The Kybalion: A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece is a relatively modern addition to the body of work devoted to Hermes, an icon of ancient teachings that reveal the path to self transformation. In this revised edition, we have corrected many editorial issues inherent within the original text, creating a clearer presentation of the book's message: The Seven Hermetic Principles. These principles complement other Hermetic teachings and provide a foundation for your own spiritual awakening.As the book states, "The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of understanding."

Billy Bragg is one of Britain's most distinctive and accomplished songwriters, whose work has articulated the passions, both personal and political, of Britain during the past five decades. A Lover Sings contains over seventy of his best-known lyrics, selected and annotated by the author. 'Sexuality', 'A New England', 'Levi Stubbs' Tears' - these are unadorned, poetic songs that skilfully interweave everyday observation with much broader concerns: of fairness and outrage, of generosity and love. A Lover Sings reveals a unique sensibility: principled and proudly of the Left, funny, forthright and tender. It is a remarkable collection.

NEW UPDATED EDITION Bob Dylan is one of the most iconic figures in modern music, and for two decades, Howard Sounes' Down the Highway has been the definitive biography of an American icon. Based on years of research, documentary evidence, and interviews with 250 of Dylan's intimates--many exclusive--Down the Highway has gone beyond the scope of other accounts to become the most complete, authoritative biography of Bob Dylan now in print. It was praised by The Orlando Sentinel for the insights it offers to Dylan at work . . . from young upstart to grand old man of rock 'n' roll. . . . This book makes us realize now, while he's still with us, how valuable he has been to our culture these last forty years." Sounes's prodigious research has resulted in new insights on every aspect of Dylan's life. He has obtained exclusive information to provide the clearest picture yet of Dylan's 1966 motorcycle accident and subsequent "lost years" in Woodstock, New York, and he uncovered the star's unknown second marriage. He gives inside accounts of the tours, the creation of every album and the most celebrated songs, Dylan's labyrinthine love life, his life-threatening heart illness in 1997, and more--directly from interviews with girlfriends, family, friends, producers, concert promoters, and fellow musicians. As Dylan approaches his eightieth year, Howard Sounes once again brings Down the Highway up to date, following the last decade of Dylan's life and career. Candid, refreshing, and written with a sincere appreciation of Dylan's music and influence, Down the Highway is an essential book for the millions of people who have enjoyed Dylan's music over the years.

Quincy Jones: A Research and Information Guide is an annotated bibliography and discography on one of the most prolific composers, arrangers, and conductors in American music. This reference work will appeal to wide range of musicologists, ethnomusicologists and cultural studies scholars.

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.

Turbo-folk music is the most controversial form of popular culture in the new states of former Yugoslavia. Theoretically ambitious and innovative, this book is a new account of popular music that has been at the centre of national, political and cultural debates for over two decades. Beginning with 1970s Socialist Yugoslavia, Uros Cvoro explores the cultural and political paradoxes of turbo-folk: described as 'backward' music, whose misogynist and Serb nationalist iconography represents a threat to cosmopolitanism, turbo-folk's iconography is also perceived as a 'genuinely Balkan' form of resistance to the threat of neo-liberalism. Taking as its starting point turbo-folk's popularity across national borders, Cvoro analyses key songs and performers in Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia. The book also examines the effects of turbo on the broader cultural sphere - including art, film, sculpture and architecture - twenty years after its inception and popularization. What is proposed is a new way of reading the relationship of contemporary popular music to processes of cultural, political and social change - and a new understanding of how fundamental turbo-folk is to the recent history of former Yugoslavia and its successor states.

Punk Rock Warlord explores the relevance of Joe Strummer within the continuing legacies of both punk rock and progressive politics. It is aimed at scholars and general readers interested in The Clash, punk culture, and the intersections between pop music and politics, on both sides of the Atlantic. Contributors to the collection represent a wide range of disciplines, including history, sociology, musicology, and literature; their work examines all phases of Strummer's career, from his early days as 'Woody' the busker to the whirlwind years as front man for The Clash, to the 'wilderness years' and Strummer's final days with the Mescaleros. Punk Rock Warlord offers an engaging survey of its subject, while at the same time challenging some of the historical narratives that have been constructed around Strummer the Punk Icon. The essays in Punk Rock Warlord address issues including John Graham Mellor's self-fashioning as 'Joe Strummer, rock revolutionary'; critical and media constructions of punk; and the singer's complicated and changing relationship to feminism and anti-racist politics. These diverse essays nevertheless cohere around the claim that Strummer's look, style, and musical repertoire are so rooted in both English and American cultures that he cannot finally be extricated from either.

