American Studies- 20th Century Resources: Music

This fully revised new edition re-establishes Paul Griffiths's survey as the definitive study of music since the Second World War. The disruptions of the war, and the struggles of the ensuing peace, were reflected in the music of the time: in Pierre Boulez's radical re-forming of compositionaltechnique and in John Cage's move into zen music, in Milton Babbitt's settling of the serial system, and in Dmitry Shostakovich's unsettling symphonies, in Karlheinz Stockhausen's development of electronic music and in Luigi Nono's pursuit of the universally human, in Iannis Xenakis's view of musicas sounding mathematics and in Luciano Berio's consideration of it as language. The initiatives of these composers and their contemporaries opened prospects that have continued to unfold.This constant expansion of musical thinking since 1945 has left us with no single history of music. `We live' as Griffiths says, `among many simultaneous histories'. His study accordingly follows several different paths, showing how they converge and diverge. In addition to the composersmentioned above, others whose music is discussed include Steve Reich, Jean Barraque, Elliott Carter, Olivier Messiaen, Gyorgy Kurtag, Bill Hopkins, Harrison Birtwhistle and Gyorgy Ligeti. Publication and recording details are given for the works of all these composers and many others.For its breadth and for its wealth of detail, Modern Music and After will appeal to both student and the general reader in search of a lively and comprehensive introduction to the music of our time.

Over 40 favorites, including: All I Have to Do Is Dream * All Shook Up * At the Hop * Blueberry Hill * Cry * Great Balls of Fire * Honeycomb * Kansas City * Lollipop * Mona Lisa * Smoke Gets in Your Eyes * Unchained Melody * and more.

The Philosophy of Modern Song is Bob Dylan's first book of new writing since 2004's Chronicles: Volume One--and since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. Dylan, who began working on the book in 2010, offers his extraordinary insight into the nature of popular music. He writes over sixty essays focusing on songs by other artists, spanning from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello, and in between ranging from Hank Williams to Nina Simone. He analyzes what he calls the trap of easy rhymes, breaks down how the addition of a single syllable can diminish a song, and even explains how bluegrass relates to heavy metal. These essays are written in Dylan's unique prose. They are mysterious and mercurial, poignant and profound, and often laugh-out-loud funny. And while they are ostensibly about music, they are really meditations and reflections on the human condition. Running throughout the book are nearly 150 carefully curated photos as well as a series of dream-like riffs that, taken together, resemble an epic poem and add to the work's transcendence. In 2020, with the release of his outstanding album Rough and Rowdy Ways, Dylan became the first artist to have an album hit the Billboard Top 40 in each decade since the 1960s. The Philosophy of Modern Song contains much of what he has learned about his craft in all those years, and like everything that Dylan does, it is a momentous artistic achievement.

As soon as the Beatles became famous, the spin machines began to construct a myth - a myth that has continued into the present. The truth is far more interesting, far more exciting and far more moving. After years of international research, hundreds of unprecedented interviews and the mining of tens of thousands of previously unseen documents, Bob Spitz has written the definitive, epic, all-encompassing biography not just of John and Paul and their two mates from Liverpool, but of a band - a loud, angry rock 'n' roll band composed of four kids who became gods.

Infused with a raw and energetic sound that stripped rock 'n' roll to the bone, punk rock transformed rock's landscape in the 1970s, deconstructing bloated arena rock and leaving a lasting influence on the music and cultural scene in the United States and overseas. Punk was all about extending a middle finger to the status quo while pushing boundaries in uncharted directions. According to punk poet laureate Patti Smith, "To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to be not successful, freedom to be who you are. It's freedom." Punk: The Definitive Guide to the Blank Generation and Beyond focuses on the origins of punk, ranging from disparate influences such as Dadaism, the Beat Generation, the garage bands of the 1960s, the Paris-based Situationist International movement, Jamaican ska bands, Stanley Kubrick's dystopian masterpiece A Clockwork Orange, and the glam rock of the early 1970s. Rich Weidman highlights the best and worst punk bands, the greatest punk songs and albums, the most notorious concerts, and the rise of American hardcore punk. Legendary venues such as CBGB and classic punk films and documentaries like The Decline of Western Civilization propelled the rise of pop punk bands into the mainstream and every other aspect of punk subculture, including its lasting impact on rock 'n' roll and society as a whole.

