Music and musicians are on display in our Note-Worthy Books exhibit on the 2nd floor of Metro Library, next to the reference desk. Learn about a genre of music, read the memoir of a favorite icon, or dive into why music is so important.
**All books are available for checkout.**
Can't Stop the Grrrls by
"This is a convincing call to action." Publishers Weekly Words and labels can hurt us all. And for many female musicians, the wounds are everywhere. From stars like Britney Spears and Mariah Carey to classic icons like Yoko Ono, female musicians have long been the target of double standards and toxic labels in the media and pop culture: liar, crazy, snake, diva, slut, b*tch. These words hurt--the popular expression "sticks and stones" is wildly wrong. Lily Hirsch confronts the full range of this sexist labeling as well as the repercussions, concentrating on the experiences of Yoko Ono, Courtney Love, Britney Spears, FKA twigs, Taylor Swift, Kesha, Mariah Carey, and Ariana Grande, among many others. While men can make outrageous backstage demands, women like Carey are punished as "divas." A sign of supposed genius for men, "crazy" is a word of condemnation for many women--with legal ramifications in Spears' case. Hirsch dives into the world of these women, looking at their personal lives, relationships and breakups, music, media coverage, public reception, as well as the origins of these toxic labels and how they have caused serious damage. Can't Stop the Grrrls reveals the inner workings of misogyny and invites us to think about these remarkable women on their own terms--showing us how women have fought back too, sometimes reclaiming these words and their own stories through music.
She's a Badass by
Feminism has always been a complex and controversial topic, as female rock musicians know especially well. When they've stayed true to their own vision, these artists have alternately been adored as role models or denounced as bad influences. Either way, they're asked to cope with certain pressures that their male counterparts haven't faced. With each successive feminism movement since the 1960s, women in rock have been prominent proponents of progress as they've increasingly taken control of their own music, message, and image. This, in its way, is just as revolutionary as any protest demonstration. In She's a Badass, music journalist Katherine Yeske Taylor interviews twenty significant women in rock, devoting an entire chapter to each one, taking an in-depth look at the incredible talent, determination--and, often, humor--they needed to succeed in their careers (and life). Interviewees range from legendary artists through notable up-and-comers, including Ann Wilson (Heart), Gina Schock (The Go-Go's), Suzanne Vega, Amy Ray (Indigo Girls), Orianthi, Amanda Palmer, and more. Their experiences reveal the varied and unique challenges these women have faced, how they overcame them, and what they think still needs to be done to continue making progress on the equality front. Their stories prove that promoting feminism--either through activism or by living example--is undeniably badass. The women interviewed for the 20 chapters are: Suzi Quatro, Ann Wilson (Heart), Exene Cervenka (X), Gina Schock (the Go-Go's), Lydia Lunch, Suzanne Vega, Cherie Currie (the Runaways), Joan Osborne, Donita Sparks (L7), Amy Ray (Indigo Girls), Tanya Donelly (Throwing Muses, the Breeders, Belly), Paula Cole, Tobi Vail (Bikini Kill), Laura Veirs, Catherine Popper, Amanda Palmer, Bonnie Bloomgarden (Death Valley Girls), Orianthi, Fefe Dobson, and Sade Sanchez (L.A. Witch).
Queer Blues by
This is the definitive account of the LGBTQ trailblazers of early blues and a fascinating consideration of the intersection between music and LGBTQ history, from the award-winning Darryl W. Bullock. From the very beginning, the blues has had a close connection with the LGBTQ community. There is a long and decorated history of so-called 'dirty blues' songs, stretching back beyond the earliest attempts to capture the blues on record. The 1920s and 30s saw the release of dozens of raunchy, bawdy blues recordings aimed at a knowing LGBTQ audience. Queer Blues tells the story of the pioneering LGBTQ composers and entertainers that wrote, performed and recorded these wonderfully outlandish, life-affirming songs and chronicles, including: Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Josephine Baker to Frankie 'Half-Pint' Jaxon and many more.
