Exploring U2: Is This Rock 'n' Roll? features new writing in the growing field of U2 studies. Edited by Scott Calhoun, with a foreword by Anthony DeCurtis, Exploring U2 contains selections from the 2009 inaugural gathering of "The Hype and The Feedback: A Conference Exploring The Music, Work and Influence of U2." In keeping with U2's own efforts to remove barriers that have long prevented dialogue for understanding and improving the human experience, this collection of essays examines U2 from perspectives ranging from the personal to the academic and is accessible to curious music fans, students, teachers, and scholars alike. Four sections organize sixteen essays from leading academics, music critics, clergy, and fans. From the academic disciplines of literature, music, philosophy, and theology, essays study U2's evolving use of source material in live performances, the layering of vocal effects in signature songs, the crafting of a spiritual community at live concerts, U2's success as a business brand, Bono's rhetorical presentation of Africa to the Western consumer, and readings of U2's work for irony, personhood, hope, conservatism, and cosmic-time. Official band biographer Neil McCormick considers U2 as a Dublin-shaped band, and Danielle Rheaume tells how discovering and returning Bono's lost briefcase of lyrics for the album October propelled her along her own artistic journey. This thoughtful and timely collection recognizes U2's music both as art and commentary on personal journeys and cultural dialogues about contemporary issues. It offers insights and critical assessments that will appeal not only to scholars and students of popular music and culture studies but to those in the fields of theology, philosophy, the performing arts, literature, and all intellectually curious fans of U2.

Featuring fresh insights from Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ronnie, Unzipped digs deeper than ever before into the Stones' archives to present a comprehensive collection of Stones artworks, instruments, stage outfits and notebooks alongside key work by some of the legends of rock photography. For almost 60 years the Rolling Stones have helped shape popular culture around the globe. Unzipped captures the compelling character and dynamic spectacle of the band through distinctive photography and interviews with the Stones themselves, tracing their impact and influence on rock music, art, design, fashion, photography and filmmaking. Evocative archive photos, artworks, outtakes and memorabilia, together with dazzling images of the band's instruments and outfits, plunge you into the ever-changing world of the Stones. Many of the instruments and outfits are paired with pertinent archive photos, so you can examine the detail and see the objects in use. Peppered throughout with engrossing and insightful new commentary by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood, the book also features a compelling introduction by Anthony DeCurtis, which chronicles their career, and perceptive articles by some of their most important creative collaborators, including Buddy Guy, Don Was, Anna Sui, John Varvatos, Martin Scorsese, Shepherd Fairey, Patrick Woodroffe and Willie Williams. Bold, glamorous and captivating - and beautifully bound and finished - Unzipped is the perfect showcase for 'the greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world'. With 400 illustrations, 370 in colour

Considering the work of such artists as Madonna, George Clinton, U2, Elvis Costello, and Nirvana, the contributors deftly combine the rigors of scholarship with the energy of rock journalism to provide an analysis at once critical, contextualized, and enthusiastic. While a number of scholars have recently turned their attention to rock and pop music, most of their work has focused on providing sweeping cultural contexts for its popularity rather than exploring the music itself. Now, in "Reading Rock and Roll, " Kevin Dettmar and William Richey have gathered a wealth of erudite, original, and clever writings that perform close readings of rock music -- often with surprising results.

The authors in this volume view rock and roll as having had affinities with postmodernism from its inception. With its mongrel pedigree -- drawing on blues, folk, R and B, and bluegrass -- and its relation to mass media and high-tech modes of production, rock music has been self-conscious and full of irony from the beginning. These essays regularly call attention to the allusiveness and intertextuality of rock and roll, whether it is Kurt Cobain undermining the Beatles, M. C. Hammer stealing from Rick James's "Super Freak," or U2's use of Johnny Cash's legendary voice.

From a careful examination of the roles of addictions and female sexuality in the remakings of Courtney Love and Madonna, to the politics of George Clinton's uses and abuses of language, to the referencing of Elvis Costello in two recent novels and the use of 1970s rock in several recent film soundtracks, these essays are as varied as the artists they consider. Informal and theoretically informed, "Reading Rock and Roll" is an important investigation of the music that more than any other has defined our century.

A brash and dazzling celebration of the instruments that created the sounds of rock and roll from the 1940s to the present day Play It Loud celebrates the musical instruments that gave rock and roll its signature sound-from Louis Jordan's alto saxophone and John Lennon's Rickenbacker to the drum set owned by Metallica's Lars Ulrich, Lady Gaga's keytar, and beyond. Seven engrossing essays by veteran music journalists and scholars discuss the technical developments that fostered rock's seductive riffs and driving rhythms, the thrilling innovations musicians have devised to achieve unique effects, and the visual impact their instruments have had. Abundant photographs depict rock's most iconic instruments-including Jerry Lee Lewis's baby grand piano, Chuck Berry's Gibson ES-350T guitar, Bootsy Collins's star-shaped bass, Keith Moon's drum set, and the white Stratocaster Jimi Hendrix played at Woodstock-as works of art in their own right. Produced in collaboration with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, this astounding book goes behind the music to offer a rare and in-depth look at the instruments that inspired the musicians and made possible the songs we know and love.

