In the fall of 1980 Richard and Linda Thompson (of Fairport Convention fame) had recently been dumped from their record label and were on the verge of divorce.
THE WORLDWIDE BESTSELLER - A VITAL GUIDE TO CREATIVITY, OVERCOMING OBSTACLES AND MAKING YOUR WORK NO MATTER WHAT 'Filled with insights that every artist and creator needs to hear' JAMES CLEAR'I've stolen tons of inspiration from this book .
When 20-year-old Odetta Holmes-classically trained as a vocalist and poised to become "e;the next Marian Anderson"e;-veered away from both opera and musical theater in favor of performing politically charged field hollers, prison songs, work songs, and folk tunes before mixed-race audiences in 1950s coffee houses, she was making one of the most portentous decisions in the history of both American music and Civil Rights.
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.
Afro-Cuban percussion contributes essential characteristics to the richness of Latin American musical folklore, and its rhythmic systems hold a complexity and sophistication that deserve greater study among both learned and popular musical spheres.
Neil Young's Harvest is one of those strange albums that has achieved lasting success without ever winning the full approval of rock critics or hardcore fans.
What resonated about Endtroducing when it was released in 1996, and what makes it still resonate today, is the way in which it loosens itself from the mooring of the known and sails off into an uncharted territory that seems to exist both in and out of time.
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.
Knight Moves: The K J Knight Story recounts the fascinating tale of a miscreant young rock drummer growing up in the Motor City during the 1960s and 70sa dynamic time period in rock and roll history.
Many books have appeared over the years about the Beatles lyrics -- about the words of those songs which the whole world knows and sings, and will sing for ever, as long as we have the breath to hum the tunes.
Marie Fleming became a household name in Ireland with her trail-blazing campaign for the right to die with dignity, when she took a landmark case against the Irish State to lift the ban on assisted suicide.
An anthology of writings spanning Simon Reynolds's extraordinary career as a music writer, Bring the Noise weaves together interviews, reviews, essays, and features to create a critical history of the last twenty years of pop culture.
In this wickedly entertaining and thoroughly informed homage to one of rock music's towering pinnacles, Erik Davis investigates the magic-black or otherwise-that surrounds this album.
Of all the seminal albums to come out in 1991-the year of Nevermind, Loveless, Ten, and Out of Time, among others-none were quieter, both in volume and influence, than Spiderland, and no band more mysterious than Slint.
INCLUDES 'PREQUEL' THE TOWER THE FIELDS THE TRANSMITTERS'This book spoke, it said "e;read me"e; from the very first sentence as if it were alive, it gave me visceral joy' Kim Gordon'Reading [Xstabeth] feels like being cut open to the accompanying sound of ecstatic music' Edna O'Brien'Prepare for more of that inimitable Keenan narrative voodoo brilliance' Wendy ErskineIn St Petersburg, Russia, Aneliya is torn between the love of her father and her father's best friend.
Dolores is a glowing, beating heart of a book; Curtis' sentences manage to be both mysterious and precise, creating a potent atmosphere that resonates beyond its brevity -- Megan Hunter, author of THE END WE START FROM Dolores reads the way a first novel should: short, lyrical, intense, and with adventurous ambition -- Nell Zink, author of THE WALLCREEPER and MISLAID Rich, melodic and marked by a troubling sensuality, Dolores depicts the strange pleasures a young girl might take in her body, and the perils and liberations such pleasures hold -- Sue Rainsford, author of FOLLOW ME TO GROUND On a hot day in late June, a young girl kneels outside a convent, then falls on her face.
A ROUGH TRADE, THE TIMES, CLASH BOOK OF THE YEARThe dramatic story of Solange: a musician and artist whose unconventional journey to international success was far more important than her family name.
In this remarkable book, Douglas Wolk brings to life an October evening in 1962, at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem - an evening at the height of Cold War tensions.
To wander the streets of a bankrupt, often lawless, New York City in the early 1970s wearing a T-shirt with PLEASE KILL ME written on it was an act of determined nihilism, and one often recounted in the first reports of Richard Hell filtering into the pre-punk UK.
