O my Buffistas, does anyone (Hec?) have a recommendation for a good general (narrative) history of 20th-century pop and/or rock music? Everything I can find is either a textbook, an encyclopedia, or too focused on one genre or another. I'm surprised it's been this hard to find something, and I'm sure I must be overlooking an obvious title. Can anyone help?
I've seen some titles like this out of Britain. The trend has gone away from macro overviews to micro monographs.
I'm sure Faber has something. Maybe Penguin. Let me poke around.
Not pop/rock music, but Alex Ross's "The Rest is Noise" is a really great read. [link]
Jon, that was the first one I thought of (and my library even has a copy), but when I looked at it more closely I saw it was mostly focused on classical works. I definitely want to read it myself, though.
David, thank you for those! The Melody Maker one could work. What I'm looking for is a book to add to my library's collection. I had a student come to me today looking for a book on the British Invasion -- it's for a research project, and he specifically needs at least a couple of books -- and we really didn't have much of use to him. So that highlighted for me an area of our collection that needs work. I have a few ideas for how to fill the gaps, but have been stumped when it comes to a general narrative overview of rock history.
I have a few ideas for how to fill the gaps, but have been stumped when it comes to a general narrative overview of rock history.
I learned from the Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, but that's not been updated in a long time.
But that was a great collection of essays that covered the 50s through early 80s.
Via Associated Press
American troubadour, folk-music singer and activist Pete Seeger has died at a hospital in New York. He was 94.
I'm pretty fucking shattered.
I'm at a loss. Heard pale young gentlemen's cover of Paper Planes and must have it. Not on iTunes, not on Amazon. Zamzaar doesn't work on YT clips anymore. Does anyone have a recording if this that they'd be willing to share, or know of a legal source I've overlooked in my bungling?
