ISBN: 9781784727000
Title: Rolling Stones in the Beginning
Author: REJ BENT

A unique portrait of a band on the brink of superstardom.
From March 1965 to May 1966, photographer Bent Rej enjoyed unparalleled access to the Rolling Stones as one of the trusted inner circle, accompanying the band on its first full European outing: the Satisfaction tour.

The Rolling Stones In the Beginning is Rej's collection of more than 300 intimate photographs of the band on stage, on the road and at home, documenting a year in the life of the Rolling Stones as they enjoyed their first taste of popular success.

This new and updated edition contains never-before-seen photographs newly unearthed from Rej's archive.



Format: Hardback
Price: $80.00

ISBN: 9780571350483
Title: Rough Ideas Reflections on Music & More
Author: HOUGH STEPHEN


A collection of essays on music and life by the famed classical pianist and composer

Stephen Hough is one of the world's leading pianists, winning global acclaim and numerous awards, both for his concerts and his recordings. He is also a writer, composer, and painter, and has been described by The Economist as one of "Twenty Living Polymaths."

Hough writes informally and engagingly about music and the life of a musician, from the broader aspects of what it is to walk out onto a stage or to make a recording, to specialist tips from deep inside the practice room: how to trill, how to pedal, how to practice. He also writes vividly about people he's known, places he's traveled to, books he's read, paintings he's seen; and he touches on more controversial subjects, such as assisted suicide and abortion. Even religion is there--the possibility of the existence of God, problems with some biblical texts, and the challenges involved in being a gay Catholic.

Rough Ideas is an illuminating, constantly surprising introduction to the life and mind of one of our great cultural figures.

Format: Paperback
Price: $28.00

ISBN: 9780062474124
Title: Runnin' with the Devil: A Backstage Pass to the Wild Times, Loud Rock, & the down & Dirty Truth Behind the Making of Van Halen
Author: MONK NOEL & LAYDEN JOE

The manager who shepherded Van Halen from obscurity to rock stardom goes behind the scenes to tell the complete, unadulterated story of David Lee Roth, Eddie Van Halen, and the legendary band that changed rock music.

Van Halen's rise in the 1980s was one of the most thrilling the music world had ever seen--their mythos an epic party, a sweaty, sexy, never-ending rock extravaganza. During this unparalleled run of success, debauchery, and drama, no one was closer to the band than Noel Monk. A man who'd worked with some of rock's biggest and most notorious names, Monk spent seven years with Van Halen, serving first as their tour manger then as their personal manager until 1985, when both he and David Lee Roth exited as controversy, backstabbing, and disappointment consumed the band.

Throughout Van Halen's meteoric rise and abrupt halt, this confidant, fixer, friend, and promoter saw it all and lived to tell. Now, for the first time, he shares the most outrageous escapades--from their coming of age to their most shocking behavior on the road; from Eddie's courtship and high profile wedding to Valerie Bertinelli to the incredible drug use which would ultimately lead to everyone's demise. Sharing never-before-told stories, Monk paints a compelling portrait of Eddie Van Halen, bringing into focus the unique combination of talent, vision, hardship, and naivete that shaped one of the greatest rock guitarists of all time--and made him and his brother vulnerable to the trappings and failings of fame.

Illustrated with dozens of rare photographs from Monk's vaults, Runnin' with the Devil is manna from rock heaven no Van Halen fan can miss.

Format: Paperback
Price: $37.00

ISBN: 9780349009841
Title: Seat at the Table: Interviews with Women on the Frontline of Music
Author: RAPHAEL AMY


'Fascinating and illuminating' STYLIST

'Perceptive and candid' IRISH TIMES

'Wide-ranging, deep-dive, soul-baring interviews, full of candid, intimate, spiky meditations on inspiration, artistry, sexuality, race, love, self-doubt, abuse, defiance and everything in between' OBSERVER

'Variously optimistic, troubling, joyful, illuminating, fierce and thoughtful' GUARDIAN

INTERVIEWS WITH WOMEN ON THE FRONTLINE OF MUSIC

Writer and critic Amy Raphael has interviewed some of the world's most iconic musicians, including Courtney Love, Patti Smith, Bj rk, Kurt Cobain and Elton John. In 1995 she wrote the critically-acclaimed Never Mind the Bollocks: Women Rewrite Rock, which included a foreword by Debbie Harry.

