Coming Soon

From the storied ache of mbube harmonies of the ‘40s to the electronic boom of kwaito and the amapiano and house explosion of the ‘00s, this book explores vignettes taken from across South Africa’s popular music history. There are moments in time where music can be a mighty weapon in the fight for freedom. Disguised in a danceable hook or shouted for the world to hear, artists have used songs to deliver important truths and bring listeners together in the face of a segregated reality.

Larry S. Sherman, a neuroscientist and lifelong musician, and Dennis Plies, a professional musician and teacher, collaborate to show how our brains and music work in harmony. They consider music in all the ways we encounter it—teaching, learning, practicing, listening, composing, improvising, and performing—in terms of neuroscience as well as music pedagogy, showing how the brain functions and even changes in the process.

Mutya Buena was only thirteen when she became one third of the original line up of the iconic girlband, Sugababes. Launching into fame, her life became unrecognisable overnight. Suddenly she was going straight from the studio to school in the early hours, rubbing shoulders with music royalty, and hearing fans scream her name. This is the story of the girl the tabloids never saw. In Real Girl Mutya takes us through the highs of her spectacular career and the lows that came with a life in the limelight and shares for the first time the struggles she’d kept hidden from the public eye.

At the dawn of the '90s, Mark Ronson was a New York city prep school kid playing guitar in a mediocre band, harbouring far-fetched dreams of rock n' roll stardom. His stepdad, Mick Jones from Foreigner, was an actual rock star, and his mum, Ann Dexter-Jones, lived like a rock star. But Ronson was the least talented musician in his own teenage band. Then, one Friday night in December 1992, he went to an all-ages rave in a warehouse downtown, and his entire life changed. He would devote himself to deejaying.

As a member of Big in Japan, The Slits and, most famously, Siouxsie and The Banshees and The Creatures, 'Budgie' became one of the era-defining drummers in the much-mythologised post punk scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s. A man and musician whose creativity and singular style came to define the goth-pop 1980s as much as any other individual, Budgie's life is both fabulously glamorous and a tawdry cautionary tale. For the first time the story of this most exalted and mysterious of bands has been told by one who survived inside the belly of the beast.

Secret (and not-so-secret) weapons, side-of-the-stagers, rhythm and horn sections, backup singers, accompanists—these and other "band people" are the anonymous but irreplaceable character actors of popular music. Through interviews and incisive cultural critique, writer and musician Franz Nicolay provides a portrait of the musical middle class.

This book is the first to explain, in clear and concise language, the anatomy and mechanics of the mysterious and complex bodily system we call the voice. Beautifully illustrated with more than 100 detailed images, Anatomy of the Voice guides voice teachers and students, vocal coaches, professional singers and actors, and anyone interested in the voice through the complex landscape of breathing, larynx, throat, face, and jaw.

Vs. is the sound of a band on fire. The same confluence of talent, passion, timing, and fate that made “grunge” the world’s soundtrack also lit a short fuse beneath Pearl Jam. The band combusted between late 1992 and mid-1994, the span during which they planned, recorded, and supported their sophomore record. The spotlight, the pressure, the pace—it all nearly turned the thriving act to ash.

Covering her life and sixty-year career from Sonny & Cher to show-stopping solo performer, award-winning actress, fashion icon, and beyond, this is a glorious retrospective of one of the world’s most enduring entertainers, Cher.

Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Records chronicles for the first time the fifty-year history of the Disney recording companies launched by Walt Disney and Roy Disney in the mid-1950s, when Disneyland Park, Davy Crockett, and the Mickey Mouse Club were taking the world by storm. The book provides a perspective on all-time Disney favorites and features anecdotes, reminiscences, and biographies of the artists who brought Disney magic to audio.

Think Oasis was just Britpop and brawls? Think again. In this, the definitive book on Britain’s biggest band, John Robb peels back the layers of Manchester's best known musical export, revealing a tale of ambition, ego, talent, and a whole lot of attitude. From the gritty pubs of Manchester to the dizzying heights of global stardom, this unauthorized biography is a rollercoaster ride through the Gallagher brothers' turbulent lives and the music that defined a generation.

Bob Dylan arrived in New York one winter morning in 1961. His music and spirit would go on to capture the hearts and minds of a generation, but what no one knew then was that, like so many before him, Dylan was concealing his Jewish origins. For Harry Freedman, Dylan’s roots are the key to grasping how this complete unknown burst onto the scene and reinvented not only himself, but popular music. The instinct for escape and reinvention has defined Dylan’s long career.

Born in Manchester in 1977, Anthony Kavanagh's rise to fame was stratospheric, scoring a record deal at the age of just eighteen and winning the much-coveted Smash Hits Male Artist of the Year Award in 1997, all the while achieving top ten hits, appearing on countless magazine covers, performing on Top of the Pops and gigging alongside the Spice Girls. The stuff that dreams are made of. But Anthony - or Kavana as he came to be known - was also trying to keep his sexuality a secret while navigating his way through an industry where image was everything.

Since her death in 2003, Nina Simone has been the subject of an astonishing number of rereleased, remastered, and remixed albums and compilations as well as biographies, films, viral memes, samples, and soundtracks. In Fantasies of Nina Simone, Jordan Alexander Stein examines the space between our collective and individual fantasies about Simone the performer, civil rights activist, and icon, and her own fantasies about herself. Stein outlines how Simone gave voice to personal fantasies through releasing dozens of covers of her white male contemporaries.

Jungkook is one of the world's biggest stars, period. His first album, Golden, sold more than 2 million copies on the day of its release and stayed on the Billboard 200 for twenty-four consecutive weeks. How did a young prodigy from South Korea make music history? The Meaning of Jungkook is an unofficial kaleidoscopic exploration of the forces that made Jungkook into the triumph he is today. This book does more than just chronicle his humble beginnings in Busan and meteoric rise to fame.

Stuart Wood's love of music was ignited at fourteen when he, along with three schoolmates, formed a band. By the time he turned fifteen, he had left school to pursue a career as an electrician, blissfully unaware of the whirlwind that awaited him. Suddenly, he found himself living the life of a superstar, whisked away in limousines, pursued by frenzied fans on every continent, and thrust into the ranks of one of the bestselling groups in history.

Through a series of interviews with a wide range of people connected to Pink Floyd in their earliest days (including Nick Mason, Peter Jenner, Jenny Fabian, Storm Thorgerson, Duggie Fields and Peter Whitehead), John Cavanagh paints a vivid picture of how this remarkable debut album was created. He brings to life the stories behind each track, as well as Pink Floyd's groundbreaking live performances of the time.

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.

The Shortest History of Music takes us on a lively tour through several thousands of years of music history, tracing our relationship with this essential art and allowing us to freshly appreciate and understand music today.

Getting High is an illuminating, funny, sometimes shocking reminder of how big a band can get, and how quickly the insanity sets in. Oasis have today sold in excess of 70 million records worldwide. Hewitt's intimate account of this explosive and beloved band, in their prime, is a rock classic and a riveting narrative.