Good books about music

Seemed at least as close to punk as metal: no-frills flights!

Oh yeah, and I was working in a CD store when VH1's Legends finally did a doc on Zep, and we started selling tons of their product again, def. incl. to the aforementioned late-twentysomething Hair Metal nostalgiacs.

(In '96, I think.)

As I know dow knows, Chuck Eddy's The Accidental Evolution Of Rock'n'roll: A Misguided Tour Through Popular Music was initially conceived as a song-by-song look at Hysteria.

The thing about the guitar magazines was that no matter who they interviewed, guys from Ratt or Cinderella or Ozzy's band, they were explicit that they weren't about speed and showing-off, they all made a point of saying that it was all about balancing technique and soul, communicating a message via music. Even they knew that an emphasis on technical prowess was seen as gauche in the rock world of the 80s.

they would always say some bullshit like yeah I'm really more influenced by Clapton or someone like that lol

will say Warren Dimartini of Ratt was a cut above imo

on the other end of the spectrum, apparently it took ~8 hours~ to record CC deVille’s solo for “Nothin But A Good Time” because he was fucked up on drugs & constantly hitting the bathroom

nothing butlike a good time

heh yeah Poison even with all the studio magic you could tell they couldn't play for shit

what they lacked in talent they made up for with sheer determination & givin the ppl what they want (aquanet, spandex)
cf: Motley Crue

(i enjoy both bands)

I don't love Poison, but if Cheap Trick had recorded "Talk Dirty To Me," music critics as a group would be falling over themselves to praise it as one of the greatest rock 'n' roll songs of all time.

It was their Sex Pistols tribute - thank Poison for uniting classic rock and punk five years before grunge.

pistols? new york dolls i thought, esp since the riff is straight from Personality Crisis

What are some good books about R&B from the 80's and after? Not Hip-Hop, obv. Feel like this music doesn't get as quickly dismissed as it used to but still don't see the same level of geekery that was given to Stax, Motown, Philly and the like.

I haven't read any, but L.A. Reid has a memoir out. Might be a place to start.

https://www.dukeupress.edu/books/browse/by-series/series-detail?IdNumber=4215171

Singles

One song, one book, one series. Each book in the Singles series tells a complex story about a single song. Not just a lone track on an album, but a single: a song distributed to and heard by millions that creates a shared moment it is bound to outlive, revealing social fault lines in the process. These books combine popular culture and fandom with music criticism and scholarly research to ask how singles change lives, reshape perceptions, bring people together, and drive them apart. What is it about a single that can pry open a whole world? That can feel common to all and different for each? How can something so little mean so much? Singles offers insightful, provocative answers to these questions.

View the series editors' guide to submitting a proposal for Singles.

“331⁄3, Singles, what’s next… books focusing on a particular chorus or bridge!?”
/hackycomic

(I would love a bridge one, though)

XP - O Superman, was my first thought.

damn...will the 33 1/3 peeps start their own 45 series in response??

how do you write about a bridge without writing about the rest of the song, though?

but yeah, i mean, a good bridge is everything imo. songs where the bridge is the best, are the best.

^agree! I’m a big bridge guy.

how do you write about a bridge without writing about the rest of the song

I kid… tho it’s kinda the same thing as writing a book about an album without getting into the rest of the band’s catalog?

this is why every book should be an exhaustive account of the universe in motion

i'm sure there is a borges story about this already

What are some good books about R&B from the 80's and after? Not Hip-Hop, obv. Feel like this music doesn't get as quickly dismissed as it used to but still don't see the same level of geekery that was given to Stax, Motown, Philly and the like.

― Daniel_Rf

Same question. I want to read a story of r&b chronologically through major labels and trends, but after Motown and Philly I can't seem to find anything similar for the following eras. Will check out the LA Reid bio.

Dave Marsh wrote a book about "Louie Louie," Marcus wrote one about "like A Rolling Stone," neither of which I've read, though did enjoy ilx alum Matos' NYTimes long-read on "Wimoweh" AKA "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." Others? (Oh yeah--- xgau over the moon about Joshua Clover/Jane Dark's entry in the Singles series, re Richman's "Roadrunner," in longread posted on robertchristgau.com)

Like A Rolling Stone was decent enough but very much felt like Marcus on auto-pilot to me.

That "Roadrunner" has got my name on it. I also have my eye on the recent Eric Weisbard book.

What's the consensus on the best books about the music industry? Something that goes into Sony/Universal/Warner rivalries, politics and the general shadiness of it all. I'm thinking hit men, cowboys and indies and the clive bio. Anything else? Would prefer if a strong emphasis is given to r&b and hip hop, but it's not a dealbreaker.

