The mid-20th century saw the birth of a new kind of big band/orchestral music in what came to be called 'Easy Listening'. Like its contemporary, rock 'n' roll, it took the world by storm, introducing romance and chic into a world brutalised by war.
Talk Talk were one of the great art rock bands of the 1980s and 1990s with a huge cult following. This book examines the whole of Talk Talk's oeuvre song by song, telling their bizarre and somewhat unlikely story along the way as we cast light on the essence of the group through their work.
This new, expanded edition celebrates a flurry of recent Yes activity. The book examines each one of the band's studio albums, highlighting the many high points, and the rarer missteps, as well as focussing on the changes in band dynamics which led to some varied - but always interesting - music.
This book examines the work of the first decade-and-a-half of Lou Reed as a solo artist. It would be easy to paint these years with a broad brush; with the ghost of The Velvet Underground in its aftermath slowly yet gradually gaining cultural influence, this slow-burning legacy would both tether and liberate its key participant.
In 1985, Suzanne Vega released her debut, garnering platinum status in the U.K and this New York-based singer-songwriter's self-titled album claimed the number 80 spot on Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Best Albums of the Eighties.
The Byrds were just a little bit ahead of their time. By releasing six genre-defining albums in three years, their transformative powers took electric guitars to traditional folk music, brought jazz into psychedelic pop and helped introduce what we now know as Americana, by being the first major rock band to embrace the sound of Nashville.
This long-overdue book charts the career of Sparks from 1969 - 1979. Every album and every song is examined, including some which are still officially unreleased.
This book examines all of Humble Pie's recorded output in detail - album by album, track by track - covering every chapter of the band's musical story, from the early carefree and democratic days of genre experimentation through to their halcyon period of hard-rocking R&B.
Bob Dylan is the magician who sprinkled poetic fairy dust on to the popular music of the early sixties and his songwriting sparked a revolution and changed rock music forever. Dylan's ground-breaking music changed the world and his amazing story is revealed by exploring the eleven albums that he released between 1962 and 1970.
This book covers the tumultuous period 1979-89 when this trio of groups poured forth a torrent of brilliant music and covers every album and every track, scooping up along the way the hits that never were, experimental B-sides, remixes and guest appearances. It is a truly idiosyncratic creative flare path lighting up a strange but exciting decade.
Soft Machine are perceived as cold and forbidding. At their peak in the 1970s, they purposefully raised the hackles of pop journalists, the musical establishment, and even their own fans. Their music was designed to exclude all but the most devoted. Their line-up constantly churned, divesting themselves of every player that tried to make a human connection. Instead of the community of live performance, they favoured an abusive blast of ferocious noise that never ceased from the first note to the point you were driven out of the venue in shock. That all this was true only for a short period of their career and is certainly not the case for more recent incarnations is irrelevant if potential listeners are turned away before they've even dared to hear a note of their music. Do so, and an entirely different band emerges: one that is sly, spry, tuneful, trippy, and surprisingly welcoming, merging a glorious melange of prog rock, jazz fusion, and much more and capable of shifting on a unison beat from soul ballad to freeform skronk, from fuzz-driven pounding to aching minimalism. This book guides you through the maze of the band's works, revealing why every album is worthy of re-evaluation, why they're so influential, and why you should rush to assimilate as many of them as you can. It covers the live and studio material released by the parent group, all related projects with a 'Soft' in their name, and the essential extracurricular activities of every member from 1960 to the present day.
Since their formation in the early 1970s, Earth, Wind & Fire have been at the forefront of popular music. Led by the fearless Maurice White, the band imprinted their funky style onto the world's psyche, with tracks like 'September', 'Let's Groove', 'That's The Way of The World' and 'Reasons' becoming instantly recognisable in the process, transforming the group into one of the biggest pop acts of all time. Walking the fine line between pop hits, jazz compositions and fusion playing, Maurice surrounded himself with some of the best players of the time in order to realise his vision. Al McKay, Verdine White, Larry Dunn, Andrew Woolfolk and vocalist extraordinaire Philip Bailey were players of the highest order, committing stunning performances to tape and becoming icons in the process. Earth, Wind & Fire On Track gives a complete overview of the group's recorded output. From 1971s self-titled debut to 2014's Holiday, with smash hits like I Am, All 'N All and Spirit in between, here you will find every song delved into with facts and insightful analysis. No stone is left unturned in this career overview, giving both longtime fans and newcomers something fresh to find out about one of popular music's greatest acts.
