s debut album, released in 1983, was so far removed from the prevailing trends of American popular music that it still sounds miraculous and out of time today. J. Niimi tells the story of the album s genesis with fascinating input from Don Dixon and Mitch Easter. He also investigates Michael Stipe s hypnotic, mysterious lyrics, and makes the case for Murmur as a work of Southern Gothic art. EXCEPRT: In the course of an interview that took place some twenty years ago, Michael Stipe made passing reference to an essay that had a deep impact on him. It s what came to his mind when, after having been harangued by fans and journalists alike about Murmur s lyrics, already grown weary from having to continually entertain their broad speculations, he finally threw up his hands. Anyone who really wants to figure out the words to our songs should probably read this essay, then go back and listen, Stipe told the interviewer. It talks about how people misinterpret something that s being said, and come up with a little phrase or word that actually defines the essence of what the original was better than the original did. What Stipe was trying to say is that if you want answers to R.E.M., you re not only looking in the wrong place, you re also asking the wrong questions.

    The record was a smash, reaching number two on the charts inMarch of 1974, spawning three hit singles; Help Me, Free Man in Parisand Raised on Robbery and cementing Mitchell's position as a commercialas well as an artistic force. Sean Nelson, a well known musician himself (Harvey Danger, the Long Winters), is particularly well equipped to understand all the elements that went into the making of this classic album, and he does so with clarity and wit.>

    A double-platinum, Grammy-winning bestseller, it lingered on the Billboard charts for more than a year and spawned three hit singles. Odd, then, that its creators saw it as an "ambitious, extended" work, the apotheosis of their anti-rock, anti-band, anti-glamour aesthetic. Populated by thirty-fi ve mostly jazz session players, Aja served up prewar song forms, mixed meters and extended solos to a generation whose idea of pop daring was Paul letting Linda sing lead once in a while. And, impossibly, it sold. Including an in-depth interview with Donald Fagen, this book paints a detailed picture of the making of a masterpiece.

    Although "Pink Flag "appeared before the end of 1977, it was already a meta-commentary on the punk scene and was far more revolutionary musically than the rest of the competition. Few punk bands moved beyond pared-down rock 'n' roll and garage rock, football-terrace sing-alongs or shambolic pub rock and, if we're honest, only a handful of punk records hold up today as anything other than increasingly quaint period pieces. While the majority of their peers flogged one idea to death and paid only lip service to punk's Year Zero credo, Wire took a genuinely radical approach, deconstructing song conventions, exploring new possibilities and consistently reinventing their sound. THIS IS A CHORD. THIS IS ANOTHER. THIS IS A THIRD. NOW FORM A BAND, proclaimed the caption to the famous diagram in a UK fanzine in 1976 and countless punk acts embodied that do-it-yourself spirit. Wire, however, showed more interesting ways of doing it once you'd formed that band and they found more compelling uses for those three mythical chords.

    With two EPs (combined into the classic CD 13 songs) and two albums (1990's genre-defining Repeater and 1991's impressionistic follow-up Steady Diet of Nothing) inside of five years, Fugazi was on creative roll, astounding increasingly large audiences as they toured, blasting fist-pumping anthems and jammy noise-workouts that roared into every open underground heart. When the album debuted on the now-SoundScan-driven charts, Fugazi had never been more in the public eye.Few knew how difficult it had been to make this popular breakthrough. Disappointed with the sound of the self-produced Steady Diet, the band recorded with legendary engineer Steve Albini, only to scrap the sessions and record at home in D.C. with Ted Niceley, their brilliant, under-known producer. Inadvertently, Fugazi chose an unsure moment to make In on the Kill Taker: as Nirvana and Sonic Youth were yanking the American rock underground into the media glare, and "breaking" punk in every possible meaning of the word. Despite all of this, Kill Taker became an alt-rock classic in spite of itself, even as its defiant, muscular sound stood in stark contrast to everything represented by the mainstreaming of a culture and worldview they held dear.This book features new interviews with all four members of Fugazi and members of their creative community.

    Here, Andrew Hultkrans explores the myriad depths of this bizarre and brilliant record. Charting bohemian Los Angeles' descent into chaos at the end of the ‘60s, he teases out the literary and mystical influences behind Arthur Lee's lyrics, and argues that Lee was both inspired and burdened by a powerful prophetic urge.EXCERPT'Forever Changes' may be thirty-six years old at the time of this writing, but its hermetic fusion of the personal and the political feels more relevant than ever. It speaks to the present in ways that, say, a Jefferson Airplane record never could, whatever the parallels between the late '60s and our contemporary morass. For unlike most rock musicians of his time, Arthur Lee was one member of the '60s counterculture who didn't buy flower-power wholesale, who intuitively understood that letting the sunshine in wouldn't instantly vaporize the world's (or his own) dark stuff. For him, the glittering surface of the Age of Aquarius obscured an undertow of impending doom.

    Almost forty years later, front man Gram Parsons, is still spoken of with almost messianic reverence. Patron saint of alt-country, emblazoned with a shining cross, dead at 26. Overshadowed by Parsons, this album remains an anomaly in the country rock genre, a map in miniature of a moment in music, and warrants discussion as more than part of the Gram Parsons legacy.

