History & Criticism

In this intimate and open account—nothing like any rock-and-roll memoir you’ve ever read—Alex Van Halen shares his personal story of family, friendship, music and brotherly love in a remarkable tribute to his beloved brother and band mate.

An energetic and explosive oral history examining emo’s pop culture takeover from 1999-2008, featuring exclusive interviews with My Chemical Romance’s Mikey Way and Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump....

David Byrne’s incisive and enthusiastic look at the musical art form, from its very inceptions to the influences that shape it, whether acoustical, economic, social, or technological, is now updated with a new chapter on digital curation.

After more than two decades of research and travels, Christophe Lebold, who befriended the poet and spent time with him in Los Angeles, delivers a stimulating analysis of Cohen’s life and art.

Legendary rock journalist Mick Wall delivers definitive insight into America's bestselling band of all time, exploring their meteoric rise to fame and the hedonistic days of the '70s music scene in LA, when American music was taking over the world....

Without Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen might not be who he is today. The natural follow-up to Springsteen’s hugely successful album The River should have been the hit-packed Born in the U.S.A....

From the creator of the acclaimed country music history podcast Cocaine & Rhinestones, comes the epic American saga of country music’s legendary royal couple—George Jones and Tammy Wynette.

Ted Gioia's History of Jazz has been universally hailed as a classic - acclaimed by jazz critics and fans around the world....

Fleetwood Mac's classic 1977 Rumours album topped the Billboard 200 for 31 weeks and won the Album of the Year Grammy....

From Pieces to Weight: Once Upon a Time in Southside Queens is a violent and introspective memoir that reveals not only 50 Cent's story but the story of a generation....

Tune In is the first volume of All These Years - a highly-anticipated, groundbreaking biographical trilogy....

An epic achievement and a huge delight, the entire history of popular music over the past 50 years refracted through the big genres that have defined and dominated it: rock, R&B, country, punk, hip-hop, dance music, and pop....

A prominent conductor explores how aesthetic criteria masked the political goals of countries during the three great wars of the past century....

"A dauntingly ambitious, obsessively researched" (Los Angeles Times) global history of music that reveals how songs have shifted societies and sparked revolutions....

Listen to This showcases the best of Ross’s writing on pop and classical music from more than a decade at The New Yorker....

An audiobook reflecting on the meaning of the revolutionary band Nirvana, their leader Kurt Cobain, and the band's personal, musical and cultural contexts in the '90s.

In essays that have been published by the New York Times, MTV, and Pitchfork, among others—Abdurraqib uses music and culture as a lens through which to view our world so that we might better understand ourselves, and in so doing proves himself a bellwether for our times....

A glimpse into the creative power of music.

It's 1963, and Detroit is on top of the world....

Joel Selvin tells the definitive story of the Rolling Stones' infamous Altamont concert in San Francisco, the disastrous historic event that marked the end of the idealistic 1960s....

This is the never-before-told story of the musical revolution that happened right under the nose of the Reagan '80s - when a small but sprawling network of bands, labels, fanzines, radio stations, and other subversives reenergized American rock....

On June 4, 1984, Columbia Records issued what would become one of the best-selling and most impactful rock albums of all time. An instant classic, Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. would prove itself to be a landmark not only for the man who made it, but rock music in general.

The rich and colorful story of America's most popular music and the singers and songwriters who captivated, entertained, and consoled listeners throughout the 20th century - based on the upcoming eight-part film series to air on PBS in September 2019....

In 1992, the Screaming Trees were expected to become the next big band to come out of the Seattle music scene during the heyday of grunge. Except it never happened....

The definitive history of the rise and heyday of the revolutionary Greenwich Village music scene, based on new research and first-hand interviews with many of its legendary performers.

The year 1972 saw the beginning of a five-year span in which Stevie Wonder released five groundbreaking, critically acclaimed albums, garnering him more than half a dozen Grammys and more than 10 million albums sold, securing his place as one of the most important American musicians and songwriters in history. For the first time, uncover the untold story of an extraordinary artistic journey that shaped the greatest creative era in popular music history.

