Download or read book Fifty Years of the Concept Album in Popular Music written by Eric Wolfson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2023-12-28 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept album is one of popular music's most celebrated-and misunderstood-achievements. This book examines the untold history of the rock concept album, from The Beatles to Beyoncé. The roots of the concept album are nearly as old as the long-playing record itself, as recording artists began using the format to transcend a mere collection of songs into a listening experience that takes the listener on a journey through its unifying mood, theme, narrative, or underlying idea. Along the way, artists as varied as the Moody Blues, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Pink Floyd, Parliament, Donna Summer, Iron Maiden, Radiohead, The Notorious B.I.G., Green Day, Janelle Monáe, and Kendrick Lamar created albums that form an extended conversation of art and music. Limits were pushed as the format grew over the subsequent eras. Seminal albums like the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Who's Tommy, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, stand alongside modern classics like Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville, Kendrick Lamar's good kid, "m.A.A.d city," and Beyoncé's Lemonade. Mixing iconic albums with some newer and lesser-known works makes for a book that ventures into the many sides of a history that has yet to be told-until now.
Download or read book Concept Albums written by Gareth Shute and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first indepth, critical account of the concept album from its highest creative moments to its most pretentious, flailing abominations. This work rediscovers the pre-history of the form in folk and country music, before covering its rise to prominence during the era of psychedelia and prog. It goes on to cover some of the most successful albums in the history of popular music, including - The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Who's Tommy, David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, and Pink Floyd's The Wall. The lean years of the concept album are also discussed, especially the eighties when it was kept alive within heavy metal, before being subtly resurrected by the alternative and hip hop artists of the nineties. Now the concept album is back, with artists as varied as Green Day, Arcade Fire, Mastodon, and My Chemical Romance releasing conceptual work in the new millennium, as a way to keep the album format relevant in the digital era. This book reveals the subtle currents that brought the concept album in and out of fashion, showing a new way to look at popular music over the last fifty years and unearthing some of the most ambitious and most bizarre musical projects ever conceived. Its time to delve into the world of the concept album...
Download or read book Concept Albums written by Gareth Shute and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first indepth, critical account of the concept album from its highest creative moments to its most pretentious, flailing abominations. This work rediscovers the pre-history of the form in folk and country music, before covering its rise to prominence during the era of psychedelia and prog. It goes on to cover some of the most successful albums in the history of popular music, including - The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Who's Tommy, David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, and Pink Floyd's The Wall. The lean years of the concept album are also discussed, especially the eighties when it was kept alive within heavy metal, before being subtly resurrected by the alternative and hip hop artists of the nineties. Now the concept album is back, with artists as varied as Green Day, Arcade Fire, Mastodon, and My Chemical Romance releasing conceptual work in the new millennium, as a way to keep the album format relevant in the digital era. This book reveals the subtle currents that brought the concept album in and out of fashion, showing a new way to look at popular music over the last fifty years and unearthing some of the most ambitious and most bizarre musical projects ever conceived. Its time to delve into the world of the concept album... This is a revised and updated version which also includes images of some of the major artists along the way.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical written by Robert Gordon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 777 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive academic survey of British musical theatre from its origins, The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical offers both a historical account of musical theatre from 1728 and a range of in-depth critical analyses of key works and productions that illustrate its aesthetic values and sociocultural meanings.
Download or read book Elton John Fifty Years On written by Stephen Spignesi and published by Post Hill Press. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We can count on one hand the musical legends equal to Elton John (the Beatles and the Rolling Stones each get a finger). Elton John: Fifty Years On looks at the impact songwriting partners Elton John and Bernie Taupin have had on popular music and culture, and also discusses every song on all thirty albums, plus his work on Broadway, in movies, and elsewhere. • Part 1 is a bullet-pointed look at every released song, complete with insights, trivia, and meanings, including musical insights—like Elton’s favorite chord progressions, or the most notable melodies in his discography. • Part 2 is a collection of essays and interviews with musicians and music writers chatting about Elton and Bernie. Did you know? · Elton and Bernie’s revision of “Candle in the Wind” (known as “Goodbye England’s Rose”), a tribute to Princess Diana after her untimely death, is the biggest-selling single in the UK and the second-biggest selling single in music history (after Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas”). · “Tiny Dancer” may or may not be about Bernie Taupin’s wife, Maxine…quotes from Elton and Bernie contradict each other. · The biggest music stars in the world routinely show up at Elton John concerts to sing duets with the Rocket Man, including Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, George Michael, Bruce Hornsby, Lionel Richie, Mary J. Blige, Bryan Adams, Demi Lovato, Shawn Mendes, and many more, as well as Elton’s legendary “dual” shows with Billy Joel · The background vocals for the song “White Lady White Powder” on the 21 at 33 album are sung by the Eagles. · The background vocals for the song “Cage the Songbird” on the Blue Moves album are sung by Graham Nash and David Crosby. (Stephen Stills must have been busy?) Elton John: Fifty Years On was written for ultimate Elton John fans. A browsing book, a reading book, a treasure trove of facts, trivia, insights, and commentary, it’s the perfect companion to Elton leaving the Yellow Brick Road.
