This book celebrates Madvillainy as a representation of two genius musical minds melding to form one revered supervillain. A product of circumstance, the album came together soon after MF DOOM's resurgence and Madlib's reluctant return from avant-garde jazz to hip-hop.Written from the alternating perspectives of three fake music journalist superheroes-featuring interviews with Wildchild, M.E.D., Walasia, Daedelus, Stones Throw execs, and many other real individuals involve...

This book celebrates Madvillainy as a representation of two genius musical minds melding to form one revered supervillain. A product of circumstance, the album came together soon after MF DOOM's resurgence and Madlib's reluctant return from avant-garde jazz to hip-hop.Written from the alternating perspectives of three fake music journalist superheroes—featuring interviews with Wildchild, M.E.D., Walasia, Daedelus, Stones Throw execs, and many other real individuals involved with the...

Celebrating a subgenre that came out of flyover country but connected with the world, Midwest Emo traces modern emo's ubiquitousness back to its origins in Illinois, Wisconsin, and surrounding Midwestern states through more than 50 original interviews with members of formative bands like Cap'n Jazz, The Promise Ring, American Football, Braid, Rainer Maria and Gauge (plus Steve Aoki).Over the course of one haunted night at The American Football House—the ac...

*The Sunday Times Bestseller*The brand new memoir from James Acaster: cult comedian, bestselling author of Classic Scrapes, undercover cop, receiver of cabbages.PERFECT SOUND WHATEVER is a love letter to the healing power of music, and how one man's obsessive quest saw him defeat the bullshit of one year with the beauty of another. Because that one man is James Acaster, it also includes tales of befouling himself in a Los Angeles s...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • David Byrne’s incisive and enthusiastic look at the musical art form, from its very inceptions to the influences that shape it, whether acoustical, economic, social, or technological—now updated with a new chapter on digital curation.“How Music Works is a buoyant hybrid of social history, anthropological survey, autobiography, personal philosophy, and business manual”—The Boston GlobeUtilizing h...

"You have to bear in mind that [Questlove] is one of the smartest motherf*****s on the planet. His musical knowledge, for all practical purposes, is limitless." --Robert ChristgauA punch-drunk memoir in which Everyone's Favorite Questlove tells his own story while tackling some of the lates, the greats, the fakes, the philosophers, the heavyweights, and the true originals of the music world. He digs deep into the album cuts of his life and unearths some pivotal moments in black art...

**WINNER OF THE PEN/**JACQUELINE BOGRAD WELD AWARD FOR BIOGRAPHYNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER“This book is a must for everyone interested in illuminating the idea of unexplainable genius.” —QUESTLOVEEqual parts biography, musicology, and cultural history, Dilla Time chronicles the life and legacy of J Dilla, a musical genius who transformed the sound of popular music for the twenty-first century...

A unique guide to creativity from Questlove—inspirations, stories, and lessons on how to live your best creative life—Named a Most Anticipated Book of the Year by: Esquire , PopSugar , The Huffington Post , Buzzfeed , and Publishers Weekly"...

The essential playlist of great writing about the music that rocked America, with fifty landmark pieces on Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, Lez Zepplin, and other rock n’ roll legendsJonathan Lethem and Kevin Dettmar's Shake It Up invites the reader into the tumult and excitement of the rock revolution through fifty landmark pieces by a supergroup of writers on rock in all its variety, from heavy metal to disco, punk to hip-hop. Stanley Booth describes a record...

The more I thought about it, the more I realised my career has been unusual. How did I manage to do everything wrong but still end up on the front cover of magazines, headlining world tours and achieving Top 5 albums? How did I attract such obsessive and fanatical fans, many of whom take everything I do or say very personally, which is simultaneously flattering but can also be tremendously frustrating? Even this I somehow cultivated without somehow meaning to. My accidental career.

"NPR's music guru asks dozens of artists about songs that inspired them. The answers are surprising and illuminating." — Billboard MagazineFrom the beloved host and creator of NPR's All Songs Considered and Tiny Desk Concerts comes an essential oral history of modern music, told in the voices of iconic and up-and-coming musicians.Is there an unforgettable song that changed your life?NPR's renowned music authority Bob Boilen posed this question...

"[Stanley is] as clear-eyed about music as he is crazy in love with it." —Mikael Wood, Los Angeles TimesA monumental work of musical history, Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! traces the story of pop music through songs, bands, musical scenes, and styles from Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Rock around the Clock” (1954) to Beyoncé’s first megahit, “Crazy in Love” (2003). Bob Stanley—himself a musician, music critic, and fan—teases out the connections and tensions tha...