History & Criticism

Motorhead are arguably the greatest rock and roll band in history, but it took many years to win that accolade. This is the story of the band that refused to die. They started off as the Vengeful Bastard and they had a tough beginning. The band had to...

Van Halen are arguably America's greatest ever rock n' roll band. From inauspicious roots as a backyard covers outfit, they went on to revolutionise and revitalise heavy rock, creating a world-conquering blend of heavy metal power, punk energy and pop...

The Sunday Times' Music Book of the Year 2017 Allan Jones launched Uncut magazine in 1997 and for 15 years wrote a popular monthly column called Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before, based on his experiences as a music journalist in the 70s and...

A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK 'Full of delightful nuggets' Guardian online 'Entertaining, informative and philosphical ... An essential read' All About History 'Extraordinary range ... All the world and more is here' Evening Standard 165...

In August 1994, Manic Street Preachers released The Holy Bible, a dark, fiercely intelligent album that explored such themes as mental illness, murder and war. Richey Edwards, the band's lyricist and motive force, vanished five months later; he was never...

A new edition as part of the Faber Greatest Hits - books that have taken writing about music in new and exciting directions for the twenty-first century.Disco emerged from the fall-out of the Black Power Movement and an almost exclusively gay scene in a...

An exploration of public performance in everyday life, by the leading cultural and social thinkerThe Performer explores the relations between performing in art (particularly music), politics and everyday experience. It focuses on the bodily and physical...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780593237434Author Warren ZanesFormat PaperbackPage Count 320Imprint Random House IncPublisher Random House USA Inc

Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most unfathomable composers in the history of music. How can such sublime work have been produced by a man who seems so ordinary, so opaque - and occasionally so intemperate?In this remarkable book, John Eliot Gardiner...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781627310673Author Ika JohannessonFormat PaperbackPage Count 240Imprint Feral House,U.S.Publisher Feral House,U.S.

The full story of Taylor Swift's stratospheric rise to fame; all any dedicated Swifty needs to know about the pop superstar who's taking over the world A small-town girl with an incredible talent, and the strength to...

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...

Miles: The Autobiography, like the man himself, holds nothing back. He talks about his battles against drugs and racism, and discusses the many women in his life. But above all, Miles talks about music and musicians, including the legends he has played...

July, 1967: It seems the entire country stopped to listen to a husky voice steeped in the simmering secrets of the South tell a tragic tale of teenage suicide. So much for the Summer of Love. "Ode to Billie Joe" knocked the Beatles' "All You Need is...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780525520542Author Dayton DuncanFormat HardbackPage Count 560Imprint Alfred A. KnopfPublisher Alfred A. KnopfWeight(grams) 2166gDimensions(mm) 283mm * 242mm...

Bach for Violin contains a varied collection of 14 attractive and popular pieces arranged for upper-intermediate standard violinists (Grades 5-7), exploring a range of keys, finger patterns, styles, and moods. The collection covers simpler dance...

Following the success of their instantly iconic double LP, London Calling, The Clash set out to do something "triply outrageous." Named after the Nicaraguan rebels who successfully overthrew an authoritarian dictator, Sandinista! consists of 36 songs...

'Highly stimulating ... Kraftwerk is a pleasure to read' Jon Savage, New StatesmanThe story of the phenomenon that is Kraftwerk, and how they revolutionised our cultural landscape'We are not artists nor musicians. We are workers.' Ignoring nearly all...

Who's better? Billie Holiday or P.J. Harvey? Blur or Oasis? Dylan or Keats? And how many friendships have ridden on the answer? Such questions aren't merely the stuff of fanzines and idle talk; they inform our most passionate arguments, distil our most...

From 1983 until 1991, Glam Metal was the sound of American culture. Big hair, massive amplifiers, drugs, alcohol, piles of money and life-threatening pyrotechnics. This was the world stalked by Bon Jovi, Kiss, W.A.S.P., Skid Row, Dokken, Motley Crue,...

