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.

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.

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.

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....

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....

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

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

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....

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....

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....

In the second half of the 20th century New York was the source of new sounds, including the Greenwich Village folk scene....

The story of how jazz arrived at the pinnacle of American culture in 1959, told through the journey of three towering artists—Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans—who came together to create the most famous and bestselling jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue....

Drawn from NPR Music’s acclaimed, groundbreaking series Turning the Tables, the definitive book on the vital role of Women in Music.

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

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....

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....

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....

For millennia, the sacred drummers of pre-Christian Mediterranean and western Asia were women. In this inspiring book, Layne Redmond, herself a renowned drummer, tells their history.

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.

Nick Corasaniti tells the captivating oral history of the iconic music venue the Stone Pony and of the rise, fall, and rebirth of Asbury Park, New Jersey.

A weave of biography, criticism, and memoir, Shine Bright is Danyel Smith’s intimate history of Black women’s music as the foundational story of American pop. Smith has been writing this history for more than five years....

A glimpse into the creative power of music.

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.

Dangerous Rhythms tells the symbiotic story of jazz and the underworld: a relationship fostered in some of 20th century America’s most notorious vice districts. For the first half of the century mobsters and musicians enjoyed a mutually beneficial partnership....

Alanna Nash explores in depth the amazing story of Colonel Tom Parker, the man behind the legend and the myth of Elvis. The result will change your view of Presley's life, success, and death....

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.

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.

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.

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.

James Douglas Morrison (December 8, 1943 - July 3, 1971), born in Melbourne, FL, was an American singer, songwriter and poet who was the lead vocalist and primary lyricist of the rock band The Doors. Due to his distinctive voice, poetic lyrics, erratic and unpredictable performances, along with the dramatic circumstances surrounding his life and early death, Morrison is regarded by music critics and fans as one of the most influential frontmen in rock history. The following recording is from a June 1970 interview.

After 20 years on the road, Eric Krasno has spent time sharing stories with countless artists — and these conversations have become some of his most cherished memories. In Eric Krasno Plus One, the audience is invited to join in and hang out with these old friends. Topics range from early inspirations to discussions about the state of the music industry, to the challenges of life on the road, backstage shenanigans, and much more.