Showing titles in History & Criticism

Of all the recordings to emerge from the Athens-via-Denver collective called Elephant 6, Neutral Milk Hotel’s second album is the one that has worked its way under the most skins. Magnet magazine named it the best album of the 1990s, and Creative Loafing recently devoted a cover story to one fan’s quest to understand why band leader Jeff Mangum dropped out of sight soon after Aeroplane’s release.

Breaking the global record for streams in a single day, nearly 10 million people around the world tuned in to hear Kendrick Lamar’s sophomore album in the hours after its release. To Pimp a Butterfly was widely hailed as an instant classic, garnering laudatory album reviews, many awards, and even a canonized place in Harvard’s W. E. B. Du Bois archive. Why did this strangely compelling record stimulate the emotions and imaginations of listeners?

The Shortest History of Music takes us on a lively tour through several thousands of years of music history, tracing our relationship with this essential art and allowing us to freshly appreciate and understand music today.

He was the King of Rockabilly, and one of rock and roll's true pioneers. A groundbreaking guitarist, singer, and songwriter, Carl Perkins inspired countless musicians in country, rock, and pop music. Now acclaimed music writer Jeff Apter recounts Carl Perkins's remarkable life story—the triumphs, tragedies, and career highlights that include some of the most pivotal moments in music history.

From the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Strange Trip and the publicist of the Grateful Dead, a riveting social history of everything that led up to the 1960s counterculture movement. Few cities represent the countercultural movement of the 1960s more than San Francisco. By that...

A poignant, funny, and lively memoir of sexual awakening, music, and discovering one's true self. Pete Crighton came of age in the early/mid 1980s in the shadow of HIV/AIDS. Growing up in Toronto, he was terrified that his friends and schoolmates would find out that he was “different” at a...

The author of the critically acclaimed Your Favorite Band is Killing Me offers an eye-opening and frank assessment of the state of classic rock, assessing its past and future, the impact it has had, and what it’s loss would mean to an industry, a culture, and a way of life. Since the late...

Rob Sheffield, the Rolling Stone columnist and bestselling author of Love Is a Mix Tape offers an entertaining, unconventional look at the most popular band in history, the Beatles, exploring what they mean today and why they still matter so intensely to a generation that has never known a world...

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.

After twenty 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 moments like these in podcast form—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.

After twenty 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 moments like these in podcast form—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.

After twenty 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 moments like these in podcast form—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.

After twenty 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 moments like these in podcast form—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.

After twenty 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 moments like these in podcast form—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.

After twenty 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 moments like these in podcast form—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.

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 twenty 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 moments like these in podcast form—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.

After twenty 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 moments like these in podcast form—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.

After twenty 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 moments like these in podcast form—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.

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.