The Jazzmen by
From the New York Times bestselling author of Satchel and Bobby Kennedy, a sweeping and spellbinding portrait of the longtime kings of jazz--Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie--who, born within a few years of one another, overcame racist exclusion and violence to become the most popular entertainers on the planet. This is the story of three revolutionary American musicians, the maestro jazzmen who orchestrated the chords that throb at the soul of twentieth-century America. Duke Ellington, the grandson of slaves who was christened Edward Kennedy Ellington, was a man whose story is as layered and nuanced as his name suggests and whose music transcended category. Louis Daniel Armstrong was born in a New Orleans slum so tough it was called The Battlefield and, at age seven, got his first musical instrument, a ten-cent tin horn that drew buyers to his rag-peddling wagon and set him on the road to elevating jazz into a pulsating force for spontaneity and freedom. William James Basie, too, grew up in a world unfamiliar to white fans--the son of a coachman and laundress who dreamed of escaping every time the traveling carnival swept into town, and who finally engineered his getaway with help from Fats Waller. What is far less known about these groundbreakers is that they were bound not just by their music or even the discrimination that they, like nearly all Black performers of their day, routinely encountered. Each defied and ultimately overcame racial boundaries by opening America's eyes and souls to the magnificence of their music. In the process they wrote the soundtrack for the civil rights movement. Based on more than 250 interviews, this exhaustively researched book brings alive the history of Black America in the early-to-mid 1900s through the singular lens of the country's most gifted, engaging, and enduring African-American musicians.
J. S. Bach by
Peter Williams approaches afresh the life and music of arguably the most studied of all composers, interpreting both Bach's life by deconstructing his original obituary in the light of more recent information and his music by evaluating his priorities and irrepressible creative energy. How, even though belonging to musical families on both his parents' sides, did he come to possess so bewitching a sense of rhythm and melody and a mastery of harmony that established nothing less than a norm in Western culture? In considering that the works of a composer are his biography, the book's title A Life in Music means both a life spent making music and one revealed in the music as we know it. A distinguished scholar and performer, Williams re-examines Bach's life as an orphan and family man, as an extraordinarily gifted composer and player and as an ambitious artist who never suffered fools gladly.
Bob Dylan by
The first and greatest biography of one of the most important figures in rock history now re-issued for the first time since 1973. - I read it. Some of its pretty straight, some of it's very straight, some of its exactly the way it happened...I rather enjoyed it, because it's not that magazine bullshit. I like your book. That's the weird thing about it.' - Bob Dylan'
Billy Joel by
The long-awaited, all-access biography of a music legend In Billy Joel, acclaimed music journalist Fred Schruers draws upon more than one hundred hours of exclusive interviews with Joel to present an unprecedented look at the life, career, and legacy of the pint-sized kid from Long Island who became a rock icon. Exhibiting unparalleled intimate knowledge, Schruers chronicles Joel's rise to the top of the charts, from his working-class origins in Levittown and early days spent in boxing rings and sweaty clubs to his monumental success in the seventies and eighties. He also explores Joel's creative transformation in the nineties, his dream performance with Paul McCartney at Shea Stadium in 2008, and beyond. Along the way, Schruers reveals the stories behind all the key events and relationships--including Joel's high-profile marriages and legal battles--that defined his path to stardom and inspired his signature songs, such as "Piano Man," "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant," "New York State of Mind," and "She's Always a Woman." Throughout, he captures the spirit of a restless artist determined to break through by sharing, in his deeply personal lyrics, the dreams and heartbreaks of suburban American life. Comprehensive, vibrantly written, and filled with Joel's memories and reflections--as well as those of the family, friends, and band members who have formed his inner circle, including Christie Brinkley, Alexa Ray Joel, Jon Small, and Steve Cohen--this is the definitive account of a beloved rock star's epic American journey.
Moonwalk by
In this #1 New York Times bestseller, Michael Jackson tells the story of his life, in his words. In this intimate and often moving personal account of Michael Jackson's public and private life, he recalls a childhood that was both harsh and joyful but always formidable. Michael and his brothers played amateur music shows and seamy Chicago strip joints until Motown's corporate image makers turned the Jackson 5 into worldwide superstars. He talks about the happy prankster days of his youth, traveling with his brothers, and of his sometimes difficult relationships with his family over the years. He speaks candidly about the inspiration behind his music, his mesmerizing dance moves, and the compulsive drive to create that has made him one of the biggest stars in the music business and a legend in his own time. Jackson also shares his personal feelings about some of his most public friends...friends like Diana Ross, Berry Gordy, Quincy Jones, Paul McCartney, Fred Astaire, Marlon Brando, and Katharine Hepburn. He talks openly about the crushing isolation of his fame, of his first love, of his plastic surgery, and of his wholly exceptional career and the often bizarre and unfair rumors that have surrounded it. Illustrated with rare photographs from Jackson family albums and Michael's personal photographic archives, as well as a drawing done by Michael exclusively for this book, Moonwalk is a memorable journey to the very heart and soul of a modern musical genius.
