Download or read book Asia Every Album Every Song On Track written by Peter Braidis and published by On Track. This book was released on 2020-11-26 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A progressive rock supergroup? In the 1980s? Who would want such a thing critics asked, as they immediately went on the attack. But music fans disagreed. John Wetton, Geoff Downes, Steve Howe and Carl Palmer had played with the likes of King Crimson, Roxy Music, Yes and ELP to name just a few and they lived up to the supergroup tag. Asia's self-titled debut album went to number one for nine weeks on the US charts, went top twenty in the UK and sold over ten million copies worldwide. Asia was all over MTV, had a sold-out world tour, several hit singles and a Grammy nomination. After 1983's Alpha album, Wetton left to be replaced, bizarrely by Greg Lake, then Wetton was back and Howe was gone, replaced by Mandy Meyer for Astra in 1985. Fans needed a scorecard to keep track of it all, then the group split. Geoff Downes would struggle to keep the flame alive with John Payne from 1991-2005 until the original line up reunited in 2006 with newfound respect accorded them by both the media and fans until Wetton's sad passing in 2017. This book covers every studio album as well as key live albums, compilations and solo projects in detail, making it a comprehensive guide to the music of this enigmatic and ever-changing band.

Download or read book Camel written by Hamish Kuzminski and published by On Track. This book was released on 2020-05 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Formed in Guildford, Surrey in England in 1971, Camel, though not directly part of the genre, were strongly influenced by the bands emerging from Canterbury in Kent at the same time. In particular, the band mixed humour and profundity, in a similar way to bands like Caravan and Hatfield and the North. However, and there's a clue in the name, and their music seamlessly integrated Middle Eastern and North African themes, forms and rhythms - as well as Jazz, folk and classical elements - to create an exciting and exotic new strand to the ballooning world of progressive rock in the early 1970s. After two critically well-received, but unsuccessful albums, Camel came to transatlantic attention in 1975 with the release of purely instrumental The Snow Goose, inspired by Paul Gallico's novella of the same name. The chart success of that album led to a sold-out performance in October 1975 at the Royal Albert Hall (with the London Symphony Orchestra, no less, in tow), and cemented the band's place in the ongoing story of progressive rock. The band has had its fair share of tragedy, including the death of founder Peter Bardens and serious illness to guitarist and flame-carrier Andy Latimer. Nonetheless, with Latimer still at the helm, and after almost 50 years and fourteen studio albums, Camel continue to perform to rapturous receptions across the world. This track by track analysis takes the reader along on their half-century journey, carving out a special, inimitable niche in British rock music.

Download or read book Beatlesongs written by William J. Dowlding and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-09-29 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete and fascinating chronicle of Beatles music and history, Beatlesongs details the growth, evolution, and dissolution of the most influential group of out time. Drawing together information from sources that include interviews, insider accounts, magazines, and news wire services, this is a complete profile of every Beatles song ever written -- from recording details such as who played which instruments and sang what harmonies to how each song fared on the charts and how other musicians and critics felt about it. Chronologically arranged by U.K. release date, Beatlesongs nails down dates, places, participants, and other intriguing facts in a truly remarkable portrait of the Liverpudlian legends. Behind each song is a story -- like Paul's criticism of George's guitar playing during the Rubber Soul sessions, John's acid trip during the Sgt. Pepper's session, and the selection process for the Revolver album cover. And carefully examined along the way are the Beatles' evolving musical talents, their stormy private lives, and their successful -- and unsuccessful -- collaborations. Beatlesongs is truly an inside look at the Fab Four and a treasure for all their fans.

