As one of the most celebrated musicians of our time, Alicia Keys has enraptured the nation with her heartfelt lyrics, extraordinary vocal range, and soul-stirring piano compositions. Yet away from the spotlight, Alicia has grappled with private heartache over the challenging and complex relationship with her father, the people-pleasing nature that characterized her early career, the loss of privacy surrounding her romantic relationships, and the oppressive expectations of female perfection.

Since her rise to fame, Alicia’s public persona has belied a deep personal truth: she has spent years not fully recognizing or honoring her own worth. After withholding parts of herself for so long, she is at last exploring the questions that live at the heart of her story: Who am I, really? And once I discover that truth, how can I become brave enough to embrace it?

More Myself is part autobiography, part narrative documentary. Alicia’s journey is revealed not only through her own candid recounting, but also through vivid recollections from those who have walked alongside her. The result is a 360-degree perspective on Alicia’s path: from her girlhood in Hell’s Kitchen and Harlem, to the process of self-discovery she’s still navigating.

In More Myself, Alicia shares her quest for truth: about herself, her past, and her shift from sacrificing her spirit to celebrating her worth. With the raw honesty that epitomizes Alicia’s artistry, More Myself is at once a riveting account and a clarion call to readers: to define themselves in a world that rarely encourages a true and unique identity.

This book provides in-depth analysis of the words, music, and recordings of Elvis Costello, one of the most enigmatic, eclectic, and critically acclaimed singer-songwriters of the rock era. Elvis Costello is one of the greatest pop songwriters of his generation as well as one of the most significant songwriters of the 20th century. His career's length now approaching four decades, Costello continues to be vital part of pop culture through live performances, recordings, and the iconic nature of his work. The Words and Music of Elvis Costello provides in-depth analysis of this important artist's words, music, and recordings. Arranged chronologically, the book places Costello in the cultural context of his time and place; addresses the overlaps between rock, classical, torch song, and jazz in Costello's highly eclectic range of songs from 1975 to the present; provides a look at the uniquely British aspects of his work; and uniquely spotlights his compositional techniques and approaches to musical form. The book covers everything from Costello's first album My Aim Is True as well as his other albums in the 1970s to his body of work in the '80s and '90s to his continuing eclecticism in the 21st century as he successfully integrates what would appear to be mutually exclusive genres. The concluding chapter provides analysis of the critical commentary about Elvis Costello's work as a performer and songwriter over his long career. Provides expert analysis of the words and music of Elvis Costello within a cultural context that will benefit readers interested in popular music as well as popular music scholars and serious fans of Elvis Costello Explains the uniquely British aspects of Costello's work and illuminates the role that Costello's Irish-Catholic heritage plays in his work Places Costello's work within the context of postmodernism Provides in-depth analysis of Costello's approach to musical form-an approach that is highly unusual among rock musicians

Robert Plant is one of the few genuine living rock legends. Frontman of Led Zeppelin, musical innovator and seller of millions of records, Plant has had a profound influence on music for over four decades. But the full account of his life has barely been told ... until now. Robert Plant: A Life is the first complete and comprehensive telling of Plant's story. From his earliest performances in folk clubs in the early 1960s, to the world's biggest stages as Led Zeppelin's self-styled 'Golden God', and on to his emergence as an emboldened solo star. The sheer scale of Zeppelin's success is extraordinary: in the US alone they sold 70 million records, a figure surpassed only by the Beatles. But their success was marred by tragedy. These pages contain first-hand accounts of Plant's greatest highs and deepest lows: the tragic deaths of his son Karac and his friend, Zeppelin drummer John Bonham. Told in vivid detail, this is the definitive story of a man of great talent, remarkable fortitude and extraordinary conviction.

Our cultural darlings make music; we make them mythic. Every musical genre begets a community of listeners, performers, and critics, and quite often those categories are blurred. From the principled punk refusal of celebrity to hip-hop's celebration of its power, the music world is self-obsessed.

Stars Don't Stand Still in the Sky assembles scholars, music writers, industry workers, and musicians, who offer a range of opinions and experience of the nature of fame. The collection focuses on commerce, the crowd, performance and image, history and memory, and romance. Contributors discuss black women icons, love-songs, the legacy of the blues, the image of the tortured rock star, MTV, the politics of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the joy of line-dancing, and more.

