![]() |
![]() |
Your cart is empty |
||
Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Contemporary popular music
The Beatles are widely regarded as the foremost and most influential music band in history and their career has been the subject of many biographies. Yet the band's historical significance has not received sustained academic treatment to date. In The Beatles' Reception in the 1960s, Kenneth L. Campbell uses the Beatles as a lens through which to explore the sweeping, panoramic history of the social, cultural and political transformations that occurred in the 1960s. It draws on audience reception theory and untapped primary source material, including student newspapers, to understand how listeners would have interpreted the Beatles' songs and albums not only in Britain and the United States, but also globally. Taking a year-by-year approach, each chapter analyses the external influences the Beatles absorbed, consciously or unconsciously, from the culture surrounding them. Some key topics include race relations, gender dynamics, political and cultural upheavals, the Vietnam War and the evolution of rock music and popular culture. The book will also address the resurgence of the Beatles' popularity in the 1980s, as well as the relevance of The Beatles' ideals of revolutionary change to our present day. This is essential reading for anyone looking for an accessible yet rigorous study of the historical relevance of the Beatles in a crucial decade of social change.
"The Music of the Netherlands Antilles: Why Eleven Antilleans Knelt before Chopin's Heart" is not your usual musical scholarship. In October 1999, eleven Antilleans attended the service held to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Frederic Chopin's death. This service, held in the Warsaw church where the composer's heart is kept in an urn, was an opportunity for these Antilleans to express their debt of gratitude to Chopin, whose influence is central to Antillean music history. Press coverage of this event caused Dutch novelist and author Jan Brokken (b. 1949) to start writing this book, based on notes he took while living on Curacao from 1993 to 2002. Anyone hoping to discover an overlooked chapter of Caribbean music and music history will be amply rewarded with this Dutch-Caribbean perspective on the pan-Caribbean process of creolization. On Curacao, the history and legacy of slavery shaped culture and music, affecting all the New World. Brokken's portraits of prominent Dutch Antillean composers are interspersed with cultural and music history. He puts the Dutch Caribbean's contributions into a broader context by also examining the nineteenth-century works by pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk from New Orleans and Manuel Saumell from Cuba. Brokken explores the African component of Dutch Antillean music--examining the history of the rhythm and music known as "tambu" as well as American jazz pianist Chick Corea's fascination with the tumba rhythm from Curacao. The book ends with a discussion of how recent Dutch Caribbean adaptations of European dance forms have shifted from a classical approach to contemporary forms of Latin jazz."
Offering a fresh way to look at one of the best-selling hip hop artists of the early 21st century, this book presents Eminem's words, images, and music alongside comments from those who love and hate him, documenting why Eminem remains a cultural, spiritual, and economic icon in global popular culture. Eminem: The Real Slim Shady examines the rapper, songwriter, record producer, and actor who has become one of the most successful and well-known artists in the world. Providing far more than a biography of his life story, the book provides a comprehensive description, interpretation, and analysis of his personas, his lyrical content, and the cultural and economic impact of Eminem's work through media. It also contains the first in-depth content analysis of 200 of the rapper's most popular songs from 1990 through 2012. The book is organized into three sections, each focusing on one of the artist's public personas (Slim Shady, Marshall Mathers, Eminem), with each section further divided into chapters that explore various aspects of Eminem's cultural, spiritual, and economic significance. Besides being a book that every fan of Eminem and pop music will want to read, the work will be valuable to researchers in the areas of race and ethnicity, communication, cultural and musical studies, and hip hop studies. Includes never before conducted analysis of 200 of Eminem's most popular lyrics, presented visually with tables and charts Provides an up-to-date, combined discography, videography, and bibliography of the rapper's work
A pianist, arranger, and composer, William Pursell is a mainstay of the Nashville music scene. He has played jazz in Nashville's Printer's Alley with Chet Atkins and Harold Bradley, recorded with Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline, performed with the Nashville Symphony, and composed and arranged popular and classical music. Pursell's career, winding like a crooked river between classical and popular genres, encompasses a striking diversity of musical experiences. A series of key choices sent him down different paths, whether it was reenrolling with the Air Force for a second tour of duty, leaving the prestigious Eastman School of Music to tour with an R&B band, or refusing to sign with the Beatles' agent Sid Bernstein. The story of his life as a working musician is unlike any other-he is not a country musician nor a popular musician nor a classical musician but, instead, an artist who refused to be limited by traditional categories. Crooked River City is driven by a series of recollections and personal anecdotes Terry Wait Klefstad assembled over a three-year period of interviews with Pursell. His story is one not only of talent, but of dedication and hard work, and of the ins and outs of a working musician in America. This biography fills a crucial gap in Nashville music history for both scholars and music fans.