Download or read book The Police On Track written by Peter Braidis and published by On Track. This book was released on 2021-11-25 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Kate Bush On Track written by Bill Thomas and published by On Track. This book was released on 2020-11-26 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kate Bush started her career at the top, the spellbinding 'Wuthering Heights' giving her a number one hit single with her first release. Yet from there, artistically at least, the only way has been up. For while the sales of both singles and albums over the five decades since have had their peaks and troughs, every new release has seen Bush refuse to be boxed in by past success but instead continue to take the musical chances that have characterised her career from day one. Across ten studio albums, including director's cut reassessments of two of them, and a live record of the 2014 Hammersmith Apollo residency, Kate Bush has constantly sought new ground, reinventing her sound time and again. She has often strayed from the commercial path of least resistance to examine the less travelled musical byways that have provided the inspiration for an extraordinary body of work, quite unlike anyone else's. With a string of platinum albums and hit singles to her credit, Kate's is a fascinating journey. This book examines her entire recorded catalogue from The Kick Inside through to Before The Dawn, hoovering up all the B-sides and the rarities along the way. It's a comprehensive guide to the extraordinary music of Kate Bush.

Download or read book Speak it Louder written by Deborah Wong and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-07-19 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Speak It Louder: Asian Americans Making Music documents the variety of musics-from traditional Asian through jazz, classical, and pop-that have been created by Asian Americans. This book is not about "Asian American music" but rather about Asian Americans making music. This key distinction allows the author to track a wide range of musical genres. Wong covers an astonishing variety of music, ethnically as well as stylistically: Laotian song, Cambodian music drama, karaoke, Vietnamese pop, Japanese American taiko, Asian American hip hop, and panethnic Asian American improvisational music (encompassing jazz and avant-garde classical styles). In Wong's hands these diverse styles coalesce brilliantly around a coherent and consistent set of questions about what it means for Asian Americans to make music in environments of inter-ethnic contact, about the role of performativity in shaping social identities, and about the ways in which commercially and technologically mediated cultural production and reception transform individual perceptions of time, space, and society. Speak It Louder: Asian Americans Making Music encompasses ethnomusicology, oral history, Asian American studies, and cultural performance studies. It promises to set a new standard for writing in these fields, and will raise new questions for scholars to tackle for many years to come.

Download or read book Want written by Cindy Pon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jason Zhou is trying to survive in Taipei, a city plagued by pollution and viruses, but when he discovers the elite are using their wealth to evade the deadly effects, he knows he must do whatever is necessary to fight the corruption and save his city.

Download or read book All Gates Open written by Rob Young and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All Gates Open presents the definitive story of arguably the most influential and revered avant-garde band of the late twentieth century: CAN. It consists of two books. In Book One, Rob Young gives us the full biography of a band that emerged at the vanguard of what would come to be called the Krautrock scene in late sixties Cologne. With Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay - two classically trained students of Stockhausen - at the heart of the band, CAN's studio and live performances burned an incendiary trail through the decade that followed: and left a legacy that is still reverberating today in hip hop, post rock, ambient, and countless other genres. Rob Young's account draws on unique interviews with all founding members of CAN, as well as their vocalists, friends and music industry associates. And he revisits the music, which is still deliriously innovative and unclassifiable more than four decades on. All Gates Open is a portrait of a group who worked with visionary intensity and belief, outside the system and inside their own inner space. Book Two, Can Kiosk, has been assembled by Irmin Schmidt, founding member and guiding spirit of the band, as a 'collage - a technique long associated with CAN's approach to recording. There is an oral history of the band drawing on interviews that Irmin made with musicians who see CAN as an influence - such as Bobby Gillespie, Geoff Barrow, Daniel Miller, and many others. There are also interviews with artists and filmmakers like Wim Wenders and John Malkovitch, where Schmidt reflects on more personal matters and his work with film. Extracts of Schmidt's notebook and diaries from 2013-14 are also reproduced as a reflection on the creative process, and the memories, dreams, and epiphanies it entails. Can Kiosk offers further perspectives on a band that have inspired several generations of musicians and filmmakers in the voices of the artists themselves. CAN were unique, and their legacy is articulated in two books in this volume with the depth, rigour, originality, and intensity associated with the band itself. It is illustrated throughout with previously unseen art, photographs, and ephemera from the band's archive.