Robert Palmer's extraordinary knowledge and boundless love of music were evident in all his writing. He was an authority on rock & roll, blues, jazz, punk, avant-garde, and world music--often discovering new artists and trends years (even decades) before they hit the mainstream. Noted music writer Anthony DeCurtis has compiled the best pieces from Palmer's oeuvre and presents them here, in one compelling volume.
A member of the elite group of the defining rock critics who emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, Palmer possessed a vision so complete that, as DeCurtis writes, "it's almost as if, if you read Bob, you didn't need to read anyone else." "Blues & Chaos "features some of his most memorable pieces about John Lennon, Led Zeppelin, Moroccan trance music, Miles Davis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Philip Glass, and Muddy Waters. Wonderfully entertaining, infused with passion, and deeply inspiring, "Blues & Chaos "is a must for music fans everywhere.

A GUARDIAN AND CHOICE BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A walk on the wild side with the alt-rock pioneer' GQ 'DeCurtis is well placed to trace Reed's five-decade career, drawing on insider knowledge but skilfully balancing it with detailed research and fascinating interviews' Mojo Magazine As lead singer and songwriter for the Velvet Underground and a renowned solo artist, Lou Reed invented alternative rock. His music, at once the height of sanctity and perversity, transcended a genre, speaking to millions of listeners, inspiring a new generation of musicians, and forever changing the way we think of that iconic era of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. Throughout his five-decade career, Reed embodied artistic self-awareness and captured the beauty, paranoia, and vivacity of his time into an array of hit songs, experimental albums, and a larger-than-life persona. With such masterpieces as 'Sweet Jane' and 'Walk on the Wild Side', Reed exerted an influence on popular music rivaled only by the likes of Bob Dylan and the Beatles and is recognized to this day as one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. Now, just a few years after Reed's death, comes the thrilling, provocative story of his complex life. An acclaimed Rolling Stone contributor, Anthony DeCurtis interviewed Reed extensively and knew him well. With unparalleled access to Reed's friends, family, and dozens of other intimate relations, DeCurtis brings Reed's story compellingly alive and deepens our understanding of his indelible music. We travel deep into the underground artist clubs, listen along in the studio as the Velvet Underground record their signature work, and revel in Reed's relationship with legendaries like Andy Warhol, Patti Smith, and David Bowie. Insightful, revelatory, and intimate, Lou Reed is a gripping tribute to a quintessential American icon.

The most compelling art form to emerge from the United States in the second half of the twentieth century, rock & roll stands in an edgy relationship with its own mythology, its own musicological history and the broader culture in which it plays a part. In Present Tense, Anthony DeCurtis brings together writers from a wide variety of fields to explore how rock & roll is made, consumed, and experienced in our time.
In this collection, Greil Marcus creates a collage of words and pictures that evokes and explores Elvis Presley's grisly fate as an American cultural image, while Robert Palmer tells the gripping tale of the origins and meanings of the electric guitar. Rap music, MTV, and the issue of gender identity in the work of Bruce Springsteen all undergo thorough examination; rock & roll's complex relationship with the forces of censorship gets a remarkably fresh reading; and the mainstreaming of rock & roll in the 1980s is detailed and analyzed. And, in an interview with Laurie Anderson and an essay by Atlanta musician Jeff Calder, the artists speak for themselves.
Contributors. Jeff Calder, Anthony DeCurtis, Mark Dery, Paul Evans, Glenn Gass, Trent Hill, Michael Jarrett, Alan Light, Greil Marcus, Robert Palmer, Robert B. Ray, Dan Rubey, David R. Shumway, Martha Nell Smith, Paul Smith

Rocking My Life Away represents nearly twenty years of writing by one of the premier critics of popular music in America today. In these pieces from Rolling Stone, the New York Times, and other publications, Anthony DeCurtis reveals his ongoing engagement with rock & roll as artistic forum, source of personal inspiration, and compelling site of cultural struggle. Including significant new work—liner notes commissioned for the Phil Spector box set and a spirited discussion with Peter Buck of R.E.M. about rock criticism, for example—DeCurtis also ventures with insight and power beyond the world of rock & roll. A joint profile of the political writers Neil Sheehan and Taylor Branch and provocative looks at the work of novelists Don DeLillo and T. Coraghessan Boyle round out this eclectic collection.