Is music removed from politics? To what ends, beneficent or malevolent, can music and musicians be put? In short, when human rights are grossly abused and politics turned to fascist demagoguery, can art and artists be innocent? These questions and their...

Do you know your power ballads from your punk anthems? Can you identify the dons of dance, or the professors of pop? The NOW That's What I Call Music Quiz Book will put your music knowledge to the test as you puzzle your way through the last thirty five...

A downright revolutionary 30th-anniversary deluxe edition of the iconic bestselling biography of Nirvana, updated with exclusive new content exploring the personal and cultural forces that inspired the music, the author's friendship with Kurt Cobain and...

Clad in white tie and tails, dancing and scatting his way through the "Hi-de-ho" chorus of "Minnie the Moocher," Cab Calloway exuded a sly charm and sophistication that endeared him to legions of fans. In Hi-de-ho, author Alyn Shipton...

This is a thoroughly researched study of the origins of the New York City punk scene, focusing on Television and their extraordinary debut record. Two kids in their early twenties walk down the Bowery on a spring afternoon, just as the proprietor of a...

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...

This five-volume graded series of organ music by J. S. Bach (2 volumes for manuals only; 3 volumes for manuals and pedals) provides a wonderful selection of pieces for all players. The whole is an authoritative and fully practical introduction to this...

Everyone remembers their first NOW album. Since NOW That's What I Call Music Volume 1 was released in 1983 on double vinyl and double cassette, NOW has become synonymous with pop music and has featured some of the most iconic artists of the last three...

If Genesis, according to British comedian and fan, Al Murray 'were the progressive rock band who progressed', then Peter Gabriel, once solo, would be the one who progressed the most. Who would have thought listening to early Genesis would eventually take...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781907222672Author Rose SimpsonFormat PaperbackPage Count 256Imprint Strange Attractor PressPublisher Strange Attractor Press

In 1992, Singer, pianist and composer Tori Amos achieved fame with the intensely personal solid gold record, Little Earthquakes, the first of fifteen studio albums. Each new recording cut new ground both musically and thematically. Since then, Amos has...

For 13 years, Peter Hince lived the rock 'n' roll dream. As head roadie for Queen he had a front row seat and backstage pass to some of the greatest moments in music.Now, he is opening up his incredible archive and sharing hundreds of photographs and...

There's no template for making it as a globally successful pop group. Some of the ingredients remain constant and beyond the music, there's a mix'n'match selection of premature death, drugs, drink, destroyed friendships, lukewarm solo projects and...

Singing Like Larks opens a rare window onto the ancient song traditions of the British Isles, interweaving mesmerising lyrics, folklore and colourful nature writing to uncover the remarkable relationship between birds and traditional folk music. Birds...

Opening with the psychedelic haunts of the 1960s New York pop art scene and closing more than half a century later with the rise of post-club happenings, Temporary Pleasure shows how nightlife spaces have evolved to meet the needs of their generation,...

'Stanley is both a fine writer and an impassioned celebrant of pop in all its mongrel, misfit glory.'STUART MACONIE, THE TIMESThere have been many books on pop music but none have attempted to chart its entire story, from the dawn of the charts in the...

On the night of Sunday, April 23, 1961 Judy Garland made history. That's no hyperbole. Surrounded by a throng of ecstatic fans (3,165 to be exact), the legendary performer delivered a concert in Carnegie Hall the live recording of which became, upon...

The Northern Soul scene is a dance-based music culture that originated in the English North and Midlands in the early 1970s, it still thrives today with a mix of fifty-year olds and new converts, and its celebration of 1960s Soul has an international...

Celebrate the legendary guitars and amps of Fender (R)with this authoritatively written, lavishly illustrated, and officially licensed history of the company and the culture it inspired. Originating in Leo Fender's modest radio and amplifier repair shop...

A Telegraph Book of the YearA Guardian Book of the YearA Shindig Book of the Year A Virgin Radio Book of the YearAwarded the certificate of merit in the 2023 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for ExcellenceIn 1970, pop was in trouble. The...