The contributors are James Bernard, Anthony DeCurtis, Katherine Dieckmann, Chuck Eddy, Paul Gilroy, Daniel Glass, Lawrence Grossberg, Jessica Hagedorn, Kathleen Hanna, James Hannaham, Dave Hickey, Jon Langford, Greil Marcus, Angela McRobbie, Paul D. Miller (a.k.a. DJ Spooky), Barbara O'Dair, Ann Powers, Toshi Reagon, Simon Reynolds, Robert Santelli, Jon Savage, Danyel Smith, Arlene Stein, Deena Weinstein, and Ellen Willis.

In the 1990s, Chicago was at the center of indie rock, propelling bands like the Smashing Pumpkins and Liz Phair to the national stage. The musical ecosystem from which these bands emerged, though, was expansive and diverse. Grunge players comingled with the electronic, jazz, psychedelic, and ambient music communities, and an inventive, collaborative group of local labels-kranky, Drag City, and Thrill Jockey, among others-embraced the new, evolving sound of indie "rock." Bruce Adams, co-founder of kranky records, was there to bear witness. In You're with Stupid, Adams offers an insider's look at the role Chicago's underground music industry played in the transformation of indie rock. Chicago labels, as Adams explains, used the attention brought by national acts to launch bands that drew on influences outside the Nirvana-inspired sound then dominating pop. The bands themselves-Labradford, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Low-were not necessarily based in Chicago, but it was Chicago labels like kranky that had the ears and the infrastructure to do something with this new music. In this way, Chicago-shaped sounds reached the wider world, presaging the genre-blending music of the twenty-first century. From an author who helped create the scene and launched some of its best music, You're with Stupid is a fascinating and entertaining read.

Despite the explosion of scholarly interest in the "global 1968" phenomenon, the seminal influence of the arts - in both their popular and avant-garde iterations - has too often been neglected. Student activism in the space of the university and the street made up only a part of the broad anti-authoritarian eruption of 1968, and not even necessarily the most important one. Arguably more fundamental was a broad democratization of cultural production in which avant-garde artists and youthful appropriators alike played a leading role. Cultural forms such as art, "happenings," fashion, comics, movies, and music were critically important to the new youth sensibility and its dissemination within society more broadly. Popular music and visual culture were among the most important of these categories, opening up new vistas of emancipatory possibility and fueling the development of new stylistic codes. This wide-ranging, interdisciplinary collection brings together scholars in history, film and media studies, cultural studies, art history, music and other disciplines to consider the symbiosis of the sonic and the visual that so powerfully shaped sixties counterculture.

Ariana Grande captured the hearts of a nation with her One Love Manchester concert. Less than a fortnight after a terrorist killed twenty-two people at her Manchester show, the petite princess stood tall at her tribute concert that united and healed a shaken nation. She was the emotional core of a powerful evening that reminded us all of music's redemptive power. But who is Ariana Grande? This candid book traces the US pop star's story from her childhood in Florida, through her teenage years on Broadway and Nickelodeon, and on to her gleaming pop career which has seen her described as 'the new Mariah Carey'. This unauthorized biography tells the songbird's eventful and inspirational story in full for the first time, and shows how she became an award-winning, chart-topping pop idol, as well as an empowering inspiration for a generation of girls. It reveals that there is more to Ariana than the celebrity we all think we know, explaining how her smooth transition from a squeaky-clean teenage pop product to a sophisticated, bold artist was powered by a restless and resilient personality. A must read for all her fans, this is a full, unflinching portrait of a pop sensation and inspiring, uncompromising woman - the small, sassy girl with the ponytail who conquered the world.

ABBA was the biggest selling pop group of the Seventies. Between their first single in 1972, when the group was not yet called ABBA, and their final singles in 1982, ABBA recorded and released 98 unique songs. In addition they recorded versions of some of their biggest hits in Swedish, German, French, and Spanish; performed a number of songs in concert that were never released on record; and recorded a number of songs that didn't see the light of day at the time, but have been released from the archive the decades since the group "took a break" at the end of 1982.Everyone remembers ABBA's biggest hits - songs like 'Waterloo', 'Mamma Mia', 'Fernando', 'Dancing Queen', 'Take A Chance On Me', 'Chiquitita', and 'The Winner Takes It All' - but there are many gems to be found on the eight studio albums and 21 singles released during the group's lifetime. ABBA: Song by Song is a look at every single song by the Swedish supergroup, written by a life-long ABBA fan. Find out what inspired the songs, what went in to recording them, and their impact around the world in the 1970s and 80s and beyond.

