The Monkees' immensely popular television series began in 1966. It was immediately followed by a remarkable four consecutive Number 1 albums and six Top 10 singles. In the 1980s the Monkees reached an entirely new audience when MTV began re-running the TV show. Their cult status remains solid today as critics reassess their music and new fans discover the show. Follow the band's short but explosive career in this examination that includes exclusive interviews with each member of the group, details of recording sessions, filming commitments, concert performances, other public appearances, and over 100 photographs and illustrations.

    Briefly, we learn the way a musical tradition born in Ancient Greece, embraced by the Roman Empire, and subsequently nurtured by influences from across the globe, gave shape to the classical music that came to be embraced by cultures from Japan to Bolivia. Then Mauceri examines the music itself, helping us understand what it is we hear when we listen to classical music: how, by a kind of sonic metaphor, it expresses the deepest recesses of human feeling and emotion; how each piece bears the traces of its history; how the concert experience--a unique one each and every time--allows us to discover music anew. Unpretentious, graceful, instructive, this is a book for the aficionado, the novice, and anyone looking to have the love of music fired within them.

    Gombrich's highly influential collected contributions to the study of Renaissance art and thought. Its 11 essays deal with some of the most fundamental questions of style, patronage, taste, working methods and theories of art, presented with the author's customary learning and lucidity. Required reading for all students of the Renaissance, these essays are sure to be enjoyed by all who wish to deepen their understanding of one of the most creative periods of Western art.

    He has a public meltdown while chaperoning Oasis at an awards ceremony; he’s lost joy in his bathroom full of rock’n’roll memorabilia; and his young son is in trouble at school for emulating rock star behaviour.Reluctantly Michael consults Mrs Henckel, a no-nonsense therapist with zero experience of pop culture. As Michael addresses his feelings about the past, in particular his failed teenage band, Mental Elf, he’s forced to confront the question: is it finally time to grow up and forget rock’n’roll?Michael Odell is a former contributing editor to Q magazine and has written about music for NME, the Guardian, the Independent and Spin, among others. Currently he does interviews and writes on family matters for The Times. He lives in Bristol."Please don't put your life in the hands of a rock 'n' roll band, who'll throw it all away." So advised Noel Gallagher in 1995 and Michael Odell ignored him anyway.One of Britain's most fearless rock interrogators, Odell turns his merciless searchlight on himself in this wry, compelling odyssey into the heart of his own - and rock n roll's - madness. Larks with the legends are all here (Bowie, McCartney, Mick `n' Keef ... Michael Buble) but it's his inner life which illuminates, his psyche traumatically crumbling as he confronts his chaotic past. Hilarious, tragic and timely, this is high farce in high (and low) places, uncovering why rock's lost highway is littered with the bodies of the righteous dreamers. Could it be because "the music people are all mad?" (Clue: yes.)' -- Sylvia Patterson, author of I'm Not with the Band `Hilarious and disarmingly honest; a journey into the neurosis of rock fame, but through doors you don't expect.' -- Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry `Rock Bottom is one of the best music books ever written, because Michael Odell knows music isn't about the musicians - it's about what it does to the listener, even if what it does ends up being wholly disastrous. It's sad, funny, fascinating and wise. And everyone who ever claimed a record changed their life should read it, and then think again.' -- Michael Hann, former Guardian music editor

    BUT NOT UNAIDED.Dark Souls is back and it's darker and more difficult than ever. This time death is certain. Every minute. The Dark Souls II Collector's Edition Guide is here to light a path through the darkness and to help free players from their wicked curse.From the same team that created the critically acclaimed Dark Souls guide comes the most anticipated strategy guide for the most unforgiving game of the year.Area Guide Walkthrough - detailed maps to guide you in exploring every inch of the game s huge world. Learn shortcuts that will not only save time but also reduce deaths by PvP invasion. Discover the most powerful weapons and useful treasures.Multiplayer Guide - Co-operation and survival or invasion and destruction all of the essential techniques are discussed. For new players, basic survival tactics are explained. For advanced players, the hidden technical details are revealed to keep them on the cutting edge.Enemy Analysis - To succeed, you must know your enemy. Elemental weaknesses, damage type weaknesses, lethal attacks, tactics for melee and ranged fighters, tactics for defeating foes using the terrain, story significance, item drops all will be revealed.Weapons & Equipment - Weapons, Armor and Magic are all covered in exhaustive detail. Full stats, locations, upgrade paths and usage strategies are provided so you can easily compare all of the options when choosing which equipment to use and how to upgrade your gear.Item Data - Complete item lists reveal every last consumable, accessory, upgrading material and offensive item. Quickly discover where to find each one, how to make the most of them, and how to defend yourself when they are used against you!Lore Index - A unique guide to help players unravel this dark, mysterious world of Dark Souls for themselves. The Lore Index guides players to find the clues they need to illuminate the truth, revealing as much as required while spoiling as little as possible. "

