With his unique and powerful voice, Tony Hadley has been a successful music artist for more than forty years, from fronting one of the biggest bands of the 80s, Spandau Ballet, to now enjoying a thriving solo career around the world. Featuring stunning imagery and behind-the-scenes photos from his musical adventures, this beautifully illustrated book also captures other professional highlights, like starring on stage in Chicago and appearing on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, as well as his charity work, celebrity friends, childhood in north London and special family moments. With snaps from his personal photo albums, this amazing visual journey is accompanied by Tony's heartfelt and insightful anecdotes.

David Bowie needs no introduction. An immense star whose music and writing transcended generations he was one of the most articulate influencers of modern music. Over fifty years his singles and albums slid up and down the bestseller charts, adapting to the changing times, exploring new musical themes, always pushing at boundaries in a desperate desire to seek out the new and the different. This fantastic new, unofficial biography covers his life, music, art and movies.

'The greatest book ever written on British independent music' Guardian 'One of the best British music books of the last ten years' Mojo Founded by Alan McGee in 1983, Creation Records achieved notoriety as the home of Primal Scream, the Jesus and Mary Chain and other anti-Establishment acts. During the Britpop boom of the mid-90s, the astonishing success of Oasis brought Creation fame on the world stage. In 1999, however, McGee announced his shock departure as his label's influence over a generation of British music came to a confusing and disappointing end. Containing interviews with Creation musicians, employees, supporters and detractors, this is the inside story of Creation Records - and of British music since the 1980s.

"Jean-Pierre was himself a musician, but his choice of instrument was a camera, which he never put away." - Michel Legrand "I am so happy to see Leloir's work published, because behind each image is a story - one that needs to be told and appreciated. Leloir was not just a photographer; instead he was a preserver of history. As a result, this book holds hundreds of stories that shine a light onto the lives of those who live in these pages. Leloir had a unique ability to preserve an entire atmosphere and its surrounding emotions. between the four corners of a picture, but beyond his talent as a photographers, he presented himself not as paparazzi, but a friend. He and my other brother Herman Leonard were two of a kind; they had the same passion for photography and an endless supply of vision." - Quincy Jones This book gives ample proof of Jean-Pierre Leloir's amazing ability to immortalise performers and to capture candid moments at the airport, backstage, and in the dressing rooms of the most legendary Paris jazz and concert venues: "I loved the people I photographed, so I made myself as available, yet as discreet as possible", he used to say. "I never wanted to be a paparazzi. I wanted them to forget my presence so I could catch those little unexpected moments." The selection of photographs showcased here has been carefully selected from Leloir's immense catalogue. Many of the images have never been previously published before, and can be easily catalogued as 'atypical' shots, as the musicians were captured primarily in spontaneous situations, away from the fanfare of the stage. Text in English with an introduction in English, French and Spanish.

The Sunday Times bestseller, revised and updated for the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth. ---- As heard throughout 2020 on Classic FM ---- You know the music... but do you know the man? ---- Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the world's best loved and most influential composers. His life - its dramas, conflicts, loves and losses - is played out in his music. ---- In this special edition to mark the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth - with a new section featuring his most celebrated pieces - John Suchet shows us the man behind the music. He reveals a difficult and complex character, struggling to continue his profession as musician despite increasing deafness, alienating friends with unprovoked outbursts of anger one moment, overwhelming them with excessive kindness and generosity the next, living in a city in almost constant disarray because of war with France. ---- This is the real Beethoven, and Suchet brings him faithfully and vividly to life. ---- This updated edition of Suchet's acclaimed biography contains new material, including a detailed guide to Beethoven's most important compositions, family tree and timeline.

