Download or read book Randy Newman s American Dreams written by Kevin Courrier and published by ECW Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why is Randy Newman - enigmatic, audacious composer responsible for Tom Jones hits and the music to both Toy Story and Monsters Inc - still almost completely unknown? With detailed precision, Courrier delves into the reasons for Newman's peripheral status on the cultural landscape suggesting that, at heart, he has always been a musical outsider and has built a career in the mainstream by donning a brilliant disguise. An illuminating portrait of the artist as a masked man.
Download or read book Cynicism and the Evolution of the American Dream written by Wilber W. Caldwell and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2011 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Putting a recognizable face on contemporary American cynicism.
Download or read book International Faust Studies written by Lorna Fitzsimmons and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2008-12-23 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays by leading scholars presenting international perspectives on adaptation, reception and translation of the Faust theme in literature, theatre and music.
Download or read book Mystery Train written by Greil Marcus and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-04-28 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The perfect gift for music fans and anyone who loves artists like Elvis Presley, Randy Newman, Sly Stone, Robert Johnson, and Harmonica Frank. In 1975, Greil Marcus’s Mystery Train changed the way readers thought about rock ’n’ roll and continues to be sought out today by music fans and anyone interested in pop culture. Looking at recordings by six key artists—Robert Johnson, Harmonica Frank, Randy Newman, the Band, Sly Stone, and Elvis Presley—Marcus offers a complex and unprecedented analysis of the relationship between rock ‘n’ roll and American culture. In this latest edition, Marcus provides an extensively updated and rewritten Note and Discographies section, exploring the recordings’ evolution and continuing impact.
Download or read book The Encyclopedia of Film Composers written by Thomas S. Hischak and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-04-16 with total page 837 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than a century, original music has been composed for the cinema. From the early days when live music accompanied silent films to the present in which a composer can draw upon a full orchestra or a lone synthesizer to embody a composition, music has been an integral element of most films. By the late 1930s, movie studios had established music departments, and some of the greatest names in film music emerged during Hollywood’s Golden Age, including Alfred Newman, Max Steiner, Dimitri Tiomkin, and Bernard Herrmann. Over the decades, other creators of screen music offered additional memorable scores, and some composers—such as Henry Mancini, Randy Newman, and John Williams—have become household names. The Encyclopedia of Film Composers features entries on more than 250 movie composers from around the world. It not only provides facts about these artists but also explains what makes each composer notable and discusses his or her music in detail. Each entry includes Biographical material Important dates Career highlights Analysis of the composer’s musical style Complete list of movie credits This book brings recognition to the many men and women who have written music for movies over the past one hundred years. In addition to composers from the United States and Great Britain, artists from dozens of other countries are also represented. A rich resource of movie music history, The Encyclopedia of Film Composers will be of interest to fans of cinema in general as well as those who want to learn more about the many talented individuals who have created memorable scores.
Download or read book Mad Men and Politics written by Lilly J. Goren and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-03-12 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mad Men, using the historical backdrop of the many events that came to demarcate the 1960s, has presented a beautifully-styled rendering of this tumultuous decade, while teasing out a number of themes that resonate throughout the show and connect to the contemporary discourses that dominate today's political landscape. The chapters of this book analyze the most important dimensions explored on the show, including issues around gender, race, prejudice, the family, generational change, the social movements of the 1960s, our understanding of America's place in the world, and the idea of work in the post-war period. Mad Men and Politics provides the reader with an understanding not only of the topics and issues that can be easily grasped while watching, but also contemplates our historical perspective of the 1960s as we consider it through the telescope of our current condition.