    Join Sister Wendy on a journey through Lent, and discover the timeless wisdom to be found in some of the world's greatest paintings.Illustrated in full colour with over forty famous and lesser-known masterpieces of Western art, this beautiful book will lead you into a deeply prayerful response to all that these paintings convey to the discerning eye.'For those who want to appreciate the spirituality behind some of the world's greatest works of art, this book will be hugely inspiring - not only during Lent but at any time of the year.'Dr Janina Ramirez, art historian and broadcaster

    Focusing on art before 1520, this edition organizes the material chronologically. It now incorporates considerable new material on the history of music and theatre, and updates scholarship on ancient art.

    Artists discuss their individual approach to writing, the inspiration behind their most successful songs, and the techniques and methods they have independently developed. It is an incredible musical journey spanning fifty years, from ‘Waterloo Sunset’ by Ray Davies to ‘The Beast’ by Laura Marling, with many lyrical and melodic secrets revealed along the way.Original handwritten lyrics from personal archives and notebooks (many never-before-seen) offer a unique glimpse into the heart of the creative process, and some of the greatest names in photography, including Jill Furmanovsky, Pennie Smith and Sheila Rock, have contributed stunning portraits of each artist.The combination of individual personal insights and the breadth and depth of knowledge in their collected experience makes Isle of Noises the essential word on classic British songwriting – as told by the songwriters themselves.

    But as the end of the millennium neared, cutting-edge bands began emerging from Seattle, Austin, and London, pushing New York further from the epicenter. The behemoth music industry, too, found itself in free fall, under siege from technology. Then 9/11/2001 plunged the country into a state of uncertainty and war—and a dozen New York City bands that had been honing their sound and style in relative obscurity suddenly became symbols of glamour for a young, web-savvy, forward-looking generation in need of an anthem.Meet Me in the Bathroom charts the transformation of the New York music scene in the first decade of the 2000s, the bands behind it—including The Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem, Interpol, and Vampire Weekend—and the cultural forces that shaped it, from the Internet to a booming real estate market that forced artists out of the Lower East Side to Williamsburg. Drawing on 200 original interviews with James Murphy, Julian Casablancas, Karen O, Ezra Koenig, and many others musicians, artists, journalists, bloggers, photographers, managers, music executives, groupies, models, movie stars, and DJs who lived through this explosive time, journalist Lizzy Goodman offers a fascinating portrait of a time and a place that gave birth to a new era in modern rock-and-roll.

    The author aims to make these complicated musical advances both clear to the layman and interesting, as well as offering a sense of culture of trial and error and competition, be it in 11th century Italy or 19th century America, in which all progress takes place.

    Born in a small town in Nova Scotia to a mother who begins yelling at him the moment he is born and a father who keeps his own counsel, Buck imbibes fear and insecurity like other kids guzzle milk. Hobbled by his fears and demons, Buck almost disappears into the “evil in the woods” that lurks just beyond the town's border . . . until he is saved by three gifts: baseball, romantic love and music. His epic journey­­—full of diversions, coincidences, and larger-than-life characters—out of the darkness of his suicide-plagued childhood and into the bright wide world begins with a killer pitching arm (Buck almost makes it to the pros) and continues with his transformation into hip hop artist Buck 65. Along the way, Buck develops into a hopeless romantic and an obsessively creative, shape-shifting man who both fears life and dives into it with abandon. Wicked and Weird is a lively, sometimes shocking portrait of a life lived on the edge, by turns funny and heartbreaking.

    music explosion of the late '70s through the '90s with groups like Joy Division (soon to be the subject of an Anton Corbijn movie), New Order, and Happy Mondays leading the New Wave. At Factory, musicians and designers commingled creatively, with innovators such as Peter Saville, Den Kelly, Mark Farrow, 8VO, and Barbara Kruger elevating album covers to a new art form. The label broke further ground when it opened its own disco, the legendary Hacienda. Factory Records is the ultimate and only collection of Factory's complete graphic output, including every single piece it produced: extremely rare record sleeves, club flyers, and posters all gathered together for the first time. A must for collectors and enthusiasts, Matthew Robertson's meticulous compilation of underground ephemera is poised to introduce a new generation of music and design fans to the creative genius of Factory.

