Arts / Music / History & Criticism

Will You Take Me As I Am: Joni Mitchell's Blue Period

von Michelle Mercer

Joni Mitchell is one of the most celebrated artists of the last half century, and her landmark 1971 album, Blue, is one of her most beloved and revered works. Generations of people have come of age listening...

Gimme Something Better

von Jack Boulware

An oral history of the modern punk-revival's West Coast Birthplace

Outside of New York and London, California's Bay Area claims the oldest continuous punk-rock scene in the world. Gimme Something Better brings...

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire

von Will Hermes

Punk rock and hip-hop. Disco and salsa. The loft jazz scene and the downtown composers known as Minimalists. In the mid-1970s, New York City was a laboratory where all the major styles of modern music were...

The Book of Exodus: The Making and Meaning of Bob Marley and the Wailers' Album of the Century

von Vivien Goldman

Follow the Sacred Journey to Create One of the Lasting Musical Masterpieces of Our Time

Bob Marley is one of our most important and influential artists. Recorded in London after an assassination attempt on his...

Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties

von Ian MacDonald

This “Bible of the Beatles” captures the iconic band’s magical and mysterious journey from adorable teenagers to revered cultural emissaries. In this fully updated version, each of their 241 tracks is assessed...

Woodstock Revisited

von Susan Reynolds

This collection contains fifty stories written by people who attended the original Woodstock Festival in 1969. Since all the books that preceded it have focused on the musicians, promoters, and staff, this book...

When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison

von Greil Marcus

This book is a quest to understand Van Morrison's particular genius through a close look at the most extraordinary and unclassifiable moments in his long career, beginning in 1965 and continuing in full force...

History of Public School Music - In the United States

von Edward Bailey Birge

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern...

The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting: An Oral History

von Jim Walsh

Formed in a Minneapolis basement in 1979, the Replacements were a notorious rock 'n' roll circus, renowned for self-sabotage, cartoon shtick, stubborn contrarianism, stage-fright, Dionysian benders, heart-on-sleeve...

Starting Over: The Making of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Double Fantasy

von Ken Sharp

The murder of John Lennon on December 8, 1980, sent shockwaves around the world. The most acclaimed singer/songwriter of his generation, first a Beatle and then a boundary-pushing solo artist, was senselessly...

The Art of the Band T-Shirt

von Amber Easby & Henry Oliver

ONCE,

T-shirts were just unadorned undergarments. But with the evolution of screen printing and the birth of band merchandising, T-shirts became so much cooler. Now every band with an ounce of savvy knows the...

Perfect from Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life

von John Sellers

TOP FIVE MUSICAL THINGS I HOPE HAPPEN NOW THAT THE ORIGINAL LINEUPS OF THE PIXIES AND DINOSAUR JR. HAVE REUNITED

1. Ian Curtis is resurrected.

2. The Smiths reunite for a private party at my favorite bar....

Great Pretenders: My Strange Love Affair with '50s Pop Music

von Karen Schoemer

February 1964: The Beatles step onto the tarmac at JFK International Airport and turn the country on its head. It's the advent of rock and roll's uninterrupted reign, youthful rebellion, and overt teenage sex....

Me, the Mob, and the Music: One Helluva Ride with Tommy James & The Shondells

von Tommy James & Martin Fitzpatrick

Everyone knows the hits: “Hanky Panky,” “Mony Mony,” “I Think We’re Alone Now,” “Crimson and Clover,” “Crystal Blue Persuasion.” All of these songs, which epitomize great pop music of the...

Back to the Garden: The Story of Woodstock

von Pete Fornatale

On the fortieth anniversary of Woodstock, renowned New York City disc jockey Pete Fornatale brings the iconic rock concert to vivid life through original interviews with Roger Daltrey, Joan Baez, David Crosby,...

Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age

von Steve Knopper

For the first time, Appetite for Self-Destruction recounts the epic story of the precipitous rise and fall of the recording industry over the past three decades, when the incredible success of the CD turned...

Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984

von Simon Reynolds

Rip It Up and Start Again is the first book-length exploration of the wildly adventurous music created in the years after punk. Renowned music journalist Simon Reynolds celebrates the futurist spirit of such...

Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era

von Ken Emerson

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, after the shock of Elvis Presley and before the Beatles spearheaded the British Invasion, fourteen gifted young songwriters huddled in midtown Manhattan's legendary Brill...

Hip Hop America

von Nelson George

Now with a new introduction by the author, Hip Hop America is the definitive account of the society-altering collision between black youth culture and the mass media.

Rock Star Babylon: Outrageous Rumors, Legends, and Raucous True Tales of Rock and Roll Icons

von Jon Holmes

Rockers Behaving BadlyFrom Ozzy Osbourne to Chuck Berry, Courtney Love to Keith Moon, Rock Star Babylon has gathered together the most outrageous antics and diva-esque misbehavior in the annals of rock. Here...