More than two decades on, the music business has changed, but the way women are regarded has not. In this new book, A Seat at the Table, Raphael interviews eighteen women who work in the music industry about learning to speak out, #MeToo, social media, queer politics and the subtleness of everyday misogyny.

Featuring interviews with:

CHRISTINE & THE QUEENS, IBEYI, KATE TEMPEST, ALISON MOYET, NADINE SHAH, JESSICA CURRY, MAGGIE ROGERS, EMMY THE GREAT, DREAM WIFE, NATALIE MERCHANT, LAUREN MAYBERRY, POPPY AJUDHA, KALIE SHORR, TRACEY THORN, MITSKI, CATHERINE MARKS, GEORGIA, CLARA AMFO

Format: Paperback
Price: $28.00

ISBN: 9781982157289
Title: She Come by It Natural: Dolly Parton & the Women Who Lived Her Songs
Author: SMARSH SARAH

The National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Heartland focuses her laser-sharp insights on a working-class icon and one of the most unifying figures in American culture: Dolly Parton.Growing up amid Kansas wheat fields and airplane factories, Sarah Smarsh witnessed firsthand the particular vulnerabilities--and strengths--of women in working poverty. Meanwhile, country songs by female artists played in the background, telling powerful stories about life, men, hard times, and surviving. In her family, she writes, "country music was foremost a language among women. It's how we talked to each other in a place where feelings aren't discussed." And no one provided that language better than Dolly Parton. Smarsh challenged a typically male vision of the rural working class with her first book, Heartland, starring the bold, hard-luck women who raised her. Now, in She Come By It Natural, originally published in a four-part series for The Journal of Roots Music, No Depression, Smarsh explores the overlooked contributions to social progress by such women--including those averse to the term "feminism"--as exemplified by Dolly Parton's life and art. Far beyond the recently resurrected "Jolene" or quintessential "9 to 5," Parton's songs for decades have validated women who go unheard: the poor woman, the pregnant teenager, the struggling mother disparaged as "trailer trash." Parton's broader career--from singing on the front porch of her family's cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains to achieving stardom in Nashville and Hollywood, from "girl singer" managed by powerful men to leader of a self-made business and philanthropy empire--offers a springboard to examining the intersections of gender, class, and culture. Infused with Smarsh's trademark insight, intelligence, and humanity, She Come By It Natural is a sympathetic tribute to the icon Dolly Parton and--call it whatever you like--the organic feminism she embodies.

Format: Hardback
Price: $46.00

ISBN: 9781250081018
Title: Siren Song: My Life in Music
Author: STEIN SEYMOUR & MURPHY GARETH

Seymour Stein is America's greatest record man. Not only has he signed and nurtured more important artists than anyone alive, over sixty years in the game, but he's still the hippest label head, travelling the globe in search of the next big thing. Since the late fifties, Stein's been wherever it's happening: Billboard, Tin Pan Alley, The British Invasion, CBGB, Studio 54, Danceteria, the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, the CD crash. Along that winding path, Stein discovered and broke out a skyline full of stars: Madonna, The Ramones, Talking Heads, Depeche Mode, Madonna, The Smiths, The Cure, Ice-T, Lou Reed, Seal, and many others. Brimming with hilarious scenes and big personalities, Siren Song's bigger story is about modernity in motion, and the slow acceptance of diversity in America--thanks largely to daring pop music. Including both the high and low points in his life, The Song touches on everything from Stein's discovery of Madonna to his wife Linda's violent death. Seymour Stein is a legend. Sung from the heart, Siren Song will etch his story in stone.

Format: Hardback
Price: $57.00

ISBN: 9781760640118
Title: Song Remains the Same: 800 Years of Love Songs, Laments & Lullabies
Author: FORD ANDREW ; HEINO ANNI

Often today, the word 'song' is used to describe all music. A free-jazz improvisation, a Hindustani raga, a movement from a Beethoven symphony, a Springsteen anthem or a Leonard Cohen ballad- they're all songs.