Industry of Magic & Light is a love letter to the counterculture of the 1960s and a requiem for its passing. The much-anticipated prequel to Keenan's cult classic debut, This is Memorial Device, Industry of Magic & Light is set in the same mythical Airdrie in the 1960s and early 70s and centres on a group of hippies running their own psychedelic light show. Told in two halves - the first in the form of an inventory of the contents of a caravan abandoned by one of the hippies, the second in the form of a tarot card reading - it is not so much a book about the 1960s as a direct channelling of the decade's energies, bringing to life how even the smallest and dreariest of working class towns felt so full of possibility in the wake of the psychedelic moment. Via artefacts from the time - everything from poetry chapbooks, record reviews and musical instruments through bubblegum wrappers, bicycle repair kits and mysterious cassette recordings - the book opens out into adventures along the hippy trail in Afghanistan and behind the Iron Curtain that leads a cast of new and returning characters - as well as the authorities - to believe that they are literally making magic. Simultaneously a forensics of the 1960s, a detective novel, an occult thriller, a vision quest, and the hallucinatory exposition of a moment where it felt like anything was possible, Industry of Magic & Life brings to life the streets of small working class towns as transformational sites of utopian joy.

A fresh, elegant and vital enquiry into the elusive character of opera, unfolded through categories and case-studies, with an emphasis on historical background, psychology and performance. This book mounts a searching enquiry into the elusive character of opera. The author argues that any work of art can be grasped primarily through its constellation of Platonic ideas, or 'categories', several of which he explores in light of a new definition of the art-form. He elaborates each category with case-studies rooted in the time, place and circumstance of an opera's origin: most of these are adaptations of previously-published essays, though somedraw on talks for universities, opera houses and the BBC. Although he looks back to the infancy of opera, he concentrates on later, more familiar repertory - principally Wagner, Verdi, Strauss and Britten. Case-studies included under 'Psychology' reveal his long-standing involvement with psychoanalysis, and those under 'Performance' reinforce his view of opera as a branch of rhetoric. As the first of a two-volume project, What Opera Means deals with categories accessible to all: of fifty entries, only two require basic musical knowledge (the second volume will be for specialists). The book is thus suitable for the general reader, as well as for college courses. CHRISTOPHER WINTLE is Emeritus Senior Lecturer in Music at King's College London and General Editor of the series Defining Opera (Plumbago Books). He has published extensively on nineteenth- and twentieth-century music, and for twenty years was an opera critic for the Times Literary Supplement. KATE HOPKINS (Editor) is Content Producer for Opera at the Royal Opera House and Senior Assistant Editor of Plumbago Books. She has written on opera and literature for ENO, WNO and The Royal Opera.

The Polish-born, British-based pianist Andre Tchaikowsky (1935-82) saw himself principally as a composer- one of several conflicting elements in his personality, charted by the diaries he kept between 1974 and 1982. Andre Tchaikowsky was only 46 when he died, internationally renowned as a pianist - and he made the headlines after his death when he left his skull to the Royal Shakespeare Company for use in performances of Hamlet. Yet for all his facility at the keyboard Tchaikowsky's real passion was composition. The internal conflict between pianist and composer compounded an already complex character. A Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor, Tchaikowsky was also a homosexual. The diaries he kept between 1974 and his death chronicle the struggles that ran through his life. Debt kept driving him back to the concert platform when his true wish was to find the time to compose. His spirited writing details the joys and vicissitudes of his life with striking candour. The diaries are introduced and annotated by Anastasia Belina-Johnson, who also provides a chronology of Tchaikowsky's life and a survey of his music. Includes a CDof the pianist in recital. Anastasia Belina-Johnson is Head of Classical Music at the Leeds College of Music.

Robert Chesterman's interviews with conductors as celebrated as Leonard Bernstein, Claudio Abbado and Herbert von Karajan present fresh insights into their individual characters, their personal ideologies and their practical approaches - and in many cases, their private lives, their frank opinions of their fellow conductors - as well as into classical music in general.

This book develops ways of discussing musical practices to articulate a new approach to understanding connections between recordings, singers, and singing. Centred around materials from the mid-twentieth century, this book focuses on a time when composers and performers were questioning the idea of authorship within their musical practice. Materials drawn upon include recordings, scores, archival content, visual art, interviews, and liner notes to develop a rich conception of practices of performance. Analysis of performances include recordings of singers such as Cathy Berberian, Linda Hirst, Lore Lixenberg, Angelika Luz, and Meredith Monk. Compositions by Cathy Berberian, Luciano Berio, John Cage, and Manuel De Falla are considered. The book utilizes these sources to examine the collective way in which singers and composers form practices as multiple, transforming, emergent, and not hierarchical. The book articulates - with a detailed, close consideration of specific instances in recordings and scores - a relational understanding of performance. This book will be useful reading for students and scholars of music analysis, musicology, performance practice, and twentieth century vocal music.

