Showing titles in History & Criticism

From one of the world's most beloved and respected public intellectuals comes a sweeping work of musical criticism, examining the distance between the performer and their audience "Not since Virgil Thomson have we had a music critic with as wide ranging a view as Edward Said."—Studs Terkel...

Brought to you by Penguin. Explore how music has changed our world through 50 pieces across classical, folk and world traditions with BBC presenter Tom Service, in this official Radio 3 compendium. Music transports us and defines us. As a form of expression, it has been passed down through oral...

"Raw, authoritative, and unflinching ... An elaborately detailed, darkly surprising, definitive history of the LA gangsta rap era." -- Kirkus, starred review A monumental, revealing narrative history about the legendary group of artists at the forefront of West Coast hip-hop: Eazy-E, Dr. Dre...

Wie Leonard Cohen Janis Joplin flach legte (Chelsea Hotel Nr.2); und wie die britische Königin-Mutter Pete Townshend von The Who dazu brachte, eines seiner besten Lieder zu schreiben (My Generation)...

A GUARDIAN AND INDEPENDENT BEST MUSIC BOOK OF 2017. ‘At last an expert classicist gets to grips with Bob Dylan’ Mary Beard ‘Thomas’s elegant, charming book offers something for everyone – not just the super-fans’ Independent When the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Bob...

This audiobook is narrated by an AI Voice. What if a life in music were not merely remembered, but staged like a drama of ambition, exile, genius, and destiny? In *My Life*, Richard Wagner offers one of the most revealing autobiographical documents in the history of music. Dictated over many...

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.

From a Los Angeles hospital bed, equipped with little more than a laptop and a stack of records, James “J Dilla” Yancey crafted a set of tracks that would forever change the way beatmakers viewed their artform. The songs on Donuts are not hip hop music as “hip hop music” is typically defined; they careen and crash into each other, in one moment noisy and abrasive, gorgeous and heartbreaking the next.

Bloomsbury presents South African Popular Music by Lior Phillips, read by Megan Gage. From the storied ache of mbube harmonies of the ‘40s to the electronic boom of kwaito and the amapiano and house explosion of the ‘00s, this book explores vignettes taken from across South Africa’s...

“Year of Wonder is an absolute treat—the most enlightening way to be guided through the year.” — Eddie Redmayne A unique celebration of classical music that showcases one inspirational piece each day of the year, written by an award-winning violinist and BBC Radio personality Classical...

Can’t Stop Won’t Stop meets Girls to the Front in this essential and long overdue history of hip-hop’s female pioneers and its enduring stars. Every history of hip-hop previously published, from Jeff Chang’s Can’t Stop Won’t Stop to Shea Serrano’s The Rap Yearbook, focuses...

En junio de 1985, una nota al margen en la revista Billboard agrupó mariachi, norteño, banda, grupero y corridos bajo una sola categoría: Música Regional.

"A wild ride through a vital chapter in rock ’n’ roll history." —Publishers Weekly Time-travel to the punk scene of 1970s New York and beyond, as seen through the eyes of its chief reporter known as “the original punk” who gave the movement its name. Part memoir and part cultural...

O Festival de Woodstock, de 1969, é uma referência cultural norte-americana e mundial, e nenhum outro livro captura o ambiente, a música e as maquinações dos bastidores com mais brilho e fidelidade do que a obra de Michael Lang, um best-seller do New York Times...

The legendary lost manuscript of Grateful Dead co founder and primary lyricist Robert Hunter, written in the early 1960s—a wry, richly observed, and enlightening remembrance of “the scene” in Palo Alto that gave rise to an incredible partnership of Hunter and Jerry Garcia. “Strange to...

Immerse yourself in more than 400 years of the world's most celebrated operas and discover the fascinating stories behind them. Explore the lives of singers such as Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti, and Jonas Kaufmann. Meet composers like Mozart, Wagner, and Britten, and the librettists with whom...

Legendary musician Prince's first wife shares a uniquely intimate, candid, and revelatory look inside the personal and professional life of one of the world's most beloved icons. "An achingly loving memoir ... a heartbreaking inside look at the tortured side of genius that most of us are never...

This gritty bestselling memoir by the singer Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone Age, and Soulsavers documents his years as a singer and drug addict in Seattle in the '80s and '90s. When Mark Lanegan first arrived in Seattle in the mid-1980s, he was just "an arrogant...

American pop music is arguably this country’s greatest cultural contribution to the world, and its singular voice and virtuosity were created by a shining thread of Black women geniuses stretching back to the country’s founding. This is their surprising, heartbreaking, soaring...

For half a century, Michael Jackson’s music has been an indelible part of our cultural consciousness. Landmark albums such as Off the Wall and Thriller shattered records, broke racial barriers, amassed awards, and set a new standard for popular music. While his songs continue to be played in...