Traversing power metal, acoustic introspect and finally settling on their breakthrough cinematic sound, Finnish heavyweights Nightwish are the leading name in the sumptuous world of symphonic metal. Having tackled numerous high-profile line-up changes, each threatening to derail the grand vehicle of spirit curated by founder Tuomas Holopainen, their every turn has been documented across nine studio records. Whilst the surface presents the Nightwish discography as a feast of metaphor and imagination, it's in the undercurrent that the vulnerability of the compositions are revealed; the fury of 'Master Passion Greed' detailing the acrimonious split with vocalist Tarja Turunen, the melancholia permeating Century Child and the awe-inspiring ode to evolution of Endless Forms Most Beautiful. This book analyses every song released by the group, from their Angels Fall First debut to 2020's Human.:: Nature., discussing inimitable singles 'Nemo' and the begrudgingly composed 'Sleeping Sun' as well as patriotic sport soundtracks, impromptu live outings and curious cover versions. Nightwish On Track also discusses the abundant live releases and compilations from their career to date and gathers together an exhaustive list of the band's B-sides and rarities.
From humble beginnings, as they emerged pimple-popped and sweaty out of a global New Wave of British Heavy Metal scene infiltrating California in the early 80s, through to almost complete world domination, sell out tours and Billboard chart success, Metallica's story is like few others. With an insatiable hunger andhell-for-leatherr attitude, they helped to forge a new direction for metal music across the world, combining progressive anger with, at times, sweeping ballads. In the space of just a few album, s they transformed from thrashing wannabes (Kill 'Em All) into real heavy rock contenders (...And Justice for All) - before unleashing a new blend of chart-topping heavy metal on the masses (Black Album). A band of dogged workers, with twists and turns, heartbreak and line-up changes peppering their more than 40-year career, if they aren't on the road, it seems they're in the recording studio, with an incessant hunt for the next loudest, ground-breaking sound, spurring them on. They rode a wave, then started a tsunami, so prepare to be blown away. Metallica give you 'heavy baby!'.
Slade were one of the biggest British bands of the 1970s. One of the early pioneers of gl, am rock they enjoyed an incredible run of six number one singles, four top-ten albums and a succession of sell-out tours. However, after a failed attempt at an American breakthrough in the mid-1970s, Slade returned to Britain and faced dwindling record sales, smaller concert halls and a music press that had lost interest in them. By the end of the decade, they were playing residencies in cabaret clubs and recorded a cover of a children's novelty song. But then came a last-minute invitation to play the 1980 Reading Festival, setting into motion one of the most remarkable comebacks in rock history. As we come to the fiftieth anniversary of Slade's 1973 annus mirabilis that saw 'Cum On Feel The Noize', 'Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me' and 'Merry Xmas Everybody' all enter the UK charts at number one, this book celebrates the music of Slade. From the band's beginnings in the mid-1960s through each year of the decade that gave them their biggest successes, every album and single is examined, as well as their raucous live shows and colourful media profile.
One of the true musical geniuses of the late 20th and early 21st century, Richard D. James has continued to be a pioneer in the electronic music landscape throughout his prolific, multi-faceted career. James, under his myriad of aliases, laid the foundation for ambient techno, drill 'n' bass and dark ambient across the span of six phenomenal studio albums and a multitude of EPs and side projects. Alongside this, he crafted a unique visual identity, expressed through his iconic logo and video collaborations with Chris Cunningham. If that wasn't enough, he has become a figurehead for artists as diverse as Thom Yorke and Pharrell Williams. Year by year, the mythos surrounding him continues to grow, ensuring he remains as culturally prevalent as ever. With no new, officially released music since 2020, this book marks the perfect opportunity to track the course of James' sizeable catalogue. From the well-known to the obscure, the rapid bursts of activity in the 1990s to the so-called 'hiatus' in the 2000s, every corner of this formidable discography is examined in vivid detail, providing insight and an impetus to discover to new listeners and hardcore fans in equal measure.
Once, there were four university students who started a rock band named after a firetruck.
