Good books about music

funny a former ilxor was talking about their kid listening to warrant - cherry pie because of a tv show called supernatural that's popular with kids now, apparently they play lots of 80s and 90s music

good post,I want to read it, interesting about Def Lep, they were odd, at once a part of it and not a part of it, but the biggest band on the planet

come to think, were they the only Brits that were really big in that era?

Priest and Maiden were fairly big at the time (not remotely like Def Leppard tho). The book ignores them too. It does give lots of space to Ozzy Osbourne, but that is partly because Ozzy poached three of his guitarists from the LA scene, and also bc they were able to get a lot of pertinent quotes from Ozzy and Sharon.

Def Leppard not being included didnt seem like a slam against them as much as they werent part of the US scene as per the books overall focus. I mean, Whitesnake & The Scorpions barely rate mentions too except a few quotes & they were massive, the Cult & Europe are huge & they arent mentioned at all

for the context of the book i wasnt really losing my shit over it

Also yes, Winger has much deeper layers you should definitely explore the under appreciated subtleties of Seventeen /irony font

ah yeah Whitesnake would be the other one that fit from the UK w/DL. Maiden and Priests are too real metal to me, or basically at least back then no girls liked them.

but from an author's perspective you could really get to writing an enormous book if you tracked down all the different countries, etc

yeah the focus was primarily American hard rock - you need multi volumes for worldwide though that would be awesome

Yeah it's not like I wanted detailed back stories on Def Leppard or any other non-US band, but maybe an acknowledgement that they played a part in breaking the late '70s commercial slump of hard rock/metal (which the book reminds us of) and that more than any other band they got it onto heavy rotation on MTV. Plus you hear their slickness and production sound in many of the later '80s hair bands so they must have been an influence. Of course the book is an oral history, so if none of the oral historians bring up the subject, well...

A global perspective could be a lot of fun. Especially since then you get to talk about bands attempting to "be American" by blatantly imitating Sunset Strip bands even though they're from, like, Finland.

pyromania was definitely foundational, plus van halen

definitely!

hair metal guitar shredders made guitar soloing into a sport, and an aspirational pursuit, rather than a mode of personal/emotional expression as per the older generation. I was already thinking about how, in the late 70s or early 80s, a member of Blue Öyster Cult was quoted by Creen as saying that you should support your favorite bands like your sports teams, through thick and thin, going to all the shows you can, buying all the shirts and stickers and albums no matter what the critics say (but a concert vendor I knew said the real money was in the t-shirts) no matter who gets replaced, going from headliners at the Garden to your County Fair (I'm paraphrasing a little toward the last part of that, given the subsequent History of Rock).
by the later stages of Hair Metal, word got out that the Guitar Institute, I think it was called, was becoming a problem, advertising heavily in the guitar slicks for recruits from all over: come to L.A, and get financial assistance for tuition (your parents can cover it, or maybe you can, as a waiter etc), and learn the killer bits (also ads for StarLicks™ tapes, which you could get for practicing at home, far from the GI Jungle, at least to start with). Eventually it was reported that ads for aspiring band members were starting to specify No Guitar Institute---but Hair Metal reached a point of diminishing returns anyway, as with disco, grunge, Southern Rock, shoegaze, rockabilly, so many more.

Yeah, Guitar Institute of Technology. I remember when I first heard about that I thought "oh no, this is a bad sign." And then there was the Bass Institute of Technology, and so on, lol.

Didn't know about the Bass! Must have been one for Drums too.
As far as xpost other British bands, seemed like Led Zep's template made a lasting impression, at least/mostly aspirationally, in terms of quality music *as well as* sales and Rawk behavior. And provided an inspiration for Def Lep, who seemed like the most high-profile New Wave of British Heavy Metallers in the States, a bit moreso than Iron Maiden, whom I don't remember hearing as much as DL on the radio, ditto Motorhead (who were nevertheless a Godsend for those of us in this era with 0 use for Hollywood Hair, unless you count G&R), Some of the other NWBHM groups, whatever their general grassroots following in the US, seemed were more of an influence on American musicians, like Metallica namechecked Diamond Head several times, and Lars eventually tracked down the masters of and rights to the originals they covered on the exc. Garage Inc.): blanking on the title of his anthology of originals, but I was struck by the one listen I got: a double, from when 2-CD sets were still in those boxy cases.

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?