History & Criticism

Celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Backstreet Boys with the ultimate tribute book-filled with amazing tour photography, band-member profiles, fan memories, and more. Since breaking into the scene in 1993, the Backstreet Boys have sold over 100 million...

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CRAIG BROWN, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF ONE TWO THREE FOUR Everybody knows the Beatles: John, Paul, George, Ringo ... and Brian. The Fab Four's meteoric rise is one of the most famous rags-to-riches stories ever told. And behind...

This is an in-depth study of a pivotal moment in Ween's development, as they became one of the world's most endearing, and enduring, cult bands. In 1993, the scruffy, pointedly silly Pennsylvania duo Ween appeared to be just another alt-rock also-ran...

Ushering in a new era of confessional music that spoke openly about experiences of trauma, depression, and self-loathing, Nine Inch Nails' seminal album, The Downward Spiral, changed popular music forever bringing transgressive themes of heresy, S and M,...

A superbly insightful and moving exploration of Wagner's last opera, by one of Britain's leading intellectuals Wagner's last music-drama tells the story of Parsifal, the 'pure fool, knowing through compassion', who has been called to rescue the Kingdom...

Richard Cook and Brian Morton's Penguin Jazz Guide: The History of the Music in 1001 Best Albums is an indispensible guide to the recordings that every fan should know. Richard Cook and Brian Morton's Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings is firmly...

With hundreds of interviews conducted over a 35-year span, this book is the most comprehensive history of television scoring to date. Music composed for television had, until recently, never been taken seriously by scholars or critics. Catchy TV...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780802778130Format HardbackPage Count 416Imprint Walker & CoPublisher Walker & CoWeight(grams) 869gDimensions(mm) 187mm * 154mm * 10mm

In this generous collection of book reviews and literary essays, legendary Village Voice rock critic Robert Christgau showcases the passion that made him a critic-his love for the written word. Many selections address music, from blackface minstrelsy to...

Vivaldi has emerged during the last decades as a truly major composer of the early eighteenth-century. Taking account of recent research, to which he himself has made important contributions-including the discovery in 1973 of an unknown set of violin...

In the spring of 1969, the inauspicious release of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band's "Trout Mask Replica", a double-album featuring 28 stream-of-consciousness songs filled with abstract rhythms and guttural bellows, dramatically altered the pop...

A new edition of Humphrey Burton's celebrated biography of Leonard Bernstein, published to coincide with the centenary of his birth. With a new introduction by the author.'Humphrey Burton's biography remains the essential account of American music's...

In this eloquent, intimate exploration of the delights and demands of the piano, world-renowned concert pianist and music writer Charles Rosen draws on a lifetime's wisdom to consider every aspect of the instrument: from what makes a beautiful sound to...

Peter Evans discusses all the published compositions in subdivisions of genre and period, and devotes a separate chapter to each opera. With the help of over 300 music examples and diagrams, he demonstrates Britten's mastery of the art of composition -...

In 1991, a loose-knit collective released a record called Blue Lines under the name Massive Attack, splicing together American hip-hop and soul with the sounds of the British underground. With its marauding bass lines, angular guitars, and psychedelic...

Blackstar Theory takes a close look at David Bowie's ambitious last works: his surprise 'comeback' project The Next Day (2013), the off-Broadway musical Lazarus (2015) and the album that preceded the artist's death in 2016 by two days, Blackstar. The...

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Brilliant. The unwritten Bowie book that needed writing' CAITLIN MORAN 'Splendid. Provides plenty of evidence of Bowie's restless, rummaging intelligence, and his pleasure in the fact that books allow readers to slip into...

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...

The Tastemaker charts the singular life of a man who has been at the beating heart of music's most iconic moments for over sixty years. Leaving school and starting his career at Decca Records in 1958 at the age of sixteen, Tony King would soon find...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780486452654Author Curt SachsPage Count 560Imprint Dover Publications Inc.Publisher Dover Publications Inc.