John Lennon: the Life by
For more than a quarter century, biographer Philip Norman's internationally bestselling Shout! has been unchallenged as the definitive biography of the Beatles. Now, at last, Norman turns his formidable talent to the Beatle for whom being a Beatle was never enough. Drawing on previously untapped sources, and with unprecedented access to all the major characters, Norman presents the comprehensive and most revealing portrait of John Lennon ever published. This masterly biography takes a fresh and penetrating look at every aspect of Lennon's much-chronicled life, including the songs that have turned him, posthumously, into a near-secular saint. In three years of research, Norman has turned up an extraordinary amount of new information about even the best-known episodes of Lennon folklore--his upbringing by his strict Aunt Mimi; his allegedly wasted school and student days; the evolution of his peerless creative partnership with Paul McCartney; his Beatle-busting love affair with a Japanese performance artist; his forays into painting and literature; his experiments with Transcendental Meditation, primal scream therapy, and drugs. The book's numerous key informants and interviewees include Sir Paul McCartney, Sir George Martin, Sean Lennon--whose moving reminiscence reveals his father as never seen before--and Yoko Ono, who speaks with sometimes shocking candor about the inner workings of her marriage to John. "[A] haunting, mammoth, terrific piece of work." -New York Times Honest and unflinching, as John himself would wish, Norman gives us the whole man in all his endless contradictions--tough and cynical, hilariously funny but also naive, vulnerable and insecure--and reveals how the mother who gave him away as a toddler haunted his mind and his music for the rest of his days.
Madonna: Like an Icon by
Material Girl. Immaculate sexpot. Kabbalah enthusiast. British mum. She has defied categorization for three decades and remained one of our greatest living pop icons Madonna: Like an Icon is a groundbreaking biography that finally solves the mystery at the heart of Madonna's chameleonlike existence. Extensively researched and perceptively written by journalist Lucy O'Brien, it explores the complex personality and legendary drive that has made Madonna the most famous female pop artist of our time. O'Brien draws upon scores of interviews with producers, musicians, collaborators, lovers, and friends--many of whom have never spoken so candidly--to examine Madonna's fascinating life. From her mother's premature death to her dynamic arrival on the New York club scene to her training for Evita and beyond, every stage of her life is illuminated. Unlike any previous Madonna biographer, O'Brien deconstructs the stereotypes that have plagued the star, whether it was being labeled a self-indulgent siren for her book Sex or criticized for exploiting her celebrity status to adopt baby David in 2006. O'Brien provides an incisive portrayal, from Madonna's early days dancing at gay clubs in Detroit to the producers and musicians she both alienated and amazed in her uncompromising quest to seize on the next cultural wave.
It Was All a Dream by
The Notorious B.I.G. was one of the most charismatic and talented artists of the 1990s. Born Christopher Wallace and raised in Clinton Hill/Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, Biggie lived an almost archetypal rap life: young trouble, drug dealing, guns, prison, a giant hit record, the wealth and international superstardom that came with it, then an early violent death. Biggie released his first record, Ready to Die, in 1994, when he was only 22. Less than three years later, he was killed just days before the planned release of his second record Life After Death. Journalist Justin Tinsley's It Was All a Dream is a fresh, insightful telling of the life beyond the legend. It is based on extensive interviews with those who knew and loved Biggie, including neighbors, friends, DJs, party promoters, and journalists. And it places Biggie's life in context, both within the history of rap but also the wider cultural and political forces that shaped him, including Caribbean immigration, the Reagan era disinvestment in public education, street life, the war on drugs, mass incarceration, and the booming, creative, and influential 1990s music industry. This is the story of where Biggie came from, the forces that shaped him, and the legacy he has left behind.
Prince by
The newest, most updated book on Prince available today Famously reticent and perennially controversial, Prince was one of the few music superstars who remained, largely, an enigma--even up to his premature death on April 21, 2016. A fixture of the pop canon, Prince is widely held to be the greatest musician of his generation and will undoubtedly remain an inspiring and singular talent. This meticulously researched biography is the most comprehensive work on Prince yet published. Unlike other Prince books, this one eschews speculation into the artist's highly guarded private life and instead focuses deep and sustained attention exactly where it should be: on his work. Acclaimed British novelist and critic Matt Thorne draws on years of research and dozens of interviews with Prince's intimate associates (many of whom have never spoken on record before) to examine every phase of the musician's 35-year career, including nearly every song--released and unreleased--that Prince has recorded. Originally released in the UK in 2012, this first US publication of Prince includes updated content detailing the artist's two 2014 albums, tour, 2015 Tidal release, and other career events. This astonishingly rich, almost encyclopedic biography is a must-have for any serious fan of Prince.