But, in fact, a song is a specific musical form. It's not so much that they all have verses and choruses - though most of them do - but that they are all relatively short and self-contained; they have beginnings, middles and ends; they often have a single point of view, message or story; and, crucially, they unite words and music. Thus, a Schubert song has more in common with a track by Joni Mitchell or Sia than with one of Schubert's own symphonies.

The Song Remains the Same traces these connections through seventy-five songs from different cultures and times- love songs, anthems, protest songs, lullabies, folk songs, jazz standards, lieder and pop hits; 'When You Wish Upon a Star' to 'We Will Rock You', 'Jerusalem' to 'Jolene'. Unpicking their inner workings makes familiar songs strange again, explaining and restoring the wonder, joy (or possibly loathing) the reader experienced on first hearing.

Featuring songs by The Beatles, Cole Porter, Kate Bush, Carole King, Bob Marley, Tracy Chapman, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan and Violeta Parra; musical numbers by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Sondheim and the Gershwins; and works from great composers, including Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms.

Format: Trade paperback
Price: $38.00

ISBN: 9781408868768
Title: Sound Mind How I Fell in Love with Classical Music (& Decided to Rewrite Its Entire History)
Author: MORLEY PAUL

'An alternately funny and moving book about the most important art form on Planet Earth. Destined to become a classic (pun intended)' Jarvis CockerMusic critic and writer Paul Morley weaves together memoir and history in a spiralling tale that establishes classical music as the most rebellious genre of all. Paul Morley had stopped being surprised by modern pop music and found himself retreating into the sounds of artists he loved when, as an emerging music journalist in the 70s, he wrote for NME. But not wishing to give in to dreary nostalgia, endlessly circling back to the bands he wrote about in the past, he went searching for something new, rare and wondrous - and found it in classical music. A soaring polemic, a grumpy reflection on modern rock, and a fan's love note, A Sound Mind rejects the idea that classical music is establishment; old; a drag. Instead, the book reveals this genre to be the most exciting and varied in music. A Sound Mind is a multi-layered memoir of Morley's shifting musical tastes, but it is also a compelling history of classical music that reveals the genre's rich and often deviant past - and, hopefully, future. Like a conductor, Morley weaves together timelines and timeframes in an orchestral narrative that declares the transformative and resilient power of classical music from Bach to Shostakovich, Brahms to Birtwistle, Mozart to Cage, travelling from eighteenth century salons to the modern age of Spotify.

Format: Trade paperback
Price: $33.00

ISBN: 9780008267582
Title: Spice Girls: the Extraordinary Lives of Five Ordinary Women
Author: SMITH SEAN


'Get the inside scoop on all things Spice '
OK Magazine

'A compelling new book' Daily Express

From the moment they burst into our lives, the Spice Girls have inspired millions around the world.

Emma, Geri, Melanie C, Mel B and Victoria were adored and admired in equal measure. Their determination, fierce independence and Girl Power philosophy have motivated generation after generation of young women.

Sunday Times bestselling biographer Sean Smith reveals what life was really like for the fab five, before and after they found fame - the ups and downs, personal conflicts, break-ups and controversies, health issues and trials of parenthood. Baby, Ginger, Sporty, Scary and Posh have always been so much more than their iconic image.

They conquered a male dominated music industry, raised twelve children between them while, over the years, their reunion tours have led to renewed outpourings of affection and excitement: the story of five ordinary women achieving extraordinary things is as wonderfully resonant and powerful as ever.

Format: Paperback
Price: $30.00

ISBN: 9780571353439
Title: Sweet Dreams: The Story of the New Romantics
Author: JONES DYLAN


Sweet Dreams charts the rise of the New Romantics, a scene that grew out of the remnants of post-punk and developed quickly alongside club culture, ska, electronica, and goth.

One of the most creative entrepreneurial periods since the Sixties, the era had a huge influence on the growth of print and broadcast media, and was arguably one of the most bohemian environments of the late twentieth century. Not only did it visually define the decade, it was the catalyst for the Second British Invasion, when the US charts would be colonised by British pop music - Depeche Mode, Culture Club, Wham!, Soft Cell, Ultravox, Duran Duran, Sade, Spandau Ballet, the Eurythmics and many more - making it one of the most powerful cultural exports since the Beatles.