Rock and roll music evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and 1950s, as a combination of African American blues, country, pop, and gospel music produced a new musical genre. Even as it captured the ears of the nation, rock and roll was the subject of controversy and contention. The music intertwined with the social, political, and economic changes reshaping America and contributed to the rise of the youth culture that remains a potent cultural force today. A comprehensive understanding of post-World War II U.S. history would be incomplete without a basic knowledge of this cultural phenomenon and its widespread impact. In this short book, bolstered by primary source documents, Mitchell K. Hall explores the change in musical style represented by rock and roll, changes in technology and business practices, regional and racial implications of this new music, and the global influences of the music. The Emergence of Rock and Roll explains the huge influence that one cultural moment can have in the history of a nation.

Listen to Soul! Exploring a Musical Genre provides an overview of soul music for fans of the genre, with a focus on 50 must-hear singers, songs, and albums that define it. Listen to Soul! Exploring a Musical Genre provides both an overview and a critical analysis of what makes soul music in the United States. A list of 50 songs, albums, and musicians includes many of the best-known hits of the past and present as well as several important popular successes that are not necessarily on the "best-of" lists in other books. Like the other books in this series, this volume includes a background chapter followed by a chapter that contains 50 critical essays on must-hear albums, songs, and singers, approximately 1,500 words each. Chapters on the impact of soul music on popular culture and the legacy of the genre further explain the impact of these seminal compositions and musicians. This volume additionally includes a greater focus on soul music as a genre, making it a stand-out title on the topic for high school and college readers. Allows readers to quickly get a sense of the history of soul music in a broad overview Delves into critical analysis of 50 songs, albums, and musicians that define the genre Broadens the definition of what is considered soul music Discusses the impact on popular culture and legacy of soul music

Punk culture is currently having a revival worldwide and is poised to extend and mutate even more as youth unemployment and youth alienation increase in many countries of the world. In Russia, its power to have an impact and to shock is well illustrated by the state response to activist collective and punk band Pussy Riot. This book, based on extensive original research, examines the nature of punk culture in contemporary Russia. Drawing on interviews and observation, it explores the vibrant punk music scenes and the social relations underpinning them in three contrasting Russian cities. It relates punk to wider contemporary culture and uses the Russian example to discuss more generally what constitutes 'punk' today.

Black Music, Black Poetry offers readers a fuller appreciation of the diversity of approaches to reading black American poetry. It does so by linking a diverse body of poetry to musical genres that range from the spirituals to contemporary jazz. The poetry of familiar figures such as Paul Laurence Dunbar and Langston Hughes and less well-known poets like Harryette Mullen or the lyricist to Pharaoh Sanders, Amos Leon Thomas, is scrutinized in relation to a musical tradition contemporaneous with the lifetime of each poet. Black music is considered the strongest representation of black American communal consciousness; and black poetry, by drawing upon such a musical legacy, lays claim to a powerful and enduring black aesthetic. The contributors to this volume take on issues of black cultural authenticity, of musical imitation, and of poetic performance as displayed in the work of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, Amiri Baraka, Michael Harper, Nathaniel Mackey, Jayne Cortez, Harryette Mullen, and Amos Leon Thomas. Taken together, these essays offer a rich examination of the breath of black poetry and the ties it has to the rhythms and forms of black music and the influence of black music on black poetic practice.

