Sporting shades and a feedback-heavy sounds, the Velvets straddled art and rock, changing popular music forever, and sowing the seeds for punk, grunge and thousands of countercultural four-chord wonders. "The Rough Guide to The Velvet Underground" explores: The Velvet Story - How Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison, John Cale and the others emerged from the New York scene, their successes and excesses and what happened to each in their solo years; Velvet Music - From their 1967 debut with Nico to their 1993 reunion with all the tales behind the tunes; Velvet Universe - Everybody who was anybody in the Velvet''s world, taking in Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick, David Bowie, Delmore, Schwaretsz and Brian Eno; and, Velvet Goldmine - The "Underground" on screen, the Velvets'' New York, clubs, influences, covers, websites and more.
Still going strong after four decades, The Rolling Stones are the ultimate rock band. The Rough Guide to The Rolling Stones explores every aspect of the music, and charts how Mick, Keith and the boys invented rock stardom. Features include: The Story: From the blues clubs of 60s Chelsea to the world tours and millionaire mansions, The Music: 50 essential songs and the stories behind them, plus the albums, bootlegs, soundtracks and solo projects, The Entourage: the girlfriends, managers and musicians, from Jerry Hall and Marianne Faithful to Andrew Loog Oldham and Nicky Hopkins, The Rolling Review: the movies, books and websites all the Stones info youll ever need. This Rough Guide leaves no stone unturned.
The Beatles are the ultimate band - the most popular, the most respected, the most influential. This new edition of The Rough Guide to the Beatles covers every aspect of the Fab Four, delving deep into the music, lyrics, movies and solo careers. Features include: The Story: from Liverpool clubs to Beatlemania. The Music: incisive reviews of every Beatles and solo album. The Canon: the inside track on the 50 greatest songs. On Screen: the movies, the promos and the TV appearances. The Fifth Beatle: George Martin, Yoko Ono, Magic Alex and other contenders. Beatleology: the best books, the weirdest covers, the most obsessive websites, the obscurest trivia.
The Rough Guide to Soul and R&B is the definitive guide to the genre''s greatest singers, musicians, songwriters and record labels, encapsulating the entire history of soul music from gospel and doo-wop, through funk and disco, to hip-hop and R&B. The guide includes detailed profiles of more than 300 artists, from such legends as Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and Sam Cooke to contemporary stars like Prince, Mary J. Blige and Destiny''s Child. There are reviews of hundreds of landmark albums, from James Brown''s Live At The Apollo to Missy Elliott''s Supa Dupa Fly. The guide includes recommended playlists for the key performers and sub-genres and comes complete with plenty of unforgettable photos from top music photographers and picture libraries.
The third edition of "The Rough Guide to Rock" is more extensive than ever. It features over 3000 album reviews, 1200 biographies, 300 original images and 268 classic album covers, covering all areas of rock music and touching on the fringes of dance, hip-hop, blues, country and soul. Compiled by a group of music journalists and enthusiastic fans, this is the guide that is not afraid to say what''s hot and what''s not.
The "Rough Guide to Opera" is a unique handbook on the most thrilling of art forms, spanning four hundred years of music drama. The title features lively biographical sketches of some 150 composers from Claudio Monteverdi to Poul Ruders, animating the main events of their careers and revealing their social and musical context, and entertaining accounts of hundreds of operas both famous and neglected and comprehensive reviews of over a thousand CD''s from recent digital releases to the best historical recordings. From historical figures like Caruso to contemporary stars like Bryn Terfel, Renee Fleming and Daniel Barenboim, discover the finest singers and conductors on record. Superb photographs, drawings, and CD cover images make this title an Opera-lover''s essential.
"The Rough Guide to Opera" is a handbook on the most thrilling of art forms, spanning four hundred years of music drama. Features include: lively biographical sketches of some 150 composers, from Claudio Monteverdi to Poul Ruders, detailing the main events of their careers and revealing their social and musical context; entertaining accounts of hundreds of operas, both the famous and neglected, each with a clear synopsis and a lively essay; CD reviews, covering the latest digital recordings as well as dozens of classic historical sets; and a who''s who of the finest singers and conductors on record, from historical figures like Caruso, Callas and Toscanini to present-day stars like Bryn Terfel, Renee Fleming and Daniel Barenboim.