The DJ stands at a juncture of technology, performance and culture in the increasingly uncertain climate of the popular music industry, functioning both as pioneer of musical taste and gatekeeper of the music industry. Together with promoters, producers, video jockeys (VJs) and other professionals in dance music scenes, DJs have pushed forward music techniques and technological developments in last few decades, from mashups and remixes to digital systems for emulating vinyl performance modes. This book is the outcome of international collaboration among academics in the study of electronic dance music. Mixing established and upcoming researchers from the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Australia and Brazil, the collection offers critical insights into DJ activities in a range of global dance music contexts. In particular, chapters address digitization and performativity, as well as issues surrounding the gender dynamics and political economies of DJ cultures and practices.
Finally A hip, fun and culturally relevant series of music appreciation books, perfect for modern music-loving families who want to take advantage of this era of exploding musical access Get a personal guided tour through an amazing historical back-catalog of music that was previously unavailable. "Music Lab: We Rock "" A Fun Family Guide for Exploring Rock Music History" is a guided tour through thrilling corners of the musical universe that should not be missed This book highlights great songs in rock history, shares insights and stories on the artists, details the social and historical influences at play, and offers fun activities for families to do together. Detailed listening guides help music fans understand song structure, lyrics, and instrumentation. Related listening lists introduce readers to other exciting artists in similar genres. Set into 52 "music labs," these stories can be explored at will by individuals and families or used as a curriculum for community groups and educators. There really are no other books out there like thisa that are music appreciation books for a general audience that focus on popular musica so pick up yours today and soon have your whole family singing "We Rock." Upcoming volumes on Blues & Jazz and DJs, Dance, and Electronica are forthcoming."
Christian metal has always defined itself in contrast to its non-Christian, secular counterpart, yet it stands out from nearly all other forms of contemporary Christian music through its unreserved use of metal's main musical, visual, and aesthetic traits. Christian metal is a rare example of a direct combination between evangelical Christianity and an aggressive and highly controversial form of popular music and its culture."Christian Metal: History, Ideology, Scene" is the first full exploration of the phenomenon of Christian metal music, its history, main characteristics, development, diversification, and key ideological traits from its formative years in the early 1980s to the present day. Marcus Moberg situates it in a wider international evangelical cultural environment, accounts for its diffusion on a transnational scale, and explores what religious meanings and functions Christian metal holds for its own musicians and followers. Engaging with wider debates on religion, media and popular culture, "Christian Metal: History, Ideology and Scene" is a much-needed resource in the study of religion and popular music.
The true life story of Elvis's original guitarist, the masterful Scotty Moore When Elvis Presley first showed up at Sam Phillips's Memphis-based Sun Records studio, he was a shy teenager in search of a sound. Phillips invited a local guitarist named Scotty Moore to stand in. Scotty listened carefully to the young singer and immediately realized that Elvis had something special. Along with bass player Bill Black, the trio recorded an old blues number called "That's All Right, Mama." It turned out to be Elvis's first single and the defining record of his early style, with a trilling guitar hook that swirled country and blues together and minted a sound with unforgettable appeal. Its success launched a whirlwind of touring, radio appearances, and Elvis's first break into movies. Scotty was there every step of the way as both guitarist and manager, until Elvis's new manager, Colonel Tom Parker, pushed him out. Scotty and Elvis would not perform together again until the classic 1968 "comeback" television special. Scotty never saw Elvis after that. With both Bill Black and Elvis gone, Scotty Moore is the only one left to tell the story of how Elvis and Scotty transformed popular music and how Scotty created the sound that became a prototype for so many rock guitarists to follow. Thoroughly updated, this edition delivers guitarist Scotty Moore's story as never before. Scotty Moore, Nashville, Tennessee, is the sole survivor of the Sun Records sessions of July 1954 during which he, Elvis Presley, and Bill Black, with Sam Phillips at the engineering sound board, blended country and blues into a new art form that would shake up American culture for decades to come. James L. Dickerson, Jackson, Mississippi, is a freelance author and journalist who has published dozens of books.