THere are a couple of EMI books, Brian Southall. One based on the Sex Pistols' trevails, the other a more extensive history.

It came out and it was immediately out-of-date, so I don't know if it has been updated, but.

"The Rise and Fall of EMI" - as I say, the version I had ended (I think) with Guy Hands taking it over and various artists exercising their options to leave.

The Big Payback by Dan Charnas is currently the best account of the business side of hip-hop.

Frederic Dannen's Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business. Read it ages ago; I think it really went into the pre-Soundscan chart rigging.

Oops! Right in your post, sorry.

Is there a book about the Jazz avant-garde that focuses on the musicians lives ? Like portraits / the book-form equivalent of an 8-hour documentary.

As Serious As Your Life?

Ok, from a quick search in the thread, AS SERIOUS AS YOUR LIFE - Black Music and the Free Jazz Revolution, 1957–1977 seems to be what I'm looking for.

Is Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay better than Cowboys and Indies?

He's an entertaining writer, is Simon N-B, but I've not read that one.

Thought about reading that one too.

Is there a book about the Jazz avant-garde that focuses on the musicians lives ? Like portraits / the book-form equivalent of an 8-hour documentary.

Yes, As Serious As Your Life is the clear candidate here, but if you want the equivalent of the Beatles documentary but focused on Anthony Braxton, check out Graham Lock's Forces In Motion. He travels with Braxton and band for a week or so of gigs, interviews everyone extensively, and really gets into the details of making the music happen. Fantastic book.

Monkee Business by Eric Lefcowitz does a very good job of telling the story and keeping it moving, although maybe someone who knows more than me will be disappointed. There are apparently some factual mistakes, and there is quite a bit of tough love dark sarcasm, but in the way the latter makes for a better book, especially he mananges to hold it somewhat in check and not go overboard. This review seems reasonable.

Hit Woman: Adventures in Life and Love during the Golden Age, by Susan Hamilton, a first call jingle producer for a decade or two or three or four, is some kind of Redd Kryptonite.
http://www.susanhamilton.com/about-the-book/

Restoring truncated subtitle. Hit Woman: Adventures in Life and Love during the Golden Age of American Pop Music.

Something about its structure and tone remind me of another favorite, Andre Previn’s No Minor Chords.

Or Irv Greenbaum’s In One Ear, and in the Other.

Anyone read this Lesley Chow book? Don't know her at all, but the book looks pretty interesting.

https://d1rgjmn2wmqeif.cloudfront.net/r/b/249444-1.jpg

I looked up who's included and she her definition of "strange" is tailored to include mainly people who will ostensibly sell copies, like Rihanna and Taylor Swift.

Yeah, if your definition of "strange" only stretches as far as Kate Bush you're not really writing a book for me, but whatever.

She definitely needs a less sensationalistic subtitle--Azealia Banks is the only one who credibly fits. And going back to the famous-for-15-seconds Shakespears Sister makes for a pretty blurry timeline. The book interests me anyway.

is there a book about the Jazz avant-garde that focuses on the musicians lives ? Along with the ones recently mentioned, also try A.B. Spellman's Four Lives In The BeBop Business: Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman, from the scuffling years to critical acceptance or at least coverage, but way before the "Genius Grants" and so on; Herbie Nichols, who remained a Musician's Musician, and a reclusive-ish image (but is awesome; his Mosaic Records box is the only one of those I ever shelled out the big bucks for, totally worth it), and Jackie McLean's adventures as a journeyman.
Music biz-wise, Star-Making Machinery: Inside the Business of Rock and Roll, by Geoffrey Stokes---sometimes listed with another subtitle, The Odyssey of an Album, also appropriate in that reading this saga about trying to make an album that would make stars of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen sometimes reminds me of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo--as Wiki sez: It portrays would-be rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known in Peru as Fitzcarraldo, who is determined to transport a steamship over a steep hill to access a rich rubber territory in the Amazon Basin. The film is derived from the historic events of Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald and his real-life feat of transporting a disassembled steamboat over the Isthmus of Fitzcarrald.

The film had a troubled production, and the documentary Burden of Dreams chronicled the film's hardships. Yeah, it reminds me even more of the doc. as Herzog becomes Fitzcaraldo...Not so much in terms of physical damage, but still the wages of early 70s grandiosity and backstabbing, incl a label guy who explains that it's nature's way for you to fuck with the weak (even or especially if they're clients), but if they get a big scary lawyer you better fuck with them more, launching pre-emptive scorched earth strikes (even if it's the same earth you're standing on, in fiduciary terms).
Also! Alll the money spent on grooming the press, incl. big fat junkets: "And If you'd like to stay out there a little while longer, I know your sister lives in the area, that would be cool too." Sweet! A great book about a lost world, and sometimes excruciatingly funny.