A stunning exploration of madness, death, anxiety, and alienation, it remained on the Billboard charts for 724 weeks--the longest consecutive run for an LP ever--and has sold 30 million copies worldwide. It still sells some quarter million copies every year. Besides being perhaps rock's most fully realized and elegant concept album, The Dark Side of the Moon was among the most technically advanced records of its time, perfectly blending studio wizardry and fearless innovation. The rich story behind The Dark Side of the Moon is now skillfully illuminated by acclaimed journalist John Harris's exploration of the album's many secrets and the band's fractured history, including the mental collapse of group founder Syd Barrett. Drawing on original interviews with bassist and chief lyricist Roger Waters, guitarist Dave Gilmour, drummer Nick Mason, keyboardist Richard Wright, and the album's supporting cast, The Dark Side of the Moon is a must-have for the millions of devoted fans looking for the definitive story of one of the most timeless, compelling, and mysterious albums ever made.

    Author Biography: Mark Blake is a veteran journalist who has written for many international music magazines.

    In this, the first new biography since Davis' death, John Szwed draws on various archives and never-before-published interviews with those who knew him to produce the richest and most revealing portrait of Miles Davis to date. The shy son of a dentist from Illinois, Miles Dewey Davis III would go through several transformations before becoming the image of cool. Change, says Szwed, was the driving force in both Davis' life and music -- as quickly as he established a new direction in his music and a new identity, he would radically reinvent both. He seemed to thrive on close musical relationships -- playing with jazz greats from Charlie Parker to John Coltrane and working with Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, and composer Gil Evans, among others -- and yet the enduring image of Davis is of a lone figure, famously turning his back on the audience. He was at the peak of his career, having achieved star status, when he withdrew from the spotlight, spending years as a recluse. These seeming contradictions fueled the myths surrounding the man, but Szwed's insights into Davis' personality and artistic creativity shed new light on his life, from his turbulent relationships to his drug use and mysterious last days. Elegantly written and carefully researched, So What is the authoritative life of an artist who was always ahead of his time.

    Organized by year, it has all the most current information about the band's classic years from 1958--1978."650 images...capture The Who's journey from raucous r&b interpreters to roiling rockers..."--The Washington PostThe Who put on one of the most astounding stage shows ever seen (culminating in a blaze of smashed-up instruments) and took popular music to new heights with the first rock opera. Together, songwriter Pete Townshend, sexy lead singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist John Entwhistle, and drumming wild man Keith Moon redefined rock. Here, in a series of day-to-day diaries brimming with enthusiasm, thoroughness, and fresh information, is the tale of their performing career. The authors gained rare access to various official archives, many not viewed before; to friends and associates (some of whom had never spoken publicly about their relationship with the group); and to Pete, Roger, and John themselves. Three hundred photos capture the charismatic band, Daltrey has contributed a foreword, and the diaries recount club dates, TV appearances, auditions, and recordings. No Who fan can do without this unprecedented and engrossing look at the band.

    In response to the whole range of Dylan early and late (his songs of social conscience, of earthly love, of divine love, and of contemplation), this critical appreciation listens to Dylan's attentive genius, alive in the very words and their rewards. "Fools they made a mock of sin." Dylan's is an art in which sins are laid bare (and resisted), virtues are valued (and manifested), and the graces brought home. The seven deadly sins, the four cardinal virtues (harder to remember?), and the three heavenly graces: these make up everybody's world -- but Dylan's in particular. Or rather, his worlds, since human dealings of every kind are his for the artistic seizing. Pride is anatomized in "Like a Rolling Stone," Envy in "Positively 4th Street," Anger in "Only a Pawn in Their Game" ... But, hearteningly, Justice reclaims "Hattie Carroll," Fortitude "Blowin' in the Wind," Faith "Precious Angel," Hope "Forever Young," and Charity "Watered-Down Love."In The "New Yorker, Alex Ross wrote that "Ricks's writing on Dylan is the best there is. Unlike most rock critics -- 'forty-year-olds talking to ten-year-olds, ' Dylan has called them -- he writes for adults." In the "Times (London), Bryan Appleyard maintained that "Ricks, one of the most distinguished literary critics of our time, is almost the only writer to have applied serious literary intelligence to Dylan ..."Dylan's countless listeners (and even the artist himself, who knows?) may agree with W.H. Auden that Ricks "is exactly the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding."

    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.

    In the insightful How Music Works, Byrne offers his unique perspective on music - including how music is shaped by time, how recording technologies transform the listening experience, the evolution of the industry, and much more.

    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." Sounes's prodigious research has resulted in new insights on every aspect of Dylan's life. His is the only biography to seriously address the past twenty years of Dylan's life, leading up to the extraordinary recent releases Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft. 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. 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. "Dylan comes alive.... Sounes has added a wealth of new information to Dylan studies." -- Perry Meisel, The New York Times Book Review "Fascinating and finely written." -- Ronald Radosh, The New Republic "Convincing ... [generates] sympathy for an isolated artist." -- Daniel Cooper, The Washington Post Book World "Sounes ... opens new angles on the enigmatic polyhedron that is Dylan.... Monumental." -- Gene Santoro, The Nation " "A portrait of Mr. Dylan that is often unflattering, sometimes puzzling, but, to the author's credit, never sensational." -- Al Brumley, The Dallas Morning News "Engrossing ... fast-moving yet rich in detail ... [Down the Highway] chronicles a remarkable and contradictory artist." -- Carlo Wolff, The Kansas City Star "[This] fast-paced book has a fine interest in details [and is] rich with the observations of new witnesses." -- Sheri Linden, Variety "Irresistible ... What Dylanphile wouldn't want to sift through what Sounes has dug up." -- Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press

    Pioneers of electronic minimalism in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, Kraftwerk redefined pop music. When they split up in the early 1980s, founding member Wolfgang Flur discovered his name dropped from album credits and the drum machine of his own invention being patented by his bandmates. Kraftwerk: I Was a Robot documents the group's alternately inspiring and bitter story from its unsteady beginnings through worldwide fame to the legal battle in a Hamburg court that vindicated the author but left lasting scars on all. Color photographs are included.

