Product information not available.

Beneath the ever-changing and unstable political climate of Iran lies a rich youth culture centered around rock music. Reaching beyond a social, historical and political overview of music, Bronwen Robertson looks deeper and seeks to decipher how members of the underground scene invent and express different versions of 'being Iranian, ' through the production and distribution of their music. Robertson spent a year undercover in Tehran conducting research and interviews within this complex and fascinating culture. While the author explores each individual's relationship to their music, she also demonstrates how the underground scene as a whole becomes an expression of collective and anti-authoritarian identities. Robertson discusses concepts ranging from inspiration and ingenuity to the notion of being 'global, ' and how these musicians perceive their political and artistic impact. This illuminating work demonstrates that rock music, a global genre, gains significance as it is performed in a local context, disrupting pre-conceived notions of what it means to be 'Iranian.' >

Philosophy and Hip-Hop: Ruminations on Postmodern Cultural Form opens up the philosophical life force that informs the construction of Hip-hop by turning the gaze of the philosopher upon those blind spots that exist within existing scholarship. Traditional Departments of Philosophy will find this book a solid companion in Contemporary Philosophy or Aesthetic Theory. Inside these pages is a project that parallels the themes of existential angst, corporate elitism, social consciousness, male privilege and masculinity. This book illustrates the abundance of philosophical meaning in the textual and graphic elements of Hip-hop, and thus places Hip-hop within the philosophical canon.

Popular music has always attracted the kind of morally bankrupt individuals who are too unhinged to hold down a proper job. And that's just as well. After all, if your local fishmonger told you he'd just snorted his father's ashes, you might think twice about doing business with him. But when Keith Richards says it, you think 'Nice one, Keef!' and have a flick through your iPod to find 'Honky Tonk Women'. From deeply suspect sexual politics to crackpot religions, musicians' elevated position in popular culture allows them to hold forth freely on subjects about which they know precious little. For the first time, Mind The Bollocks collects some of the finest stools of wisdom ever to fall from their foul, ill-educated mouths. Mind The Bollocks also digs beneath the culture of nonsense surrounding popular music and asks: Are the X-Factor auditions all they appear to be? Is there really a musical frequency that can make you soil yourself? And which world-renowned rock guitarist sliced his own penis off? All is revealed herein, with bonus satanic messages included if you read it backwards. Word count: 40,000

As recommended by USA Today and excerpted on Rolling Stone.com! More than forty years after breaking up, The Beatles remain the biggest-selling and most influential group in the history of popular music. Fans endlessly replay their songs, craving more, while thousands of cover versions of their songs have been recorded and performed. Band biographies, pop music histories, song books, and academic titles on the Fab Four clutter shelves. But never has there been a definitive guide to the finest songs of The Beatles after they called it quits. Still the Greatest is a love song to the songwriting and recording achievements of Paul, John, George, and Ringo after each struck out on his own. In this creative history, Jackson selects the best songs in each solo career and organizes them into fantasy albums they might have formed had the legendary group stayed together. This romp through the post-Beatles history of each artist delves into the circumstances behind the composition, recording, and reception of each work, offering a refreshing take on how spectacular much of The Beatles' second act truly is. Jackson assesses the more than seventy albums and nine hundred songs the four collectively released, selecting the creme de la creme of their output. Still the Greatest brims with facts (release dates, writing and performing credits, and information about production techniques) and insightful analyses of the music and lyrics. In telling the stories behind the songs, Jackson recounts the remarkable influence the Post Fab Four continued to have long after the big split. Both a handy reference and an engrossing cover-to-cover read, Still the Greatest is an invaluable companion for those who thought it all ended with the 1970 album Let It Be.

What are the interactions between transnational communication and national cultures? This work attempts to answer this critical question in the study of culture and communication. It takes as its vehicle of study the music industry and music making in 13 different cultures, presenting an insider's view of a global cultural experience. Of interest to musicologists and sociologists alike, plus anyone fascinated by distant cultures and how they are affected by external as well as internal communication systems.

