History & Criticism

Few bands in the past three decades have proven as affecting or exciting as the Misfits, the ferocious horror punk outfit that lurked in the shadows of suburban New Jersey and released a handful of pivotal underground recordings during their brief,...

'You never knew what you were going to be confronted with when you went on Later...' Nick Cave 'Later... is a voyage of discovery for us as well as the viewers' Dave Grohl Dave Grohl and Alicia Keys loved it, Bjoerk treasured it, Ed...

The musical achievements of the so-called `Franco-Flemish School' have attracted many writers, yet Bruges itself has still to be put back on the map of European music history. This book describes how the people of Bruges shaped their acoustic environment...

Metallica: The $24.95 Book features an in-depth look at Metallica's cultural significance with chapters devoted to each member, each album, touring, fashion, books, film, influences, fandom, and more, exploring the band's politics and religion along the...

'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...

Phil Ochs is known primarily as a songwriter; however, his oeuvre extends far beyond that-to short stories, poetry, criticism, journalism, and satire, all of which are included in I'm Gonna Say It Now: The Writings of Phil Ochs, which represents the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781493051021Author Pete TomsettFormat PaperbackPage Count 464Imprint Backbeat BooksPublisher Hal Leonard Corporation

What is experimental music today? This book offers an up to date survey of this field for anyone with an interest, from seasoned practitioners to curious readers. This book takes the stance that experimental music is not a limited historical event, but...

Jefferson Airplane were not the sole exemplars of 1960s Californian acid rock; the Grateful Dead could equally claim the mantle of house band to the Summer of Love. Airplane's instrumentation was conventional, comprising mainly vocal harmonies, guitars,...

"If only I do not die here." After falling ill during a visit to Bayreuth, Franz Liszt uttered this melancholy refrain throughout his final days, which were spent in rented rooms in a house opposite Wahnfried, the home of his daughter Cosima and his...

Winner of the prestigious Penderyn Music Book Prize 2022 In the fifties and sixties, in the period leading up to the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality and the founding of the Gay Liberation movement, a group of gay men behind the scenes of...

Author of the Penderyn Prize-winning The Velvet Mafia Fifty years on from Britain's first Pride march, the long road to LGBT equality continues. Through protest songs and gay club nights, street theatre activism and fundraising concerts, the...

In the '80s, the Birmingham, England, band Duran Duran became closely associated with new wave, an idiosyncratic genre that dominated the decade's music and culture. No album represented this rip-it-up-and-start-again movement better than the act's...

D.X. Ferris explores the creation of the most universally respected metal album.Slayer's controversial "Reign in Blood" remains the gold standard for extreme heavy metal: a seamless procession of ten blindingly fast songs in just twenty-eight minutes,...

Jazz, the Charleston, nightclubs, cocktails, cinema, and musical theatre: 1920s British nightlife was vibrant and exhilarating. But where did opera fit into this fashionable new entertainment world? Opera in the Jazz Age: Cultural Politics in 1920s...

Re-release of the first book ever published in America about the legendary Motown Record Company, with a new foreword by legendary music journalist Greil Marcus!In January 1959 Berry Gordy borrowed $800 from his family and founded the Detroit-based...

At the height of the Enlightenment, four conservatories in Naples stood at the center of European composition. Maestros taught their students to compose with unprecedented swiftness and elegance using the partimento, an instructional tool derived from...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781907222696Author Savage PencilFormat PaperbackPage Count 196Imprint Strange Attractor PressPublisher Strange Attractor Press

UFO, the legendary band which have been gracing the world's stages for the last 50 years, have given us more than their fair share of superb quality hard rock songs including 'Doctor, Doctor', 'Rock Bottom', 'Shoot Shoot', 'Too Hot To Handle', and 'Only...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781887128896Author Chris AdamsFormat PaperbackPage Count 330Imprint Soft Skull PressPublisher CounterpointWeight(grams) 618gDimensions(mm) 203mm * 203mm *...