After more than two decades of research and travels, Christophe Lebold, who befriended the poet and spent time with him in Los Angeles, delivers a stimulating analysis of Cohen’s life and art. Gracefully blending biography and essay, he interrogates the mission Cohen set out for himself: to show us that darkness is just the flip side of light.

By the early 1960s nearly everybody paying attention to country music agreed that George Jones was the greatest country singer of all time. After taking honky-tonk rockers like “White Lightning” all the way up the country charts, he revealed himself to be an unmatched virtuoso on “She Thinks I Still Care,” thus cementing his status as a living legend. That’s where the trouble started.

Although Greenwich Village takes up less than a square mile in downtown New York, rarely has such a concise area supported and nurtured so many groundbreaking artists and genres. Musician used the Village’s smokey coffeehouses and clubs to chronicle the tumultuous Sixties, rewrite jazz history, and take rock & roll into eclectic places it hadn’t been before. Based on new interviews with surviving participants, previously unseen and unheard archives, and author David Browne's years immersed in the scene, Talkin’ Greenwich Village lends the saga the epic, panoramic scope it has long deserved.

Watford Forever is the remarkable account of Elton John’s ownership of Watford FC, and its transformational journey to the top of the First Division under iconic manager Graham Taylor, who was, in the words of award-winning journalist John Preston, “as traditional as Elton was unconventional.” Inspiring, funny, and ultimately heartrending, this is a tribute to soccer’s unlikeliest duo as Elton and Taylor—a straight-talking former fullback with literally no interest in rock music—both beat the odds and their personal demons to save a club and a community.

In One Last Song, Ayers invites thirty musicians to consider what song they would each want to accompany them to those pearly white gates. Weaving together their explanations with evocative illustrations and poignant interludes-what your song to die to says about you, what songs famous people have died to, and more. The book offers insight into the minds of famous artists and provides an entry point for considering how integral music is to our own personal narratives.

Known as opera’s “disrupter-in-residence,” director Yuval Sharon has never adhered to the art form’s conventions. In his many productions in both the United States and Europe, he constantly challenges the perception of opera as aloof by urging, among other things: performing operas in “non-places,” such as parking lots; encouraging the use of amplification; and shuffling the traditional structure of classic works, like performing Puccini’s La bohème in reverse order, ending not with the tubercular heroine Mimi’s death but with her first falling in love.

Suzi Ronson was working in an English hair salon in the early 1970s when Mrs. Jones came in for her weekly shampoo and set. After being introduced to her son, David, and his wife, Angie, she soon finds herself at the Bowies' bohemian apartment and embroiled in their raucous world. Having crafted his iconic Ziggy Stardust hairstyle, Suzi becomes the only working woman in David's touring party and joins The Spiders from Mars as they perform around the globe.

Blacksound explores the sonic history of blackface minstrelsy and the racial foundations of American musical culture from the early 1800s through the turn of the twentieth century. With this namesake book, Matthew D. Morrison develops the concept of "Blacksound" to uncover how the popular music industry and popular entertainment in general in the United States arose out of slavery and blackface.

Dieses Hörbuch ist nicht nur eine Sammlung von Taylor Swifts wichtigsten Messages – es ist eine Inspiration für alle, die glauben, dass Musik mehr ist als nur Melodie. Sie ist die Kraft, die uns antreibt, die uns zeigt, dass wir niemals alleine sind. 89 Taylor Rules ist eine Einladung, die Dinge mit Taylors Augen zu sehen – kraftvoll, leidenschaftlich und authentisch – und deine Eintrittskarte in ihre inspirierende Welt. Taylor Swift ist zurzeit eine der erfolgreichste Sänger:innen weltweit und steht für Empowerment, Stärke und Authentizität.