Download or read book Listen to Psychedelic Rock written by Christian Matijas-Mecca and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-07-08 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Listen to Psychedelic Rock! contains more than 50 entries covering the people, records, places, and events that shaped one of the most exciting and influential periods in popular music. This addition to the Exploring a Music Genre series concentrates solely on psychedelic rock music. Listen to Psychedelic Rock! Exploring a Musical Genre covers over fifty topics, arranged alphabetically, that are central to learning about psychedelic music and will enable readers to understand the breadth and ongoing influence of psychedelia through to the present day. The title contains biographical sketches on selected artists, "song-by-song" descriptions of many albums, and short, informative essays on participants who were influential in the original psychedelic movement. A background section introduces the genre and a legacy section shows how psychedelic music has cemented its place in the world, while another section shows the tremendous impact the music has had on popular culture. Information on record labels and year-of-release dates for all musical entries make it easy for any reader to navigate this title - a must-have for high school and college readers as well as for music scholars and fans of the genre.
Download or read book Popular Music and the Poetics of Self in Fiction written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-11-29 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The volume explores the various intersections and interconnections of the self and popular music in fiction; it examines questions of musical taste and identity construction across decades, spaces, social groups, and cultural contexts, covering a wide range of literary and musical genres.
Download or read book Lyrics and How They Inspire Me written by Nathan Catchpole and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2011-11-18 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For as long as author Nathan Catchpole could remember, he has always loved music. In fact, he loved it so much that he started writing lyrics when he was just twelve years old. He has written over a thousand songs since then. In his book, he reveals Lyrics and How They Inspire Me. He first heard music when he was only three years old, although he couldnt understand what the singers were singing about. He only knew that he liked what he was hearing and years later, music would become a central part of his life. In Lyrics and How They Inspire Me, Catchpole shares his favorite singers and the songs that inspired him. He gives brief biographies of each along with their discographies and points out the particular lyrics that moved him to create his own. An entertaining at the same time informative book, Lyrics and How They Inspire Me provides readers insight on singers lives, their hits and misses, and the impact they had on their fans.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Krautrock written by Uwe Schütte and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-27 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Companion is the first academic introduction to the 1960s/70s 'Krautrock' movement of German experimental music that has long attracted the attention of the music press and fans in Britain and abroad. It offers a structured approach to this exceptionally heterogeneous and decentralized movement, combining overviews with detailed analysis and close readings. The volume first analyzes the cultural, historical and economic contexts of Krautrock's emergence. It then features expert chapters discussing all the key bands of the era including Can, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Neu!, Faust, Ash Ra Tempel, Cluster and Amon Düül II. The volume concludes with essays that trace the varied, wide-ranging legacy of Krautrock from a variety of perspectives, exploring in particular the impact of German experimental music in the Anglosphere, including British post-punk and Detroit Techno. A final chapter examining the current bands that continue the Krautrock sound closes this comprehensive overview of the Krautrock phenomenon.
Download or read book Albums written by Backbeat and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicling the history of the popular music album, this book looks at the influence of technology and commerce on the artistic process, covering the different ways in which albums have been made over the years.
Download or read book The Bloomsbury Handbook of Music and Art written by Sarah Mahler Kraaz and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2023-10-05 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together prominent scholars, artists, composers, and directors to present the latest interdisciplinary ideas and projects in the fields of art history, musicology and multi-media practice. Organized around ways of perceiving, experiencing and creating, the book outlines the state of the field through cutting-edge research case studies. For example, how does art-music practice / thinking communicate activist activities? How do socio-economic and environmental problems affect access to heritage? How do contemporary practitioners interpret past works and what global concerns stimulate new works? In each instance, examples of cross or inter-media works are not thought of in isolation but in a global historical context that shows our cultural existence to be complex, conflicted and entwined. For the first time cross-disciplinary collaborations in ethnomusicology-anthropology, ecomusicology-ecoart-ecomuseology and digital humanities for art history, musicology and practice are prioritized in one volume.
