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Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Hole and Alice in Chains are the names that come to mind when we talk about grunge. But never before has there been a complete history of grunge with razor-sharp critical analysis--until now.

Grunge, a style of music that wed classic rock riffs with punk ethos, was the musical movement that defined the 90's and left an indelible mark on the music scene at large. But how did this musical phenomenon emerge from the Seattle underground to become a universal beacon of despair for millions of restless kids around the globe, and why did it resonate with...

The first biography of the comedic genius behind the cult favorite TV show "Da Ali G Show" and the high grossing--and gross out--smash film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

If the millions of fans who flocked to the blockbuster films Borat and Talladega Nights tuned in to Sacha Baron Cohen's interviews on late night TV hoping to see the man behind the characters, they were sure to be disappointed. Who exactly is this Sacha Baron Cohen, who has everyone from TV personalities to the government of Kazakhstan all...

From the writers, editors and compilers of the highly successful The Writer's Handbook comes the first edition of The Screenwriter's Handbook, an indispensible companion for everyone who commissions screenwriters, works with them or writes (or wants their chance to write) for the screen.
Containing thousands of entries covering every aspect of scriptwriting, with provocative articles and useful advice from leading representatives of the trade, this practical, straightforward guide, with indexes to aid quick searches, provides full details on the core markets and the way...

In June of 1992, when all the polls showed that Bill Clinton didn't have a chance, he took his saxophone onto the Arsenio Hall show, put on dark glasses, and blew "Heartbreak Hotel." Greil Marcus, one of America's most imaginative and insightful popular culture critics, was the first to name this as the moment that turned Clinton's campaign around--and to make sense of why. Double Trouble draws on articles Marcus published from 1992 to 2000 to explore the remarkable and illuminating kinship between Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley--and, moreover, to explore how culture is made and...

In Fever, music critic Tim Riley argues that while political and athletic role models have let us down, rock and roll has provided enduring role models for men and women. From Elvis Presley to Tina Turner to Bruce Springsteen to Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, Riley makes a persuasive case that rock and roll, far from the corrosive force that conservative critics make it out to be, has instead been a positive influence in people's lives, laying out gender-defying role models far more enduringly than movies, TV, or "real life."

The 160-year history of the saxophone comes to brilliant life in Michael Segell's wonderfully researched, beautifully told The Devil's Horn. Beginning with "a sound never heard before," Segell's portrait follows the iconographic instrument as it is lauded for its sensuality, then outlawed for its influence, and finally credited with changing the face of popular culture. A deeply personal story of one man's love for music-making, a universal story of artistic and political revolution, and a trenchant critique of the global forces that stand in art's way, The Devil's Horn is...

Can't Stop Won't Stop is a powerful cultural and social history of the end of the American century, and a provocative look into the new world that the hip-hop generation created.

Forged in the fires of the Bronx and Kingston, Jamaica, hip-hop became the Esperanto of youth rebellion and a generation-defining movement. In a post-civil rights era defined by deindustrialization and globalization, hip-hop crystallized a multiracial, polycultural generation's worldview, and transformed American politics and culture. But that epic story has never been told with this kind of...

A Picador Paperback Original

A new movie written and directed by Paul Auster, starring David Thewlis, Irene Jacob, Michael Imperioli, and Sophie Auster.

From The New York Trilogy to The Book of Illusions and Travels in the Scriptorium, Paul Auster is one of America's most spectacularly inventive novelists. Smoke, Blue in the Face, and Lulu on the Bridge established him as an award-winning filmmaker. The Inner Life of Martin Frost brings together his talents as a novelist and filmmaker with a work that is tender,...

This classic has outlived its original title, but not its usefulness.

The author has endeavored to set forth a statement of the various means of modulation found in music, from Bach to the 20th century.

A study of the art of melody writing.

A compiled set of studies in the contrapuntal style of harmony.

This is a series of unorthodox peices that analyze some 40 of the author's favorite jazz records. The book is intended to make people listen to records which we believe are worth listening to again.

Contents--What is Modern Music--and Why have People Never Liked It, at First?; Music has Always Told How People Think and Act; Dissonance--the Salt and Pepper of Music; Acoustics and the Development of Harmony; Impressionism--Debussy and His Followers; Schoenberg and Atonality; Music Written in Two or More Keys at Once--Polytonality; Back to Bach--Neoclassicism; Music for Everday use--Gebrauchsmusik; From Plain Song to Jazz--A Story of Rhythms; Tone Clusters, Quarter Tones, Percussive and Electronic Music; The Composer and the Public; Selected Reading List; Selected Recordings; Index.

This history aims to strike a mean between the abstruse and the elementary, the scientific and the educational. The first topic is the Gregorian Chant followed by surveys of French, Italian, English, and Russian music.

The author focuses on two parallel folk trends: the Freedom Songs arising from the civil rights battles in the South and the topical songs composed by Northern writer/singers.

A collection of essays by 20th-century American, English, and European composers in which each composer discusses a large choral work or works he has written, along with the principles that guided the composition.