For a while, Sweet Dreams were made of this.

Format: Hardback
Price: $45.00

ISBN: 9780571359783
Title: Syd Barrett A Very Irregular Head
Author: CHAPMAN ROB


A new edition as part of the Faber Greatest Hits - books that have taken writing about music in new and exciting directions for the twenty-first century.

Syd Barrett was the lead guitarist, vocalist, and principle songwriter in the original line up of Pink Floyd. During his brief time with the band (1966-68) he was the driving force behind the unit. After he left the band he made just two further solo albums which were both released in 1970, before withdrawing from public view to lead a quiet, and occasionally troubled life in Cambridge, the town of his birth.

Rob Chapman's book is the first authoritative and exhaustively researched biography of Syd Barrett that fully celebrates his life and legacy as a musician, lyricist and artist, and which highlights the influence that he continues to have over contemporary bands and music fans alike.

Format: Paperback
Price: $25.00

ISBN: 9781594484858
Title: Tao of Wu
Author: RZA

'RZA is a towering artist and deep thinker who has much to teach us. I salute his courageous vision and compassionate witness-as manifest in this book and his life!'-CORNEL WESTIn The Tao of Wu, the RZA, founder of the Wu-Tang Clan and hip-hop's most exalted wise man, imparts the lessons he's learned on his way form the Staten Island projects to international superstardom. An inspiring spiritual memoir as the world has never seen before-and will never see again-The Tao of Wu is a surprising, brilliant blend of Eastern spirituality, pop culture reverence, and hard-earned street knowledge, all delivered in RZA's unmistakable voice.'Unusually compelling.'- ROLLING STONE (4 Stars)'Raw and smart.'- THE BOSTON GLOBE'Is there a Pulitzer Prize in the Wu's Future?'- XXL MAGAZINE

Format: Paperback
Price: $26.00

ISBN: 9780571359820
Title: Turn the Beat Around The History of Disco
Author: SHAPIRO PETER


A new edition as part of the Faber Greatest Hits - books that have taken writing about music in new and exciting directions for the twenty-first century.

Disco emerged from the fall-out of the Black Power Movement and an almost exclusively gay scene in a blaze of poppers, strobe lights, tight trousers, hysterical diva vocals and synthesized beats in the late sixties. As a genre, disco radically re-defined the sensibility of the seventies to the extent where reactionary rockers felt the need to launch a paranoid 'Disco Sucks' campaign at the end of the decade.

Featuring artists such as Chic, Sylvester, Donna Summer and Frank Grasso, Turn the Beat Around illustrates why and how disco changed the face of popular culture forever.

Format: Paperback
Price: $25.00

ISBN: 9780241983829
Title: Useless Magic: Lyrics, Poetry & Sermons
Author: WELCH FLORENCE


A beautifully illustrated collection of lyrics and never-before-seen poetry and sketches from Florence Welch

Songs can be incredibly prophetic, like subconscious warnings or messages to myself, but I often don't know what I'm trying to say till years later. Or a prediction comes true and I couldn't do anything to stop it, so it seems like a kind of useless magic.

'Pop's high priestess bares her soul in this candid collection of poems and lyrics' Observer

'A treasure . . . beautiful. Generous in its honesty, by the end you feel as though you have climbed into the colourful, and sometimes tortured, world of a passionate artist' i

'Makes the reader feel as though they're peeking into a private journal' Refinery29

Format: Paperback
Price: $40.00

ISBN: 9780500519325
Title: Vinyl, Album, Cover, Art: the Complete Hipgnosis Catalogue
Author: POWELL AUBREY


The complete, definitive, and never-before-published catalogue of album covers created by the legendary design agency Hipgnosis, this volume finally does justice to the work of the most important design collective in music history. Founded in 1967 by Storm Thorgerson, Aubrey Po" Powell, and Peter Christopherson, Hipgnosis gained a legendary status in graphic design, transforming the look of album art forever and winning five Grammy nominations for package design. Their revolutionary cover art departed from the conventional group shots favored by record companies of the day, resulting in groundbreaking, often surreal designs inextricable from the major albums of many of the biggest names in the history of popular music: AC/DC, Black Sabbath, The Police, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney, Syd Barrett, The Who, Wings, Yes, and XTC, to name but a few.