    During the recording process, Jimi Hendrix at last had time and creative freedom to pursue the sounds he was looking for. In this remarkable and entertaining book, John Perry gets to the heart of Hendrix's unique talent - guiding the reader through each song on the album, writing vividly about Hendrix's live performances, and talking to several of Hendrix's peers and contemporaries.ExcerptNatural wit, sharpness of ear and a pervasive sense of fun prevented Hendrix from sticking just to the wah-wah pedal's literal use (and it's worth remembering that Hendrix off-stage was a natural mimic, whose imitations of Little Richard or of Harlem drag-queens made his friends howl). In fact, he found a use for the pedal without even using guitar. By turning his amp up high and treading the pedal he found he could modulate the natural hiss of amplifier valves, producing sounds of gentle breezes, howling storms or the susurration of waves on a beach; sounds that are all over "1983" and "Moon Turn The Tides." Hendrix had an ear and (though it's often overlooked) he also had a fine, sly sense of humour that - with characteristic lightness of touch - he was able to express in music.

    It includes interviews with members of the band, manager Pete Jamison, web-master and GBV historian Rich Turiel and Robert Griffin of Scat Records. At least sixty-five songs were recorded and considered for the album and five distinct concepts were rejected before the band hit upon the records final form. One late version, very nearly released, contained only a few of "Bee Thousand"'s definitive songs. The rest were left out and nearly ended up in the boxes of cassette out-takes cluttering up Robert Pollard's basement. The story of "Guided By Voices" transformation from an occasional and revolving group of complete unknowns to indie-rock heroes is very much part of the story behind the making of "Bee Thousand."In addition to providing a central account of how the record was made, Woodworth devotes a substantial chapter to the album's lyrics. Robert Pollard's lyrics are described by critics, when they're described at all, as a brand of tossed-off surrealism, as if his verbal sensibility is somehow incidental to the songs themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. Woodworth offers a sustained discussion of Pollard's work as a writer of often sublime, beautiful, and very human lyrics.The third key section of the book covers aesthetics. Woodworth considers the great appeal of the do-it-yourself nature of "Bee Thousand" and reflects on the larger importance of the strain of alternative rock for which this record is a touchstone.

    They mixed the tracks and recorded overdubs in New York. They took a step back and assessed the material. It was a wild scene. They had fully fleshed-out songs and whispers and rumors of half-formed ones. They had songs that followed a hard-to-gauge internal logic. They had punk tunes and country tunes and sad tunes and funny ones. They had fuzzy pop and angular new wave. They had raunchy guitar solos and stoner blues. They had pristine jangle and pedal steel. The final track list ran to eighteen songs and filled three sides of vinyl.Released in 1995, on the heels of two instant classics, Wowee Zowee confounded Pavement's audience. Yet the record has grown in stature and many diehard fans now consider it Pavement's best. Weaving personal history and reporting-including extensive new interviews with the band-Bryan Charles goes searching for the story behind the record and finds a piece of art as elusive, anarchic and transportive now as it was then.

    in January 1968, The Who Sell Out was, according to critic Dave Marsh, a complete backfire--the album sold well, but not spectacularly [and was] ultimately a nostalgic in-joke: Who but a pop intellectual could appreciate such a thing? Further rarifying its in-joke status was its unapologetic Englishness; 13 tracks stitched together in a mock pirate radio broadcast, without a DJ, with cool, anglocentric commercials to boot. In the 36 years since its release, Sell Out, though still not the best selling release in The Who's catalog, has been embraced by a growing number of fans who regard it as the band's best work, one of the few recordings of the late 1960s that best represents the ambitious aesthetic possibilities of the concept album without becoming mired in a bog of smug, self-aggrandizing, high art aspirations. Sell Out, powerfully and ecstatically, articulates the nexus of pop music and pop culture.As much as it is an expression of the band's expanding sonic palette, Sell Out also functions as a critique of the rock and roll lifestyle. Not the cliched mantra of sex, drugs, and rock and roll but in the ways that commercial advertising fabricates a youth-oriented cultural reality by hawking pimple cream, deodorant, food, musical equipment, etc., and linking it with rock and roll. In this sense Sell Out is a reflective work, one that struggles with rock and roll as a cultural expression that aspires to aesthetic permanence while marketed as ephemera. From this conflict emerges a pop art masterpiece.

    In this remarkable book, Warren Zanes explores his own love affair with the record.

    More than that, its release in 1992 heralded the critical rehabilitation of a group which had, since its demise a decade earlier, become little more than a memory of trashy costumes and cheesy tunes to many people. Here, Elisabeth Vincentelli charts the circumstances surrounding the birth of Abba Gold, looks at the impact it had on the music world, and tells the stories behind some of the greatest pop songs ever recorded.

    Including extensive interviews with Mike Watt and many others close to and inspired by the band, this is a great tribute to a classic piece of American underground music.Included are extensive interviews with Mike Watt, the band's bass player, as well as interviews with several artists, musicians, studio owners, and fanzine writers who have been devoted followers of the band for years.

    Sly Stone began recording "There's a Riot Goin' On" in late 1970 as afollow-up to the commercially successful "Stand!" In this brisk,inventive book, Miles Marshall Lewis chronicle Sly's descent into a hazeof drug addiction and delirium as he rejects the successful formula -"Dance to the Medley, dance to the shmedley" - and creates one of themost powerful and haunting albums to inspire the hiphop movement.