Product Description: In our increasingly digital world, audiophiles know that the real recording is on vinyl. That’s why sales of vinyl continue to soar. Mike Evans offers a sumptuous visual celebration of this medium’s fascinating history and triumphant rebirth...read more

Product Description: For the first time, Appetite for Self-Destruction recounts the story of the precipitous rise and fall of the recording industry over the past three decades, when the incredible success of the CD turned the music business into one of the most glamorous, high-profile industries in the world – and the advent of file sharing brought it to its knees...read more

Product Description: Cowboys and Indies is nothing less than the first definitive history of the recording industry on both sides of the Atlantic.From the invention of the earliest known sound-recording device in 1850s Paris to the CD crash and digital boom today, author and industry insider Gareth Murphy takes readers on an immensely entertaining and encyclopedic ride through the many cataclysmic musical, cultural, and technological changes that shaped a century and a half of the industry...read more

Vinyl: A History of the Analogue Record is the first in-depth study of the vinyl record. Richard Osborne traces the evolution of the recording format from its roots in the first sound recording experiments to its survival in the world of digital technologies. This book addresses the record's relationship with music: the analogue record was shaped by, and helped to shape, the music of the twentieth century. It also looks at the cult of vinyl records. Why are users so passionate about this format? Why has it become the subject of artworks and advertisements? Why are vinyl records still being produced? This book explores its subject using a distinctive approach: the author takes the vinyl record apart and historicizes its construction. Each chapter explores a different element: the groove, the disc shape, the label, vinyl itself, the album, the single, the b-side and the 12" single, and the sleeve. By anatomizing vinyl in this manner, the author shines new light on its impact and appeal.

Product Description: Cowboys and Indies is the definitive record-business bible, chronicling the pioneers who set the stylus on the most important labels and musical discoveries of the last century. The narrative follows all the musical trends and developments from the phonograph to the Internet age as it delves behind the big business of corporate hit machines and the diligent industry of small, curated labels...read more

Product Description: This book discusses the evolution of digital music as a technology, including how it affects musicians, listeners and the music industry.

Product Description: For the first time, Appetite for Self-Destruction recounts the epic story of the precipitous rise and fall of the modern recording industry, from an author who has been writing about it for more than ten years. With unparalleled access to those intimately involved in the music world’s highs and lows—including Warner Music chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr...read more

For the first time, Appetite for Self-Destruction recounts the story of the precipitous rise and fall of the recording industry over the past three decades, when the incredible success of the CD turned the music business into one of the most glamorous, high-profile industries in the world – and the advent of file sharing brought it to its knees. In a comprehensive, fast-paced account full of larger-than-life personalities, Rolling Stone contributing editor Steve Knopper shows that, after the incredible wealth and excess of the ‘80s and ‘90s, Sony, Warner, and the other big players brought about their own downfall through years of denial and bad decisions in the face of dramatic advances in technology. Based on interviews with more than two hundred music industry sources – from Warner Music chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. to renegade Napster creator Shawn Fanning – Knopper is the first to offer such a detailed and sweeping contemporary history of the industry’s wild ride through the past three decades. From the birth of the compact disc, through the explosion of CD sales in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the emergence of Napster, and the secret talks that led to iTunes, to the current collapse of the industry as CD sales plummet, Knopper takes us inside the boardrooms, recording studios, private estates, garage computer labs, company jets, corporate infighting, and secret deals of the big names and behind-the-scenes players who made it all happen.

Product Description: For the first time, Appetite for Self-Destruction recounts the story of the precipitous rise and fall of the recording industry over the past three decades, when the incredible success of the CD turned the music business into one of the most glamorous, high-profile industries in the world – and the advent of file sharing brought it to its knees...read more

ECM is one of the most admired labels in the history of recorded music. This work presents a portrait of the label, its artists, and their music in words and photography. It reflects on the ways in which ECM has grown and changed from its origins in jazz to contemporary classical, from medieval chant to free jazz and traditional folk musics.

From Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday to Janice Joplin and Michael Jackson, Columbia Records has discovered and nurtured a mind-boggling spectrum of talents and temperaments over the past 100-plus years. Now, with unprecedented access to the company's archives, this book tells the stories behind the groundbreaking music. More often than not, the music was not just created by the artists themselves but forged out of conflict with the men and women who handled them--executives, producers, Artists and Repertoire men, arrangers, recording engineers, and, yes, even publicists. And at almost every narrative crossroads is an undercurrent of racial tension--a tension that not only influenced twentieth-century music, but also mirrored and at times prompted major changes in American culture.--From publisher description.Uses information collected from memos, personal correspondence, recording contracts, sales reports, and job sheets to tell the stories behind the groundbreaking music distributed by Columbia Records.

Looks at the history of recorded music and technology of the industry from Thomas Edison's invention of the phonograph in 1876 to the MP3 players.

Looks at the early history of African Americans in the recording industry.

'This history examines a newly created technology and industry in search of itself. It follows the story from the earliest efforts to capture sound, to the fight among wire, cylinder and disk recordings for primacy in the market, to the growth and development of musical genres, record companies and business practices'--Provided by publisher.

Product Description: There is a crisis facing music. The signs are everywhere, from the saturation of public space by tuneful trivia to the digital downloading controversy. Quantity has replaced quality. The number of units sold is now the criteria by which music is judged and high-gloss, mass-produced, low-content music is everywhere...read more

Product Description: Playback is the first book to place the fascinating history of sound reproduction within its larger social, economic, and cultural context-and includes appearances by everyone from Thomas Edison to Enrico Caruso to Dick Clark to Grandmaster Flash to Napster CEO Shawn Fanning...read more

Explores the distinctive technique, phrasing, expressiveness, and sound quality of Frank Sinatra's recordings. (view table of contents)

Looks at the history of recording technology and its effect on music, including artistic performance, listening habits, and audience participation. (view table of contents)

Product Description: From Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel through Telstar, Pet Sounds, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Dark Side of the Moon, Bohemian Rhapsody, Vienna, Two Tribes, Zooropa, Older, to Britpop albums from Oasis, Kula Shaker, Cast and Radiohead, Good Vibrations follows the development of popular music recording from the perspective of the producers, engineers and session players...read more