History & Criticism
1–20 of 64 results
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Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation
2870TIL hip hop exploded after the 1977 blackout in NYC because countless aspiring DJs were able to loot expensive DJ equipment from electronics stores
Hip-hop is now a global multi-billion pound industry. It has spawned superstars all across the world. There have been tie-in clothing lines, TV stations, film companies, cosmetics lines. It even has its own sports, its own art style, its own dialect. It is an all-encompassing lifestyle. But where did hip-hop culture begin? Who created it? How did hip-hop become such a phenomenon? Jeff Chang, an American journalist, has written the most comprehensive book on hip-hop to date. He introduces the … -
Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien, Myth and Modernity
2658Although highly popular “The Lord of the Rings” has also been widely labelled as reactionary and escapist by hostile critics. This text shows just how mistaken they are. He reveals Tolkien’s profound and subtle advocacy of community, ecology and spiritual values against the destructive forces of runaway modernity. Tolkien’s remedy, and the project implicit in his literary mythology, is a re-enchantment of the world. In helping us to realize that living nature, including humanity, is sacred, h…
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Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground New Edition
2374What do Metal Dads do when their kids are bored? THEY CRAFT!
“* * * * * *! The most incredible story in the history of music … a heavyweight book.”—Kerrang!“An unusual combination of true crime journalism, rock and roll reporting and underground obsessiveness, Lords of Chaos turns into one of the more fascinating reads in a long time.”—Denver PostA narrative feature film based on this award-winning book has just gone into production. -
Murder Rap: The Untold Story of the Biggie Smalls & Tupac Shakur Murder Investigations by the Det…
1708Twenty years ago today, Tupac Shakur was shot and fatally wounded. At the time, it was implicated that the Notorious B.I.G. was involved in his death. What evidence do we have now? Was Biggie to blame?
Two of the most notorious unsolved cases in the annals of American crime, the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls have been the subject of exhaustive investigations, relentless speculation and a tangled web of rampant rumors, crackpot conspiracies and dark secrets. Now, for the first time, the truth behind these sensational cases is laid bare in Murder Rap, a raw and riveting account of how a dedicated and driven police detective spearheaded the task force that finally exposed the shock… -
The Power of Music: Pioneering Discoveries in the New Science of Song
1646Why do humans (even as infants) dance to music or at least move to its beat?
The award-winning creator of the acclaimed documentary “The Music Instinct: Science & Song,” explores the power of music and its connection to the body, the brain, and the world of nature. Only recently has science sought in earnest to understand and explain this impact. One remarkable recent study, analyzing the cries of newborns, shows that infants’ cries contain common musical intervals, and children tease each other in specific, singsong ways no matter where in the world they live. Physic… -
Ambient Century
1546Challenge: Name a style of music you dislike and it’s up to fans of said style to find artists that could change your opinion.
This publication reveals the drift in 20th-century music from composers to non-musicians, from strict rules to no rules, from the single note to the sample. This drift through technology, Minimalism, the rock era and techno music is earthed by the development of ambient sound, to the author the most important breakthough of the past 100 years. With the help of electronics, new ideas and consumer music, Ambient music has established itself beyond question as “the classical music of the future.” -
Murder Rap: The Untold Story of the Biggie Smalls & Tupac Shakur Murder Investigations by the Det…
1545Twenty years ago today, Tupac Shakur was shot and fatally wounded. At the time, it was implicated that the Notorious B.I.G. was involved in his death. What evidence do we have now? Was Biggie to blame?
Two of the most notorious unsolved cases in the annals of American crime, the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls have been the subject of exhaustive investigations, relentless speculation and a tangled web of rampant rumors, crackpot conspiracies and dark secrets. Now, for the first time, the truth behind these sensational cases is laid bare in Murder Rap, a raw and riveting account of how a dedicated and driven police detective spearheaded the task force that finally exposed the shock… more about book… -
Murder Rap: The Untold Story of the Biggie Smalls & Tupac Shakur Murder Investigations by the Det…
1545Two of the most notorious unsolved cases in the annals of American crime, the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls have been the subject of exhaustive investigations, relentless speculation and a tangled web of rampant rumors, crackpot conspiracies and dark secrets. Now, for the first time, the truth behind these sensational cases is laid bare in Murder Rap, a raw and riveting account of how a dedicated and driven police detective spearheaded the task force that finally exposed the shock…
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Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk
1501What’s the most DISGUSTING thing you’ve seen a human do to another human? (NSFW)
Ranks up there with the great rock & roll books of all time.”Time Out New YorkLurid, insolent, disorderly, funny, sometimes gross, sometimes mean and occasionally touching . . . Resounds with authenticity.”The New York TimesNo volume serves juicier dish on punk’s New York birth . . . Tales of sex, drugs and music that will make you wish you’d been there.”Rolling StoneA contemporary classic, Please Kill Me is the definitive oral history of the most nihilistic of all pop movements. Iggy P… -
Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists
1466A spellbinding journey into the high-stakes world of art theft Today, art theft is one of the most profitable criminal enterprises in the world, exceeding $6 billion in losses to galleries and art collectors annually. And the masterpieces of Rembrandt van Rijn are some of the most frequently targeted. In Stealing Rembrandts, art security expert Anthony M. Amore and award-winning investigative reporter Tom Mashberg reveal the actors behind the major Rembrandt heists in the last century. Throug…
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Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles
1350TIL the Beatles played a demo copy of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” before its release at full volume from an open apartment window at 6AM. Instead of complaining, the residents opened their windows and listened, aware they were hearing unreleased Beatles music.