Rise of the Super Furry Animals tells the story of the greatest psychedelic pop band of our time. Welsh speakers with a lust for global communication, the Super Furry Animals shot to fame on Creation Records and found that, thanks to the...

A stunning musical biography of Stevie Nicks that paints a portrait of an artist, not a caricature of a superstar. Reflective and expansive, Mirror in the Sky situates Stevie Nicks as one of the finest songwriters of the twentieth century. This biography...

From its use in literary theory, film criticism and the discourse of games design, Salome Voegelin expands 'possible world theory' to think the worlding of sound in music, in art and in the everyday. The modal logic of possible worlds, articulated...

'Exhilarating' - Sunday Times 'Funny and moving' - Jarvis Cocker Music critic and writer Paul Morley weaves together memoir and history in a spiralling tale that establishes classical music as the most rebellious genre of all. Paul Morley had...

'A true testimonial and epic love letter to the soul saving power of rock & roll . . . Read it and be inspired, as I was' Bobby Gillespie'Lenny Kaye has illuminated ten facets of the jewel called rock and roll from a uniquely personal and knowledgeable...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781738581733Author Karamdeep SahotaFormat HardbackPage Count 292Imprint Balmansa BooksPublisher Balmansa Books

In Please Please Tell Me Now, bestselling rock biographer Stephen Davis tells the story of Duran Duran, the quintessential band of the 1980s. Their pretty boy looks made them the stars of fledgling MTV, but it was their brilliant musicianship that led to...

When Twin Peaks debuted on the ABC network on the night of April 8, 1990, thirty-five million viewers tuned in to some of the most unusual television of their lives. Centered on an eccentric, coffee-loving FBI agent's investigation into the murder of a...

Ever since their debut single was released in 1983, The Smiths have influenced musicians worldwide with their jangly guitar pop, infectious melodies and front man Morrissey's passionate lyrics. During their relatively short lifespan (1982-1987) the...

From the author of the acclaimed Revolution in the Head, Ian MacDonald takes us on a journey through the music of the sixties and seventies. Starting with one of the most important assessments of Bob Dylan to appear in print for many years, these essays...

Guitarist Steve Hackett first came to many fan's attention when he joined Genesis in 1971. Following seven excellent albums with the band, he went his own way in 1977. He had already kick started his solo career with the critically acclaimed Voyage of...

Editing Early Music is designed as a guide to editorial procedures suitable for music written from the Middle Ages to about 1830. Some of the suggestions are relevant to the editing of any music no longer in copyright. There is an introductory chapter on...

The Moog synthesizer "bent the course of music forever" Rolling Stone declared. Bob Moog, the man who did that bending, was a lovable geek with Einstein hair and pocket protectors. He walked into history in 1964 when his homemade contraption...

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...

Irish Independent Music Book of the YearGuardian Book of the WeekAfter discovering a derelict record plant on the edge of a northern English city, and hearing that it was once visited by David Bowie, Karl Whitney embarks upon a journey to explore the...

Roy Harper must be one of Britain's most undervalued rock musicians and songwriters. For over fifty years he has produced a series of innovative albums of consistently outstanding quality. He puts poetry and social commentary to music in a way that...

33 1/3 is a new series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the last 40 years. Focusing on one album rather than an artist's entire output, the books dispense with the standard biographical background that fans know already,...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781438492681Author Hank DavisFormat PaperbackPage Count 362Imprint Excelsior EditionsPublisher State University of New York PressWeight(grams)...

New York City in the 1970s was an urban nightmare: destitute, dirty, and dangerous. As the country collectively turned its back on the Big Apple, two musical vigilantes rose out of the miasma. Armed only with amplified AC current, Suicide's Alan Vega and...

Most know that the legendary English rock band the Who performed concerts at ear-splitting volume, smashed their instruments, and became one of the worlds most influential groups. Their period from 1964 to 1976 saw the creation of such classic songs as...