    This edition spans the years between 1973's Can't Buy a Thrill and their 2000 comeback Two against Nature.

    Created in collaboration with Jeff Tweedy, Wilco, and Tony Margherita, this primarily visual book explores what Wilco does, how it does it, and where it all comes together. The band narrates the book in the form of long captions accompanying a variety of images: a Korean postcard, a Stratocaster, a backstage practice session, and so on. Along the way, central topics such as instruments, touring, and recording are covered both in general (i.e., what happens, physically, when a guitar string breaks) and specific to Wilco. Just as the band assembles its disparate talents and inspirations to make music, this book coheres in the end to reveal a 40 minute CD of original, unreleased songs. Just as Wilco experiments with music by turning convention on its head, this book is an utterly new take on the old genre of the rock 'n' roll book. The Wilco Book will look and read like a Wilco record sounds; it's a translation of the band's sensibility from sound into print.

    Rock music was flying off in every direction, just as America itself seemed about to split at its seams. Following the circumscribed grooves and ambiance of In A Silent Way; coming off a tour with a burning new quintet-called 'The Lost Band'-with Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette; he went into the studio with musicians like frighteningly talented guitarist John McLaughlin, and soulful Austrian keyboardist Joe Zawinul. Working with his essential producer, Teo Macero, Miles set a cauldron of ideas loose while the tapes rolled. At the end, there was the newly minted Prince of Darkness, a completely new way forward for jazz and rock, and the endless brilliance and depth of Bitches Brew.Bitches Brew is still one of the most astonishing albums ever made in either jazz or rock. Seeming to fuse the two, it actually does something entirely more revolutionary and open-ended: blending the most avant-garde aspects of Western music with deep grooves, the album rejects both jazz and rock for an entirely different idea of how music can be made.

    J. S. Bach held it in high esteem, Leopold Mozart trained his famous son from its pages, Haydn worked out every lesson with meticulous care, and Beethoven condensed it into an abstract for ready reference.

    Not a single sub-genre or band goes uncovered. Well-researched and fact-filled, the witty text befits the raucous bands that push musical-and all other-boundaries. From obscure groups like Armored Saint and Norway's Mayhem to pioneers Grand Funk Railroad and Iron Maiden to megastars like Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, Lita Ford, Van Halen, Joan Jett, and Marilyn Manson, each entry contains vital statistics: a description of the band's history and sound; an essential discography; the most current, comprehensive, popular compilations; and much more. Special features cover such important details as "Metal Fashion" and the various metal genres. Def Leppard, Faith No More, Guns n' Roses, Judas Priest, Metallica, AC/DC, Nine-Inch Nails, Poison, Rage Against the Machine, and Japan's Loudness: all of the favorite (and not so favorite) adrenaline-pumped, bizarre bands that make heavy metal the unique form it is appear in all their glory.

    Everyone's wearing black. And on-stage a tenor is blowing his heart out, a searching, jagged saxophone journey played out against a moody, walking bass and the swish of a drummer's brushes. To a great many listeners--from African American aficionados of the period to a whole new group of fans today--this is the very embodiment of jazz. It is also quintessential hard bop. In this, the first thorough study of the subject, jazz expert and enthusiast David H. Rosenthal vividly examines the roots, traditions, explorations and permutations, personalities and recordings of a climactic period in jazz history. Beginning with hard bop's origins as an amalgam of bebop and R&B, Rosenthal narrates the growth of a movement that embraced the heavy beat and bluesy phrasing of such popular artists as Horace Silver and Cannonball Adderley; the stark, astringent, tormented music of saxophonists Jackie McLean and Tina Brooks; the gentler, more lyrical contributions of trumpeter Art Farmer, pianists Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan, composers Benny Golson and Gigi Gryce; and such consciously experimental and truly one-of-a-kind players and composers as Andrew Hill, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and Charles Mingus. Hard bop welcomed all influences--whether Gospel, the blues, Latin rhythms, or Debussy and Ravel--into its astonishingly creative, hard-swinging orbit. Although its emphasis on expression and downright badness over technical virtuosity was unappreciated by critics, hard bop was the music of black neighborhoods and the last jazz movement to attract the most talented young black musicians. Fortunately, records were there to catch it all. The years between 1955 and 1965 are unrivaled in jazz history for the number of milestones on vinyl. Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, Charles Mingus's Mingus Ah Um, Thelonious Monk's Brilliant Corners, Horace Silver's Further Explorations--Rosenthal gives a perceptive cut-by-cut analysis of these and other jazz masterpieces, supplying an essential discography as well. For knowledgeable jazz-lovers and novices alike, Hard Bop is a lively, multi-dimensional, much-needed examination of the artists, the milieus, and above all the sounds of one of America's great musical epochs.