Babes in Toyland was one of the most influential and underrated bands of the 1990s. They rode the wave of the Minneapolis grunge scene crafting a unique sound composed of self-taught instrumentation and unabashed banshee raging vocals. Their stage presence was enigmatic, their lyrics vitriolic, and their Kinderwhore fashion ironic and easy to emulate. But what made them most inspiring was their ethos and a unique brand of sisterhood that inspired fans to create Riot Grrl and form legendary bands such as 7 year Bitch, Bikini Kill, and Hole. Despite the media's politicization of them as an "all-female" band, the Babes insisted their music wasn't a political statement but about personal expression. They would dismiss labeling their act as feminist, but their actions sent a positive message of what a female space within music could look like. Now, almost 30 years after their most seminal record, Fontanelle, was released, the legend of the band is being resurrected and re-spun to reclaim their proper space and context in the history of music and women in rock.

'Counterculture' emerged as a term in the late 1960s and has been re-deployed in more recent decades in relation to other forms of cultural and socio-political phenomena. This volume provides an essential new academic scrutiny of the concept of 'counterculture' and a critical examination of the period and its heritage. Recent developments in sociological theory complicate and problematise theories developed in the 1960s, with digital technology, for example, providing an impetus for new understandings of counterculture. Music played a significant part in the way that the counterculture authored space in relation to articulations of community by providing a shared sense of collective identity. Not least, the heady mixture of genres provided a socio-cultural-political backdrop for distinctive musical practices and innovations which, in relation to counterculture ideology, provided a rich experiential setting in which different groups defined their relationship both to the local and international dimensions of the movement, so providing a sense of locality, community and collective identity.

The late Jan Fairley (1949-2012) was a key figure in making world music a significant topic for popular music studies and an influential contributor to such world music magazines as fRoots and Songlines. This book celebrates her contribution to popular music scholarship by gathering her most important work together in a single place. The result is a richly informed and entertaining volume that will be of interest to all scholars in the field while also serving as an excellent introduction for students interested in popular music as a global phenomenon. Fairley's work was focused on the problems and possibilities of cross-cultural musical influences, fantasies and flows and on the importance of performing circuits and networks. Her interest in the details of music-making and in the lives of music-makers means that this collection is also an original and illuminating study of music and politics. In drawing on Jan Fairley's journalism, this volume also offers students a guide to various genres of world music, from Cuban son to flamenco, as well as an insight into the lives of such world music stars as Mercedes Sosa and Silvio RodrA guez. This is inspiring as well as essential reading.

The musical genre of taarab is played for entertainment at weddings and other festive occasions all along the Swahili Coast in East Africa. Taarab contains all the features of a typical 'Indian Ocean' music, combining influences from Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, India and the West with local musical practices. In Taarab, Music in Zanzibar, Janet Topp Fargion traces the development of the genre in Zanzibar, from the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth. Of special interest is the role of women. Although men play the main role in the composition and performance of the genre, Topp Fargion argues that the modernization of the genre owes a debt to the participation of women - as audiences and primary consumers, but also as poets and innovators of musical concepts. The book weaves together the historical, social, economic, religious and political dynamics involved in the development of the genre, and investigates how these are played out in the performance of taarab music on Zanzibar.

Seditious Theology explores the much analysed British punk movement of the 1970s from a theological perspective. Imaginatively engaging with subjects such as subversion, deconstruction, confrontation and sedition, this book highlights the stark contrasts between the punk genre and the ministry of Jesus while revealing surprising similarities and, in so doing, demonstrates how we may look at both subjects in fresh and unusual ways. Johnson looks at both punk and Jesus and their challenges to symbols, gestures of revolt, constructive use of conflict and the shattering of relational norms. He then points to the seditious pattern in Jesus' life and the way it can be discerned in some recent trends in theology. The imaginative images that he creates provide a challenging image of Jesus and of those who have relooked radically in recent years at what being a 'seditious' follower of Christ means for the church. Introducing both a new partner for theological conversation and a fresh way of how to go about the task, this book presents a powerful approach to exploring the life of Christ and a new way of engaging with both recent theological trends and the more challenging expressions of popular culture.

