History & Criticism

The Monkees represent a vital problem for rock and pop, and perhaps the major question: is it the music that matters or the personality and image of the performers? This book explores the system behind the Monkees, the controversial made-for-tv band...

A comprehensive biography of the brilliant jazz composer and pianist Bill Evans This enthralling book is the first biography in English of Bill Evans (1929-1980), one of the most influential of all jazz pianists. Peter Pettinger, himself a concert...

Robert Shelton met Bob Dylan when the young singer arrived in New York in 1961. He became Dylan’s friend, champion, and critic. His book, first published in 1986, was hailed as the definitive unauthorized biography of this moody, passionate genius...

The man whom W.H. Auden called `perhaps the greatest genius that ever lived' has inspired extremes of adulation and loathing. In this penetrating analysis, Bryan Magee outlines the range and depth of Wagner's achievement, and shows how his sensational...

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

'In the beginning,' Billy Joel entertained Long Island locals, with The Hassles and Attila, prior to forging a solo career in 1971. One year later, the singer-songwriter-pianist captivated college students when 'Captain Jack' dominated the Philadelphia...

In 1958, an anonymous group of overworked and under-budgeted BBC employees set out to make some new sounds for radio and TV. They ended up changing the course of 20th-century music. For millions of people, the work of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was the...

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...

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...

From the record-breaking success of 1991's 'Black Album' to the band's reinvention with the Load/Reload albums; from bassist Jason Newsted's shock departure to the group's subsequent meltdown as laid bare in the documentary Some Kind of Monster; from the...

One of the biggest names in the musical landscape of the 1970s, Steely Dan released a string of albums that pushed the boundaries of what was possible in a recording studio. With albums like `The Royal Scam' and `Aja', the songs of Walter Becker and...

Was John Lennon meeting Paul McCartney more significant than John Lennon meeting Yoko Ono? Rubber Soul or Revolver? Which Wings album was Paul McCartney's solo pinnacle?In 100 brief chapters, John M. Borack discusses and ranks the greatest moments in...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781538198865Author Arved AshbyFormat PaperbackPage Count 272Imprint Rowman & Littlefield PublishersPublisher Rowman & Littlefield

Critically acclaimed biography of one of England's best loved composers, with a full discussion and evaluation of his works. Gerald Finzi is one of the best-known modern English composers. While he is especially famous as a song-writer, for his...

A Times Book of the YearA Telegraph Book of the YearA Guardian Book of the Year A Rock 'n' Roll Book Club Book of the YearA Guardian 50 Best Holiday ReadsAn Independent Book of the YearA Mojo Music Book of the Year A Resident Book of the Year'This...

A radical new book by journalist, critic and BBC Radio 3 broadcaster Kate Molleson, which fundamentally changes the way we think about classical music and the musicians who made it on a global scale.'Wonderful . . . This is a book of discovery that...

Seventy years since the radical music of the 1960s first hit the airwaves, the anthems of the era continue to resonate with our current times. Through studying these musicians and the political contexts in which their pioneering songs were birthed;...

Originally published in 1936, this book presents a discussion regarding the modality of ancient Greek music, using literary evidence supplemented by surviving melodies. Detailed notes are incorporated throughout, together with indexes of proper names,...

Ivor Cutler: A Life Outside the Sitting Room is the first biography of one of post-war Britain's most recognisable authors, poets and performers. Mr Cutler (as he preferred to be known) wrote and recorded some of the most unusual and memorable songs and...

Women are an essential part of the history of the piano-but how many women pianists can you name? Throughout most of the piano's history, women pianists lacked access to formal training and were excluded from male-dominated performance spaces. Even 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 and features stories of his time working with everyone from the Beatles to the Ronettes and Elton John to the Rolling...

This Companion provides orientation for those embarking on the study of Beethoven's much-discussed Eroica Symphony, as well as providing fresh insights that will appeal to scholars, performers and listeners more generally. The book addresses the symphony...

Think about Led Zeppelin and the image coming to mind would be of them straddling the world as the archetypal 'rock gods', defining the 1970s like no other artist did. Dig deeper though, and there's a lot more to Zeppelin than hard rock and bluster, with...

When LCD Soundsystem broke up in 2011, they left behind a small but remarkable catalog of music. On top of the genius singles and a longform composition for Nike, there was a trilogy of full-length albums. During that initial run, LCD Soundsystem-and the...

Jairo Moreno adapts the methodologies and nomenclature of Foucault's "archaeology of knowledge" and applies it through individual case studies to the theoretical writings of Zarlino, Descartes, Rameau, and Weber. His conclusion summarizes the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780825672842Author Rob BowmanFormat PaperbackPage Count 402Imprint Schirmer BooksPublisher Cengage GaleWeight(grams) 567gDimensions(mm) 235mm * 152mm * 25mm

'A flaming juggernaut of heavy-metal biog' GUARDIAN'This is the definitive account of heavy metal's biggest band of all' CLASSIC ROCK 'Truly enlightening' ROCK SOUND'ENTER NIGHT, Mick Wall's biography of Metallica confirms this grizzled veteran to be as...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780802884374Author Charlie PeacockFormat HardbackPage Count 389Imprint William B. Eerdmans Publishing CompanyPublisher William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Includes a new chapter on John Cage. Alex Ross's award-winning international best-seller, 'The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century', has become a contemporary classic, establishing him as one of our most popular and acclaimed...

FULLY UPDATED AND REVISED, INCLUDING TWO NEW CHAPTERS TO BRING THE STORY UP TO DATE 'Someone called and said Kurt died. I just f*****g lost it.' He has sold over 50 million albums. He's been in bands that...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781551523965Author Joe KeithleyFormat PaperbackPage Count 304Imprint Arsenal Pulp PressPublisher Arsenal Pulp PressWeight(grams) 1114g

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...

Derided as one-hit wonders, estranged from their original producer and record label, and in self-imposed exile in Los Angeles, the Beastie Boys were written off by most observers before even beginning to record their second album - an embarrassing...

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Have you ever listened to an incredible piece of music and wondered exactly why it makes you want to dance or cry? Are you mystified by how musicians just 'know' what notes to play next when they're improvising? Or why certain notes sound great together...

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,...

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...

As countries went into lockdown in 2020, people turned to music for comfort and solidarity. Neighbours sang to each other from their balconies; people participated in online music sessions that created an experience of socially distanced togetherness...

From original Guns N' Roses drummer Steven Adler comes a tale of sex, drugs, excess, hairspray and and intense 20-year struggle with addiction. Guns N' Roses is one of the world's most successful rock bands, with estimated sales of 90 million...

"Unfortunately making the greatest rap album of all time was to be put on hold as the insidious Job Centre advisors had finally had enough of my shit. I would be forced to sign up to one of the town's two recruitment agencies, or I would be starved of...