Author: David BarkerPublisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 0826419038
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
A collection of reviews of individual albums, c2003-2006.
33 1/3 Greatest Hits, Volume 1
Author: David BarkerPublisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1441101853
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
The writings in this book are extracted from volumes 1 through 20 of our 33 1/3 series - short books about individual albums. In here you'll find a wide variety of authors, albums, and approaches to writing about those albums. So sit back, put on your headphones, cue up your favourite songs, and let our writers transport you to a time when: Dusty Springfield headed south to Memphis to record a pop/soul classic; The Kinks almost fell to pieces, and managed to make their best album while doing so; Joy Division and their mad, brilliant producer created a debut record that still sounds painfully hip today; James Brown mesmerized a sell-out crowd at the Apollo, in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis; The Rolling Stones shacked up in the South of France and emerged with one of the best double-albums ever; The Ramones distilled punk rock into its purest, most enduring essence... 33 1/3 Greatest Hits, Volume 1: it's like a compilation album, without the filler.
33 1/3 Greatest Hits, Volume 2
Author: David BarkerPublisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1441142363
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 349
Book Description
The second compendium of extracts from Continuum's acclaimed and successful 33 1/3 series, Volume 2 features 20 sharp, savvy and very different writers' takes on albums by Neutral Milk Hotel, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, David Bowie, the Pixies, the Beastie Boys, Nirvana, R.E.M, the Band and many more. A perfect gift for the music lover in your life!
Tori Amos's Boys for Pele
Author: Amy GentryPublisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501321315
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
It's hard to think of a solo female recording artist who has been as revered or as reviled over the course of her career as Tori Amos. Amy Gentry argues that these violent aesthetic responses to Amos's performance, both positive and negative, are organized around disgust-the disgust that women are taught to feel, not only for their own bodies, but for their taste in music. Released in 1996, Amos's third album, Boys for Pele, represents the height of Amos's willingness to explore the ugly qualities that make all of her music, even her more conventionally beautiful albums, so uncomfortably, and so wonderfully, strange. Using a blend of memoir, criticism, and aesthetic theory, Gentry argues that the aesthetics of disgust are useful for thinking in a broader way about women's experience of all art forms.
Stories Behind the Greatest Hits of Christmas
Author: Ace CollinsPublisher: Zondervan
ISBN: 0310327954
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
Collins reveals the stories behind the greatest hits of Christmas--songs enjoyed for generations. "Stories Behind the Greatest Hits of Christmas" is a treasure-trove of inspiration, information, and the kind of magic that makes Christmas the beloved holiday it is.
Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course: Greatest Hits Book 1
Author: E. L. LancasterPublisher: Alfred Music
ISBN: 9781457410246
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 52
Book Description
This series answers the often-expressed need for a variety of supplementary material in many different popular styles. What could be more fun for an adult than to play the music that everybody knows and loves? When the books in the Greatest Hits series are assigned in conjunction with the Lesson Books, these appealing pieces reinforce new concepts as they are introduced. In addition, the motivation the music provides could not be better. The emotional satisfaction students receive from mastering each popular song increases their enthusiasm to begin the next one. With the popular music available in the Greatest Hits series (Levels 1 and 2), the use of both books will significantly increase every adult's interest in piano study. Two selections from this book are featured on the Royal Conservatory of Music Popular Selection List (2007 Ed.): * The Rainbow Connection * Nadia's Theme
The 33 1/3 B-sides
Author: Will StocktonPublisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501342452
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
If given another chance to write for the series, which albums would 33 1/3 authors focus on the second time around? This anthology features compact essays from past 33 1/3 authors on albums that consume them, but about which they did not write. It explores often overlooked and underrated albums that may not have inspired their 33 1/3 books, but have played a large part in their own musical cultivation. Questions central to the essays include: How has this album influenced your worldview? How does this album intersect with your other creative and critical pursuits? How does this album index a particular moment in cultural history? In your own personal history? Why is the album perhaps under-the-radar, or a buried treasure? Why can't you stop listening to it? Bringing together 33 1/3's rich array of writers, critics, and scholars, this collection probes our taste in albums, our longing for certain tunes, and our desire to hit repeat--all while creating an expansive "must-listen" list for readers in search of unexplored musical territories.
The Shangri-Las’ Golden Hits of the Shangri-Las
Author: Ada WolinPublisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501331760
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 135
Book Description
Of the many girl-groups that came out of the 1960s, none is more idiosyncratic and influential than the Shangri-Las. They were together only five years, but within that time they subverted pop standards and foreshadowed a generation of tough women in music. Critically, they are not lauded in the way of the Ronettes, and they are certainly not a household name like the Supremes. They were a little too low-brow with an uncouth flair for theatrics that has placed them just left of the girl-group canon. This book examines the still-elusive validation of 1960s girl-groups as a whole, but also paradoxically aims to free the Shangri-Las from that category, viewing them instead with the sort of individuality traditionally afforded to rock groups. They were somehow able to challenge the status quo under the guise of sticky-sweet pop, a feat not many pop groups can achieve, but which they do fleetingly but not insubstantially in Golden Hits of the Shangri-Las.
Blondie's Parallel Lines
Author: Kembrew McLeodPublisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501302388
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 165
Book Description
Blondie's Parallel Lines mixed punk, disco and radio-friendly FM rock with nostalgic influences from 1960s pop and girl group hits. This 1978 album kept one foot planted firmly in the past while remaining quite forward-looking, an impulse that can be heard in its electronic dance music hit “Heart of Glass.” Bubblegum music maven Mike Chapman produced Parallel Lines, which was the first massive hit by a group from the CBGB punk underworld. By embracing the diversity of New York City's varied music scenes, Blondie embodied many of the tensions that played out at the time between fans of disco, punk, pop and mainstream rock. Debbie Harry's campy glamor and sassy snarl shook up the rock'n'roll boy's club during a growing backlash against the women's and gay liberation movements, which helped fuel the “disco sucks” battle cry in the late 1970s. Despite disco's roots in a queer, black and Latino underground scene that began in downtown New York, punk is usually celebrated by critics and scholars as the quintessential subculture. This book challenges the conventional wisdom that dismissed disco as fluffy prefab schlock while also recuperating punk's unhip pop influences, revealing how these two genres were more closely connected than most people assume. Even Blondie's album title, Parallel Lines, evokes the parallel development of punk and disco-along with their eventual crossover into the mainstream.
Janet Jackson's The Velvet Rope
Author: Ayanna DozierPublisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501355031
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 155
Book Description
The question of control for Black women is a costly one. From 1986 onwards, the trajectory of Janet Jackson's career can be summed up in her desire for control. Control for Janet was never simply just about her desire for economic and creative control over her career but was, rather, an existential question about the desire to control and be in control over her bodily integrity as a Black woman. This book examines Janet's continuation of her quest for control as heard in her sixth album, The Velvet Rope. Engaging with the album, the promotion, the tour, and its accompanying music videos, this study unpacks how Janet uses Black cultural production as an emancipatory act of self-creation that allows her to reconcile with and, potentially, heal from trauma, pain, and feelings of alienation. The Velvet Rope's arc moves audiences to imagine the possibility of what emancipation from oppression--from sexual, to internal, to societal--could look like for the singer and for others. The sexually charged content and themes of abuse, including self-harm and domestic violence, were dismissed as “selling points” for Janet at the time of its release. The album stands out as a revelatory expression of emotional vulnerability by the singer, one that many other artists have followed in the 20-plus years since its release.