"Musicals weren't really something that the British did much of. There was a view back then, a latent inferiority complex perhaps, that the musical was an American artform, and they did it much better. There was the odd big British musical like Oliver! but … Broadway had jazz and the Great American Songbook. British musical theater wasn't viewed with any great seriousness either; they were mere entertainments, not real theater at all. And if you appeared in them, you weren't a real actor-you were a musical theater person. As a results musicals in London tended to be done on the cheap. It was left to the Americans to bring the big guns to the West End. A Chorus Line breezed into town in 1976 with a huge budget, a huge cast, and an incredibly well-drilled Broadway production team; homegrown musicals didn't stand a chance. But the wind was changing."

They all tried, but few singers and musicians from the 1950s became stars. Yet many of them had stories to tell that were far more interesting than the ones you already know. Author Hank Davis was bitten by the music bug as a teenager. By the time he entered college in 1959, he was no stranger to New York's recording studios and had a few 45s of his own on the market. Spanning a 45 year career in music journalism, Davis has spent time backstage, in motel rooms, and on tour buses to uncover stories that rarely made the official annals of pop music history. Based on hundreds of hours of interviews and new research, Ducktails, Drive-Ins, and Broken Hearts offers a fascinating, behind-the-scenes look at the winners and losers during rock 'n' roll's formative era. How did a decade as uptight and puritanical as the '50s produce so much cringe-worthy, politically incorrect music? What was it like to see a pale cover version of your latest record climb the charts while yours sat unplayed by mainstream radio stations? How did precious Elvis tapes end up in a Memphis landfill? And who was that thirteen-year-old girl who made a five-dollar vanity record at Sun just two years after Elvis had--and ended up singing backup on "Suspicious Minds" and "In the Ghetto?" This book is a must-read for all fans of '50s music. In the words of Jerry Phillips, son of Sun Records founder, Sam Phillips, "Hank Davis is one of the few guys who really gets it."

The behind-the-scenes story of the controversial 1960s made-for-tv rock band.   The Monkees represent a vital problem for rock and pop: is it the music that matters or the personality and image of the performers? This book explores the system behind the Monkees, the controversial made-for-TV band that scored some of the biggest hits in the 1960s. The Monkees represent the cumulative result of a complex coordination of talented individuals, from songwriters to studio musicians to producers--in short, the 1960s Hollywood music industry. At the time, the new rock criticism bewailed the "fake" band while fans and audiences pushed the Monkees to the top of the charts. Through the Monkees' unlikely success, this book illustrates the commercial genius of the Hollywood system and its legacy in popular music today.  

