Seemingly granted 'classic album' status within days of its release in 1997, OK Computer transformed Radiohead from a highly promising rock act into The Most Important Band in the World - a label the band has been burdened by (and has fooled around with) ever since.
Inside the Music of Brian Wilson is, as author Phillip Lambert writes in the prologue "e;completely, and intensely, focused on the music of Brian Wilson, on the musical essence of his songs and the aesthetic value of his artistic achievements.
By the time Roger McGuinn, David Crosby, Chris Hillman, and Michael Clarke entered the studio to begin work on this album, they were basically falling apart at the seams.
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 landscape.
The serene, delicate songs on Another Green World sound practically meditative, but the album itself was an experiment fueled by adrenaline, panic, and pure faith.
For over three decades now, David Byrne has been a leading light in American culture - in popular music, experimental theatre, film, television, fine art, and writing.
Ignored by virtually everyone upon its release in November 1968, 'The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society' is now seen as one of the best British albums ever recorded.
In 20 Jazz Funk Greats Drew Daniel (of the experimental band Matmos) creates-through both his own insights and exclusive interviews with the band-an exploded view of the album's multiple agendas: a series of close readings of each song, shot through with a sequence of thematic entries on key concepts, strategies, and contexts (noise, leisure, process, the abject, information, and repetition).
Neither a dry-as-dust reference volume recycling the same dull facts nor a gushy, gossipy puff piece, A Cultural Dictionary of Punk: 1974-1982 is a bold book that examines punk as a movement that is best understood by placing it in its cultural field.
Black Sabbath's Master of Reality has maintained remarkable historical status over several generations; it's a touchstone for the directionless, and common coin for young men and women who've felt excluded from the broader cultural economy.
What could be more punk rock than a band that never changed, a band that for decades punched out three-minute powerhouses in the style that made them famous?
In Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles, Kenneth Womack brings the band's story vividly to life-from their salad days as a Liverpool Skiffle group and their apprenticeship in the nightclubs and mean streets of Hamburg through their early triumphs at the legendary Cavern Club and the massive onslaught of Beatlemania itself.
Students of pop music and pop culture as well as fans who have loved the music since it came into being will gain valuable insight into this genre of the 1970s and 1980s.
This study of Dylan's mission-driven music reveals a functional approach to art that not only sustained his 60-year career but forever changed an art form.
The City of Hip-Hop positions a unique conceptualization of the history of Hip-Hop, that it was a combination of forces that produced the environment for Hip-Hop to specifically grow in the geographies of New York City and its boroughs.
In this memoir, rich with humor, a comedy writer guides us on his personal journey from the impoverished depths of the Great Depression to the top of his profession.
In this compelling memoir that spans a musicians incredible ride through fifty-four years of life, Donald Darcy provides a glimpse into his journey through a world of music, drugs, and alcoholism, ultimately illustrating that recovery is possible for anyone with a desire to change.
The Beatles and Black Music discusses the influence that Black music and culture has had over the Beatles throughout their collective and solo careers.