Download or read book Bruce Springsteen written by Brian Hiatt and published by . This book was released on 2019-02 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Packed full of insightful stories from Springsteen's long career, Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs takes a detailed look at each and every one of Springsteen's album tracks, providing a unique look at this rock legend's method, as well as some of the many anecdotes and tales that are prolific in his long music history. Deeply researched, laced with insight from decades of fandom and original reporting, this book is an exhaustive and unique look at the writing, recording and significance of Springsteen's singular catalog of songs. Each album is discussed and then each song is examined in terms of lyrical meaning, placing in historical context where necessary or relevant. It's the first book to cover every officially released track, from hits to obscurities, from 1974's Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. to 2014's High Hopes.

Download or read book The Beautiful Ones written by Prince and published by One World. This book was released on 2019-10-29 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The brilliant coming-of-age-and-into-superstardom story of one of the greatest artists of all time, in his own words—featuring never-before-seen photos, original scrapbooks and lyric sheets, and the exquisite memoir he began writing before his tragic death NAMED ONE OF THE BEST MUSIC BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND THE GUARDIAN • NOMINATED FOR THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD Prince was a musical genius, one of the most beloved, accomplished, and acclaimed musicians of our time. He was a startlingly original visionary with an imagination deep enough to whip up whole worlds, from the sexy, gritty funk paradise of “Uptown” to the mythical landscape of Purple Rain to the psychedelia of “Paisley Park.” But his most ambitious creative act was turning Prince Rogers Nelson, born in Minnesota, into Prince, one of the greatest pop stars of any era. The Beautiful Ones is the story of how Prince became Prince—a first-person account of a kid absorbing the world around him and then creating a persona, an artistic vision, and a life, before the hits and fame that would come to define him. The book is told in four parts. The first is the memoir Prince was writing before his tragic death, pages that bring us into his childhood world through his own lyrical prose. The second part takes us through Prince’s early years as a musician, before his first album was released, via an evocative scrapbook of writing and photos. The third section shows us Prince’s evolution through candid images that go up to the cusp of his greatest achievement, which we see in the book’s fourth section: his original handwritten treatment for Purple Rain—the final stage in Prince’s self-creation, where he retells the autobiography of the first three parts as a heroic journey. The book is framed by editor Dan Piepenbring’s riveting and moving introduction about his profound collaboration with Prince in his final months—a time when Prince was thinking deeply about how to reveal more of himself and his ideas to the world, while retaining the mystery and mystique he’d so carefully cultivated—and annotations that provide context to the book’s images. This work is not just a tribute to an icon, but an original and energizing literary work in its own right, full of Prince’s ideas and vision, his voice and image—his undying gift to the world.

Download or read book Major Labels written by Kelefa Sanneh and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Oprah Daily's 20 Favorite Books of 2021 • Selected as one of Pitchfork's Best Music Books of the Year “One of the best books of its kind in decades.” —The Wall Street Journal An epic achievement and a huge delight, the entire history of popular music over the past fifty years refracted through the big genres that have defined and dominated it: rock, R&B, country, punk, hip-hop, dance music, and pop Kelefa Sanneh, one of the essential voices of our time on music and culture, has made a deep study of how popular music unites and divides us, charting the way genres become communities. In Major Labels, Sanneh distills a career’s worth of knowledge about music and musicians into a brilliant and omnivorous reckoning with popular music—as an art form (actually, a bunch of art forms), as a cultural and economic force, and as a tool that we use to build our identities. He explains the history of slow jams, the genius of Shania Twain, and why rappers are always getting in trouble. Sanneh shows how these genres have been defined by the tension between mainstream and outsider, between authenticity and phoniness, between good and bad, right and wrong. Throughout, race is a powerful touchstone: just as there have always been Black audiences and white audiences, with more or less overlap depending on the moment, there has been Black music and white music, constantly mixing and separating. Sanneh debunks cherished myths, reappraises beloved heroes, and upends familiar ideas of musical greatness, arguing that sometimes, the best popular music isn’t transcendent. Songs express our grudges as well as our hopes, and they are motivated by greed as well as idealism; music is a powerful tool for human connection, but also for human antagonism. This is a book about the music everyone loves, the music everyone hates, and the decades-long argument over which is which. The opposite of a modest proposal, Major Labels pays in full.

