The secret history of rock and roll is the story of lesser-known artists whose work has shaped modern rock. Investigating 15 separate genres and influences, this book discusses, identifies and annotates the most significant, if not the most celebrated, rock and roll talents of all time.

    RJ Wheaton offers an imagistic, in-depth investigation of Dummy that imitates the cumulative structure of the album itself, piecing together portraits and interviews, impressions of time and place, cultural criticism, and a thorough exploration of the music itself. The book focuses both on the creation and production of Dummy and the reception and response it engendered. How did so many people, collectively, make a quintessential headphone album into a nightclub album? How did they turn the product of a niche local scene into an international success? With fresh input from Portishead sound engineer Dave McDonald and collaborator Tim Saul, coupled with extensive research, this is the compelling story of how an innovative, experimental album became the iconic sound for the better part of a decade – and an aesthetic template for the experience of music in the digital age.33 1/3 is a series of short books about popular music, focusing on individual albums by artists ranging from James Brown to Celine Dion and from J Dilla to Neutral Milk Hotel. Each album covered in the series occupies such a specific place in music history, so each book-length treatment is different. Jonathan Lethem, Colin Meloy, Daphne Brooks, Gina Arnold and Alan Warner are just some of the authors who have contributed to the series so far. Widely acclaimed by fans, musicians and scholars alike. More

    a scenic search for elusive human happiness through music, magazines, silly jokes, stupid shoes, useless blokes, hopeless homes, booze, drugs, love, loss, A&E, death, disillusion and hope - while trying to make Prince laugh, startle Beyoncé, cheer Eminem up, annoy Madonna, drink with Shaun Ryder and finish off Westlife forever (with varying degrees of success).In 1986, Sylvia Patterson boarded a train to London armed with a tea-chest full of vinyl records, a peroxide quiff and a dream: to write about music, for ever. She got her wish.Escaping a troubled home, Sylvia embarks on a lifelong quest to discover The Meaning of It All. The problem is she's mostly hanging out with flaky pop stars, rock 'n' roll heroes and unreliable hip-hop legends. As she encounters music's biggest names, she is confronted by glamour and tragedy; wisdom and lunacy; drink, drugs and disaster. And Bros.Here is Madonna in her Earth Mother phase, flinging her hands up in horror at one of Sylv's Very Stupid Questions. Prince compliments her shoes while Eminem threatens to kill her. She shares fruit with Johnny Cash, make-up with Amy Winehouse and several pints with the Manics' lost soul-man Richey Edwards. She finds the Beckhams fragrant in LA, a Gallagher madferrit in her living room and Shaun Ryder and Bez as you'd expect, in Jamaica.From the 80s to the present day, I'm Not with the Band is a funny, barmy, utterly gripping chronicle of the last thirty years in music and beyond. It is also the story of one woman's wayward search for love, peace and a wonderful life. And whether, or not, she found them.

    Through interviews with all of the principal troublemakers, Martin Popoff celebrates the formation of the band and the records that made them legends: Motörhead, Overkill, Bomber, Ace of Spades, No Sleep ’til Hammersmith, and Iron Fist. An in-depth coda brings the story up to date with the shocking recent deaths of Taylor and Kilmister.Motörhead comes to life in this book as bad-luck bad boys — doused in drink and drugs, most notably speed — incapable of running their lives right, save for Fast Eddie, who is charged with holding things together. Popoff also examines the heady climate of music through the band’s rise to prominence during the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, with detailed reflection on Motörhead’s unique position in the scene as both originators and embattled survivors who carried on the renegade spirit of those times.

    Started by two twenty-year-old musicians, Merge is a lesson in how to make and market great music on a human scale. The fact that the company is prospering in a failing industry is something of a miracle. Yet two of their bands made the Billboard Top 10 list; more than 1 million copies of Arcade Fire's Neon Bible have been sold; Spoon has appeared on Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show; and the Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs is a contemporary classic.In celebration of their twentieth anniversary, founders Mac and Laura offer first-person accounts—with the help of their colleagues and Merge artists—of their work, their lives, and the culture of making music. Our Noise also tells the behind-the-scenes stories of Arcade Fire, Spoon, the Magnetic Fields, Superchunk, Lambchop, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Butterglory. Hundreds of personal photos of the bands, along with album cover art, concert posters, and other memorabilia are included.