From Cliff Richard to The Rolling Stones, and from The Beatles to Plan B, pop music has been inseparable from its cinematic exploitation. This book constitutes the first delivered examination of the place of the pop music film in British cinematic and musical history. It explores the way music and film have exerted a mutual influence at an economic, social and artistic level. From The Tommy Steele Story, a cheap and cheerful 'cash in' on what was considered a passing fad, through Richard Lester's innovative and globally successful Beatles vehicles and on to the Jungian artistic maze of Mick Jagger's Performance, the 1950s and 1960s saw pop acts and directors create an entire life-cycle for a new film genre. Thereafter, its intermittent revivals, be it Slade in Flame or the Spice Girls in Spice World, have kept sound and vision inseparable in the public consciousness, revisiting and reshaping our pop and film heritage.

Since his death in 1971, friends and band members have produced several biographies describing various aspects of Jim Morrison's life and career. Now James Riordan and Jerry Prochnicky examine with insightful clarity the entire story of Morrison's roots, his early family life, the intellectual foundations of his music, his wild days with The Doors, his private life, and the mystery that still surrounds his death.

In Break On Through, we see Morrison's angry relationship with his father and how a horrifying, deadly car accident Morrison witnessed as a small boy influenced his songs and poetry. We witness The Doors' exhilarating early days of struggle and the infamous Miami trial, where Morrison stood charged with obscenity. And here is the real story of Morrison's death in Paris, based on interviews with new sources who conclusively disprove the official finding of death by heart attack.

Break On Through is more than an insightful look at a rock legend whose cult following never stops growing. With dozens of rarely published photographs, this is the authoritative portrait of the man and his career.

Kate Bush is widely respected as one of the most unique solo female performers to have ever emerged in the field of popular music. She has achieved that rare combination of great commercial success and critical acclaim, with "Hounds of Love" considered widely to be her masterpiece. The album regularly features in 'best album' lists, and in the 2004 Observer poll was the highest placed work by a solo female artist. The album allows the author, Ron Moy, the critical opportunity to explore a wide range of issues relating to technology, production, authorship, grain of the voice, iconography, critical and commercial impact, collaboration, gender, sexuality, narrative, and social and cultural context.

The first comprehensive reference work on popular music of the world Contributors are the world's leading popular music scholars Includes extensive bibliographies, discographies, sheet music listings and filmographies This second volume consists of some 460 entries by 130 contributors from around the world. Entries range between 250 and 5000 words, and are arranged in four parts: Part I: Performers and Performing; Part II: Musical Production and Transmission; Part III: Musical Instruments; Part IV: Musical Forms and Practice. Entries include musical examples, bibliographies, discographies and filmographies. An extensive index is also provided. Contents: Preface Part I: Performers and Performing Groups Individuals Performance Techniques Part II: Musical Production and Transmission Personnel Processes: Interpretative/Technological Technologies Part III: Musical Instruments Found Instruments Guitars Keyboard Instruments Mechanical Instruments Percussion Instruments Stringed Instruments Voice Wind Instruments Part IV: Musical Form and Practice Form Harmony Melody Rhythm The Piece Timbre Words, Images and Movement Index

Having spent his entire career as a professional singer, songwriter, and musician, Thinking About Tomorrow is the amazing tale of rock and roll survivor Keith West. From being inspired by Elvis in the 1950s to pop stardom and working alongside the greats of the music world in the 1960s, Keith was at the eye of the storm alongside peers including The Who, The Beatles, The Kinks, The Small Faces, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and many, many more. With his Tomorrow bandmates - Steve Howe, Junior and Twink - Keith was a pioneer of psychedelic music in the 1960s with songs such as My White Bicycle, and he also achieved international fame alongside Mark Wirtz with the song Excerpt from a Teenage Opera (popularly remembered by millions of music fans as Grocer Jack). Tomorrow evolved from the R&B and mod bands Four + 1 and The In Crowd and, while their recorded output is small, their influence on other artists and the way rock music would develop is widely-regarded as enormous. Steve Howe went on to continue his incredible guitar adventures in Yes and Asia, and Twink would continue to influence the rock world as a member of pioneering bands The Pretty Things, The Pink Fairies, and Hawkwind. Keith would go on to have a long career in the music business, embracing punk in the late 70s and indie music in the 80s and 90s. But this is no straightforward tale of rock and roll hedonism; the book also pulls back the curtain on the mysterious world of the music industry. It reveals how agents, managers, publishers, record companies, songwriters, artists and the media are all locked together in an endless pursuit of the elusive elixir of their professional lives - a hit. Yet, once lightning has struck, the tragic consequences, the tremendous opportunities and the money generated can still create ripples half a century later...