At the dawn of the 1990s, as the United States celebrated its victory in the Cold War and sole superpower status by waging war on Iraq and proclaiming democratic capitalism as the best possible society, the 1990s underground punk renaissance transformed the punk scene into a site of radical opposition to American empire. Nazi skinheads were ejected from the punk scene; apathetic attitudes were challenged; women, Latino, and LGBTQ participants asserted their identities and perspectives within punk; the scene debated the virtues of maintaining DIY purity versus venturing into the musical mainstream; and punks participated in protest movements from animal rights to stopping the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal to shutting down the 1999 WTO meeting. Punk lyrics offered strident critiques of American empire, from its exploitation of the Third World to its warped social relations. Numerous subgenres of punk proliferated to deliver this critique, such as the blazing hardcore punk of bands like Los Crudos, propagandistic crust-punk/dis-core, grindcore and power violence with tempos over 800 beats per minute, and So-Cal punk with its combination of melody and hardcore. Musical analysis of each of these styles and the expressive efficacy of numerous bands reveals that punk is not merely simplistic three-chord rock music, but a genre that is constantly revolutionizing itself in which nuances of guitar riffs, vocal timbres, drum beats, and song structures are deeply meaningful to its audience, as corroborated by the robust discourse in punk zines.
Should we talk of European jazz or jazz in Europe? What kinds of networks link those who make it happen 'on the ground'? What challenges do they have to face? Jazz is a part of the cultural fabric of many of the European countries. Jazz in Europe: Networking and Negotiating Identities presents jazz in Europe as a complex arena, where the very notions of cultural identity, jazz practices and Europe are continually being negotiated against an ever changing social, cultural, political and economic environment. The book gives voice to musicians, promoters, festival directors, educators and researchers regarding the challenges they are faced with in their everyday practices. Jazz identities in Europe result from the negotiation between discourse and practice and in the interstices between the formal and informal networks that support them, as if 'Jazz' and 'Europe' were blank canvases where diversified notions of what jazz and Europe should or could be are projected.
Blackstar Theory takes a close look at David Bowie's ambitious last works: his surprise 'comeback' project The Next Day (2013), the off-Broadway musical Lazarus (2015) and the album that preceded the artist's death in 2016 by two days, Blackstar. The book explores the swirl of themes that orbit and entangle these projects from a starting point in musical analysis and features new interviews with key collaborators from the period: producer Tony Visconti, graphic designer Jonathan Barnbrook, musical director Henry Hey, saxophonist Donny McCaslin and assistant sound engineer Erin Tonkon. These works tackle the biggest of ideas: identity, creativity, chaos, transience and immortality. They enact a process of individuation for the Bowie meta-persona and invite us to consider what happens when a star dies. In our universe, dying stars do not disappear - they transform into new stellar objects, remnants and gravitational forces. The radical potential of the Blackstar is demonstrated in the rock star supernova that creates a singularity resulting in cultural iconicity. It is how a man approaching his own death can create art that illuminates the immortal potential of all matter in the known universe.
The devil is the most charismatic and important figure in the blues tradition. He's not just the music's namesake (""the devil's music""), but a shadowy presence who haunts an imagined Mississippi crossroads where, it is claimed, Delta bluesman Robert Johnson traded away his soul in exchange for extraordinary prowess on the guitar. Yet, as scholar and musician Adam Gussow argues, there is much more to the story of the devil and the blues than these cliched understandings. In this groundbreaking study, Gussow takes the full measure of the devil's presence. Working from original transcriptions of more than 125 recordings released during the past ninety years, Gussow explores the varied uses to which black southern blues people have put this trouble-sowing, love-wrecking, but also empowering figure. The book culminates with a bold reinterpretation of Johnson's music and a provocative investigation of the way in which the citizens of Clarksdale, Mississippi, managed to rebrand a commercial hub as ""the crossroads"" in 1999, claiming Johnson and the devil as their own.
