NATIONAL BESTSELLER • With the same trademark compassion and erudition he brought to The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks explores the place music occupies in the brain and how it affects the human condition.“Powerful and compassionate. ...

No nineteenth-century composer had more diverse ties to his contemporary world than Franz Liszt (1811-1886). At various points in his life he made his home in Vienna, Paris, Weimar, Rome, and Budapest. In his roles as keyboard virtuoso, conductor, master...

Described as the perfect fusion of poetry and garage band rock and roll (the original concept was "rock and Rimbaud"), Horses belongs as much to the world of literary and cultural criticism as it does to the realm of musicology. While Horses...

Stephen Walsh's magisterial, engagingly written two-volume Stravinsky is the most detailed and extensive work available on the life of the man widely regarded as the greatest composer of the twentieth century. This second volume takes up the composer's...

If You're Feeling Sinister shows how Belle & Sebastian transformed themselves over the space of a decade, from a slightly shambolic cult secret into a polished, highly entertaining, mainstream pop group. Along the way, the book shows how the internet has...

Two entwined narratives run through the creation of Swordfishtrombones and form the backbone of this book. As the 1970s ended, Waits felt increasingly constrained and trapped by his persona and career. Bitter and desperately unhappy, he moved to New York...

Rid of Me joins Music From Big Pink by John Niven and Meat is Murder by Joe Pernice as one of three fictional titles in the 33 1/3 Series, and tells the story of Kathleen and Mary, two women who find themselves alone in a house in the middle of the dark,...

Like all double albums, Songs in the Key of Life is imperfect but audacious. If its titular concern - life - doesn't exactly allow for rigid focus, it's still a fiercely inspired collection of songs and one of the definitive soul records of the 1970s...

Though Nevermind was Nirvana's most commercially successful album, and the record that broke them — and the grunge phenomenon — internationally, In Utero has increasingly become regarded as the band's best album, both by the critics and the band members...

Highway 61 Revisited resonates because of its enduring emotional appeal. Few songwriters before Dylan or since have combined so effectively the intensely personal with the spectacularly universal. In "Like a Rolling Stone," his gleeful...

The Pixies have had a career unlike any other in alternative rock, disappearing as not-quite-the-next-big-things only to become gods in absentia. Doolittle is their knotty masterpiece, the embodiment of the Pixies' abrasive, exuberant, enigmatic pop...

Court and Spark is Joni Mitchell's most overt attempt at making a hit record, full of glossy production, catchy choruses, and even guest stars from every stratum of rock culture, high (Robbie Robertson) and low (Cheech and Chong). The record was a smash,...

"One day I blew my nose and half my brains came out."Los Angeles, 1976. David Bowie is holed up in his Bel-Air mansion, drifting into drug-induced paranoia and confusion. Obsessed with black magic and the Holy Grail, he's built an altar in the...

Seemingly granted ‘classic album' status within days of its release in 1997, OK Computer transformed Radiohead from a highly promising rock act into The Most Important Band in the World - a label the band has been burdened by (and has fooled around with)...

When Bruce Springsteen went back on the road in 1984, he opened every show by shouting out, "one, two, one, two, three, four," followed by the droning synth chords of "Born in the U.S.A." Max Weinberg hit his drums with a two-fisted...

When the Motor City 5 stormed the stage, the band combined the kinetic flash of James Brown on acid with the raw musical dynamics of the Who gone berserk. It's a unique band that can land itself on the cover of Rolling Stone a month before the release of...

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One of the greatest moments of College Rock in the 1980s, Let It Be had a huge impact on the fans who fell under its spell. For Colin Meloy, growing up in Montana - a state that's strangely missing from the tour itineraries of almost every band - the...

In this remarkable book, Douglas Wolk brings to life an October evening in 1962, at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem: an evening at the height of Cold War tensions. In great detail, Wolk pieces together what took place (and what was recorded) that night, and...