Download or read book Divine Madness written by Jeffrey A. Kottler and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2005-12-17 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Madness can afford the individual certain resources and abilities that are not available to others. The fantasy life, free flight of ideas, distortions of reality, and heightened senses . . . offer a unique perspective on the world." —From the Introduction Why do some extraordinary individuals overcome mental anguish and produce brilliant creative artistry that is often enhanced by their madness? New York Times best-selling author and noted psychologist Jeffrey Kottler explores this fascinating question in Divine Madness. His book is filled with the compelling stories of emotional turmoil that many great artists have undergone as they struggle for success and survival. Jeffrey Kottler writes about the dramatic and tragic lives of cultural icons Sylvia Plath, Judy Garland, Mark Rothko, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Charles Mingus, Vaslav Nijinsky, Marilyn Monroe, Lenny Bruce, and Brian Wilson. In this riveting book, Kottler highlights the personal story of each of these extraordinary individuals and analyzes how they struggled to overcome their emotional hardships. Divine Madness clearly differentiates between those who surrendered to their illness, often taking their own lives, and those who managed to endure and even recover. Kottler details how their profound psychological issues affected their lives and work, their great productivity and success, and how they strove to achieve some kind of personal stability. The fascinating and brilliantly told stories in Divine Madness help us to find meaning in the incredible lives of these artists. They also serve as an inspiration for those who are grappling to rise above their own challenges and limitations and express themselves more productively and creatively.
Download or read book Radiohead and the Resistant Concept Album written by Marianne Tatom Letts and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2010-11-08 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the British rock band Radiohead subverts the idea of the concept album in order to articulate themes of alienation and anti-capitalism is the focus of Marianne Tatom Letts's analysis of Kid A and Amnesiac. These experimental albums marked a departure from the band's standard guitar-driven base layered with complex production effects. Considering the albums in the context of the band's earlier releases, Letts explores the motivations behind this change. She places the two albums within the concept-album/progressive-rock tradition and shows how both resist that tradition. Unlike most critics of Radiohead, who focus on the band's lyrics, videos, sociological importance, or audience reception, Letts focuses on the music itself. She investigates Radiohead's ambivalence toward its own success, as manifested in the vanishing subject of Kid A on these two albums.
Download or read book Nashville Cats written by Travis D. Stimeling and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nashville Cats bounced from studio to studio along the city's Music Row, delivering instrumental backing tracks for countless recordings throughout the mid-20th century. Music industry titans like Chet Atkins, Anita Kerr, and Charlie McCoy were among this group of extraordinarily versatile session musicians who defined the era of the "Nashville Sound," and helped establish the city of Nashville as the renowned hub of the record industry it is today. Nashville Cats: Record Production in Music City is the first account of these talented musicians and the behind-the-scenes role they played to shape the sounds of country music. Many of the genre's most celebrated artists-Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, Floyd Cramer, and others immortalized in the Country Music Hall of Fame and musicians from outside the genre's ranks, like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, heard the call of the Nashville Sound and followed it to the city's studios, recording song after song that resonated with the brilliance of the Cats. Author Travis D. Stimeling investigates how the Nashville system came to be, how musicians worked within it, and how the desires of an ever-growing and diversifying audience affected the practices of record production. Drawing on a rich array of recently uncovered primary sources and original oral histories,Âinterviews with key players, and close exploration of hit songs, Nashville Cats brings us back into the studios of this famous era, right alongside the remarkable musicians who made it happen.
Download or read book 50 Years The Story of Woodstock Live written by Julien Bitoun and published by Cassell. This book was released on 2019-05-02 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreword by Woodstock co-founder, Michael Lang. 3 days. 33 concerts. 2 deaths. 2 births. 500,000 people. And another 250,000 stuck in traffic trying to get in. Woodstock was a festival like no other. Now, on its 50th anniversary, relive every moment. Detailed text and evocative photographs tell the full story of every single act that performed - when they took to the stage, what songs they played, who was there, what they were like. From The Who to Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane to Creedence Clearwater Revival, every single second is an experience to enjoy over and over again. Also includes fascinating features on the stories around Woodstock, from the unique social and political context to the drugs, the free love, the film, the albums and the legacy.
Download or read book Pop Music written by Nicole Horning and published by Greenhaven Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2018-12-15 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do boy bands from the 1990s have in common with the Beatles? Why are some pop artists, such as Justin Timberlake, considered controversial? Readers will discover these answers and the stories behind beloved artists from the Beach Boys to Lady Gaga through fun and fact-filled text about the roots of pop music and how it has spread around the world. Readers will gain a deeper appreciation for their favorite artists and the pop stars who came before them as they explore a discography of important albums, full-color photographs, annotated quotes from artists and journalists, and fascinating sidebars.
Download or read book Perspectives on German Popular Music written by Michael Ahlers and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-11-25 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, native popular musicologists focus on their own popular music cultures from Germany, Austria and Switzerland for the first time: from subcultural to mainstream phenomena; from the 1950s to contemporary acts. Starting with an introduction and two chapters on the histories of German popular music and its study, the volume then concentrates on focused, detailed and yet concise close readings from different perspectives (including particular historical East and West German perspectives), mostly focusing on the music and its protagonists. Moreover, these analyses deal with very original specific genres such as Schlager and Krautrock as well as transcultural genres such as Punk or Hip Hop. There are additional chapters on characteristically German developments within music media, journalism and the music industry. The book will contribute to a better understanding of German, Austrian and Swiss popular music, and will interconnect international and especially Anglo-American studies with German approaches. The book, as a consequence, will show close connections between global and local popular music cultures and diverse traditions of study.
