In this wickedly entertaining and thoroughly informed homage to one of rock music's towering pinnacles, Erik Davis investigates the magic--black or otherwise--that surrounds this album. Carefully peeling the layers from each song, Davis reveals their dark and often mystical roots--and leaves the reader to decide whether FOUR SYMBOLS] is some form of occult induction or just an inspired, brilliantly played rock album.
Excerpt: Stripping Led Zeppelin's famous name off the fourth record was an almost petulant attempt to let their Great Work symbolically stand on its own two feet....
In this wickedly entertaining and thoroughly informed homage to one of rock music's towering pinnacles, Erik Davis investigates the magic--black or...
When the Motor City 5 stormed the stage, the band combined the kinetic flash of James Brown on acid with the raw musical dynamics of the Who gone berserk. It's a unique band that can land itself on the cover of Rolling Stone a month before the release of its debut album and then be booted from its record contract just a few months later. Rock had never before seen the likes of the MC5 and never will again.
Many of us who were floored by the 5 in concert were convinced that this was the most transcendently pulverizing rock we would ever experience, while many more who heard or read...
When the Motor City 5 stormed the stage, the band combined the kinetic flash of James Brown on acid with the raw musical dynamics of the Who gone b...
R.E.M.'s debut album, released in 1983, was so far removed from the prevailing trends of American popular music that it still sounds miraculous and out of time today. J. Niimi tells the story of the album's genesis - with fascinating input from Don Dixon and Mitch Easter. He also investigates Michael Stipe's hypnotic, mysterious lyrics, and makes the case for Murmur as a work of Southern Gothic art.
EXCEPRT: In the course of an interview that took place some twenty years ago, Michael Stipe made passing reference to an essay that had a deep impact on him. It's what came to his...
R.E.M.'s debut album, released in 1983, was so far removed from the prevailing trends of American popular music that it still sounds miraculous and...
Thirty-Three and a Third is a series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the past 40 years. Over 50,000 copies have been sold "Passionate, obsessive, and smart." --Nylon ..".an inspired new series of short books about beloved works of vinyl." --Details Franklin Bruno's writing about music has appeared in the Village Voice, Salon, LA Weekly, and Best Music Writing 2003 (Da Capo). He has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from UCLA, and his musical projects include Tempting: Jenny Toomey Sings the Songs of Franklin Bruno (Misra) and A Cat May Look At A Queen...
Thirty-Three and a Third is a series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the past 40 years. Over 50,000 copies have ...
What resonated about Endtroducing when it was released in 1996, and what makes it still resonate today, is the way in which it loosens itself from the mooring of the known and sails off into an uncharted territory that seems to exist both in and out of time. Josh Davis is not only a master sampler and turntablist supreme, he is also a serious archeologist with a world-thirsty passion (what Cut Chemist refers to as Josh's "spidey sense") for seeking out, uncovering and then ripping apart the discarded graces of some other generation - that "pile of broken dreams" - and weaving them back...
What resonated about Endtroducing when it was released in 1996, and what makes it still resonate today, is the way in which it loosens itself from ...
The Stone Roses shows a band sizzling with skill, consumed with drive and aspiration and possessing an almost preternatural mastery of the pop paradigm. This book explores the political and cultural zeitgeist of England in 1989 and attempts to apprehend the magic ingredients that made The Stone Roses such a special and influential album.
The Stone Roses shows a band sizzling with skill, consumed with drive and aspiration and possessing an almost preternatural mastery of the pop para...
"Music From Big Pink is a moving book that succeeds not just in vividly evoking its time and place but in distilling one young man's cliched and minor destiny into something approaching tragedy....This well-written first novel captures not just some of the dreams of that bygone era, but the way those dreams died." -Greg Kamiya, The New York Times Book Review
Music From Big Pink is faction: real people like Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, Bob Dylan and Albert Grossman rub shoulders with fictional characters and actual, documented events thread their way through text alongside...
"Music From Big Pink is a moving book that succeeds not just in vividly evoking its time and place but in distilling one young man's cliched...
Court and Spark is Joni Mitchell's most overt attempt at making a hit record, full of glossy production, catchy choruses, and even guest stars from every stratum of rock culture, high (Robbie Robertson) and low (Cheech and Chong). The record was a smash, reaching number two on the charts in March of 1974, spawning three hit singles; Help Me, Free Man in Paris and Raised on Robbery and cementing Mitchell's position as a commercial as well as an artistic force.
Court and Spark is Joni Mitchell's most overt attempt at making a hit record, full of glossy production, catchy choruses, and even guest stars from...
Highway 61 Revisited resonates because of its enduring emotional appeal. Few songwriters before Dylan or since have combined so effectively the intensely personal with the spectacularly universal. In "Like a Rolling Stone," his gleeful excoriation of Miss Lonely (Edie Sedgwick? Joan Baez? a composite "type"?) fuses with the evocation of a hip new zeitgeist to produce a veritable anthem. In "Ballad of a Thin Man," the younger generation's confusion is thrown back in the Establishment's face, even as Dylan vents his disgust with the critics who labored to catalogue him. And in "Desolation...
Highway 61 Revisited resonates because of its enduring emotional appeal. Few songwriters before Dylan or since have combined so effectively the int...
Two entwined narratives run through the creation of Swordfishtrombones and form the backbone of this book. As the 1970s ended, Waits felt increasingly constrained and trapped by his persona and career. Bitter and desperately unhappy, he moved to New York in 1979 to change his life. It wasn't working. But at his low point, he got the phone call that changed everything: Francis Ford Coppola tapped Tom to write the score for One From the Heart. Waits moved back to Los Angeles to work at Zoetrope's Hollywood studio for the next 18 months. He cleaned up, disciplined himself as a...
Two entwined narratives run through the creation of Swordfishtrombones and form the backbone of this book. As the 1970s ended, Waits felt in...