The fascinating letters of conductor-author Nicolas Slonimsky (1894-1995) to his wife, sharing his adventures as he traveled around the world to conduct new American music. In the mid-twentieth century renowned musicologist, conductor, and lexicographer Nicolas Slonimsky traveled to cities throughout the world to play and conduct music of the American avant-garde. From trips to Paris, Berlin, Havana,New York, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, and Moscow, Slonimsky wrote letters to his wife, the art critic Dorothy Adlow, vividly and humorously describing his adventures. Dear Dorothy: Letters from NicolasSlonimsky to Dorothy Adlow is a collection of these missives. Though personal, they chronicle Slonimsky's work as an ambassador of modern music who introduced twentieth-century composers, particularly American composers, to audiences worldwide. Full of his admired wit and energy, the letters recount his performances, rehearsals, lectures, day-to-day activities in foreign cities and concert halls, and the anxieties of stretching limited funds to cover an ever-expanding itinerary. They also reveal a side of Slonimsky not seen from his other published writings: a man with deep devotion to his wife and family. Annotated and with an introduction by Slonimsky's daughter, Electra Slonimsky Yourke, this collection documents the meeting of historic musical cultures-Old World Europe, the Soviet Union, and the vibrant countries of Latin America-with the modernist music of the United States. Written in a lively, humorous style, these letters will be of interest to scholars and students of American music and social historians as well as musicians, music lovers, and concertgoers. Electra Slonimsky Yourke is the daughter ofNicolas Slonimsky and Dorothy Adlow, and editor of several collections of her father's work, including The Listener's Companion and the four-volume Writings on Music. Nicolas Slonimsky (1894-1995) was a Renaissance man in the modern-music world of the mid-twentieth century. Composer, conductor, critic, and lexicographer, he authored many books including Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers since Beethoven's Time and a memoir, Perfect Pitch.

THE SUNDAY TIMES MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEAR A DAILY TELEGRAPH BEST MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEAR A TELEGRAPH BEST MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEAR A NEW STATESMAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Faith, Hope and Carnage is a book about Nick Cave's inner life. Created from over forty hours of intimate conversations with Seán O'Hagan, it is a profoundly thoughtful exploration, in Cave's own words, of what really drives his life and creativity. The book examines questions of faith, art, music, freedom, grief and love. It draws candidly on Cave's life, from his early childhood to the present day, his loves, his work ethic and his dramatic transformation in recent years. From a place of considered reflection, Faith, Hope and Carnage offers ladders of hope and inspiration from a true creative visionary.

The second volume of Clinton Heylin's magisterial biography takes us from Dylan's 1966 motorcycle accident to the present day. We meet a man who is determined to confound expectations; yet whatever he does only seems to confirm his iconic status to fans and critics alike. There are peaks and troughs. Long periods of writer's block are followed by sudden bursts of creativity that produce some of the best work of his career, including perhaps his most celebrated album, 1975's Blood On The Tracks. There is the unpredictable recording process, with Dylan often including on his albums the worst takes and leaving off the best songs altogether. On the Neverending Tour he reinvents his songbook on a nightly basis, at times without recognition. Then there are the albums and songs that reveal the genius of an artist whose lyrics draw on centuries of American culture but who refuses to be shackled to his own past. Today his voice is almost unrecognisable from his 1960s peak, and the man whose songs had been devoted to dissecting his romantic relationships has become focused on mortality, solitude and getting old. Yet his albums continue to top the charts, 2020's Rough And Rowdy Ways being his fourth No. 1 album of the twenty-first century. There is no other living artist whose creative output has remained constantly intriguing, often baffling, sometimes infuriating but always fascinating for over sixty years. Clinton Heylin's definitive, scrupulously researched and revelatory life, based on unprecedented access to the official Tulsa archive and other new sources, paints the fullest and brightest portrait yet of an iconic figure that has defined contemporary culture.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is one of the most successful composers that Russia has ever produced, but his path to success was not an easy one.; A shy, emotional child, intended for the civil service by his father, Tchaikovsky came late to composing as a career, and despite his success he was a troubled character. Doubting himself at every turn, he was keenly wounded by criticism, while the death of his mother haunted him all his life, and his incessant attempts to suppress his homosexuality took a huge toll.; From his disastrous marriage to his extraordinary relationship with his female patron, his many amorous liaisons and his devotion to friends and family, Suchet shows us how the complexity of Tchaikovsky's emotional life plays out in his music. A man who was by turns quick to laugh and to despair, his mercurial temperament found its outlet in some of the most emotionally intense music ever written.; Tchaikovsky: -The Man Revealed examines the complex and contradictory character of this great artist, long hidden behind sanitised depictions by his brother and the Russian authorities, and how he came to take his rightful place among the world's greatest composers.

