books about musical genres

hint

party record with a siren
sapstra said:
Also, i can't seem to find similar books about rock (psychedelic, hardrock, prog, glam) There are loads of books about specific bands, memories of people 'who were there' and discographies and encycylopedias, but i can't find books like the ones mentioned above in this field. Anyone has any ideas?

I'm currently reading and enjoying this
 

philblackpool

gamelanstep
That Jazz Dance book got an amusing pasting in the Wire this month. I'm not a big fan of that sort of music, but I too like genre books & can imagine its a pretty interesting read in its own way.

Most of the ones I would mention are in here, I think. Altered State, Energy Flash, Last Night A DJ..., Rough Guides Reggae & Rock, Love Saves the Day and Wake the Town... all get my vote. Nick Tosches is a great writer too - his country one is very good. Also, I was really impressed with how good John Robb's Punk oral history was (maybe the best I've read on the genre?) & am looking forward to his post-punk one, with a cd also coming out featuring tracks from a whole raft of Blackpool bands as well as many others. Oh, and Songs In the Key of Z is great (if you can call outsider music a genre).
 

hint

party record with a siren
Has anyone read this?:

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Slothrop

Tight but Polite
bass culture is really really good (more of a good read than rough guide IMO) but is a shame that he doesn't just stop at 1985, rather than squeezing all post-1985 reggae/dancehall into one chapter and pretty much saying that it's shit.
Yeah, that's pretty much where I stand too.

Apart from the stuff already mentioned, Alex Ross - The Rest Is Noise for 20th century classical as a whole, and Reginald Smith-Brindle The New Music for the post WWII classical avante garde. Both very interesting. One of my favourite bits is a story that John Cage tells about driving somewhere with a sleeping Morton Feldman, and Feldman waking up for just long enough to say "Now that things are so simple, there's so much to do!" before going back to sleep.

Reading Rip It Up & Start Again at the moment - it's very good, although it's kind of interesting that after talking approvingly about Gang of Four and Scritti Polliti and Gramsci and hegemony and being anti 'common sense', his complaint against Whitehouse basically just says "but they were into, like, Nazis and extreme sadism and really horrible stuff like that..."
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Just started reading Peter Shapiro's history of Disco, 'Turn the beat around'. So far, so incredible. Can't believe its not been mentioned here yet. Its prompting a massive youtube sesh of all those weird and wonderful David Mancuso Loft records.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Not about a genre, but this book is a fantastic read for all those who grew up in the UK 90s.

This is engaging too, on the same count, particularly for the inside story on James Lavelle's garish and well-deserved mental "breakdown". (He spent a lot of money and felt a bit bad. But it is quite funny. I heard a rumour that Nathan Barley was based on Lavelle?)
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Lavelle was responsible for a lot of badness.

Krautrocksampler and Japrocksampler, obv enough.

Edit: Sentences not connected. Otherwise the books wouldn't have been quite as good.
 
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craner

Beast of Burden
Are we still friends? You seemed quite upset with me on the BNP thread. I thought it was a shame. There are precious few Welshmen around! Let alone people aware of the geography of Mumbles.
 

mms

sometimes
Not about a genre, but this book is a fantastic read for all those who grew up in the UK 90s.

This is engaging too, on the same count, particularly for the inside story on James Lavelle's garish and well-deserved mental "breakdown". (He spent a lot of money and felt a bit bad. But it is quite funny. I heard a rumour that Nathan Barley was based on Lavelle?)

i only saw lavelle dj once at a festival in butlins, he was busy smirking to himself playing rubbish ironic pop 7 inches, dressed in sunnies and the kind of gear you'd be happy to get if you were going to fight in iraq. He was largely ignored by the audience. I saw him at the bar and he ordered a pina collada.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Are we still friends? You seemed quite upset with me on the BNP thread. I thought it was a shame. There are precious few Welshmen around! Let alone people aware of the geography of Mumbles.

Sorry, tensions running very high that evening - it really wasn't anything personal, so apologies if it came off as such. Meant to PM you to that effect.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
funk! funk! get da synth funk n boogie in ma face with a nice cock i can lick and bight.

also, good marxist music books on any genre (apart from boring '77 ppunk *rock*) that aren't adorno. i don't really get on with his founding methodology. i mean, i do, to an extent, in that the commodity form is the death of what was traditionally called art, but this doesn't mean his ahistoricising is right. It's quite dickish tbh. @blissblogger @john eden
 

Numbers

Well-known member
Dan Hancox' (of former Dissensus fame, no?) new book on grime is really well written. Liking it alot.
 
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