Julian Cope's long-awaited follow up to The Modern Antiquarian, his bestselling and critically acclaimed guide to ancient Britain. The Megalithic European takes us on a breathtaking journey around prehistoric Europe's first temples. Contents* The Megalithic European is a monumental colour guide to the standing stones and ancient temples of prehistoric Europe.* In a 6-year personal odyssey (leaving no stone unturned) Julian Cope covers 300 of the important sites of Northern Europe and t...
Eleanora "Lady Day" Fagan, better known as Billie Holiday, played a primary role in the development of American jazz culture and in African American history. Devoted to the enduring jazz icon, covering many aspects of her career, image and legacy, these essays range from musical and vocal analyses, to critical assessments of film depictions of the singer, to analysis of the social movements and protests addressed by her signature songs, including her impact on contemporary movements such as #Bla...
After he died, Townes Van Zandt found the success that he sabotaged throughout his short life despite the release of sixteen brilliant albums. Since his death, numerous albums both by and in honor of him have been released and many critical articles published, in addition to several books (including Robert Hardy’s A Deeper Blue by UNT Press). For the Sake of the Song collects ten essays on Townes Van Zandt from a variety of approaches. Contributors examine his legacy; his use of the minor key;...
David Bowie. Culture Club. Wham!. Soft Cell. Duran Duran. Sade. Adam Ant. Spandau Ballet. The Eurythmics. 'Excellent' Guardian 'Hugely enjoyable' Irish Times 'Dazzling' LRB 'Fascinating' New Statesman 'An absolute must-read' GQ One of the most creative entrepreneurial periods since the Sixties, the era of the New Romantics grew out of the remnants of post-punk and developed quickly alongside club culture, ska, electronica, and goth. The scene had a huge influence on the growth of print and b...
The untold story behind one of the most controversial album releases in modern music history, for fans of the Wu-Tang Clan, hip-hop music, and all those interested in the music industry. Take a kid with a dream. A legendary hip hop group. 6 years of secret recordings. A casing worthy of a king. A single artifact. Hallowed establishment institutions. An iconoclastic auction house. The world's foremost museum of modern art. A bidding war. Endless crises of conscience. An angry mob. A furious b...
This book is a comprehensive collection of his best pieces: from early work on The Clash, The Sex Pistols and David Bowie, to pieces on Suede, Blur and Nirvana. More than just a ragbag of journalism, it gives a sweeping and trenchant account of changing fashions in style and musical taste, and of the issues which pop music raises: youth, hatred, adrogyny, sexual experimentation, drugs, America, Englishness.
You Really Got a Hold on Me The Beatles disbanded in 1970. Rock 'n' roll's greatest group, however, was far from finished. Today The Beatles dominate the world of music and entertainment memorabilia as never before. Like a modern-day archeological dig, The Beatles: Fab Finds of the Fab Four unearths a treasure trove of rock relics in a stunning pictorial guide to a new era of Beatlemania. Filled with delights and insight, you'll discover John Lennon's lost Gibson guitar now worth millions; t...
The hugely popular Gareth Malone recounts the heart-warming stories and transformations behind the award-winning BBC2 series The Choir For the first time, Gareth reveals everything he has learned from working with so many groups of memorable people, including the record-breaking Military Wives and latest series of The Choir being shown this Autumn. Gareth was an unknown Choirmaster when he arrived on British TV screens five years ago. Boyish, irrepressible and determined, Gareth took on a collec...
In this inspiring collection of essays, acclaimed writer and critic Olivia Laing makes a brilliant case for why art matters, especially in the turbulent political weather of the twenty-first century.'Never has a publication been more timely' - Dazed'A brave writer whose books open up fundamental questions about life and art’ - TelegraphFunny Weather brings together a career's worth of Laing's writing about art and culture, examining their roles in our political and emotional lives. She profiles...
Music in World War II
How can music withstand the death and destruction brought on by war? Global conflicts of the 20th century fundamentally transformed not only national boundaries, power relations, and global economies, but also the arts and culture of every nation involved. An important, unacknowledged aspect of these conflicts is that they have unique musical soundtracks. Music in World War II explores how music and sound took on radically different dimensions in the United States and Europe before, during, and...
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2012 WELLCOME TRUST BOOK PRIZEHow do you lose music? Then having lost it, what do you do next? Nick Coleman found out the morning he woke up to a world changed forever by Sudden Neursosensory Hearing Loss. The Train in the Night is an account of one man's struggle to recover from the loss of his greatest passion - and go one further than that: to restore his ability not only to hear but to think about and feel music, by going back to the series of big bangs which kicked off h...
A wide-ranging collection of interviews, anecdotes, essays, and ephemera concerning one of the most enigmatic bands to emerge from the 1960s hippy scene. "Encyclopaedic in scope, passionate in tone, this book is a minotaur's labyrinth of information about one of the most remarkable groups in 20th century music. Be glad, for everything you need to know is here." (Rob Young, The Wire) First published in 2003 and long out of print, Be Glad For The Song Has No Ending: An Incredible String Band Com...