Almost 20 years ago Michael Brocken created from his doctoral research, what became both a seminal and contested volume concerning the social mores surrounding the British Folk Revival up to that point in time: The British Folk Revival 1944-2002. In this long-overdue second edition he revisits not only his own research, but also that of others from the 1990s and early 21st century. He then considers how a discourse of folkloric authenticity emerged in the closing years of the 19th century and how a worrying nationalistic immanence came to surround folk music and dance during the inter-war years. Brocken also proposes that the media: records, radio and TV in post-WWII folk revivalism can offer us important insights into how self-directed learning of the folk guitar emerged. Brocken moves on to consider the business structures of the contemporary folk scene and how relationships are formed between contemporary folk business and the digital and social media spheres. In his penultimate chapter he discusses the masculinisation of folk traditions and asks important questions about how our folk traditions are carried and are authorised. In the final chapter he also considers the rise of an exciting new folk live music built environment.

Having spent his entire career as a professional singer, songwriter, and musician, Thinking About Tomorrow is the amazing tale of rock and roll survivor Keith West. From being inspired by Elvis in the 1950s to pop stardom and working alongside the greats of the music world in the 1960s, Keith was at the eye of the storm alongside peers including The Who, The Beatles, The Kinks, The Small Faces, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and many, many more. With his Tomorrow bandmates - Steve Howe, Junior and Twink - Keith was a pioneer of psychedelic music in the 1960s with songs such as My White Bicycle, and he also achieved international fame alongside Mark Wirtz with the song Excerpt from A Teenage Opera (popularly remembered by millions of music fans as Grocer Jack). Tomorrow evolved from the R&B and mod bands Four + 1 and The In Crowd and, while their recorded output is small, their influence on other artists and the way rock music would develop is widely-regarded as enormous. Steve Howe went on to continue his incredible guitar adventures in Yes and Asia, and Twink would continue to influence the rock world as a member of pioneering bands The Pretty Things, The Pink Fairies, and Hawkwind. Keith would go on to have a long career in the music business, embracing punk in the late 70s and indie music in the 80s and 90s. But this is no straightforward tale of rock and roll hedonism; the book also pulls back the curtain on the mysterious world of the music industry. It reveals how agents, managers, publishers, record companies, songwriters, artists and the media are all locked together in an endless pursuit of the elusive elixir of their professional lives - a hit. Yet, once lightning has struck, the tragic consequences, the tremendous opportunities and the money generated can still create ripples half a century later...

John Berger's "Ways of Seeing" was first published in 1972. It looked at visual images and how they shape us. In "Ways of Hearing" Ben Thompson does a similar thing for music - albeit in a non-sociological, highly subjective, fairly irreverent and extremely entertaining manner. He explores the role of music in the mediums of radio, TV, film, literature and video, and interviews a wildly disparate bunch of musicians and djs, from Brian Eno, John Peel, Captain Beefheart and Neil Young, to Lee Perry, Sir Cliff Richard, the Chemical Brothers and Mercury Rev.

For many, Kim Gordon, vocalist, bassist and founding member of Sonic Youth, has always been the epitome of cool.

Sonic Youth is one of the most influential and successful bands to emerge from the post-punk New York scene, and their legacy continues to loom large over the landscape of indie rock and American pop culture. Almost as celebrated as the band's defiantly dissonant sound was the marriage between Gordon and her husband, fellow Sonic Youth founder and lead guitarist Thurston Moore. So when Matador Records released a statement in the fall of 2011 announcing that—after twenty-seven years—the two were splitting, fans were devastated. In the middle of a crazy world, they'd seemed so solid.

