33 1 3 Revolutions Per Minute

Whether you're a lifelong collector or have only just gotten hip to the vinyl revival, navigating the vast landscape of rock albums can be a daunting prospect. Enter Mike Segretto and his mammoth 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Minute, a history of the rock LP era told through a very personal selection of nearly 700 albums. Beginning with the birth of rock and roll in the 1950s, Segretto moves through the explosive innovations of the 1960s, the classic rock and punk albums of the 1970s, the new wave classics of the 1980s, and the alternative revolution of the 1990s, always with an eye to both the iconic and the ephemeral, the failed experiments and the brilliant trailblazers. It's all here: everything from the classics (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Purple Rain, Nevermind, and countless other usual suspects) to such oddities as albums by Johnny "Guitar" Watson, P. P. Arnold, The Dentists, and Holly Golightly. Throughout, Segretto reveals the perpetual evolution of a modern art form, tracing the rock album's journey from a vehicle for singles and filler sold to kids, through its maturation into a legitimate, self-contained medium of expression by 1967, and onward to its dominance in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. Whether you read it from cover to cover, seek out specific albums, or just dip in at random and let the needle fall where it may, 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Minute is a fun, informative, and unapologetically opinionated read.

Why 33? Partly because that's the number of rotations performed by a vinyl album in one minute, and partly because it takes a lot of songs to tell a story which spans seven decades and five continents - to capture the colour and variety of this shape-shifting genre. This is not a list book, rather each of the 33 songs offers a way into a subject, an artist, an era or an idea. The book feels vital, in both senses of the word: necessary and alive. It captures some of the energy that is generated when musicians take risks, and even when they fail, those endeavours leave the popular culture a little richer and more challenging. Contrary to the frequently voiced idea that pop and politics are awkward bedfellows, it argues that protest music is pop, in all its blazing, cussed glory.

(Book). Step behind the wheels of steel and into the world of professional DJs. The World of DJs and the Turntable Culture is the only book that clearly and thoroughly teaches the tools, technologies and techniques of contemporary DJing. It also goes further, exploring the culture, history and aesthetics of hip-hop, dance music and turntablism. Souvignier traces the turntable's evolution from consumer playback device into a professional musical instrument, right up to the latest CD scratching decks. He also traces the evolution of the DJ from selector and record announcer to producer/performer. This book features exclusive interviews with GrandWizzard Theodore (the inventor of scratching) and other superstars including DJ QBert, Rob Swift (X-ecutioners), Armand Van Helden and mash-up maven The Freelance Hellraiser. The wide ranging topics covered include a mechanical history of turntables and a DJ technology roundup; Alan Freed, Dick Clark and payola; John Cage's Cartridge Music; Grandmaster Flash; Jamaican sound systems; the rise and fall of disco; house, techno and garage music; a dictionary of scratches; and developing DJ skills. The World of DJs and the Turntable Culture includes hands-on chapters that explain the basic tools DJs use, teaches the fundamental techniques, and explores the creative possibilities for DJs. There is a special focus on state-of-the-art gear, spotlighting the most exciting, cutting-edge features.

Why are vinyl records making a comeback? How is their resurgence connected to the political economy of music? Vinyl Theory responds to these and other questions by exploring the intersection of vinyl records with critical theory. In the process, it asks how the political economy of music might be connected with the philosophy of the record. The young critical theorist and composer Theodor Adorno’s work on the philosophy of the record and the political economy of music of the contemporary French public intellectual, Jacques Attali, are brought together with the work of other theorists to in order to understand the fall and resurrection of vinyl records. The major argument of Vinyl Theory is that the very existence of vinyl records may be central to understanding the resiliency of neoliberalism. This argument is made by examining the work of Adorno, Attali, Friedrich Nietzsche, and others on music through the lens of Michel Foucault’s biopolitics.

From a review of the first edition: "For those of us whose minds unhinge at the sheer immensity of the Library of Congress, with its maze of corridors, multilayered stacks and circuitous subterranean passages, this study will prevent many a false step."—Smithsonian Since the first edition of this book appeared in 1972, there have been many changes in the Library, including a massive reorganization begun in 1977 under the leadership of Daniel J. Boorstin, the present Librarian of Congress. This completely revised and updated look at the Library brings the story up to date, discussing the Library's history, how it works, how the user can take advantage of its many services, where it is going, and how it meets the wide-ranging needs of Congress, other federal government offices, and the library, scholarly, and creative worlds. The authors emphasize the recent impact of technology on what is the largest information-storage and retrieval "machine" in the world. Lively writing and accessible language make this book an ideal introduction to the Library of Congress for the visitor, the first-time user, or the general reader, but it is also a must for every library and librarian, as well as an excellent textbook for library administration courses. The information it contains will make it of great interest even to the most experienced users of the Library.