In the 1950s, Cleveland, Ohio was the number one music city in the world. It was in Cleveland that DJ Alan Freed first coined the term "rock and roll" and it was in Cleveland that the teenage Henry Niedzwiecki, aka The Ol'Doowopper, grew up with a ringside seat to the birth of rock and roll or doo-wop music. Growing Up Rocking is more than just a collection of photographs and artifacts that Niedzwiecki has taken and amassed over the decades; it is his life story told through rock and roll music. The author invites the reader to relive with him many of the pivotal rock and roll radio and television performances from the Fifties and Sixties; timeless moments that continue to define what we think of as rock music even today. Over the years the author has also interviewed and photographed many of the pivotal stars from the doo-wop and early rock and roll era. Those interviews and photographs are another aspect of what makes Growing Up Rocking such a compelling document of what it was like to be in the exact time and place that rock and roll music first set the world on fire. Now retired, Henry M. Niedzwiecki worked as a millwright for the Ford Motor Company. In addition to writing and photography, his other hobbies include collecting records, dancing, and writing letters to editors and congress. Publisher's website: http: //sbpra.com/HenryMNiedzwiecki
This violent and introspective memoir reveals not only 50 Cent's story but also the story of a generation of youth faced with hard choices and very few options. It is a tale of sacrifice, transformation, and redemption, but also one of hope, determination, and the power of self. Told in 50's unique voice, the narrative drips with the raw insight, street wisdom, and his struggle to survive at all costs -- and behold the riches of the American Dream.
During the decades leading up to 1910, Portugal saw vast material improvements under the guise of modernization while in the midst of a significant political transformation - the establishment of the Portuguese First Republic. Urban planning, everyday life, and innovation merged in a rapidly changing Lisbon. Leisure activities for the citizens of the First Republic began to include new forms of musical theater, including operetta and the revue theater. These theatrical forms became an important site for the display of modernity, and the representation of a new national identity. Author Joao Silva argues that the rise of these genres is inextricably bound to the complex process through which the idea of Portugal was presented, naturalized, and commodified as a modern nation-state. Entertaining Lisbon studies popular entertainment in Portugal and its connections with modern life and nation-building, showing that the promotion of the nation through entertainment permeated the market for cultural goods. Exploring the Portuguese entertainment market as a reflection of ongoing negotiations between local, national, and transnational influences on identity, Silva intertwines representations of gender, class, ethnicity, and technology with theatrical repertoires, street sounds, and domestic music making. An essential work on Portuguese music in the English language, Entertaining Lisbon is a critical study for scholars and students of musicology interested in Portugal, and popular and theatrical musics, as well as historical ethnomusicologists, cultural historians, and urban planning researchers interested in the development of material culture.
What did rap music and hip hop culture inherit from the spirituals, classic blues, ragtime, classic jazz, and bebop? What did rap music and hip hop culture inherit from the Black Women's Club Movement, New Negro Movement, Harlem Renaissance, Hipster Movement, and Black Muslim Movement? How did black popular music and black popular culture between 1900 and the 1950s influence white youth culture, especially the Lost Generation and the Beat Generation, in ways that mirror rap music and hip hop culture's influence on contemporary white youth music, culture, and politics? In Hip Hop's Amnesia award-winning author, spoken-word artist, and multi-instrumentalist Reiland Rabaka answers these questions by rescuing and reclaiming the often-overlooked early twentieth century origins and evolution of rap music and hip hop culture. Hip Hop's Amnesia is a study about aesthetics and politics, music and social movements, as well as the ways in which African Americans' unique history and culture has consistently led them to create musics that have served as the soundtracks for their socio-political aspirations and frustrations, their socio-political organizations and nationally-networked movements. The musics of the major African American social and political movements of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s were based and ultimately built on earlier forms of "African American movement music." Therefore, in order to really and truly understand rap music and hip hop culture we must critically examine both classical African American musics and the classical African American movements that these musics served as soundtracks for. This book is primarily preoccupied with the ways in which post-enslavement black popular music and black popular culture frequently served as a soundtrack for and reflected the grassroots politics of post-enslavement African American social and political movements. Where many Hip Hop Studies scholars have made clever allusions to the ways that rap music and hip hop culture are connected to and seem to innovatively evolve earlier forms of black popular music and black popular culture, Hip Hop's Amnesia moves beyond anecdotes and witty allusions and earnestly endeavors a full-fledged critical examination and archive-informed re-evaluation of "hip hop's inheritance" from the major African American musics and movements of the first half of the twentieth century: classic blues, ragtime, classic jazz, swing, bebop, the Black Women's Club Movement, the New Negro Movement, the Harlem Renaissance, the Bebop Movement, the Hipster Movement, and the Black Muslim Movement.
