Nearly two decades on, though, Aaron "Gene Ween" Freeman and Mickey "Dean Ween" Melchiondo preside over one of the most devoted cult fan bases in American music. So how exactly did Ween manage to transcend joke-band oblivion?One answer is that, in the years following their MTV breakthrough, Ween gradually polished their output, turning their staunchly primitive musical sketches into hi-fi paintings. Chocolate and Cheese, released in 1994, marked Freeman and Melchiondo's first crucial steps in this direction. Based on new, in-depth interviews with both members of Ween, as well as producer Andrew Weiss and associates ranging from Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) to Spike Jonze, this book explores the song-by-song creation of Chocolate and Cheese and how the album served as a bridge between Ween's original two-guys-and-a-4-track incarnation and the rich, virtuosic rock & roll force they would later become.

    punk scene—and includes fifty rare photos.Picking up where Under the Big Black Sun left off, More Fun in the New World explores the years 1982 to 1987, covering the dizzying pinnacle of L.A.'s punk rock movement as its stars took to the national—and often international—stage. Detailing the eventual splintering of punk into various sub-genres, the second volume of John Doe and Tom DeSavia's west coast punk history portrays the rich cultural diversity of the movement and its characters, the legacy of the scene, how it affected other art forms, and ultimately influenced mainstream pop culture. The book also pays tribute to many of the fallen soldiers of punk rock, the pioneers who left the world much too early but whose influence hasn't faded.As with Under the Big Black Sun, the book features stories of triumph, failure, stardom, addiction, recovery, and loss as told by the people who were influential in the scene, with a cohesive narrative from authors Doe and DeSavia. Along with many returning voices, More Fun in the New World weaves in the perspectives of musicians Henry Rollins, Fishbone, Billy Zoom, Mike Ness, Jane Weidlin, Keith Morris, Dave Alvin, Louis Pérez, Charlotte Caffey, Peter Case, Chip Kinman, Maria McKee, and Jack Grisham, among others. And renowned artist/illustrator Shepard Fairey, filmmaker Allison Anders, actor Tim Robbins, and pro-skater Tony Hawk each contribute chapters on punk's indelible influence on the artistic spirit.In addition to stories of success, the book also offers a cautionary tale of an art movement that directly inspired commercially diverse acts such as Green Day, Rancid, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Wilco, and Neko Case. Readers will find themselves rooting for the purists of punk juxtaposed with the MTV-dominating rock superstars of the time who flaunted a "born to do this, it couldn't be easier" attitude that continued to fuel the flames of new music. More Fun in the New World follows the progression of the first decade of L.A. punk, its conclusion, and its cultural rebirth.

    By constructing this persona, Nas not only laid out his own career for the next decade plus, but the careers of dozens of other rappers who were able to use their considerable skills to develop similar personas. His brazen ambition has become a road map for every rapper who hopes to reach an artistic peak. It seems right that Nas would make Illmatic at the age when maturity begins to turn boys into men. This was, in many regards, the first album of the rest of hip hop's life.A decade and a half ago, Illmatic launched one of the most storied careers in hip hop, and cemented New York's place as the genre's epicenter. With this in-depth look at the record, Matthew Gasteier explores the competing themes that run through Nas's masterpiece and finds a compelling journey into adulthood. Combining a history of Nas's early years with interviews from many of the most important people associated with the

    Carefully peeling the layers from each song, Davis reveals their dark and often mystical roots—and leaves the reader to decide whether Four Symbols is some form of occult induction or just an inspired, brilliantly played rock album.“Stripping Led Zeppelin's famous name off the fourth record was an almost petulant attempt to let their Great Work symbolically stand on its own two feet. But the wordless jacket also lent the album charisma. Fans hunted for hidden meanings, or, in failing to find them, sensed a strange reflection of their own mute refusal to communicate with the outside world. This helped to create one of the supreme paradoxes of rock history: an esoteric megahit, a blockbuster arcanum. Stripped of words and numbers, the album no longer referred to anything but itself: a concrete talisman that drew you into its world, into the frame. All the stopgap titles we throw at the thing are lame: Led Zeppelin IV, [Untitled], Runes, Zoso, Four Symbols. In an almost Lovecraftian sense, the album was nameless, a thing from beyond, charged with manna. And yet this uncanny fetish was about as easy to buy as a jockstrap.”