"Horslips: arguably the greatest band in Irish rock music history. This five-piece band produced truly special, unique music in the 1970s. By joining literary craft and their cultural heritage with a fusion of traditionally inspired music with rock instrumentation, they created a genre of music which became known as Celtic Rock ."--
Green Day are one of rock history's greatest and most successful bands. Singer/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tré Cool have been together creating rock music with a punk heart for over three decades.
Beck Hansen has enjoyed three decades of success, creating an unprecedented variety of music across a labyrinth of releases that challenge conventions and push pop music boundaries.
The 1980s saw Alice Cooper release arguably his most diverse collection of albums, ranging from new wave to metal to full-on radio-friendly rock
Of all the British bands that blasted to fame in rock's golden age, Nektar remain the most mysterious and least documented. Because they chose to base themselves in West Germany, until now commentators in their native land have tended to overlook them. They're all but excluded from prog's official narrative even though Remember The Future is a classic of the genre and one of very few European art rock albums to conquer the US. This book reveals Nektar as much more than just a hit LP, celebrating a catalogue rich in works of equal stature which, uniquely for the time, poured so effortlessly from the players. Whether you know only the clutch of 1970s albums that are Nektar at the pinnacle, or you've followed their progress under leaders Roye Albrighton and now Derek Moore, here's everything you need to complete your understanding of an agile, continuously intriguing and as distinctive as their covers, as dazzling as their light show, and as warm as their fans. It documents how Germany was both boon and bane for the band, how America tore them apart and pulled them back together, and how from Journey To The Centre Of The Eye to The Other Side Nektar have a vision and a connection that brings them much closer to our small scared lives than any other band of their stature.
Yes are widely recognised as pioneers of progressive rock through their defining work in the 1970s, including classic records such as Fragile and Close to the Edge. The band then went on to completely re-invent themselves in the 1980s. They achieved huge commercial success with the album 90125 and global hit 'Owner of a Lonely Heart'. But there has been little acknowledgement of their achievements in the ten years that followed, paving the way for three more decades in an extraordinary 50 plus-year-long career. Examining six more albums, the arrival of multi-instrumentalist Billy Sherwood, successful tours, solo and film projects, a move into the digital age, and consolidation of a worldwide fanbase, Yes in the 1990s adds a fresh twist to the story of this revered band. Simon Barrow followed Yes closely in the '90s, seeing them dozens of times on both sides of the Atlantic. He charts an underestimated era of development in the Yes sound, encompassing multiple personnel changes. Bookended by notable tours for Union and The Ladder, the '90s is a tale of Yes-intransition, as the search for new musical horizons sees their influence mutate across everything from art pop to global fusion.
Status Quo are a British institution - a multi-million selling band of epic proportions and while their career was in it's hey day during the 1970s, the hits kept coming through the 1980s along with breakups, lawsuits, line-up changes, substance abuse and a high-profile, highly successful comeback after calling it a day in 1984. While much has been written about the 'glory years', Quo's difficult but triumphant struggle through the 1980s is a much more exciting story with twists, turns and a sense of peril that feels like it could go either way. This is a celebration of Quo's music at its most vulnerable and experimental, at a time when the band lost old fans, gained new ones and made some of the most varied and creative recordings of their career. No stone has been left unturned with several members of the band contributing stories and anecdotes from their own perspectives that should leave even the most knowledgeable of fans feeling like they've learned something.
Having moved from jazz, Blues and R'n'B to out-and-out pop in his various 1960s bands, keyboard player Manfred Mann went back to the drawing board in 1971 with a new quartet, Manfred Mann's Earth Band, and the intention of focusing on progressive rock. With a repertoire that leant partly on radical rearrangements of songs by Bob Dylan and then Bruce Springsteen, largely instrumental epics that borrowed from Gustav Holst's The Planets suite, and improvisations based around the interplay between Manfred's newly-acquired moog synthesiser and the lead guitar of Mick Rogers, who left in 1975 but later returned, they soon built up a formidable live reputation throughout much of Europe (particularly in Germany) and America. Apart from the Holst-inspired 'Joybringer', a top ten hit in 1973, British success was slow in coming, until a cover version of Springsteen's 'Blinded by the Light' and its parent album The Roaring Silence three years later took their status to a new level on both sides of the Atlantic. This book examines the nine albums, fluctuating fortunes and various line-up changes from what was to be their best and most prolific decade.
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