History & Criticism

Notes and Tones is one of the most controversial, honest, and insightful books ever written about jazz. As a black musician himself, Arthur Taylor was able to ask his subjects hard questions about the role of black artists in a white society. Free to...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781788360456Author Gary BrowningFormat PaperbackImprint Imprint AcademicPublisher Imprint AcademicWeight(grams) 300gDimensions(mm) 210mm * 135mm * 14mm

When Yes ran into problems recording their tenth album in Paris at the end of 1979, it was almost the end. Yet in the 80s, the band rallied, firstly as part of an unlikely collaboration with new wave duo The Buggles, then with 90125, the most successful...

Fifty years after their first practice in a Soho basement, Led Zeppelin continues to fascinate new generations of listeners. While their back-stage debauchery has been the focus of other books, All the Songs is about the music, detailing the Page's...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781629635507Author Ian GlasperFormat PaperbackPage Count 640Imprint PM PressPublisher PM Press

The phrase "music history" likely summons up images of long-dead composers, smug men in wigs and waistcoats, and people dancing without touching. In Music: A Subversive History, Gioia responds to the false notions that undergird this tedium. Traditional...

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,...

These are the songs that we have listened to, laughed to, loved to and laboured to, as well as downed tools and danced to. Covering the last seven decades, Stuart Maconie looks at the songs that have sound tracked our changing times, and - just sometimes...

This value-priced reissue of Bowie at 75 (2022) celebrates the beloved rock star with expert commentary, hundreds of images, and an illustrated gatefold timeline. Hendrix, Joplin, Mercury...few rock artists garner as much adulation after passing as they...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781915616036Author Ian MossFormat PaperbackPage Count 400Imprint Empire Publications LtdPublisher Empire Publications LtdWeight(grams) 508g

Known for his orchestral, operatic and choral works, James MacMillan (b. 1959) appeals across the spectrum of contemporary music making. James MacMillan appeals across the spectrum of contemporary music making and is particularly celebrated for his...

As an innovative and constantly inventive jazz pianist, Brad Mehldau has attracted a sizable following over the years, one that has grown to expect a singular, intense experience from his performances. With Formation, Brad seeks to extend that experience...

Igor Stravinsky lived the life of a celebrity composer in an increasingly celebrity-obsessed age. He was a true modern, a man of his time. In Paris he dined with Joyce, Picasso and Proust, and by the end of his life was being feted by both the White...

It was the strange and mystical "Another Green World" (1975) that was the cosmic bridge between Old Eno and New Eno, between Rock and Ambient, between the guitar and the synthesizer, between the old world and electronic music as we know it. "Another...

'Beguiling ... Limpidly written, effortlessly learned' William Boyd, TLS, Books of the YearIn November 1838 Frederic Chopin, George Sand and her two children sailed to Majorca to escape the Parisian winter. They settled in an abandoned monastery at...

For most people in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s, Radio 1 provided the soundtrack to their lives. Commanding up to 24 million listeners a week, it was the most popular radio station in the world. An iconic institution and one of the UK's most...

A corporeal history of music-making in early modern Europe.Music in the Flesh reimagines the lived experiences of music-making subjects-composers, performers, listeners-in the long seventeenth century. There are countless historical testimonies of the...

Linda Ronstadt is one of the most important women and people in the history of popular music. Starting her solo career in 1969, she redefined what a music superstar could be by expanding her repertoire from her country rock roots, crossing over to...

**WINNER of Presto Books' Best Composer Biography**NINE WORKS OF BEETHOVEN, NINE WINDOWS INTO THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF A MUSICAL GENIUS. 'We are doubly blessed that Beethoven should have led such an extraordinary life. Laura has combined the two - the...

The Incredible String Band evoke love and devotion to all those who fall under their spell. Their world is not ours, but a land of mythical creatures and fey beings. This book looks at all their recorded output from the first album which saw the turning...

Julian Cope, eccentric and visionary rock musician, follows the runaway underground success of his book "Krautrocksampler" with "Japrocksampler", a cult deconstruction of Japanese rock music, and reveals what really happened when East met West after...

