33 1/3 Book Series
33 1/3 is a series of short books about a wide variety of albums, by artists ranging from James Brown to the Beastie Boys. Launched in September 2003, the series now contains 115 titles and is acclaimed and loved by fans, musicians and scholars alike.
Controversies of the Music Industry by
This work presents twelve of the most volatile ethical issues facing the music industry. Real-life examples depict both sides of each controversy, and the list of resources provides tools for readers who wish to pursue the controversies further. Primary sources including court cases and excerpts from speeches help students build critical thinking skills in current issues, persuasive writing, and debate classes. Among the controversies noted is the growing oligopoly of a few multinational music companies and the independent labels that are attempting to survive this market dominance. Drug abuse and violence depicted in music is discussed, as is its influence on young listeners. These issues and many more are discussed in detail as the authors outline the controversial topics of the music industry.
Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture by
Hipsters have always used clothing, hairstyle, gesture, and slang to mark their distance from consensus culture, yet it is music that has always been the privileged means of cultural disaffiliation, the royal road to hip. Hipness in postwar America became an indelible part of the nation's intellectual and cultural landscape, and during the past half century, hip sensibility has structured self-understanding and self-representation, thought and art, in various recognizable ways. Although hipness is a famously elusive and changeable quality, what remains recognizable throughout its history in American intellectual life is a particular conception of the individual's alienation from society - alienation due not to any specific political wrong but to something more radical, a clash of perception and consciousness. The dominant culture thus constitutes a system bent on foreclosing the creativity, self-awareness, and self-expression by which people might find satisfaction in their lives. The hipster's project is to imagine this system and define himself against it; his task is to resist being stamped in its uniform, squarish mold. Culture then becomes the primary medium of hip resistance rather than political action as such, and this resistance is manifested in aesthetic creation, be that artworks or the very self. Music has stood consistently at the center of the evolving and alienated hipster's self-structuring: every hip subculture at least tags along with some kind of music (as the musically ungifted Beats did with jazz), and for many subcultures music is their raison d'etre. In Dig, author Phil Ford argues that hipness is in fact wedded to music at an altogether deeper level. In hip culture it is sound itself, and the faculty of hearing, that is the privileged part of the sensory experience. Ford's discussion of songs and albums in context of the social and political world illustrates how hip intellectuals conceived of sound as a way of challenging meaning - that which is cognitive and abstract, timeless and placeless - with experience - that which is embodied, concrete and anchored in place and time. Through Charlie Parker's "Ornithology," Ken Nordine's "Sound Museum," Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man," and a string of other lucid and illuminating examples, Ford shows why and how music became a central facet of hipness and the counterculture. Shedding new light on an elusive and enigmatic culture, Dig is essential reading for students and scholars of popular music and culture, as well as anyone fascinated by the counterculture movement of the mid-twentieth-century.
Don't Look Back
Summary: Portrait of Dylan as a young man during the period when his music is shifting from acoustic to electric, filmed during his 1965 concert tour of England. '65 revisited' contains outtakes from Don't look back, with new commentary.
Endless Harmony: The Beach Boys Story
Summary: The Beach Boys themselves tell the inside story of their rise from suburban pop fledglings to American Institution. Includes exclusive interviews and the bands' own archival footage.
The Fearless Freaks: The Wondrously Improbable Story of The Flaming Lips
Summary: A documentary on the evolution of the Oklahoma band, The Flaming Lips.
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
Summary: Follows the Chicago band, their personnel changes and label disputes, as they record (and attempt to release) their 2002 album "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot."
It All Begins with the Music: Developing Successful Artists and Careers for the New Music Business by
The music industry is a worldwide business that generates more than 40 billion dollars each year. If you are looking to make your mark and grab a piece of this fortune, this is the book for you. It All Begins with the Music: Developing Successful Artists and Careers for the New Music Business offers practical information, career blueprints, and a world of wisdom for aspiring artists, managers, and executives on how to make an impact in today's music business. It provides a comprehensive examination of the new methods by which recording artists are discovered, developed, and nurtured in the modern music industry. Anyone can benefit, from potential recording artists and performers, to aspirants and professionals in artist management, major and independent music distribution channels, producers, agents, publicists, PR and marketing representatives, and music publishers. You'll find priceless behind-the-scenes information distilled from interviews with artists, managers, and executives at the forefront of the new music business. Get the insider tips you need, and begin your successful career in music today!
Music, Money, and Success: The Insider's Guide to Making Money in the Music Business by
Music, Money and Success: The Insider's Guide to Making Money in the Music Busines is the industry bible and the ultimate guide to making money in the music business. Music is a business of money, contracts, decisions and making the most of every opportunity. To succeed - to make money - to have a career - you have to know what you are doing in both music and business. This invaluable book tells you how the business works, what you must know to succeed, and how much money you can make in films, television, video games, ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, record sales, downloads and streams, advertising, ringtones and ringbacks, interactive toys and dolls, Broadway, new media, scoring contracts and synch licenses, music publishing, foreign countries and much more. This indispensable reference is written by industry insiders Todd Brabec, Educator, Entertainment Law Attorney and former ASCAP Executive Vice President and Worldwide Director of Membership, and Jeff Brabec, Vice President of Business Affairs, Chrysalis Music Publishing.
Songwriters on Songwriting by
This expanded fourth edition of Songwriters on Songwriting includes ten new interviews with Alanis Morissette, Lenny Kravitz, Lou Reed, and others. In these pages, sixty-two of the greatest songwriters of our time go straight to the source of the magic of songwriting by offering their thoughts, feelings, and opinions on their art. Representing almost every genre of popular music, from blues to pop to rock, here are the figures that have shaped American music as we know it.
The Songwriting Sourcebook: How to Turn Chords into Great Songs by
Originally published in 2003, and now revised and updated, The Songwriting Sourcebook is the third entry in Rikky Rooksby's bestselling How to Write Songs series. This easy-to-use book will help you write better songs by explaining the art of writing effective chord sequences. It shows: How three and four chords can lay the foundation for a simple song, and how to move on to progressions using five and six chords * How to give your chord sequences additional color by adding chords that are not strictly in key, including blues chords * How to write chord sequences for songs in minor keys as well as major keys, and how to take progressions into new territories by changing key * How to fine-tune the color of your chords by understanding the emotional potential of sevenths, sixths and ninths All examples come with easy-to-read guitar chord boxes, and the accompanying 20-track audio CD features original recordings that illustrate some of the points made in the book.
Sounds Like Me: My Life (So Far) in Songs by
With refreshing candor, Sounds Like Me reveals Sara Bareilles, the artist and the woman on songwriting, soul searching, and what's discovered along the way. Sara Bareilles shares the joys and the struggles that come with creating great work, all while staying true to yourself. Imbued with humor and marked by Sara's confessional writing style, this collection tells the inside story behind some of her most popular songs. Most recently known for her chart-topper Brave, Sara first broke through in 2007 with her multi-platinum single Love Song. She has released five albums that have sold 2.5 million copies and spawned several hits. More than a privileged view inside the experience of a remarkable musical talent, this is a moving tribute to the universal search for growth, healing, and self-acceptance.