The 'Warzone Collective' began in 1984 in the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland when a few local punks decided to consolidate their efforts and get their own venue, practice & social space. In 1986 the Collective opened its first premises in Belfast called 'Giros'. It provided a vegetarian cafe, practice space, screen printing facilities, etc. Over time the space soon became a focal point for anarchists, punks & other forward thinking individuals. In 1991 the Collective moved to a larger and more ambitious venue, which is where all of the photographs in this book were taken. Over the years thousands of people passed through Giros' doors and were exposed to some amazing bands, and new ideas. A strong D.I.Y. ethic defined the way gigs and events were organized. Over time, a recording studio, screen printing & photographic dark room facilities were set up, along with a vegetarian cafe. It didn't have an alcohol license - Giros was an all ages venue. The 'Warzone Centre' or 'The Centre' as it was called by some, became the counter-cultural alternative hub for the greater Belfast area and beyond. Bands from all over the world came here to play. It soon became infamous as being one of the most credible venues in Europe for D.I.Y. punk. The photographs in this book were taken sporadically over the years somewhere between 1997 - 2003. A small window of time considering the Warzone Collective opened its first venue in 1986. Towards the end of 2003 the Centre closed for a number of different reasons, leaving a huge gap in radical Belfast culture. In 2011, the Warzone Centre reopened after an 8 year hiatus, in a different venue on the opposite side of town. It is still going strong today.

Since the early 2000s New Zealand has undergone a pop renaissance. Domestic artists' sales, airplay and concert attendance have all grown dramatically while new avenues for 'kiwi' pop exports emerged. Concurrent with these trends was a new collective sentiment that embraced and celebrated domestic musicians. In Making New Zealand's Pop Renaissance, Michael Scott argues that this revival arose from state policies and shows how the state built market opportunities for popular musicians through public-private partnerships and organizational affinity with existing music industry institutions. New Zealand offers an instructive case for the ways in which 'after neo-liberal' states steer and co-ordinate popular culture into market exchange by incentivizing cultural production. Scott highlights how these music policies were intended to address various economic and social problems. Arriving with the creative industries' discourse and policy making, politicians claimed these expanded popular music supports would facilitate sustainable employment and a sense of national identity. Yet popular music as economic and social policy presents a paradox: the music industry generates commercial failure and thus requires a large unattached pool of potential talent. Considering this feature, Scott analyses how state programs induced an informal economy of proto-pop production aimed at accessing competitive state funding while simultaneously encouraging musicians to adopt entrepreneurial subjectivities. In doing so he argues New Zealand's music policies are a form of social policy that unintentionally deploy hierarchical structures to foster social inclusion amongst growing numbers of creative workers.

Tempo: A Scarecrow Press Music Series on Rock, Pop, and Culture offers titles that explore rock and popular music through the lens of social and cultural history, revealing the dynamic relationship between musicians, music, and their milieu. Like other major art forms, rock and pop music comment on their cultural, political, and even economic situation, reflecting technological advances, psychological concerns, religious feelings, and artistic trends of the times. Like other major musical artists, Bruce Springsteen's work has reflected, revealed, and reacted to modern American realities over the course of his forty-year career. Since releasing his first record in 1973, Springsteen has sold more than a hundred million albums worldwide, played thousands of concerts, and won Grammy, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Academy awards. More importantly, however, he is one of the few twentieth-century singer-songwriters to serve as the voice of his generation, a defining artist whose works reflect the values, dreams, and concerns of many Americans. In Bruce Springsteen: American Poet and Prophet, Donald L. Deardorff II explores the works of "The Boss," defining the exact nature of Springsteen's cultural influence. With the release of seventeen studio albums, Springsteen's influence and popularity spans multiple generations. Deardorff classifies and explains Springsteen's remarkable reception as it evolved from small beginnings in the Jersey shore bars of the 1970s to worldwide fame today. This book thoughtfully considers the trenchant commentary Springsteen's albums make on the mythology of the American Dream, working-class concerns, the changing character of American masculinity, the relationship between Americans and their government, the importance of social justice, and the evocation of an American spirit. Bruce Springsteen: American Poet and Prophet will appeal to more than just Springsteen fans. It describes Springsteen as an apt critic of his own culture, whose music paints literary portraits that uncover the realities of an American society constantly evolving, while striving toward its own betterment.