    And yet, it doesn't neatly fit into any of these descriptors. Buried underneath the radio-friendly exterior lie coded confessions of the subversive, wounded intelligence that gives this album its staying power as a work of art. Here Lou Reed managed to make a fun, accessible rock'n'roll record that is also a troubled meditation on the ambiguities-sexual, musical and otherwise-that defined his public persona and helped make him one of the most fascinating and influential figures in rock history. Through close listening and personal reflections, songwriter Ezra Furman explores Reed's and Transformer's unstable identities, and the secrets the songs challenge us to uncover.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

    The recording engineer heard a car pull into the lot, and soon the biggest man he had ever seen walked through the door. Six foot three, 500 pounds, the guy looked like a house carrying an 'ukulele. When he stepped into the studio, the floated floor shifted unnervingly beneath the engineer's feet. Israel Kamakawiwo'ole engulfed the engineer's hand in his and said, "Hi, bruddah." The product of that impromptu late-night recording session, a delicate medley of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "What a Wonderful World," has driven sales of 1993's Facing Future to nearly two million copies. Each time the medley is licensed to appear in advertisements, in movies, even on American Idol, Mainlanders embrace it anew as a touch of the unfamiliar in their otherwise staid record collections. But in Hawai'i, a state struggling like no other with the responsibility of its native heritage, Facing Future is much more. Gaining unprecedented access to Israel's family, friends, bandmates, lawyer, and label, Dan Kois tells the remarkable story of Bruddah Iz and the album that changed his life--and his death.

    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.

    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.

    Over 50,000 copies have been sold.Tracing the creation of Exile on Main St. from the original songwriting done while touring America through the final editing in Los Angeles, Bill Janovitz explains how an album recorded by a British band in a villa on the French Riviera is pure American rock and roll. Looking at each song individually, Janovitz unveils the innovative recording techniques, personal struggles, and rock and roll myth-making that culminated in this pivotal album. "Exile" is exactly what rock and roll should sound like: a bunch of musicians playing a bunch of great songs in a room together, playing off of each other, musical communion, sounds bleeding into each other, snare drum rattling away even while not being hit, amps humming, bottles falling, feet shuffling, ghostly voices mumbling on and off-mike, whoops of excitement, shouts of encouragement, performances without a net, masks off, urgency. It is the kind of record that goes beyond the songs themselves to create a monolithic sense of atmosphere. It conveys a sense of time and place and spirit, yet it is timeless. Its influence is still heard today. Keith Richards has said, tongue in cheek, the record was the first grunge record.

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

    LD Beghtol's book is chatty, incestuous, funny, dark, digressive, sexy, maddening, and delightful in equal measures. It documents a vital and influential scene from the inside, involving ukuleles and tears, citations and footnotes, analogue drum machines, and floods of cognac. Oh, and a crossword puzzle too.The centre of the book is the secret history of these tuneful, acerbic, and sometimes heartbreaking songs of old love, new love, lost love, punk rock love, gay love, straight love, experimental music love, true love, blue love, and the utter lack of love that fill the album - as told by participants, fans, imitators, naysayers, and others. Also included are a lexicon of words culled from the album's lyrics, recording details, performance notes from the full album shows in New York, Boston and London, plus rare and unpublished images, personal memorabilia, and much much more.

    Elliott Smith's XO should not be one of them. Smith's 1998 major label debut defies the tortured singer-songwriter stereotype, and takes up this defiance as a central theme. At a time when Smith was being groomed for a particular (and particularly condescending) brand of stardom, he produced a record that eviscerated one of the central assumptions of singersongwriterdom: that pain is beautiful. XO insists that romanticizing personal tragedy can only leave you deaf and dumb and done. And it backs up this claim with some of the most artful and intelligent music of its day. Matthew LeMay writes an original take on a widely beloved album, steering clear of the sensationalist suicide angles that have dogged most analysis of Elliott Smith's extraordinary work.

    The songs on Donuts are not hip hop music as "hip hop music" is typically defined; they careen and crash into each other, in one moment noisy and abrasive, gorgeous and heartbreaking the next. The samples and melodies tell the story of a man coming to terms with his declining health, a final love letter to the family and friends he was leaving behind. As a prolific producer with a voracious appetite for the history and mechanics of the music he loved, J Dilla knew the records that went into constructing Donuts inside and out. He could have taken them all and made a much different, more accessible album. If the widely accepted view is that his final work is a record about dying, the question becomes why did he make this record about dying?Drawing from philosophy, critical theory and musicology, as well as Dilla's own musical catalogue, Jordan Ferguson shows that the contradictory, irascible and confrontational music found on Donuts is as much a result of an artist's declining health as it is an example of what scholars call "late style," placing the album in a musical tradition that stretches back centuries.

    Few single albums can lay claim to sparking an entire genre, but Spiderland—all six songs of it—laid the foundation for post rock in the 1990s. Yet for so much obvious influence, both the band and the album remain something of a puzzle. This thoroughly researched book is the first substantive attempt to break through some of the mystery surrounding Spiderland and the band that made it. Scott Tennent has written a long overdue look at this remarkable album and its origins, delving into the small, insular musical universe that included bands like Squirrel Bait, Maurice, Bitch Magnet, and Bastro. The story, helped by in-depth interviews with band members David Pajo and Todd Brashear, explores the formation of Slint, the recording of Tweez, and the band’s dramatic move into the sound of Spiderland.

    Instead of sticking to the "grunge pop" formula that made Nevermind" so palatable to the mainstream, Nirvana chose instead to challenge their audience, producing an album that the band's creative force, Kurt Cobain, said truly matched his vision of what he had always wanted his band to sound like. Here, the full story behind the creation of In Utero" is told for the first time.