After John Coltrane, there was no more revered and profoundly influential saxophonist on the planet than Michael Brecker. For those coming of age in the 1970s, during that transitional decade when the boundaries between rock and jazz had begun to blur,...

This is a thorough history of Slint, and the Louisville scene that surrounded the band, leading up to and focusing on the creation of their masterpiece, "Spiderland". Of all the seminal albums to come out in 1991 - the year of "Nevermind", "Loveless",...

A fascinating journey through the history of "Amazing Grace," one of the transatlantic world's most popular hymns and a powerful anthem for humanity.   Sung in moments of personal isolation or on state occasions watched by millions, "Amazing Grace" has...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781608194162Author Robert GordonFormat PaperbackPage Count 480Imprint Bloomsbury PressPublisher Bloomsbury Publishing PlcWeight(grams) 618g

The World According to Questlove Mo' Meta Blues is a punch-drunk memoir in which Everyone's Favorite Questlove tells his own story while tackling some of the lates, the greats, the fakes, the philosophers, the heavyweights, and the true originals of the...

One Day: Saturday 13 July 1985, nearly two billion people woke up with one purpose. Nearly a third of humanity knew where they were going to be that day. Watching, listening to, attending: Live Aid. One Decade: Britain in the Eighties was different. The...

The Process That Is the World grapples with John Cage not just as a composer, but as a philosopher advocating for an ontology of difference in keeping with the kind posited by Gilles Deleuze. Cage's philosophy is not simply a novel method for...

Noise is so often a 'stench in the ear' - an unpleasant disturbance or an unwelcome distraction. But there is much more to noise than what greets the ear as unwanted sound. Beyond Unwanted Sound is about noise and how we talk about it. Weaving together...

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. ...

Sit back, relax and relive the memories of over 90 more classic albums selected by Tim Burgess from his legendary Listening PartiesIn less than 2 years, tens of thousands of music lovers have pressed play at the same time as legendary musicians to share...

Django Reinhardt was arguably the greatest guitarist who ever lived, an important influence on Les Paul, Charlie Christian, B.B. King, Jerry Garcia, Chet Atkins, and many others. Yet there is no major biography of Reinhardt. Now, in Django, Michael...

Laura Nyro (1947-1997) was one of the most significant figures to emerge from the singer-songwriter boom of the 1960s. She first came to attention when her songs were hits for Barbra Streisand, The Fifth Dimension, Peter, Paul and Mary, and others. But...

Find out what 20 rock journalists and writers have to say about Rush's 20 studio albums.Formed in Toronto in 1968, the rock trio Rush has gone on to multiplatinum success behind the distinctive high register and virtuosic bass-playing of frontman Geddy...

Few, if any bands, have been as prolific or consistently creative as Genesis were in the 1970s, both together and apart. Across that decade, the mothership released eight studio and two live albums, played a thousand concerts and launched the solo...

The definitive illustrated book on “The Boss”—now in an updated edition to celebrate his 75th birthday! Renowned for his passionate songwriting, galvanizing live shows, and political activism, Bruce Springsteen stands astride the rock ’n’ roll stage like...

'Sharply insightful and vividly imaginative... the perfect Christmas gift for anyone asking: 'How do I get into classical music?'' - Rupert Christiansen, Mail on Sunday'A treat from the very first page... written with style and humour, this is a perfect...

The legions of Bob Dylan fans know that Dylan is not just a great composer, writer, and performer, but a great thinker as well. In Bob Dylan and Philosophy, eighteen philosophers analyze Dylan's ethical positions, political commitments, views on gender...

Moscow and its Conservatoire was long, perhaps still is, the heart of Russian pianism. Its graduates range through Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Medtner, Richter, Gilels, Ashkenazy, Pletnev and beyond. Professor Christopher Barnes, a professor of Slavic...

The composer Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 - November 1585) lived and worked through much of the turbulent Tudor period in England. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he did not just react to radical change: he thrived on it. He helped invent new musical styles...