The Woman in Me by
Named a Best Book of the Year by Elle, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, NPR, Financial Times, Vanity Fair, and more! "In Britney Spears's memoir, she's stronger than ever." --The New York Times Over 2 million copies sold of the "moving" (Time), "powerful" (Los Angeles Times), "radiant" (The New York Times), "poignant" (Vogue) #1 New York Times bestseller. The Woman in Me is a brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith, and hope. In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice--her truth--was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey--and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history. Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears's groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love--and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.
The Beatles by
The Beatles: Image and the Media charts the transformation of the Beatles from teen idols to leaders of the youth movement and powerful cultural agents. Drawing upon American mainstream print media, broadcasts, albums, films, and videos, the study covers the band's career in the United States. Michael R. Frontani explores how the Beatles' media image evolved and how this transformation related to cultural and historical events. Upon their arrival in the U.S., the Beatles wore sharply tailored suits and cast themselves as adorable, accessible teen heartthrobs. By the end of the decade, they had absorbed the fashion and consciousness of the burgeoning counterculture and were using their interviews, media events, and music to comment on issues such as the Vietnam War, drug culture, and civil rights. Frontani traces the steps that led to this change and comments on how the band's mantra of essential optimism never wavered despite the evolution of its media profile. Michael R. Frontani is associate professor of communications at Elon University. His work has appeared in American Journalism, Journal of American Culture, Journalism History, and African Studies Review.
Metallica by
Metallica, the frayed ends of sanity. Heavy Metal's most influential voice. With their cross-bred cacophony of punk's jagged anger and rock and roll's monolithic muscle, they've blown apart the temple doors of the once-sacred Top Ten. Their hurricane mosaic of guitar riffs and feverish lyrics has left America gasping for more from these titans of thrash. They've done it all on their own terms, crowning themselves true monsters of rock without compromise. Lars, James, Kirk, and Jason gave imploded any existing ideas about metal and replaced the entire genre with a raw, new staple of rock and roll.
Moving to Higher Ground by
The great jazz perfomer and personality Marsalis offers readers an insight into the power of Jazz to effect personal changes. That is, people and nations can improvise together to create a more meaningful way of life. The Pulitzer Prize-winner shows how to listen to jazz and through stories about the lessons he's learned through life and other jazz greats, he reveals how the central ideas of jazz can change how people think and behave with others. Jazz, as an art, has always been able to move people to higher ground. This illuminating book is a master-class on its power.
Sing Me Back Home by
The years from about 1950 to 1970 were the golden age of twang. Country music's giants all strode the earth in those years: Hank Williams and Johnny Cash, George Jones and Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. And many of the standards that still define country were recorded then: "Folsom Prison Blues," "Your Cheatin' Heart," "Mama Tried," "Stand by Your Man," and "Coal Miner's Daughter."InSing Me Back Home, Dana Jennings pushes past the iconic voices and images to get at what classic country music truly means to us today. Yes, country tells the story of rural America in the twentieth century--but the obsessions of classic country were obsessions of America as a whole: drinking and cheating, class and the yearning for home, God and death.Jennings, who grew up in a town that had more cows than people when he was born, knows all of this firsthand. His people lived their lives by country music. His grandmothers were honky-tonk angels, his uncles men of constant sorrow, and his father a romping, stomping hell-raiser who lived for the music of Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and the other rockabilly hellions.Sing Me Back Homeis about a vanished world in which the Depression never ended and the sixties never arrived. Jennings uses classic country songs to explain the lives of his people, and shows us how their lives are also ours--only twangier.
Hip Hop Raised Me by
'It's a hip-hop bible' Ghostface Killah, Wutang Clan In Hip Hop Raised Me.® , DJ Semtex examines the crucial role of hip-hop in society today, and reflects on the huge influence it has had on his own life, and the lives of many others, filling in the gaps of education that school left behind, providing inspiration and purpose to generation after generation of disaffected youths. Taking a thematic approach and featuring seminal interviews he has conducted with key hip-hop artists, Semtex traces the characteristics and influence of hip-hop from its origins in the early 1970s with DJ Kool Herc's Block parties in the South Bronx, through its breakthrough to the mainstream and advent of gangsta rap in the late 1980s, with artists such as Run DMC, Public Enemy and Ice T, to the impact of contemporary artists and the global industry that is hip-hop today. Hip-hop artists have gone from hustlers to successful entrepreneurs and businessmen. Hip-hop has come of age.
