Having designed Roxy Music as an haute couture suit hand-stitched of punk and progressive music, Bryan Ferry redesigned it. He made Roxy Music ever dreamier and mellower-reaching back to sadly beautiful chivalric romances. Dadaist (punk) noise exited; a kind of ambient soft soul entered. Ferry parted ways with Eno, electric violinist Eddie Jobson, and drummer Paul Thompson, foreswearing the broken-sounding synthesizers played by kitchen utensils, the chance-based elements, and the maquilla...

Almost as soon as 'club culture' took hold - during the UK's Second Summer of Love in 1988 - its sociopolitical impact became clear, with journalists, filmmakers and authors all keen to use this cultural context as source material for their texts. This book uses that electronic music subculture as a route into an analysis of these principally literary representations of a music culture: why such secondary artefacts appear and what function they serve.The book conceives of a new lit...

From Las Vegas to Moscow and from New York to Bolton, these are 50 unbelievably true tales of high living and low-cost slumming with a cast that includes Paul Oakenfold, Fatboy Slim, Coolio, Dave Courtney, Kylie Minogue, Take That and many others. Simon Morrison, much-loved correspondent for DJ Magazine, collates his writings on the mad, bad world of club culture and gives readers a rip-roaring tour of UK popular culture.

It was only the warm up night, but long ago I lost the ability to set my disco dial to moderate lunacy or even slight mayhem; long ago that switch snapped and now I'm stuck permanently on DISCO BONKERS. From Las Vegas to Moscow, New York to Shanghai, DISCOMBOBULATED features fifty unbelievably true tales of high living and low-cost slumming, with a celebrity cast featuring Kylie Minogue, Take That, Paul Oakenfold, Fatboy Slim, Coolio, gangster Dave Courtney and many more. Revered clubbing ...

Transatlantic Drift explores the emergence and evolution of nightclubs and electronic dance music from the 1950s onwards. It traces the rhythmic journey of dance music, following the pulse as it bounced between Europe, North America and the Caribbean. Music, dance styles and nightclub spaces are not created in isolation; they are shaped by collective influences and shared experiences. This book uncovers the interconnected story of dance music, taking in hotspots such as New York, ...

In 1921, Sergei Prokofiev's Love for Three Oranges**—one of the earliest, most famous examples of modernist opera—premiered in Chicago. Prokofiev's source was a 1913 theatrical divertissement by Vsevolod Meyerhold, who, in turn, took inspiration from Carlo Gozzi's 1761 commedia dell'arte*****–***infused theatrical fairy tale. Only by examining these whimsical, provocative works together can we understand the full significance of their inte...

An erudite and entertaining history of Moscow, a city whose rich past offers crucial insight into contemporary global politics'Monumental' SUNDAY TIMES'Brilliant' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT'A marvellous book' HELEN RAPPAPORT, author of The Rebel Romanov‘Every page pulses with individual stories and historical insights' MARK GALEOTTI, author of A Sh...

This account of the renowned composer's neglected wife—including her years in a Soviet prison—is "a story both riveting and wrenching" ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review).Serge Prokofiev was one of the twentieth century's most brilliant composers yet is an enigma to historians and his fans. Why did he leave the West and move to the Soviet Union despite Stalin's crimes? Why did his astonishing creativity in the 1930s soon dissolve into a far less inspiring out...

On a freezing night in January 2013, an assailant hurled acid in the face of the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, Sergei Filin. The crime, organized by a lead soloist, dragged one of Russia’s most illustrious institutions into scandal.Under Vladimir Putin, the Bolshoi Theatre has been called on to preserve Russia’s lengthy artistic legacy and to mirror its neo-imperial ambitions. As renowned musicologist Simon Morrison shows in his tour-de-force account, the attack, and its...

**An erudite and entertaining history of Moscow, a city defined by its survival and reinvention, and whose rich history offers crucial insight into contemporary global politics"A magisterial account of Moscow that reveals the city’s history and something of its soul through countless interwoven stories and colorful characters. . . . A gripping and enlightening journey.”—Ben Rhodes, New York Times bestselling author of After the Fall**The city of Mos...

A stunning musical biography of Stevie Nicks that paints a portrait of an artist, not a caricature of a superstar.Reflective and expansive, Mirror in the Sky situates Stevie Nicks as one of the finest songwriters of the twentieth century.This biography from distinguished music historian Simon Morrison examines Nicks as a singer and songwriter before and beyond her career with Fleetwood Mac, from the Arizona landscape of her childhood to the strobe-...

On a freezing night in January 2013, an assailant hurled acid in the face of the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, Sergei Filin. The crime, organized by a lead soloist, dragged one of Russia’s most illustrious institutions into scandal.Under Vladimir Putin, the Bolshoi Theatre has been called on to preserve Russia’s lengthy artistic legacy and to mirror its neo-imperial ambitions. As renowned musicologist Simon Morrison shows in his tour-de-force account, the attack, and its...