    Joe’s 6-string secrets have astounded listeners around the world for nearly 30 years.In Strange Beautiful Music: A Musical Memoir, Satriani and coauthor, music biographer Jake Brown, take fans on their first authorized tour of the story behind his climb to stardom and the creative odyssey involved in writing and recording a storied catalog of classics including “Surfing with the Alien,” “Summer Song,” “Satch Boogie,” “Always With Me, Always With You,” “The Extremist,” “Flying in a Blue Dream,” “Crowd Chant,” and more.Featuring previously unpublished photos and hours of exclusive, firsthand interviews with Satriani, Strange Beautiful Music offers a unique look inside the studio with Joe, giving fans a chance to get up close and personal like never before. With insider details about his collaboration with multi-platinum supergroup Chickenfoot, exclusive interviews with Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony of Van Halen and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, commentary from fellow guitar legends such as Steve Vai, Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, Primus’s Larry LaLonde, and legendary music producers including Glynn Johns and the late Andy Johns, this memoir offers a rare inside look for die-hard Satriani fans, guitar enthusiasts, and anyone who loves to rock.

    There's nothing cool about Céline Dion, and nothing clever. That's part of her appeal as an object of love or hatred — with most critics and committed music fans taking pleasure (or at least geeky solace) in their lofty contempt. This book documents Carl Wilson's brave and unprecedented year-long quest to find his inner Céline Dion fan, and explores how we define ourselves in the light of what we call good and bad, what we love and what we hate.

    The fab five became one of the most successful music acts in history, with more than 85 million record sales world-wide and nine UK number one singles.Throughout the years, their lives have garnered unprecedented levels of media interest and fans have keenly followed their ups and downs – the personal conflicts, celebrity break-ups, controversies and parenthood. One thing’s for sure: they are never boring.In 2019, the prospect of their reunion tour has led to an outpouring of adoration and excitement, proving that the Spice Girls truly are an enduring cultural phenomenon.

    After indie favorite Nirvana catapulted into the mainstream with its unexpected phenomenon, Nevermind, rebellion was suddenly en vogue. Looking to replicate the band’s success, major record labels set their sights on the underground, and began courting punk’s rising stars. But the DIY punk scene, which had long prided itself on its trademark authenticity and anti-establishment ethos, wasn’t quite ready to let their homegrown acts go without a fight. The result was a schism: those who accepted the cash flow of the majors, and those who defiantly clung to their indie cred.   In Sellout, seasoned music writer Dan Ozzi chronicles this embattled era in punk. Focusing on eleven prominent bands who made the jump from indie to major, Sellout charts the twists and turns of the last “gold rush” of the music industry, where some groups “sold out” and rose to surprise super stardom, while others buckled under mounting pressures. Sellout is both a gripping history of the music industry’s evolution, and a punk rock lover’s guide to the chaotic darlings of the post-grunge era, featuring original interviews and personal stories from members of modern punk’s most (in)famous bands:Green DayJawbreakerJimmy Eat WorldBlink-182At the Drive-InThe DonnasThursdayThe DistillersMy Chemical RomanceRise AgainstAgainst Me!

