album marking the cross over point where the streets and the charts collided. Contradiction the simultaneous existence of two competing realities and larger than life persona are at the core of "Nas' Illmatic". Yet Nas'...

Since She Bop was first published in 1995, digital downloading has transformed the music landscape. But has issue of gender inequality changed too? For She Bop, Lucy O Brien conducted over 250 interviews with female artists and women working behind the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781739659929Author David VernonFormat PaperbackPage Count 440Imprint Candle Row PressPublisher Candle Row PressWeight(grams) 476gDimensions(mm) 203mm *...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781739213305Author Kevin MulryneFormat PaperbackPage Count 300Imprint Five Per Cent For Something PublishingPublisher Five Per Cent For Something Publishing

This is a brilliant exploration of Radiohead's game-changing album, looking at its place in the career of "The World's Best Band" with ten years of hindsight. Radiohead's Kid A never had a chance on paper. Not only did the band have the unenviable task...

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...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781770415119Author Art TavanaFormat HardbackPage Count 304Imprint ECW Press,CanadaPublisher ECW Press,Canada

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781915316134Author Andy CowanFormat PaperbackPage Count 400Imprint HeadpressPublisher Headpress

Like all double albums, "Songs in the Key of Life" is imperfect but audacious. If its titular concern - life - doesn't exactly allow for rigid focus, it's still a fiercely inspired collection of songs and one of the definitive soul records of the 1970s...

This book focuses on the genius of Smith's 1998 debut that remains his defining album. Many albums could be cited to support the claim that great suffering yields great art. Elliott Smith's "XO" should not be one of them. Smith's 1998 major label debut...

1979 was an amazing time for UK post-punk pop. t the end of March, a fresh new sound entered the British top 20. 'Sultans of Swing', a very wordy song with lots of driving guitar, a tight rhythm section and some killer musicianship. Dire Straits,...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781400052868Author Vivien GoldmanFormat PaperbackPage Count 336Imprint Crown Publishing Group (NY)Publisher Crown Publishing Group (NY)Weight(grams)...