Download or read book The Final Revival of Opal Nev written by Dawnie Walton and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-03-22 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A poignant fictional oral history of the beloved rock 'n' roll duo who shot to fame in the 1970s New York, and the dark, fraught secret that lies at the peak of their stardom

Download or read book History of Rock n Roll in Ten Songs written by Greil Marcus and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The legendary critic and author of Mystery Train “ingeniously retells the tale of rock and roll” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Unlike previous versions of rock ’n’ roll history, this book omits almost every iconic performer and ignores the storied events and turning points everyone knows. Instead, in a daring stroke, Greil Marcus selects ten songs and dramatizes how each embodies rock ’n’ roll as a thing in itself, in the story it tells, inhabits, and acts out—a new language, something new under the sun. “Transmission” by Joy Division. “All I Could Do Was Cry” by Etta James and then Beyoncé. “To Know Him Is to Love Him,” first by the Teddy Bears and almost half a century later by Amy Winehouse. In Marcus’s hands these and other songs tell the story of the music, which is, at bottom, the story of the desire for freedom in all its unruly and liberating glory. Slipping the constraints of chronology, Marcus braids together past and present, holding up to the light the ways that these striking songs fall through time and circumstance, gaining momentum and meaning, astonishing us by upending our presumptions and prejudices. This book, by a founder of contemporary rock criticism—and its most gifted and incisive practitioner—is destined to become an enduring classic. “One of the epic figures in rock writing.”—The New York Times Book Review “Marcus is our greatest cultural critic, not only because of what he says but also, as with rock-and-roll itself, how he says it.”—The Washington Post Winner of the Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award in Music Criticism, given by the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers

Download or read book Toto On Track written by Jacob Holm Lupo and published by Sonicbond Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2020-06-05 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Turn on the radio anytime, anywhere in the world, and sooner or later you will hear 'Africa'. Along with just a handful of songs by other artists, Toto’s worldwide hit is one of the most ubiquitous musical works of our time, written by a group of musicians who grew up together in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. Together they helped define the sound of the late 70s and 80s, appearing on numerous hit records by Michael Jackson, Boz Scaggs and Steely Dan. But it was together, as Toto, that they found their true form, fashioning a fine blend of funk, hard rock, pop and progressive rock. 'Hold the Line', 'Rosanna' and 'Pamela' are just a few of their other iconic hits. However, from the early days, Toto were a target for the music press, who disdained their slick chops and polished sound – all at odds with the post-punk and new wave aesthetics prevalent at the time. Yet Toto have always persevered, driven by their love for the music, and their fans’ love for them. Lately, Toto has been riding a renewed wave of popularity – fuelled by hard touring – not to mention a belated restitution from the rock media. This book discusses each of their albums in detail, track by track, from their smash-hit debut to 2015's magnificent Toto XIV. Jacob Holm-Lupo is a musician and journalist from Norway. He has written extensively about progressive rock, hard rock and AOR, including the book Blue Öyster Cult on track for Sonicbond, published in 2019. With his own bands White Willow and The Opium Cartel he has released ten albums, and he runs a recording and mixing studio. He is also active on the Classic Album Sunday circuit where he has, among other things, covered Toto IV and The Seventh One. He lives on an island with his wife, two children, a rabbit and a dog.