Arranged chronologically, Hipgnosis: The Complete Album Covers features stunning reproductions of every single Hipgnosis cover more than 300 in total for the first time, along with pertinent insights from the rock n roll legends whose albums are featured and behind-the-scenes photography. The text, written by Powell, and with contributions by Peter Gabriel, Robert Plant, and Nick Mason, brims with information that illuminates the album art and the compelling stories behind each cover s creation.

"

Format: Hardback
Price: $60.00

ISBN: 9780241419694
Title: Wagner's Parsifal: The Music of Redemption
Author: SCRUTON ROGER

Richard Wagner's final creation is also his most mysterious. The story of Parsifal, the 'pure fool, knowing through compassion', who has been called to rescue the Kingdom of the Grail from the sins that have polluted it, appears familiar enough, but the redemption sought by Wagner's characters is far from the Christian archetype. Wagner's Parsifal is an exploration of the drama, music and philosophy of this extraordinary musical icon by a writer whose knowledge and understanding of the Western musical tradition are the equal of his capacities as a philosopher. It shows how, through musical connections and brilliant dramatic strokes, Parsifal expresses in music a depth of feeling for which we do not have words, a deep longing for wholeness and relief from suffering which, Scruton argues, contains within itself the image of salvation.

Format: Hardback
Price: $48.00

ISBN: 9780007319053
Title: Wagnerism: Art & Politics in the Shadow of Music
Author: ROSS ALEX

'An absolutely masterly work' Stephen Fry

Alex Ross, renowned author of the international bestseller The Rest Is Noise, reveals how Richard Wagner became the proving ground for modern art and politics--an aesthetic war zone where the Western world wrestled with its capacity for beauty and violence.

For better or worse, Wagner is the most widely influential figure in the history of music. Around 1900, the phenomenon known as Wagnerism saturated European and American culture. Such colossal creations as The Ring of the Nibelung, Tristan und Isolde, and Parsifal were models of formal daring, mythmaking, erotic freedom, and mystical speculation. A mighty procession of writers, artists, and thinkers, including Charles Baudelaire, Virginia Woolf, Isadora Duncan, Vasily Kandinsky, and Luis Buñuel, felt his impact. Anarchists, occultists, feminists, and gay-rights pioneers saw him as a kindred spirit. Then Adolf Hitler incorporated Wagner into the soundtrack of Nazi Germany, and the composer came to be defined by his ferocious anti-Semitism. His name is now almost synonymous with artistic evil.

Wagnerism restores the magnificent confusion of what it means to be a Wagnerian. A pandemonium of geniuses, madmen, charlatans, and prophets do battle over Wagner's many-sided legacy. The narrative ranges across artistic disciplines, from architecture to the novels of Philip K. Dick, from the Zionist writings of Theodor Herzl to the civil-rights essays of W. E. B. Du Bois, from O Pioneers! to Apocalypse Now. In many ways,Wagnerism tells a tragic tale. An artist who might have rivalled Shakespeare in universal reach is implicated in an ideology of hate. Still, his shadow lingers over twenty-first century culture, his mythic motifs coursing through superhero films and fantasy fiction. Neither apologia nor condemnation, Wagnerism is a work of intellectual passion, urging us toward a more honest idea of how art acts in the world.

Format: Hardback
Price: $65.00

ISBN: 9780007319084
Title: Wagnerism: Art & Politics in the Shadow of Music
Author: ROSS ALEX

Alex Ross, renowned author of the international bestseller The Rest Is Noise, reveals how Richard Wagner became the proving ground for modern art and politics-an aesthetic war zone where the Western world wrestled with its capacity for beauty and violence.
For better or worse, Wagner is the most widely influential figure in the history of music. Around 1900, the phenomenon known as Wagnerism saturated European and American culture. Such colossal creations as The Ring of the Nibelung, Tristan und Isolde, and Parsifal were models of formal daring, mythmaking, erotic freedom, and mystical speculation. A mighty procession of writers, artists, and thinkers, including Charles Baudelaire, Virginia Woolf, Isadora Duncan, Vasily Kandinsky, and Luis Buñuel, felt his impact. Anarchists, occultists, feminists, and gay-rights pioneers saw him as a kindred spirit. Then Adolf Hitler incorporated Wagner into the soundtrack of Nazi Germany, and the composer came to be defined by his ferocious anti-Semitism. His name is now almost synonymous with artistic evil.

