History & Criticism

Willie, Waylon, and the Boys traces a path from Waylon Jennings’ survival on the Day the Music Died through to the Highwaymen and on to the current creative and commercial explosion of Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, Tyler Childers, Jason Isbell, and the Highwomen....

From his school days in Stoke -on-Trent to his years in Take That, his battle with drink and drugs and the song that 'saved his life'....

Without Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen might not be who he is today. The natural follow-up to Springsteen’s hugely successful album The River should have been the hit-packed Born in the U.S.A....

The follow-up to The McCartney Legacy, Volume 1, the most complete work on the life and work of Paul McCartney ever published. Volume 2 continues to paint the portrait of one of the world’s greatest musicians, his work post-Beatles, and his life from 1974 to 1980.

When Miranda Sawyer interviewed Liam Gallagher in 1994, his gag wishing Damon Albarn would die of AIDS became front-page news all over the world. This fascinating pop history, exploring the moment British music suddenly meant everything, explains why.

For millennia, the sacred drummers of pre-Christian Mediterranean and western Asia were women. In this inspiring book, Layne Redmond, herself a renowned drummer, tells their history.

An estimated four hundred gold records have been recorded in the Muscle Shoals area. Many of those are thanks to Muscle Shoals Sound Studio and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, dubbed "the Swampers"....

In this first of a groundbreaking multivolume set, THE MCCARTNEY LEGACY, VOL 1: 1969-73 captures the life of Paul McCartney in the years immediately following the dissolution of the Beatles, a period in which McCartney recreated himself as both a man and a musician....

A monumental, revealing narrative history about the legendary group of artists at the forefront of West Coast hip-hop: Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, and Tupac Shakur....

Not for You is the first full-length treatment of Pearl Jam's odyssey and importance in the culture, from the '90s to the present....

John Eliot Gardiner takes us as deeply into Bach’s works and mind as perhaps words can. The result is a unique book about one of the greatest of all creative artists....

With archival audio interviews from the extraordinary musicians who dominated rock and roll, this is a fly-on-the wall listening experience, bringing you closer to the artists who changed history....

England's Dreaming is the ultimate book on punk, its progenitors, the Sex Pistols, and the moment they defined for music fans in England and the United States....

Here is the extreme story of the indestructible LA group, from their early funk days to eventual success as one of America’s top-selling bands.....

Detroit has always produced louder, more rumbling, more subversive rock music than any city in the world....

After more than two decades of research and travels, Christophe Lebold, who befriended the poet and spent time with him in Los Angeles, delivers a stimulating analysis of Cohen’s life and art.

In They Just Seem a Little Weird, veteran entertainment journalist Doug Brod offers an eye- and ear-opening look at a crucial moment in music history, when rock became fun again and a gig became a show....

With astounding access to all the key players of the time, including members of Green Day, The Offspring, Rancid, Bad Religion, Social Distortion, and many others, music writer Ian Winwood at last gives the significant, substantive, and compelling story of '90s punk rock its due....

A frank and intimate exploration of Miles Davis' eccentric working life, drug habits, paranoia, depression....

A stunning musical biography of Stevie Nicks that paints a portrait of an artist, not a caricature of a superstar....

Music can move us and tell stories of faith, struggle, or love. It is common to all cultures across the world. But how has it changed over the millennia? Robert Philip explores the extraordinary history of music in all its forms, from our earliest ancestors to today’s mass-produced songs....

This is the story of an important period in rock music, but also of the harsher results of the sixties....

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 LA's punk rock movement as its stars took to the national - and often international - stage....

Music critic and writer Paul Morley weaves together memoir and history in a spiralling tale that establishes classical music as the most rebellious genre of all....

A stunning, in-depth look at the power and poetry of one of the most consequential rappers of our time....