Download or read book Hollywood Sports Movies and the American Dream written by Grant Wiedenfeld and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Through the heart of Hollywood cinema runs a surprising current of progressive politics. Sports movies, a genre that has flourished since the mid-seventies, evoke the American dream and represent the nation to itself. Once considered mere credos for Reaganism, on closer view, movies from Rocky (1976) to Ali (2001) dream of democratic participation and recognition more than individual success. In every case, off-field relationships take precedence over on-field competition. Arranged chronologically, this critical study of six major sports films also tells the story of multiculturalism's gradual adoption. The mainstream's first minority heroes are paradoxically white ethnic, rural, working-class men, exemplified by Rocky, Slap Shot (1977) and The Natural (1984); Black, brown, and women characters follow in White Men Can't Jump (1992), A League of Their Own (1992), and Ali. But despite their insistence on community and diversity these popular dramas show limited faith in civic institutions. Hannah Arendt, Jeffrey Alexander, and others inform original analysis and commentary on the political significance of popular culture. Reading these familiar movies from another angle paints a fresh picture of how the United States has imagined democracy since its bicentennial"--
Download or read book Toy Story written by Susan Smith and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-01-25 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of original essays on Toy Story, exploring its themes, techniques, and cultural significance.
Download or read book The American Dream written by Lawrence R. Samuel and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-27 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is no better way to understand America than by understanding the cultural history of the American Dream. Rather than just a powerful philosophy or ideology, the Dream is thoroughly woven into the fabric of everyday life, playing a vital role in who we are, what we do, and why we do it. No other idea or mythology has as much influence on our individual and collective lives. Tracing the history of the phrase in popular culture, Samuel gives readers a field guide to the evolution of our national identity over the last eighty years. Samuel tells the story chronologically, revealing that there have been six major eras of the mythology since the phrase was coined in 1931. Relying mainly on period magazines and newspapers as his primary source material, the author demonstrates that journalists serving on the front lines of the scene represent our most valuable resource to recover unfiltered stories of the Dream. The problem, however, is that it does not exist, the Dream is just that, a product of our imagination. That it is not real ultimately turns out to be the most significant finding about the American Drea, and what makes the story most compelling.
Download or read book Mazal Tov Amigos Jews and Popular Music in the Americas written by Amalia Ran and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-01-12 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Jewish Music Special Interest Group Paper Prize of 2018 Mazal Tov, Amigos! Jews and Popular Music in the Americas seeks to explore the sphere of Jews and Jewishness in the popular music arena in the Americas. It offers a wide-ranging review of new and old trends from an interdisciplinary standpoint, including history, musicology, ethnomusicology, ethnic studies, cultural studies, and even Queer studies. The contribution of Jews to the development of the music industry in the United States, Argentina, or Brazil cannot be measured on a single scale. Hence, these essays seek to explore the sphere of Jews and popular music in the Americas and their multiple significances, celebrating the contribution of Jewish musicians and Jewishness to the development of new musical genres and ideas.
Download or read book Lit Rock written by Ryan Hibbett and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2022-08-11 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just as soon as it had got rolling, rock music had a problem: it wanted to be art. A mere four years separate the Beatles as mere kiddy culture from the artful geniuses of Sergeant Pepper's, meaning the very same band who represents the mass-consumed, "mindless" music of adolescents simultaneously enjoys status as among the best that Western culture has to offer. The story of rock music, it turns out, is less that of a contagious popular form situated in opposition to high art, but, rather, a story of high and low in dialogue--messy and contentious, to be sure, but also mutually obligated to account for, if not appropriate, one another. The chapters in this book track the uses of literature, specifically, within this relation, helping to showcase collectively its fundamental role in the emergence of the "pop omnivore."
Download or read book Bruce Springsteen Cultural Studies and the Runaway American Dream written by Jerry Zolten and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is little question about the incredible power of Bruce Springsteen's work as a particularly transformative art, as a lyrical and musical fusion that never shies away from sifting through the rubble of human conflict. As Rolling Stone magazine's Parke Puterbaugh observes, Springsteen 'is a peerless songwriter and consummate artist whose every painstakingly crafted album serves as an impassioned and literate pulse taking of a generation's fortunes. He is the foremost live performer in the history of rock and roll, a self-described prisoner of the music he loves, for whom every show is played as if it might be his last.' In recent decades, Puterbaugh adds, 'Springsteen's music developed a conscience that didn't ignore the darkening of the runaway American Dream as the country greedily blundered its way through the 1980s' and into the sociocultural detritus of a new century paralysed by isolation and uncertainty. Bruce Springsteen, Cultural Studies, and the Runaway American Dream reflects the significant critical interest in understanding Springsteen's resounding impact upon the ways in which we think and feel about politics, religion, gender, and the pursuit of the American Dream. By assembling a host of essays that engage in interdisciplinary commentary regarding one of Western culture's most enduring artistic and socially radicalizing phenomena, this book offers a cohesive, intellectual, and often entertaining introduction to the many ways in which Springsteen continues to impact our lives by challenging our minds through his lyrics and music.