The chapters are a collection of research findings produced for the International Communications and Youth Cultures Consortium (ICYC), an informal group of international scholars in many disciplines who are committed to understanding the economic and social factors that influence cultures and youth. Their point of view in this work is their individual country and the tensions that arise from the development of international communication systems. Each view is from inside the country; external influences are not subjects of study in themselves but are viewed as part of a complex scene along with other variables operating in various national situations.

Exploring the interactions between Shakespeare and popular music, this book links these seeming polar opposites, showing how musicians have woven the Bard into their sounds. How have Shakespearean characters, words, texts and iconography been represented and reworked through popular music? Do all types of popular music represent Shakespeare in the same ways? And how do the links between Shakespeare and popular music challenge what we think we know about both Shakespeare and popular music? One of the enduring myths about how Shakespeare and popular music relate is that they don't - after all the antagonism between high culture and pop music could be considered mutual. In the first book of its kind, Adam Hansen shows what happens to Shakespeare when he exists in and becomes popular music, in all its diverse and glorious forms. Exploring these interactions reveals as much about the functions of the diverse genres of popular music as it does about Shakespeare as a global cultural form. Discussing a wide range of examples in a critically-informed but lively and accessible style, this book brings something new to Shakespeare and popular music, capturing the excitement and energy of both for its readers.

Rudi Blesh Harriet Janis THEY ALL PLATED RAGTIME The True Story of an American Music Alfred A. Knopf New Tork 1950 To the memory of SCOTT JOPLIN Here is the genius whose spirit., though diluted, was filtered through thousands of cheap songs and vain imitations. JOHN STARK S LIBRARY D ODDI Difisai ny MO. PUBLIC LIBRARY mh go way man, I can hypnotize dis nation, I can shake de earth s foundation wid de Maple Leaf Rag Oh go way man, just holdyo breath a minit, For theres not a stunt thafs in it, wid de Maple Leaf Rag MAPLE LEAP RAG SONG Music by Scott Joplin Words by Sydney Brown ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IRITING the first book on ragtime presented special problems. In the virtual absence of written source material, it was necessary, and in any event would have been desirable, to rely almost exclusively on personal interviews or correspond ence with the actual personalities who made ragtime one of the greatest musical crazes in history. The majority of these personalities were not easy to find. Many, of course, were dead. Most of those who had survived, thirty years since the ragtime craze ended and over half a century since it began, had lapsed into obscurity. We were fortunate, however, in lo cating all the important surviving key figures and the relatives and friends of those who are dead. Too profuse thanks cannot be given to the scores of people who talked with and played for us, for without the help they gave so enthusiastically this book would have been impossible to write. The story of Sedalia, the cradle of ragtime, and much of that of St. Louis, its quondam capital, are from the words of Arthur Marshall, G. Tom Ireland, the Reverend Alonzo Hayden, C. W. Gravitt, and William G. Flynn. TheSedalia picture was filled out by correspondence with Charles R. IX THEY ALL PLAYED BAG-TIME Hanna, music critic of the Sedalia Democrat, and Mrs. Julia Cross, sister of Scott Hayden. S. Branson Campbell The Rag time Kid, an early friend of Scott Joplin, generously furnished us with a part of the early stories of Joplin and Sedalia and permitted us to quote from his short history. When Ragtime Was Young which appeared in installments in the Jazz Journal, London, St. Louis history was unfolded by Sam Patterson, Artie Matthews, Charley Thompson, George Reynolds, Webb Owsley, Lester A. Walton, Mrs. Edward Mellinger, Charles Warfield who also contributed to the Chicago picture, Sylvestre Chauvin, nephew of Louis Chauvin, and the St. Louis ragtime enthusiast Dr. Hubert S. Pruett. The New Orleans chapter was filled out by George Pops Foster, Miss Ida Jackson and Mrs. Mariah Sutton sisters of the late Tony Jackson, Sammy Davis, Tony Parenti, and Dr. Edmond Souchon, and by Jelly Roll Morton posthu mously through his interviews with Alan Lomax and the 1938 documentary records he made for the Library of Congress archives. The rights to use this material were granted to Circle Records by the Morton Estate and its Executor, Hugh E. MacBeth, thus making it available to the authors. Invaluable, too, in the New Orleans connection were the reminiscences of the perennial prophet of ragtime, Roy J. Carew. To him also go our thanks for permission to quote from one of his published articles, for access to his sheet-music collection, and for his patient hours of playing the old rag time masterpieces for us. The life story of the late James Scott of Neosho and Kansas City was reconstructed from interviewsand correspondence with his sister, Mrs. Lena King, with his brothers, Howard and Oliver, and with his cousins, Mrs. Patsy L. Thomas, Mrs. Ruth Callahan, and the late Ada Brown, and with a fellow musician of Scotts, Lawrence Denton. Chicagos large part in ragtime was related by Nettie Compton, Glover Compton who also contributed much about Louisville, Charlie Elgar, Hugh Swift, Hurley and Horace Diemer, and George Filhe. The story of the first and most successful of the chains of ragtime schools was told by X ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Carle Christensen for his father...