What did this mean? What comes next? What came before?

In Girl in a Band, the famously reserved superstar speaks candidly about her past and the future. From her childhood in the sunbaked suburbs of Southern California, growing up with a mentally ill sibling who often sapped her family of emotional capital, to New York's downtown art and music scene in the eighties and nineties and the birth of a band that would pave the way for acts like Nirvana, as well as help inspire the Riot Grrl generation, here is an edgy and evocative portrait of a life in art.

Exploring the artists, musicians, and writers who influenced Gordon, and the relationship that defined her life for so long, Girl in a Band is filled with the sights and sounds of a pre-Internet world and is a deeply personal portrait of a woman who has become an icon.

Contents:
Introduction Part One : Nursery Crymes Little Miss Dynamite; The Boy Behind The Mask; Father... I Want To Kill You: The Birth of the Lizard King; Monsters and Ogres; When Will They Ever Learn? Part Two : Little Girls Introduction; Kate Bush: The Red Shoes; Tori Amos: Lady of the Rings; Bjork: The Icelandic Elf; Little Girls Revisited Part Three: Little Boys Introduction: The Rules of the Game; Age, Identity and the Slippery Divide of the Rock/Pop Binary; Who's That Boy? Death And My Cock; 'Scuse Me While I Kiss The Sky; Myth and Reality; Boys Just Wanna Be Boys; The Young Ones; Somebody Wants To Be Wanted; I'm A Believer; Rollermania; Do What U Like? Pop Idols Postscript. Life After Death: Old Girls and Old Boys Notes Bibliography Discography

Joe Strummer was one of the twentieth century's iconic rock'n'roll rebels. As frontperson, spokesperson and chief lyricist for The Clash, he played a major role in politicising a generation through some of the most powerful protest songs of the era, songs like 'White Riot', 'English Civil War' and 'London Calling'. At the heart of this protest was the struggle for social justice and equality. The punk rock politics of Joe Strummer examines Strummer's beliefs on a range of issues - including socialism, alienation, exploitation, multiculturalism and humanism - analysing their credibility, influence and impact, and asking where they came from and how they developed over time. Drawing on Strummer's lyrics, various interviews and bootleg recordings, as well as interviews with those he inspired, The punk rock politics of Joe Strummer takes the reader on a journey through the political influences and motivations that defined one of the UK's greatest punk icons. -- .

- A comprehensive guide to musicals that are based on musicians' existing back catalogues - how they work, why they work and why they are so successful. - Written for musical theatre students at all levels - primarily on the 150 BA degrees across the UK and North America. - The first book to address this relatively new genre of musical theatre, doing so with in-depth and wide ranging analysis.

Listen to Psychedelic Rock! contains more than 50 entries covering the people, records, places, and events that shaped one of the most exciting and influential periods in popular music. This addition to the Exploring a Music Genre series concentrates solely on psychedelic rock music. Listen to Psychedelic Rock! Exploring a Musical Genre covers over fifty topics, arranged alphabetically, that are central to learning about psychedelic music and will enable readers to understand the breadth and ongoing influence of psychedelia through to the present day. The title contains biographical sketches on selected artists, "song-by-song" descriptions of many albums, and short, informative essays on participants who were influential in the original psychedelic movement. A background section introduces the genre and a legacy section shows how psychedelic music has cemented its place in the world, while another section shows the tremendous impact the music has had on popular culture. Information on record labels and year-of-release dates for all musical entries make it easy for any reader to navigate this title - a must-have for high school and college readers as well as for music scholars and fans of the genre. Provides readers with a thorough overview of artists and albums whose works came to define psychedelic music Addresses the differences between psychedelia in England and in the United States Discusses the intellectual and literary influence on psychedelia in England Provides easy reference to more than fifty individual topics through A-Z organization Contextualizes the music in American history

Selected and arranged by the author, How To Be Invisible presents the lyrics of Kate Bush in a beautiful new paperback edition featuring a new cover by illustrator Jim Kay. 'The greatest singer-songwriter of the past 40 years, whose work is complex, ethereal and filled with so many secrets that one can listen to the albums for decades and still discover new delights every time [. . .] There's not a spare word anywhere in Bush's work. Everything means something.' Irish Times