This unique and meticulously researched book will delight both Yes fans and students of the 1960s music scene. It is essential reading for all lovers of the world's greatest progressive rock band, and fans of the genre's finest vocalist - Jon Anderson. ...

Formed in 1964 and still going strong in 2019, the Moody Blues are one of the most enduring bands in the history of rock. R&B, pop, psychedelic, symphonic, prog rock, folk rock, synth-pop, mainstream rock, they've experienced it all. 'Go Now', A number...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781639364633Author Bob StanleyFormat PaperbackPage Count 656Imprint Pegasus BooksPublisher Pegasus BooksWeight(grams) 576gDimensions(mm) 229mm * 145mm * 48mm

The first detailed study of the working relationship and productive friendship between Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) and Adrian Boult (1889-1983). From 1918 onwards, Boult became one of Vaughan Williams's most important interpreters, giving the...

Generally regarded as one of the most tragic tales in the history of rock music, the story of Badfinger does indeed make for an impressively sombre Hollywood-style film script. A Welsh and Liverpudlian musical hybrid, the band was signed to Apple...

In recent years, Bjoerk's artistry has become ever more ambitious and ever more respected. With the release of her conceptual app-album Biophilia in 2011, and a huge retrospective exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art coinciding with her most...

Since the dawn of modernism, visual and music production have had a particularly intimate relationship. From Luigi Russolo's 1913 Futurist manifesto L'Arte dei Rumori (The Art of Noise) to Marcel Duchamp's 1925 double-sided discs Rotoreliefs, the 20th...

Do you know which country won the very first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956? And can you name the five members of Kalush Orchestra, the 2022 contest winners? How about which iconic song ABBA won with in 1974?Celebrating the Eurovision Song Contest, this...

'I was spotty, wore an anorak, had biro-engraved flared blue jeans with "purple" and "Sabbath" written on the thighs, and rode an ear-splittingly uncool moped. Oh yes, and I wanted to be a drummer...' Bruce Dickinson...

The 1920s were not called the Jazz Age for nothing. Celebrated by writers from Langston Hughes to Gertrude Stein, jazz was the dominant influence on American popular music, despite resistance from whites who distrusted its vibrant expression of black...

A lively, engaging guide to music around the world, from prehistory to the present Human beings have always made music. Music can move us and tell stories of faith, struggle, or love. It is common to all cultures across the world. But how has it...

Superbly researched and vividly written, The Devil's Music is one of the only books to trace the rise and development of the blues both in relation to other forms of black music and in the context of American social history as experienced by African...

The first book-length study of musical education and culture in twentieth-century Oxford. Music has always played a central role in the life of Oxford, in both the city and university, through the great collegiate choral foundations, the many amateur...

Passionate about music from childhood and much-respected as a teenage guitarist in his native Birmingham, Jeff Lynne rose through the ranks of various semi-professional local groups to become the frontman of the critically acclaimed Idle Race in the late...

'Lovingly detailed and exhaustively researched - easily the most readable and comprehensive guide I've seen to this fascinating hidden history' Tom Robinson, musician, broadcaster and long-time LGBT rights activist From Sia to Elton John, Dusty...

The Eagles are the most popular, enduring rock band in America. With singles and albums hitting the top of the charts for a quarter century and a greatest hits collection that has sold more copies than any other recording in history, the Eagles have...

Sonic Writing explores how contemporary music technologies trace their ancestry to previous forms of instruments and media. Studying the domains of instrument design, musical notation, and sound recording under the rubrics of material, symbolic, and...

From schoolboy band to sold-out stadium tours and worldwide album sales of over 100 million, Genesis were one of the defining progressive rock bands of the seventies, playing a huge part in shaping the genre. Over a career spanning forty years from...

1970 was a year of change in pop and rock music, with divisions between both becoming ever more blurred. More ambitiously-constructed epics, heavy rock numbers and contemporary folk songs competed with mainstream and easy listening fare on Top of the...

Discover the stories behind the songsTHE LIFE OF A SONG contains the stories of 100 songs exploring each song's biography and how they took on a new life following their release. Packed with intriguing factoids, these bite-sized essays will delight music...