Bringing together the voices of scholars from Europe and North America with those of key contest stakeholders, Performing the 'New' Europe: Identities, Feelings, and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest argues that this popular music competition is a symbolic contact zone between European cultures: an arena for European identification in which both national solidarity and participation in a European identity are confirmed, and a site where cultural struggles over the meanings, frontiers and limits of Europe are enacted. This exciting collection explores the ways in which European artists perform, disavow, and contest their racial, national, and sexual identities in the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), and asks difficult questions about European inclusions and exclusions the contest reflects. It suggests the ESC as an ever-evolving network of peoples and places transcending both historical and geographical boundaries of Europe that brings into being new understandings of the relationship between culture, space, and identities.

On their debut, The Clash famously claimed to be "bored with the USA," but The Clash wasn't a parochial record. Mick Jones' licks on songs such as "Hate and War" were heavily influenced by classic American rock and roll, and the cover of Junior Murvin's reggae hit "Police and Thieves" showed that the band's musical influences were already wide-ranging. Later albums such as Sandinista! and Combat Rock saw them experimenting with a huge range of musical genres, lyrical themes and visual aesthetics. The Clash Takes on the World explores the transnational aspects of The Clash's music, lyrics and politics, and it does so from a truly transnational perspective. It brings together literary scholars, historians, media theorists, musicologists, social activists and geographers from Europe and the US, and applies a range of critical approaches to The Clash's work in order to tackle a number of key questions: How should we interpret their negotiations with reggae music and culture? How did The Clash respond to the specific socio-political issues of their time, such as the economic recession, the Reagan-Thatcher era and burgeoning neoliberalism, and international conflicts in Nicaragua and the Falkland Islands? How did they reconcile their anti-capitalist stance with their own success and status as a global commodity? And how did their avowedly inclusive, multicultural stance, reflected in their musical diversity, square with the experience of watching the band in performance? The Clash Takes on the World is essential reading for scholars, students and general readers interested in a band whose popularity endures.

