There were approximately 7,000 full-time bandsmen serving in the British army in the interwar years. This was about a third of the total number of musicians in the music profession in the United Kingdom, making the War Office the largest single employer of professional musicians in the country. British army musicians were a key stakeholder in the music industry in the United Kingdom, but also farther afield, where it made a significant contribution to the maintenance of British imperial authority. To sustain the large number of bands, residential institutions provided young boys for recruitment into the army as bandsmen and, as a consequence, the army set the standard for musical training and performance. The music industry relied upon the existence of army bands for its business and the military played a significant part in the adoption of an international standard of musical pitch. Nevertheless, there was a tempestuous relationship between army bands and the BBC, as well as the recording industry as a whole. Using untapped sources and original material, Major David Hammond reveals the role and soft power influence of British army music in the interwar years.

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 beef. A sale. A villain of Lex Luthor-like proportions. Bill Murray. The FBI. The internet gone wild. In 2007, the innovative Wu-Tang producer, Cilvaringz, feeling that digitisation increasingly supported the perception of music as disposable, took an incendiary idea to his mentor, hip hop legend, RZA: create a unique physical copy of a secret Wu-Tang album, to be encased in silver and sold through auction as a work of contemporary art. The plan raised a number of complex questions: Would selling one album for millions be the ultimate betrayal of music? How would fans react to an album that's sold on condition it could not be commercialised? And could anyone justify the ultimate sale of the album to the infamous pharmaceutical mogul Martin Shkreli? "An epic battle between colorful, creative maniacal heroes and one of the blandest beta-villains of our time. Couldn't put it down."Patton Oswalt, comedian and bestselling author of Silver Screen Fiend