Geoff Emerick became an assistant engineer at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in 1962 at age fifteen, and was present as a new band called the Beatles recorded their first songs. He later worked with the Beatles as they recorded their singles “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” the songs that would propel them to international superstardom. In 1964 he would witness the transformation of this young and playful group from Liverpool into professional, polished musicians as they put … -
Miles: The Autobiography
1214TIL Miles Davis was invited to a White House dinner by Ronald Reagan. During dinner, Nancy Reagan turned to him and asked what he’d done with his life. Straight-faced, Davis replied: “Well, I’ve changed the course of music five or six times. What have you done except fuck the president?”
For more than forty years Miles Davis has been in the front rank of American music. Universally acclaimed as a musical genius, Miles is one of the most important and influential musicians in the world. The subject of several biographies, now Miles speaks out himself about his extraordinary life.Miles: The Autobiography, like Miles himself, holds nothing back. For the first time Miles talks about his five-year silence. He speaks frankly and openly about his drug problem and how he overcame it…. -
The Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique (33 1/3)
1096Beastie Boys chasing Madonna on stage with squirt guns (Xpost r/OldSchoolCoolMusic)
Derided as one-hit wonders, estranged from their original producer and record label, and in self-imposed exile in Los Angeles, the Beastie Boys were written off by most observers before even beginning to record their second album – an embarrassing commercial flop that should have ruined the group’s career. But not only did “Paul’s Boutique” eventually transformed the Beasties from a fratboy novelty to hiphop giants, its sample-happy, retro aesthetic changed popular culture forever. -
The Rap Year Book: The Most Important Rap Song From Every Year Since 1979, Discussed, Debated, an…
914This is Shea Serrano, Jason Concepcion, and Kirk Goldsberry, Grantland writers, AMA
****New York Times Best Seller**** ****Picked by Billboard as One of the 100 Greatest Music Books of All-Time********Pitchfork Book Club’s first selection**** Here’s what The Rap Year Book does: It takes readers from 1979, widely regarded as the moment rap became recognized as part of the cultural and musical landscape, and comes right up to the present, with Shea Serrano hilariously discussing, debating, and deconstructing the most important rap song year by year. Serrano al… -
Bomb the Suburbs: Graffiti, Race, Freight-Hopping and the Search for Hip-Hop’s Moral Center
890This is what happens when you give graffiti artists an abandon warehouse and an unlimited amount of paint.
Should graffiti writers organize to tear up the cities, or should they really be bombing the ‘burbs? That’s the question posed by William Upski Wimsatt in his seminal foray into the world of hip-hop, rap, and street art, and the culture and politics that surround it. But to say that the book deals only with taggers and hip-hop is selling it short. Taking on a broad range of topics, including suburban sprawl, racial identity, and youth activism, Wimsatt (a graffiti artist himself) uses a kalei… -
Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce’s Ulysses
888Don Gifford’s annotations to Joyce’s great modern classic comprise a specialized encyclopedia that will inform any reading of Ulysses. The suggestive potential of minor details was enormously fascinating to Joyce, and the precision of his use of detail is a most important aspect of his literary method. The annotations in this volume illuminate details which are not in the public realm for most of us.The annotations gloss place names, define slang terms, give capsule histories of institutions …
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The Power of Music: Pioneering Discoveries in the New Science of Song
873The award-winning creator of the acclaimed documentary “The Music Instinct: Science & Song,” explores the power of music and its connection to the body, the brain, and the world of nature. Only recently has science sought in earnest to understand and explain this impact. One remarkable recent study, analyzing the cries of newborns, shows that infants’ cries contain common musical intervals, and children tease each other in specific, singsong ways no matter where in the world they live. Physic…
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Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey
846Let’s Talk: Using the term EDM and whether it is helpful/harmful to electronic music.
Last Night a DJ Saved My Life was the first comprehensive history of the disc jockey, a figure who has become a powerful force shaping the music industry—and since its original publication, the book has become a cult classic. Now, with five new chapters and over a hundred pages of additional material, this updated and revised edition of Last Night a DJ Saved My Life reasserts itself as the definitive account of DJ culture, from the first record played over airwaves to house, hip hop, techno, … -
The History of the Snowman
846What is the origin of the snowman? And more specifically, the image everyone gets in their head (carrot nose, coal eyes, etc)?
Who made the first snowman? Who first came up with the idea of placing snowballs on top of each other, and who decided they would use a carrot for a nose? Most puzzling of all: How can this mystery ever be solved, with all the evidence long since melted? The snowman appears everywhere on practically everything – from knickknacks to greeting cards to seasonal sweaters we plan to return. Whenever we see big snowballs our first impulse is to deck them out with a top hat. Humorist and writer Bob … more about book… -
The History of the Snowman
846Who made the first snowman? Who first came up with the idea of placing snowballs on top of each other, and who decided they would use a carrot for a nose? Most puzzling of all: How can this mystery ever be solved, with all the evidence long since melted? The snowman appears everywhere on practically everything – from knickknacks to greeting cards to seasonal sweaters we plan to return. Whenever we see big snowballs our first impulse is to deck them out with a top hat. Humorist and writer Bob …