Wagnerism restores the magnificent confusion of what it means to be a Wagnerian. A pandemonium of geniuses, madmen, charlatans, and prophets do battle over Wagner's many-sided legacy. The narrative ranges across artistic disciplines, from architecture to the novels of Philip K. Dick, from the Zionist writings of Theodor Herzl to the civil-rights essays of W. E. B. Du Bois, from O Pioneers! to Apocalypse Now. In many ways,Wagnerism tells a tragic tale. An artist who might have rivalled Shakespeare in universal reach is implicated in an ideology of hate. Still, his shadow lingers over twenty-first century culture, his mythic motifs coursing through superhero films and fantasy fiction. Neither apologia nor condemnation, Wagnerism is a work of intellectual passion, urging us toward a more honest idea of how art acts in the world.

Format: Trade paperback
Price: $45.00

ISBN: 9780571353415
Title: Wichita Lineman Searching in the Sun for the World's Greatest Unfinished Song
Author: JONES DYLAN

Dylan Jones' luminous excavation of Jimmy Webb's song 'Wichita Lineman' offers a portal into a defining moment of American cultural history.

Format: Paperback
Price: $25.00

ISBN: 9781474616669
Title: William S Burroughs & the Cult of Rock 'n' Roll
Author: RAE CASEY


William S. Burroughs's fiction and essays are legendary, but his influence on music's counterculture has been less well documented-until now. Examining how one of America's most controversial literary figures altered the destinies of many notable and varied musicians, William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock 'n' Roll reveals the transformations in music history that can be traced to Burroughs.

A heroin addict and a gay man, Burroughs rose to notoriety outside the conventional literary world; his masterpiece, Naked Lunch, was banned on the grounds of obscenity, but its nonlinear structure was just as daring as its content. Casey Rae brings to life Burroughs's parallel rise to fame among daring musicians of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, when it became a rite of passage to hang out with the author or to experiment with his cut-up techniques for producing revolutionary lyrics (as the Beatles and Radiohead did). Whether they tell of him exploring the occult with David Bowie, providing Lou Reed with gritty depictions of street life, or counseling Patti Smith about coping with fame, the stories of Burroughs's backstage impact will transform the way you see America's cultural revolution-and the way you hear its music.

Format: Trade paperback
Price: $38.00

ISBN: 9781472252302
Title: Year of Wonder: Classical Music for Every Day
Author: BURTON-HILL CLEMENCY


'Year of Wonder is an absolute treat - the most enlightening way to be guided through the year.' Eddie Redmayne

Classical music for everyone - an inspirational piece of music for every day of the year, celebrating composers from the medieval era to the present day, written by award-winning violinist and BBC Radio 3 presenter Clemency Burton-Hill.

Have you ever heard a piece of music so beautiful it stops you in your tracks? Or wanted to discover more about classical music but had no idea where to begin?

Year of Wonder is a unique celebration of classical music by an author who wants to share its diverse wonders with others and to encourage a love for this genre in all readers, whether complete novices or lifetime enthusiasts.

Clemency chooses one piece of music for each day of the year, with a short explanation about the composer to put it into context, and brings the music alive in a modern and playful way, while also extolling the positive mindfulness element of giving yourself some time every day to listen to something uplifting or beautiful. Thoughtfully curated and expertly researched, this is a book of classical music to keep you company: whoever you are, wherever you're from.

'The only requirements for enjoying classical music are open ears and an open mind.'
Clemency Burton-Hill

Playlists are available on most streaming music platforms including Apple Music and Spotify.

Format: Trade paperback
Price: $35.00