Austin City Limits is the longest running musical showcase in the history of television, and it still captivates audiences forty years after its debut on the air. From Willie Nelson's legendary pilot show and his fourteen magical episodes running through the years to Season 35, to mythical performances of BB King and Stevie Ray Vaughn, to repeat appearances from Chet Atkins, Bonnie Raitt and Ray Charles, and recent shows with Mumford & Sons, Arcade Fire and The Decemberists, the show has defined popular roots music and indie rock. This is why country rocker Miranda Lambert - relatively unknown when she taped a show almost a decade ago - gushed to the studio audience, "Now I know I have arrived!" Austin City Limits: A History tells this remarkable story. With unprecedented access behind the scenes at the tapings of shows with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Mos Def, Wilco, and many more, author Tracey Laird tells the story of this landmark musical showcase whose history spans dramatic changes in the world of television, the expansion of digital media, and the ways in which we experience music. Beginning as a simple weekly broadcast, it is today a multifaceted "brand" in contemporary popular music, existing simultaneously as a program available for streaming, a presence on Twitter and other social media, a major music festival, and a state-of-the-art performance venue. Laird explores the ways in which the show's evolution has driven, and been driven by, both that of Austin as the "Live Music Capital of the World," and of U.S. public media as a major player in the dissemination and sponsorship of music and culture. Engagingly written and packed with anecdotes and insights from everyone from the show's producers and production staff to the musicians themselves, Austin City Limits: A History gives us the best seat in the house for this illuminating look at a singular presence in American popular music. Timed to publish with the airing of Austin City Limits 2014 - the 40th anniversary celebratory broadcast featuring an all-star lineup of musicians including the Foo Fighters, Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, and others - here is a book for all fans of this beloved music institution.

Pop music stars in many of the most exciting and successful British films--from "Performance" to "Trainspotting," from "A Hard Day's Night" to H"uman Traffic." Other films using pop music might be more obscure but include many demonstrating a boldness and imagination rarely matched in other areas of British cinema.
Pop artists (David Bowie, Cliff Richard, Spice Girls, Patsy Kensit, Sex Pistols) could be said to be captured at their most iconic on celluloid. And of course there are the rare but prized cameos from a huge variety of other musicians and their songs in the most unexpected of places. This book tells the story and records the facts of the pop-film relationship decade by decade. It is the most systematic guide to where and how pop appears in British cinema.
"Pop in British Cinema" includes:
* Decade by decade commentary and systematic listings of films with pop music
* Comprehensive referencing of all British feature films using music from the 50s to the end of the century
* Illustrations and descriptions of the changing ways of using pop in British film
* Listings of "band" movies and indexes to musicians, directors, and film titles
For researchers and the curious alike this is an easy and fascinating reference source. It represents both a first history of pop music in British cinema and a mine of trivia questions for music and film buffs of all descriptions.

This is the untold story of black music - its triumph over racism, segregation, undercapitalised record labels, media discrimination and political anxiety - told through the perspective of the most powerful office in the world: from Louis Armstrong's spat with President Eisenhower and Eartha Kitt's stormy encounter with Lady Bird Johnson to James Brown's flirtation with Nixon, Reaganomics and the 'Cop Killer' scandal. Moving, insightful and wide-ranging, Hey America! charts the evolution of sixties soul from the margins of American society to the mainstream, culminating in the rise of urban hip-hop and the dramatic stand-off between Donald Trump and the Black Lives Matter movement.

On an idyllic Greek island, the garden of sixties icon Leonard Cohen inspires a poet to question and ultimately celebrate the meaning of his own life. English poet Roger Green left the safety of God, country, and whiskey to immerse himself in an austere and sober life on the Greek Island of Hydra. But when Green discovered that his terrace overlooked the garden of sixties balladeer Leonard Cohen, he became obsessed with Cohen's songs, wives, and banana tree. Hydra starts with a poem the author wrote and recited for his fifty-seventh birthday (borrowing the meter of Cohen's Suzanne, and ripe with references to the song), with Cohen's ex-partner Suzanne, who may or may not be the subject of Cohen's song, in the audience. By turns playful and philosophic, Green's unconventional memoir tells the story of his journey down the rabbit hole of obsession, as he confronts the meaning of poetry, history, and his own life. Beginning as a poetic meditation upon Leonard Cohen's bananas, Green's bardic pilgrimage takes the reader on various twists and turns until, at last, the poet accepts the joy of accepting his fate.