Wilbur C. Sweatman (1882-1961) is one of the most important, yet unheralded, African American musicians involved in the transition of ragtime into jazz in the early twentieth century. In "That's Got 'Em ," Mark Berresford tracks this energetic pioneer over a seven-decade career. His talent transformed every genre of black music before the advent of rock and roll--"pickaninny" bands, minstrelsy, circus sideshows, vaudeville (both black and white), night clubs, and cabarets. Sweatman was the first African American musician to be offered a long-term recording contract, and he dazzled listeners with jazz clarinet solos before the Original Dixieland Jazz Band's so-called "first jazz records." Sweatman toured the vaudeville circuit for over twenty years and presented African American music to white music lovers without resorting to the hitherto obligatory "plantation" costumes and blackface makeup. His bands were a fertile breeding ground of young jazz talent, featuring such future stars as Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, and Jimmie Lunceford. Sweatman subsequently played pioneering roles in radio and recording production. His high profile and sterling reputation in both the black and white entertainment communities made him a natural choice for administering the estate of Scott Joplin and other notable black performers and composers. "That's Got 'Em " is the first full-length biography of this pivotal figure in black popular culture, providing a compelling account of his life and times.
We are what we listen to. That's the premise of this study of 100 songs that have shaped and defined the American experience, from the Colonial period to the present. Well-known music author James Perone looks at 100 songs that helped tell America's story. He examines why each song became a hit, what cultural and social values it embodies, what issues it touches upon, what audiences it attracted, and what made it such a definitive part of American history and popular culture. The chart-topping singles presented here crossed gender, age, race, and class lines to appeal to the mass American audience. The book discusses patriotic songs, minstrel music, and sacred songs and hymns as well as music in the broad categories of pop, rock, hip hop, jazz, country, and folk. An introduction provides an overview of the history and significant issues raised by the songs as a whole. Individual songs are then presented chronologically, based on when they were written. The revealing commentary for each "hit" is not only interesting and fun, but reveals what it was like to live in the United States at a particular time by unveiling the social, economic, and political issues-as well as the musical tastes-that made life what it was. Takes an entertaining approach to understanding the cultural tides in American history Covers a wide range of songs from the Colonial period through the present to depict political and social perspectives as represented in music Explores numerous subtopics related to the songs Engages and educates as it gives historical context and meaning to songs with which readers have long been familiar Uses a research-based approach to explore the historical and cultural background behind America's hits
Following the success of Complete Rock Family Trees, Pete Frame documents the story of The Beatles. The trees unfold alongside photographs and memorabilia to document the Liverpool scene. Other froups featured are Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Searchers, and The Swinging Blue Jeans.
This book presents a collection of essays on the debates about origins, authenticity, and identity in folk and blues music. The essays had their origins in an international conference on the Transatlantic routes of American roots music, out of which emerged common themes and questions of origins and authenticity in folk music, black and white, American and British. The central theme is musical influences, but issues of identity--national, local, and racial--are also recurring subjects. The extent to which these identities were invented, imagined, or constructed by the performers, or by those who recorded their work for posterity, is also a prominent concern and questions of racial identity are particularly central. The book features a new essay on the blues by Paul Oliver alongside an essay on Oliver's seminal blues scholarship. There are also several essays on British blues and the links between performers and styles in the United States and Britain and new essays on critical figures such as Alan Lomax and Woody Guthrie. This volume uniquely offers perspectives from both sides of the Atlantic on the connections and interplay of influences in roots music and the debates about these subjects drawing on the work of eminent established scholars and emerging young academics who are already making a contribution to the field. Throughout, the contributors offer the most recent scholarship available on key issues.
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Rock Music Research is the first comprehensive academic survey of the field of rock music as it stands today. More than 50 years into its life and we still ask - what is rock music, why is it studied, and how does it work, both as music and as cultural activity? This volume draws together 37 of the leading academics working on rock to provide answers to these questions and many more. The text is divided into four major sections: practice of rock (analysis, performance, and recording); theories; business of rock; and social and culture issues. Each chapter combines two approaches, providing a summary of current knowledge of the area concerned as well as the consequences of that research and suggesting profitable subsequent directions to take. This text investigates and presents the field at a level of depth worthy of something which has had such a pervasive influence on the lives of millions.
THE LEGENDARY GUITAR GOD WHO EXCEEDED ALL LIMITS AND LIVED TO TELL
TAKES FANS ON A WILD RIDE THROUGH "KISS"TORY. |
![]() ![]() You may like...
Managing the Drug Discovery Process…
Susan Miller, Walter Moos, …
Hardcover
R6,260
Discovery Miles 62 600
Computational Biomechanics for Medicine…
Barry Doyle, Karol Miller, …
Hardcover
Moral Entanglements - The Ancillary-Care…
Henry S. Richardson
Hardcover
R2,124
Discovery Miles 21 240
|