This is the definitive autobiography of John Lydon, one of the most recognizable icons in the annals of music history. As Johnny Rotten, he was the lead singer of the Sex Pistols - the world's most notorious band, who shot to fame in the mid-1970s with singles such as 'Anarchy in the UK' and 'God Save the Queen'. Via his music and invective he spearheaded a generation of young people across the world who were clamouring for change - and found it in the style and attitude of this most unlikely figurehead. With his next band, Public Image Ltd (PiL) Lydon expressed an equally urgent impulse in his make-up - the constant need to reinvent himself. From their beginnings in 1978 he set the template for a band that continues to challenge and thrive in the 2010s. He also found time for making innovative new dance records with the likes of Afrika Baambaata and Leftfield. Following the release of a solo record in 1997, John took a sabbatical from his music career into other media, most memorably his own Rotten TV show for VH1 and as the most outrageous contestant ever on I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!He then fronted the Megabugsseries and one-off nature documentaries and even turned his hand to a series of much loved TV advertisements for Country Life butter. Lydon has remained a compelling and dynamic figure - both as a musician, and, thanks to his outspoken, controversial, yet always heartfelt and honest statements, as a cultural commentator.The book is a fresh and mature look back on a life full of incident from his beginnings as a sickly child of immigrant Irish parents who grew up in post-war London, to his present status as a vibrant, alternative national hero.

This limited printing, hardcover 40th anniversary edition includes: -an exclusive new interview with lead singer Simon Le Bon -a Rio timeline -a newly designed book cover by Rio album sleeve designer, Malcolm Garrette -vintage Duran Duran photos and ads -and much more... In the '80s, the Birmingham, England, band Duran Duran became closely associated with new wave, an idiosyncratic genre that dominated the decade's music and culture. No album represented this rip-it-up-and-start-again movement better than the act's breakthrough 1982 LP, Rio. A cohesive album with a retro-futuristic sound-influences include danceable disco, tangy funk, swaggering glam, and Roxy Music's art-rock-the full-length sold millions and spawned smashes such as "Hungry Like the Wolf" and the title track. However, Rio wasn't a success everywhere at first; in fact, the LP had to be buffed-up with remixes and reissued before it found an audience in America. The album was further buoyed by colorful music videos and a cutting-edge visual aesthetic, both of which established the 2022 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees as leaders of an MTV-driven second British Invasion. Via extensive new and exclusive interviews with band members and other figures who helped Rio succeed, this book explores how and why Rio became a landmark pop-rock album, and examines how the LP was both a musical inspiration-and a reflection of a musical, cultural, and technology zeitgeist.

We're going to do this tribute in St Ann's Church in Brooklyn - a wonderful space. Oh, by the way, we've been contacted by Tim Buckley's son, Jeff. Touched By Grace is an up-close-and-personal account by the legendary guitarist and songwriter Gary Lucas of the time he spent with his friend and collaborator, Jeff Buckley, during Jeff's early days in New York City. It describes their magical performance together at the Greetings From Tim Buckley concert at the Church of St Ann in 1991 - the event that first introduced Jeff to the world at large; the creation of their songs 'Mojo Pin' and 'Grace,' which started life as guitar instrumentals by Gary and would later become integral to Jeff's debut album, Grace; and their plan to take on the world together in Gary's band Gods and Monsters. Just as the band was set to soar, however, Jeff pulled the plug, opting instead to sign a solo deal with Columbia Records - the very label that had recently cut short its recording contract with the original incarnation of Gods and Monsters. In this fascinating, revelatory new book, Gary Lucas writes with vivid, heartfelt honesty about the highs and lows of this all-too-brief musical union, from his first meeting with Jeff through to the devastating phone call from an MTV journalist with news of Jeff's disappearance in the Mississippi River. Touched By Grace is an eye-opening tale of music, passion, betrayal, and more.