Elliott Smith was one of the most gifted songwriters of the nineties, adored by worshipful fans for his subtly melancholic words and melodies. The sadness had its sources in the life. There was trauma from an early age, years of drug abuse and a chronic sense of disconnection that sometimes seemed almost self-engineered. Smith died violently in Los Angeles in 2003, under what some believe to be questionable circumstances, of a single fatal stab wound to the chest. By this time fame had found him, and record buyers who shared the listening experience felt he spoke directly to them from beyond: lonely, lovelorn, frustrated, fighting until he could fight no more. And yet, although his achingly intimate lyrics carried the weight of truth, Smith remained unknowable. In Torment Saint, William Todd Schultz gives us the first proper biography of the rock star, a decade after his death, imbued with affection, authority, sensitivity and long-awaited clarity. Torment Saint draws on Schultz's careful, deeply knowledgeable readings and insights, as well as on more than 150 hours of interviews with close friends, lovers, bandmates, peers, managers, label owners, and recording engineers and producers. This book unravels the remaining mysteries of Smith's life and his shocking, too-early end. It will be an indispensable examination of his life and legacy, both for Smith's legions of fans as well as readers still discovering his songbook.

You can tell a lot about somebody in a minute. If you choose the right minute. As a journalist (for Rolling Stone, the "New York Times", and elsewhere) and bestselling author, Neil Strauss considers it his job to hang around celebrities, rock gods, porn queens, up-and-coming starlets, and iconic superstars long enough - whether it takes moments or months - to find that minute, the one when the curtain finally falls away and the real person is revealed. In this new collection, Strauss offers up 120 of those singular, hit-you-in-the guts, perception-altering, revolutionary minutes, as only he can - with total honesty, deadpan wit, and unmatched style. Among the game-changing moments collected here are interviews with: Tom Cruise; Snoop Dogg; Madonna; Johnny Cash; Cher and Dave Navarro; Oasis; Julian Casablancas of The Strokes; Brian Wilson; Eric Clapton; and, Hugh Hefner. Wickedly illustrated throughout with sketches by artist Sian Pattenden, Strauss' first-ever collection of rock journalism is equally raw and revealing (Tom Cruise on Scientology, Brian Wilson on drugs and alcohol), hilarious (Snoop Dogg on record companies and baby diapers), and deeply honest (Eric Clapton on the death of Kurt Cobain and his own struggle with depression). "Everyone Loves You When You're Dead" is Neil Strauss, cultural journalist, at his finest.

Through rap and hip hop, entertainers have provided a voice questioning and challenging the sanctioned view of society. Examining the moral and social implications of Kanye West's art in the context of Western civilization's preconceived ideas, the contributors consider how West both challenges religious and moral norms and propagates them.

Music has always been central to the cultures that young people create, follow, and embrace. In the 1960s, young hippie kids sang along about peace with the likes of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and tried to change the world. In the 1970s, many young people ended up coming home in body bags from Vietnam, and the music scene changed, embracing punk and bands like The Sex Pistols. In Sells Like Teen Spirit, Ryan Moore tells the story of how music and youth culture have changed along with the economic, political, and cultural transformations of American society in the last four decades. By attending concerts, hanging out in dance clubs and after-hour bars, and examining the do-it-yourself music scene, Moore gives a riveting, first-hand account of the sights, sounds, and smells of "teen spirit."

Moore traces the histories of punk, hardcore, heavy metal, glam, thrash, alternative rock, grunge, and riot grrrl music, and relates them to wider social changes that have taken place. Alongside the thirty images of concert photos, zines, flyers, and album covers in the book, Moore offers original interpretations of the music of a wide range of bands including Black Sabbath, Black Flag, Metallica, Nirvana, and Sleater-Kinney. Written in a lively, engaging, and witty style, Sells Like Teen Spirit suggests a more hopeful attitude about the ways that music can be used as a counter to an overly commercialized culture, showcasing recent musical innovations by youth that emphasize democratic participation and creative self-expression--even at the cost of potential copyright infringement.