Hip-Hop (and Other Things) by
HIP-HOP (AND OTHER THINGS) is about, as it were, rap, but also some other things. It's a smart, fun, funny, insightful book that spends the entirety of its time celebrating what has become the most dominant form of music these past two and a half decades. Tupac is in there. Jay Z is in there. Missy Elliott is in there. Drake is in there. Pretty much all of the big names are in there, as are a bunch of the smaller names, too. There's art from acclaimed illustrator Arturo Torres, there are infographics and footnotes; there's all kinds of stuff in there. Some of the chapters are serious, and some of the chapters are silly, and some of the chapters are a combination of both things. All of them, though, are treated with the care and respect that they deserve. HIP-HOP (AND OTHER THINGS) is the third book in the (And Other Things) series. The first two--Basketball (And Other Things) and Movies (And Other Things)--were both #1 New York Times bestsellers.
Hip Hop Matters by
Avoiding the easy definitions and caricatures that tend to celebrate or condemn the "hip hop generation," Hip Hop Matters focuses on fierce and far-reaching battles being waged in politics, pop culture, and academe to assert control over the movement. At stake, Watkins argues, is the impact hip hop has on the lives of the young people who live and breathe the culture. He presents incisive analysis of the corporate takeover of hip hop and the rampant misogyny that undermines the movement's progressive claims. Ultimately, we see how hip hop struggles reverberate in the larger world: global media consolidation; racial and demographic flux; generational cleavages; the reinvention of the pop music industry; and the ongoing struggle to enrich the lives of ordinary youth.
Change the Record - Punk Women Music Politics by
Poets, Guitarists, Songwriters, TV Stars, Provocateurs, Riot Grrrl founders: the authors in this study challenge perceptions of punk music and politics. Viv Albertine, Alice Bag, Pauline Black, Carrie Brownstein, Kim Gordon, Nina Hagen, Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith, Brix Smith Start, and Cosey Fanni Tutti have been breaking new ground in writing about their lives. They fill gaps in the historical record, back catalogues and perceptions of how music works as politics. They provide fans and music scholars with a corrective to androcentric studies of punk as a DIY politics of resistance to the mainstream. M.I. Franklin shows how they do this, along with ways to hear the personal and world politics inherent in their musical output.
Lords of Chaos by
The 2003 edition of LORDS OF CHAOS is revised and expanded, adding fifty new pages, detailing outbreaks of Black Metal crime in Finland, Germany and the United States; and includes the secret history of occult Rock, a new section on Varg Vikernes' promulgation of bizarre Aryan UFO theories, and material on the career of Hendrik Mobus, an international neo-Nazi fugitive. This award-winning exposé features hundreds of rare photos and exclusive interrogations with priests, police officers, Satanists, and leaders of demonic bands who believe the greater evil spawns the greatest glory.
The Music Instinct by
From Bach fugues to Indonesian gamelan, from nursery rhymes to rock, music has cast its light onto every corner of human culture. But why music excites such deep passions, and how we make sense of musical sound at all have, until recently, remained mysterious. Now in The Music Instinct, award-winning writer Philip Ball provides the first comprehensive, accessible survey of what is known--and still unknown--about how music works its magic, and why, as much as eating and sleeping, it seems indispensable to humanity. Deftly weaving together the latest findings in brain science with history, mathematics, and philosophy, The Music Instinct not only deepens our appreciation of the music we love, but shows that we would not be ourselves without it. The Sunday Times hailed it as "a wonderful account of why music matters," with Ball's "passion for music evident on every page."
Why You Love Music by
A delightful journey through the psychology and science of music, Why You Love Music is the perfect book for anyone who loves a tune. Music plays a hugely important role in our emotional, intellectual, and even physical lives. It impacts the ways we work, relax, behave, and feel. It can make us smile or cry, it helps us bond with the people around us, and it even has the power to alleviate a range of medical conditions. The songs you love (and hate, and even the ones you feel pretty neutral about) don't just make up the soundtrack to your life -- they actually help to shape it. In Why You Love Music, scientist and musician John Powell dives deep into decades of psychological and sociological studies in order to answer the question "Why does music affect us so profoundly?" With his relaxed, conversational style, Powell explores all aspects of music psychology, from how music helps babies bond with their mothers to the ways in which music can change the taste of wine or persuade you to spend more in restaurants. Why You Love Music will open your eyes (and ears) to the astounding variety of ways that music impacts the human experience.