    In the United States, it was his first full length on Sire Records (home to Madonna and Depeche Mode), which helped usher in Richard D. James, for whom Aphex Twin is but one of numerous monikers, as a major force in music, electronic or otherwise.Faithful to Brian Eno’s definition of ambient music, Selected Ambient Works Volume II was intentionally functional: it furnished chill rooms, the sanctuaries amid intense raves. Choreographers and film directors began to employ it to their own ends, and in the intervening decades this background music came to the fore, adapted by classical composers who reverse-engineer its fragile textures for performance on acoustic instruments. Simultaneously, “ambient” has moved from esoteric sound art to central tenet of online culture. This book contends that despite a reputation for being beat-less, the album exudes percussive curiosity, providing a sonic metaphor for our technologically mediated era of countless synchronized nanosecond metronomes.

    Its dazzling virtuosity and spectacular live concerts made it hugely popular with fans during the 1970s, who saw bands such as King Crimson, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, and Jethro Tull bring a new level of depth and sophistication to rock. On the other hand, critics branded the elaborate concerts of these bands as self- indulgent and materialistic. They viewed progressive rock's classical/rock fusion attempts as elitist, a betrayal of rock's populist origins. In Rocking the Classics, the first comprehensive study of progressive rock history, Edward Macan draws together cultural theory, musicology, and music criticism, illuminating how progressive rock served as a vital expression of the counterculture of the late 1960s and 1970s. Beginning with a description of the cultural conditions which gave birth to the progressive rock style, he examines how the hippies' fondness for hallucinogens, their contempt for Establishment-approved pop music, and their fascination with the music, art, and literature of high culture contributed to this exciting new genre. Covering a decade of music, Macan traces progressive rock's development from the mid- to late-sixties, when psychedelic bands such as the Moody Blues, Procol Harum, the Nice, and Pink Floyd laid the foundation of the progressive rock style, and proceeds to the emergence of the mature progressive rock style marked by the 1969 release of King Crimson's album In the Court of the Crimson King. This golden age reached its artistic and commercial zenith between 1970 and 1975 in the music of bands such as Jethro Tull, Yes, Genesis, ELP, Gentle Giant, Van der Graaf Generator, and Curved Air. In turn, Macan explores the conventions that govern progressive rock, including the visual dimensions of album cover art and concerts, lyrics and conceptual themes, and the importance of combining music, visual motif, and verbal expression to convey a coherent artistic vision. He examines the cultural history of progressive rock, considering its roots in a bohemian English subculture and its meteoric rise in popularity among a legion of fans in North America and continental Europe. Finally, he addresses issues of critical reception, arguing that the critics' largely negative reaction to progressive rock says far more about their own ambivalence to the legacy of the counterculture than it does about the music itself. An exciting tour through an era of extravagant, mind-bending, and culturally explosive music, Rocking the Classics sheds new light on the largely misunderstood genre of progressive rock.

    It is the sound of isolation that has sold itself to millions.” Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue is the best-selling piece of music in jazz history and, for many listeners, among the most haunting works of the twentieth century. It is also, notoriously, the only jazz album many people own. Recorded in 1959 (in nine miraculous hours), there has been nothing like it since. Richard Williams’s “richly informative” (The Guardian) history considers the album within its wider cultural context, showing how the record influenced such diverse artists as Steve Reich and the Velvet Underground.In the tradition of Alex Ross and Greil Marcus, the “effortlessly versatile” Williams (The Times) “connects these seemingly disparate phenomena with purpose, finesse and journalistic flair” (Financial Times), making masterly connections to painting, literature, philosophy, and poetry while identifying the qualities that make the album so uniquely appealing and surprisingly universal.