"In Major Labels, Kelefa Sanneh, one of the essential voices of our time on music and culture, has made a deep study of popular music and how it unites and divides us. Sanneh distills a career's worth of knowledge about music and musicians into a brilliant and omnivorous reckoning with everything from his own punk youth to the racial dynamics of rap and country to the genius of Shania Twain. Sanneh shows how musical genres have been defined by the...

"Focusing on the years 1971 to the present, Questlove finds the hidden connections in the American tapestry, whether investigating how the blaxploitation era reshaped Black identity or considering the way disco took an assembly-line approach to Black genius. And these critical inquiries are complemented by his own memories as a music fan, and the way his appetite for pop culture taught him about America. A history of the last half-century and an intimate...

<P>John Cage is the outstanding composer of avant-garde music today. The Saturday Review said of him: "Cage possesses one of the rarest qualities of the true creator- that of an original mind- and whether that originality pleases, irritates, amuses or outrages is irrelevant." "He refuses to sermonize or pontificate. What John Cage offers is more refreshing, more spirited, much more fun-a kind of carefree skinny-dipping in the infinite. It's...

"Beloved music critic Tom Breihan's fascinating narrative of the history of popular music through the lens of game-changing #1 singles from the Billboard Hot 100. When Tom Breihan launched his Stereogum column in early 2018, "The Number Ones"--- a space in which he has been writing about every #1 hit in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, in chronological order--- he figured he'd post capsule-size reviews for each song. But there was so much more...

Rich in the composer's customary melodic and rhythmic invention and harmonic ingenuity, this magnificent compilation of piano works includes such favorites as "Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue," "Italian Concerto," "Air Varied in the Italian Manner," "Capriccio on the Departure of His Most Beloved Brother," "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor," and "Prelude and Fugue in C Minor." Additional selections from among the master’s shorter works include Little...

In 1969 Gerhard Kubik chanced to encounter a Mozambican labor migrant, a miner in Transvaal, South Africa, tapping a cipendani, a mouth-resonated musical bow. A comparable instrument was seen in the hands of a white Appalachian musician who claimed it as part of his own cultural heritage. Through connections like these Kubik realized that the link between these two far-flung musicians is African-American music, the sound that became the blues. Such...

Different animals--including seals, tigers, geese, rabbits, monkeys, and more--make their own sounds as they ride all around the town on a bus.

Selects ten songs recorded between 1956 and 2008 that embody rock and roll as a thing in itself--in the story each song tells, inhabits, and creates in its legacy.

Girls cannot be drumers. Long ago on an island filled with music, no one questioned that rule - until the drum dream girl. In her city of drumbeats, she dreamed of pounding tall congas and tapping small bongos. She had to keep quiet. She had to practice in secret. But when at last her dream-bright music was heard, everyone sang and danced and decided that both girls and boys should be free to drum and dream. Inspired by the childhood of Millo Castro...

"For more than twenty-five years, All you need to know about the music business has been regarded as the definitive guide to the music industry. Now in its tenth edition, Donald Passman leads novices and experts alike through what has been the most profound change in the music business since the days of wax cylinders and piano rolls: streaming. For the first time in history, music is no longer monetized by selling something--it's monetized by how...