    If Howard Kaylan had sung only one song, the Turtles' 1967 No. 1 smash hit "Happy Together," his place in rock-and-roll history would still be secure. But that recording, named in 1999 by BMI as one of the top 50 songs of the 20th century, with over five million radio plays, is only the tip of a rather eye-opening iceberg. For nearly five decades, Howard Kaylan has been a player in the rock-and-roll revolution. In addition to his years with the Turtles, Kaylan was a core member of Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention and the dynamic duo Flo and Eddie, and part of glam rock history with Marc Bolan and T. Rex. He's also given street cred and harmonies to everyone from John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen and Alice Cooper to the Ramones and Duran Duran, to name just a few. Howard Kaylan's life has been a dangerous ride that he is only too happy to report on, naming names and shedding shocking tales of sex, drugs, and creative excess. Shell Shocked will stand alone as not only one of the best-told music-biz memoirs, but one with a truly candid and unmatchable story of rock-and-roll insanity and success from a man who glories in it all.

    Rollins's observations range from the wry to the raucous in this blistering account of a six-year career with the band - a time marked by crazed fans, vicious cops, near-starvation, substance abuse, and mind numbing all-night drives. Rollins decided to revise this edition by adding a wealth of new photographs, a new foreword, and an afterword to include some "where-are-they-now" information on the people featured in the book. This new edition includes 40 previously unpublished black-and-white photographs from Rollins's private collection and show flyers by artist Raymond Pettibon. Called "a soul-frying experience not to be undertaken by lightweights" by Wired magazine, Get in the Van perfectly embodies what one critic called the "secular gospel" of one of punk and post-punk's most respected and controversial figures.

    "No rock critic-living or dead, American or otherwise-has ever written about pop music with the evocative, hyperpoetic perfectitude of Rob Sheffield." So said Chuck Klosterman about Love is a Mix Tape, Sheffield's paean to a lost love via its soundtrack. Now, in Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, Sheffield shares the soundtrack to his eighties adolescence. When he turned 13 in 1980, Rob Sheffield had a lot to learn about women, love, music and himself, and in Talking to Girls About Duran Duran we get a glimpse into his transformation from pasty, geeky "hermit boy" into a young man with his first girlfriend, his first apartment, and a sense of the world. These were the years of MTV and John Hughes movies; the era of big dreams and bigger shoulder pads; and, like any all-American boy, this one was searching for true love and maybe a cooler haircut. It's all here: Inept flirtations. Dumb crushes. Deplorable fashion choices. Members Only jackets. Girls, every last one of whom seems to be madly in love with the bassist of Duran Duran. Sheffield's coming-of-age story is one that we all know, with a playlist that any child of the eighties or anyone who just loves music will sing along with. These songs-and Sheffield's writing-will remind readers of that first kiss, that first car, and the moments that shaped their lives.

    Rock journalism on: Brian Wilson, Guns'N'Roses, Roky Erickson, The New York Dolls, Sid Vicious, Roy Orbison, Elvis Costello, The Smiths, Neil Young, Jerry Lee Lewis, Miles Davis, The Pogues, Lou Reed, Syd Barrett, The Rolling Stones, Iggy Pop, Kurt Cobain

    Thus was born the website Rock's Backpages (www.rocksbackpages.com), home to thousands of brilliant reviews and rants, interviews and overviews, that helped define music journalism over the last four decades. The Sound and the Fury is the best of this remarkable collection. With contemporary and retrospective articles on the Beatles, Otis Redding, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, ABBA, Madonna, Ice Cube, Nirvana, Morrissey, and many, many more.

    His career has spanned the history of rock, and often shaped it via the seminal bands with whom he's played: the Yardbirds, John Mavall's Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominoes. Winner of 17 Grammys, the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame's only three-time inductee, he is an enduring influence on every other star soloist who ever wielded a pick.Now, with Clapton's consent and access to family members and close friends, rock music's foremost biographer returns to the heroic age of British rock and follows Clapton through his distinctive and scandalous childhood, early life of reckless rock 'n' roll excess, and twisting & turning struggle with addiction in the 60s and 70s. Readers will learn about his relationship with Pattie Boyd, wife of Clapton's own best friend George Harrison, the tragic death of his son, which inspired one of his most famous songs, Tears in Heaven and even the backstories of his most famed, and named, guitars.Packed with new information and critical insights, Slowhand finally reveals the complex character behind a living legend.