Discover one of the greatest true crime stories in music history, as only James Patterson can tell it. With the Beatles, John Lennon surpasses his youthful dreams, achieving a level of superstardom that defies classification. "We were the best bloody band there was," he says. "There was nobody to touch us." Nobody except the original nowhere man, Mark David Chapman. Chapman once worshipped his idols from afar--but now harbors grudges against those, like Lennon, whom he feels betrayed him. He's convinced Lennon has misled fans with his message of hope and peace. And Chapman's not staying away any longer.    By the summer of 1980, Lennon is recording new music for the first time in years, energized and ready for it to be "(Just Like) Starting Over." He can't wait to show the world what he will do.    Neither can Chapman, who quits his security job and boards a flight to New York, a handgun and bullets stowed in his luggage.    The greatest true-crime story in music history, as only James Patterson can tell it. Enriched by exclusive interviews with Lennon's friends and associates, including Paul McCartney, The Last Days of John Lennon is the thrilling true story of two men who changed history: One whose indelible songs enliven our world to this day--and the other who ended the beautiful music with five pulls of a trigger.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A Washington Post Notable Book Excerpted in The New Yorker A work of unparalleled candor and splendorous beauty, The Lyrics celebrates the creative life and the musical genius of Paul McCartney through his most meaningful songs. Finally in paperback and featuring seven new song commentaries, the #1 New York Times bestseller celebrates the creative life and unparalleled musical genius of Paul McCartney. Spanning sixty-four years--from his early days in Liverpool, through the historic decade of The Beatles, to Wings and his solo career--Paul McCartney's The Lyrics revolutionized the way artists write about music. An unprecedented "triumph" (Times UK), this handsomely designed volume pairs the definitive texts of over 160 songs with first-person commentaries on McCartney's life, revealing the diverse circumstances in which songs were written; how they ultimately came to be; and the remarkable, yet often delightfully ordinary, people and places that inspired them. The Lyrics also includes: · A personal foreword by McCartney · An unprecedented range of songs, from beloved standards like "Band on the Run" to new additions "Day Tripper" and "Magical Mystery Tour" · Over 160 images from McCartney's own archives Edited and introduced by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, The Lyrics is the definitive literary and visual record of one of the greatest songwriters of all time.

NAMED A BEST MUSIC BOOK OF 2023 by PITCHFORK, VARIETY, AND ROLLING STONE A companion to the #1 music podcast on Spotify, this book takes readers through the greatest hits that define a weirdly undefinable decade.  The 1990s were a chaotic and gritty and utterly magical time for music, a confounding barrage of genres and lifestyles and superstars, from grunge to hip-hop, from sumptuous R&B to rambunctious ska-punk, from Axl to Kurt to Missy to Santana to Tupac to Britney. In 60 SONGS THAT EXPLAIN THE '90s, Ringer music critic Rob Harvilla reimagines all the earwormy, iconic hits Gen Xers pine for with vivid historical storytelling, sharp critical analysis, rampant loopiness, and wryly personal ruminations on the most bizarre, joyous, and inescapable songs from a decade we both regret entirely and miss desperately.

Writer Ted Fox and artist James Otis Smith bring to life Harlem's legendary theater in this graphic novel adaptation of Fox's definitive, critically acclaimed history of the Apollo. Since its inception as an African-American theater in 1934, the Apollo, and the thousands of entertainers who performed there, have led the way in the presentation of swing, bebop, rhythm and blues, jazz, gospel, soul, funk and hip-hop--along with the latest in dance and comedy. The Apollo has nurtured and featured thousands of artists, many of whom have become legends. The beauty they have given the world--their art--transcends the hatred, ignorance, and intolerance that often made their lives difficult. Today, the Apollo enjoys an almost mythical status. With its breathtaking art, this graphic novel adaptation of Showtime at the Apollo brings to life the theater's legendary significance in music history, African American history, and to the culture of New York City.

What good are the arts? Why should we care about the past? For millennia, humanity has sought to understand and transmit to future generations not just the "know-how" of life, but the "know-why"--the meaning and purpose of our existence, as expressed in art, architecture, religion, and philosophy. This crucial passing down of knowledge has required the radical integration of insights from the past and from other cultures. In Culture, acclaimed author, professor, and public intellectual Martin Puchner takes us on a breakneck tour through pivotal moments in world history, providing a global introduction to the arts and humanities in one engaging volume. From Nefertiti's lost city to the plays of Wole Soyinka; from the theaters of ancient Greece to Chinese travel journals to Arab and Aztec libraries; from a South Asian statuette found at Pompeii to a time capsule left behind on the Moon, Puchner tells the gripping story of human achievement through our collective losses and rediscoveries, power plays and heroic journeys, innovations, imitations, and appropriations. More than a work of history, Culture is an archive of humanity's most monumental junctures and a guidebook for the future of us humans as a creative species. Witty, erudite, and full of wonder, Puchner argues that the humanities are (and always have been) essential to the transmission of knowledge that drives the efforts of human civilization.