The Sunday Times bestselling hit memoir from Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker.

What if the things we keep hidden say more about us than those we put on display? We all have a random collection of the things that made us - photos, tickets, clothes, souvenirs, stuffed in a box, packed in a suitcase, crammed into a drawer. When Jarvis Cocker starts clearing out his loft, he finds a jumble of objects that catalogue his story and ask him some awkward questions:

Who do you think you are?
Are clothes important?
Why are there so many pairs of broken glasses up here?

From a Gold Star polycotton shirt to a pack of Wrigley's Extra, from his teenage attempts to write songs to the Sexy Laughs Fantastic Dirty Joke Book, this is the hard evidence of Jarvis's unique life, Pulp, 20th century pop culture, the good times and the mistakes he'd rather forget.

This is not a life story. It's a loft story.

An insightful biography of one of the world's greatest musicians, Bob Dylan, by bestselling author Paul Morley. As one of the world's greatest musicians, Bob Dylan has enriched the American song tradition for over 50 years. With a talent that has been proven in the worlds of music, radio, art and poetry, Dylan is a man of many personas. From defying pop music conventions with protest songs such as "The Times They Are a-Changin'" to releasing three of the most influential rock albums of the 60s, he has not only extended the parameters of music genres but has also showed us the fluidity his craft. To mark Bob Dylan's 80th birthday and 60 illustrious years in the arts, this insightful biography by bestselling author Paul Morley will explore the many voices of the folk icon.

(Book). Devo may have become synonymous with the crass commercialism of '80s new wave, but many of their inspirations and guiding principles are firmly rooted in the idealism of the '60s. They took a willfully non-traditional approach to the surprisingly conservative world of rock music, seeking inspiration instead from Dada and Pop art, comic books and homemade electronics, and in the process becoming a sort of musical Zelig, crossing paths with everything from late '60s psychedelia to punk, krautrock to new wave. Their idiosyncratic philosophy may not always have been consistent, but it served as a deep well of inspiration, and led to them working with such legendary characters as art-rock pioneer Brian Eno and Beatles/Bowie engineer Ken Scott. Published to coincide with the group's 40th anniversary in 2013, Recombo DNA is the first book to evaluate in the proper context the innovations and accomplishments of this truly groundbreaking band. Beginning in 1970, with the transformative effects of the Kent State University shootings which the band-members witness firsthand and ending a decade later with Devo on the cusp of superstardom (with "Whip It"), it traces the sounds and ideas that the group absorbed and in turn brought to prominence as unlikely rock stars. For anyone who has ever wondered where "the band who fell to earth" came from, here is the answer.

Schubert's Workshop offers a fresh study of the composer's compositional technique and its development, rooted in the author's experience of realising performing versions of Franz Schubert's unfinished works. Through close examination of Schubert's use of technical and structural devices, Brian Newbould demonstrates that Schubert was much more technically innovative than has been supposed, and argues that the composer's technical discoveries constitute a rich legacy of specific influences on later composers. Providing rich new insights into the creative practice of one of the major figures of classical music, this two-volume study reframes our understanding of Schubert as an innovator who constantly pushed at the frontiers of style and expression.

Schubert's Workshop offers a fresh study of the composer's compositional technique and its development, rooted in the author's experience of realising performing versions of Franz Schubert's unfinished works. Through close examination of Schubert's use of technical and structural devices, Brian Newbould demonstrates that Schubert was much more technically innovative than has been supposed, and argues that the composer's technical discoveries constitute a rich legacy of specific influences on later composers. Providing rich new insights into the creative practice of one of the major figures of classical music, this two-volume study reframes our understanding of Schubert as an innovator who constantly pushed at the frontiers of style and expression.