Download or read book LA Sports written by Wayne Wilson and published by University of Arkansas Press. This book was released on 2018-02-15 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LA Sports brings together sixteen essays covering various aspects of the development and changing nature of sport in one of America’s most fascinating and famous cities. The writers cover a range of topics, including the history of car racing and ice skating, the development of sport venues, the power of the Mexican fan base in American soccer leagues, the intersecting life stories of Jackie and Mack Robinson, the importance of the Showtime Lakers, the origins of Muscle Beach and surfing, sport in Hollywood films, and more.
Download or read book Crosby Stills Nash and Young written by David Browne and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first and most complete narrative biography of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, by acclaimed music journalist and Rolling Stone senior writer David Browne "Riveting." -People Magazine "This is one of the great rock and roll stories." -New York Times Book Review Even in the larger-than-life world of rock and roll, it was hard to imagine four more different men. Yet few groups were as in sync with their times as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Starting with the original trio's landmark 1969 debut album, their group and individual songs-"Wooden Ships," "Ohio," "For What It's Worth" (with Stills and Young's Buffalo Springfield)-became the soundtrack of a generation. But their story would rarely be as harmonious as their legendary vocal blend. Over the decades, these four men would continually break up, reunite, and disband again-all against a backdrop of social and musical change, recurring disagreements, and self-destructive tendencies that threatened to cripple them as a group and as individuals. In Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: The Wild, Definitive Saga of Rock's Greatest Supergroup, Rolling Stone senior writer David Browne presents the ultimate deep diveinto rock and roll's most musical and turbulent brotherhood. Featuring exclusive interviewswith band members, colleagues, fellow superstars, former managers, employees,and lovers-and with access to unreleased music and documents-this is the sweepingstory of rock's longest-running, most dysfunctional, yet pre-eminent musical family,delivered with the epic feel their story rightly deserves.
Download or read book Where the Devil Don t Stay written by Stephen Deusner and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1996, Patterson Hood recruited friends and fellow musicians in Athens, Georgia, to form his dream band: a group with no set lineup that specialized in rowdy rock and roll. The Drive-By Truckers, as they named themselves, grew into one of the best and most consequential rock bands of the twenty-first century, a great live act whose songs deliver the truth and nuance rarely bestowed on Southerners, so often reduced to stereotypes. Where the Devil Don’t Stay tells the band’s unlikely story not chronologically but geographically. Seeing the Truckers’ albums as roadmaps through a landscape that is half-real, half-imagined, their fellow Southerner Stephen Deusner travels to the places the band’s members have lived in and written about. Tracking the band from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to Richmond, Virginia, to the author’s hometown in McNairy County, Tennessee, Deusner explores the Truckers’ complex relationship to the South and the issues of class, race, history, and religion that run through their music. Drawing on new interviews with past and present band members, including Jason Isbell, Where the Devil Don’t Stay is more than the story of a great American band; it’s a reflection on the power of music and how it can frame and shape a larger culture.
Download or read book An Avid s Guide to Sixties Songwriters written by Peter Dunbavan and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2017-02-28 with total page 509 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential reference book for sixties music lovers, this encyclopedic overview includes detailed chart statistics and biographical information for eighty songwriters and covers around two thousand songs, some of which are among the greatest ever written.
Download or read book Nilsson written by Alyn Shipton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-08 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this first ever full-length biography of Harry Nilsson, author Alyn Shipton traces the musician's life from his Brooklyn childhood to his Los Angeles adolescence, and charts his gradual move into the spotlight as a talented songwriter.