Download or read book Level 42 written by Matt Phillips and published by On Track. This book was released on 2021-03-25 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most iconic and successful British bands of the 1980s, Level 42 are also arguably the ultimate 'fusion' unit, streamlining their energetic early jazz/funk/rock sound into slick, effortlessly-soulful pop music. Encompassing eleven studio albums, including twenty UK top 40 hits and two US top twenty singles, their catalogue, in many ways, defines the '80s but also reflects their musical virtuosity and vibrant eclecticism, peppering tracks with influences from Herbie Hancock, Return To Forever and The Mahavishnu Orchestra. Emerging from the so-called 'Britfunk' scene, Level 42 developed from being one of the most electrifying live acts of the era to become a true songwriters' collective, delivering the effervescent, ubiquitous hits 'The Sun Goes Down (Living It Up)', 'Something About You' and 'Lessons In Love'. Level 42 - on track is the first in-depth study of the band's illustrious catalogue, track by track, album by album, with recording information, musical analysis, studio gossip, full musician credits and contributions from Mark King and Gary Husband. The book also covers the solo projects of the band's many members. Level 42 - on track is a must for fans and those interested in the wider musical landscape of the 1980s and 1990s.

Download or read book Gong Every Album Every Song On Track written by Kevan Furbank and published by On Track. This book was released on 2020-10-29 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every now and then a band comes along that defies convention, refuses to be pigeon-holed, thumbs its nose at comfy predictability and blows raspberries at commercial wisdom. That band is Gong. From 1970 to the present day, Gong have ploughed a unique musical furrow - part progressive rock, part spacey psychedelia, part proto-punk, ambient trance, drum 'n' bass and absurdist political performance art. With a cup of tea in hand (and a revolving propellor on his head) long-time fan Kevan Furbank examines all the Gong albums from Magick Brother in 1970 to 2019's The Universe Also Collapses, chronicles the stories behind each recording and examines the songwriting, arrangements and mythology that inspired each track - with new insights from Gong bassist Mike Howlett and synth wizard Tim Blake. In doing so, he also looks at the contributions made by the many great musicians who have passed through Gong in the last 50-odd years, including guitar hero Steve Hillage, mercurial drummer Pierre Moerlen, flute and sax maestro Didier Malherbe and, of course, hippy foole, whimsical visionary and Gong founder Daevid Allen. He also attempts to gather together the branches and off-shoots of the Gong family tree - including Mother Gong, Gongmaison and Pierre Moerlen's Gong - and the important solo recordings.If you have never heard any Gong, this book is the perfect introduction. If you have, you will want to go back and revisit the glorious music this band has made. In the words of the Pot Head Pixies, why don't you try...

Download or read book Carpenters On Track written by Paul Tornbohm and published by Sonicbond Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2024-05-15 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The brother and sister team of Karen and Richard Carpenter rank as one of the most successful acts in pop music history. Between the first Carpenters’ album released in 1969 and their final studio album together in 1981, they achieved three Grammy awards, 18 hits in the US Top 20 (and ten in the UK) and multiple platinum discs, leading to eventual sales of over 100 million copies worldwide. Although the group’s career was brought to a tragic and premature end by the untimely death of Karen Carpenter in 1983, they remain a much-loved band. The Carpenters crafted their own distinctive sound with multi-part harmonies and lush arrangements. A unique singer and gifted interpreter of songs, Karen was also passionate about playing the drums, with Richard’s talents extending to keyboards, singing, composing, arranging and producing. This book explores the background to each of their studio albums and classic singles, as well as their solo recordings, live albums and compilations of rare tracks. From their earliest recordings in a jazz trio through to Richard’s reinterpretations of their best-known songs with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and as a solo pianist, this appraisal looks at over 55 years of Carpenters material. Paul Tornbohm is a songwriter and musician. As befits a Carpenters fan, he has recorded an album of his songs, August Afternoons, with his sister Cathy on lead vocals. A former member of the ‘ghost-rock’ group Piano Magic, Paul has also released the solo EP Down an English Lane. Additionally, he composes for Spontaneous Productions, a theatre company in Sydenham, London. Paul has a Masters in music production from Kingston University, teaches music qualifications at a sixth-form college in Surrey and lives in Crystal Palace, London, with his wife, the composer Yumi Mashiki. This is his first book.