Rock Atlas has hundreds of stories which deliver a fresh, new insight into the lives of the UK and Ireland's rock and pop stars. This fact-packed look at rock and pop, from an entirely different perspective, throws up many new revelations about our favourite musicians. When you ve finished reading the stories, you can visit the places. Every one of the book's 800 entries is followed by directions for how to find the iconic venues, record shops, statues, album cover shoots, childhood homes and festival sites.

This scholarly analysis of the music of Taylor Swift identifies how and why she is one of the early 21st century's most recognizable and most popular stars. By the age of 13, singer-songwriter Taylor Swift had already inked a development deal with a major record label. This early milestone was an appropriate predictor of what accomplishments were to come. Now a superstar artist with an international fanbase of millions and several critically acclaimed and commercially successful albums, Swift has established herself as one of the most important musicians of the 21st century. This accessible book serves Taylor Swift fans as well as students of contemporary popular music and popular culture, critically examining all of this young artist's work to date. The book's organization is primarily chronological, covering Taylor Swift's album and single releases in order of release date while also documenting the elements of her music and personality that have made her popular with fans of country music and pop music across a surprisingly diverse age range of listeners. The chapters address how Swift's songs have been viewed by some fans as anthems of empowerment or messages of encouragement, particularly by members of the LGBTQ community, those who have been bullied or been seen as outsiders, and emerging artists. The final chapter places Swift's work and her public persona in the context of her times with respect to her use of and relationship with technology-for example, her use of social media and songwriting technology-and her expressions of a new type of feminism that is unlike the feminism of the 1970s. Provides the only scholarly critical analysis of the songs and recordings of megastar Taylor Swift Places Swift, her work, and her public stances in the context of her generation and its definition of "empowerment" and "feminism" Explores Swift's work as an extension of the early 1970s' confessional singer-songwriter movement

Released in 2008, J-pop trio Perfume's GAME shot to the top of Japanese music charts and turned the Hiroshima trio into a household name across the country. It was also a high point for techno-pop, the genre's biggest album since the heyday of Yellow Magic Orchestra. This collection of maximalist but emotional electronic pop stands as one of the style's finest moments, with its influence still echoing from artists both in Japan and from beyond. This book examines Perfume's underdog story as a group long struggling for success, the making of GAME, and the history of techno-pop that shaped it. 33 1/3 Global, a series related to but independent from 33 1/3, takes the format of the original series of short, music-basedbooks and brings the focus to music throughout the world. With initial volumes focusing on Japanese and Brazilian music, the series will also include volumes on the popular music of Australia/Oceania, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and more.

For centuries many have pondered the prospect of an afterlife and feared what came to be known as 'hell'. In the near future, we map the elusive 'dark matter' around us, only to find out that it is hell itself, and it is very real... As the satanic President Razour attempts to bring forward Armageddon to prevent humanity repenting, the fate of us all rests in the hands of Cleric20, a hedonistic loner with a chequered past, and his robot sidekick, GiX. An action-packed literary shock to the senses that mixes flights of comic fantasy with bouts of brutal violence. Mankind's only hope seems to be having a very bad day. Can Cleric20 halt Razour's devilish plans after an experimental bioweapon deployed to kill him accidentally gives him superpowers? Has the Devil inadvertently created a hero who could actually stop him? See why this was voted as one of Den of Geek UK's Top Books of 2019. Little can prepare you for this spiritually-charged, cyber-noir thrill ride.

Smith examines the different ways in which gay men use pop music, both as producers and consumers, and how, in turn, pop uses gay men. He asks what role culture plays in shaping identity and why pop continues to thrill gay men. These 40 essays and interviews look at how performers, from The Kinks' Ray Davies to Gene's Martin Rossiter, have used pop as a platform to explore and articulate, conform to or contest notions of sexuality and gender. A defence of cultural differences and an attack on cultural elitism, Seduced and Abandoned is as passionate and provocative as pop itself.

Black celebrities in America have always walked a precarious line between their perceived status as spokespersons for their race and their own individual success -and between being "not black enough" for the black community or "too black" to appeal to a broader audience. Few know this tightrope walk better than Kanye West, who transformed hip-hop, pop and gospel music, redefined fashion, married the world's biggest reality TV star and ran for president, all while becoming one of only a handful of black billionaires worldwide. Despite these accomplishments, his polarizing behavior, controversial alliances and bouts with mental illness have made him a caricature in the media and a disappointment among much of his fanbase. This book examines West's story and what it reveals about black celebrity and identity and the American dream.

Through a transnational, comparative and multi-level approach to the relationship between youth, migration, and music, the aesthetic intersections between the local and the global, and between agency and identity, are presented through case studies in this book. Transglobal Sounds contemplates migrant youth and the impact of music in diaspora settings and on the lives of individuals and collectives, engaging with broader questions of how new modes of identification are born out of the social, cultural, historical and political interfaces between youth, migration and music. Thus, through acts of mobility and environments lived in and in-between, this volume seeks to articulate between musical transnationalism and sense of place in exploring the complex relationship between music and young migrants and migrant descendant's everyday lives.