* Dismisses traditional, chronological format designed around European western canon to meets needs of today's ethnically diverse students, who identify their heritage as Asian, African, or Central American rather than European * Builds on a series of chapter-long theme-oriented narratives such as ethnicity, gender, spirituality, love, technology, that interweave the musical "here and now" * Focuses on how music creates and reflects social meaning in a variety of cultures and time periods. * Leads the student from music or ideas with which they are familiar to music that is unfamiliar, always through the connecting thread of the original social concept.

Religion and Hip Hop brings together the category of religion, Hip Hop cultural modalities and the demographic of youth. Bringing postmodern theory and critical approaches in the study of religion to bear on Hip Hop cultural practices, this book examines how scholars in religious and theological studies have deployed and approached religion when analyzing Hip Hop data. Using existing empirical studies on youth and religion to the cultural criticism of the Humanities, Religion and Hip Hop argues that common among existing scholarship is a thin interrogation of the category of religion. As such, Miller calls for a redescription of religion in popular cultural analysis - a challenge she further explores and advances through various materialist engagements. Going beyond the traditional and more common approach of analyzing rap lyrics, from film, dance, to virtual reality, Religion and Hip Hop takes a fresh approach to exploring the paranoid posture of the religious in popular cultural forms, by going beyond what "is" religious about Hip Hop culture. Rather, Miller explores what rhetorical uses of religion in Hip Hop culture accomplish for various and often competing social and cultural interests.

Mute Records is one of the most influential, commercially successful, and long-lasting of the British independent record labels formed in the wake of the late-1970's punk explosion. Yet, in comparison with contemporaries such as Rough Trade or Stiff, its legacy remains under-explored. This edited collection addresses Mute's wide-ranging impact. Drawing from disciplines such as popular music studies, musicology, and fan studies, it takes a distinctive, artist-led approach, outlining the history of the label by focusing each chapter on one of its acts. The book covers key moments in the company's evolution, from the first releases by The Normal and Fad Gadget to recent work by Arca and Dirty Electronics. It shines new light on the most successful Mute artists, including Depeche Mode, Nick Cave, Erasure, Moby, and Goldfrapp, while also exploring the label's avant-garde innovators, such as Throbbing Gristle, Mark Stewart, Labaich, Ut, and Swans. Mute Records examines the business and aesthetics of independence through the lens of the label's artists.

The emergence of Thatcherism around 1980, which ushered in a period of neo-liberalism in British politics that still resonates today, led musicians, like other artists, to respond to their context of production. This book uses the early work of one of these musicians, Elvis Costello, to explore the relationship between popular music and politics in one historical period. It is not a biography but an exploration of the interaction between a creative musician's works and their context of constraint and opportunity. Pilgrim and Ormrod unpack the political meaning of Thatcherism and deal with matters arising in that political context about Costello's life but which had resonance for many others at the time (and still do). These topics include the politics of race, class, gender and ageing, emphasising the recurring theme of nostalgia in modern and post-modern life. Throughout the book examples are provided of Costello's songs and how they work musically to illustrate or stimulate the contextual discussion. The book will be of significant interest to musicologists, sociologists and social psychologists.

This is the first full-length study of British women's instrumental chamber music in the early twentieth century. Laura Seddon argues that the Cobbett competitions, instigated by Walter Willson Cobbett in 1905, and the formation of the Society of Women Musicians in 1911 contributed to the explosion of instrumental music written by women in this period and highlighted women's place in British musical society in the years leading up to and during the First World War. Seddon investigates the relationship between Cobbett, the Society of Women Musicians and women composers themselves. The book's six case studies - of Adela Maddison (1866-1929), Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), Morfydd Owen (1891-1918), Ethel Barns (1880-1948), Alice Verne-Bredt (1868-1958) and Susan Spain-Dunk (1880-1962) - offer valuable insight into the women's musical education and compositional careers. Seddon's discussion of their chamber works for differing instrumental combinations includes an exploration of formal procedures, an issue much discussed by contemporary sources. The individual composers' reactions to the debate instigated by the Society of Women Musicians, on the future of women's music, is considered in relation to their lives, careers and the chamber music itself. As the composers in this study were not a cohesive group, creatively or ideologically, the book draws on primary sources, as well as the writings of contemporary commentators, to assess the legacy of the chamber works produced.