Forever Changes

'Forever Changes' may be thirty-six years old at the time of this writing, but its hermetic fusion of the personal and the political feels more relevant than ever. It speaks to the present in ways that, say, a Jefferson Airplane record never could, whatever the parallels between the late U60s and our contemporary morass.

From its indefinite beginnings through its broad commercialization and endless reinterpretation, American rock-and-roll music has been preoccupied with an end-of-the-world mentality that extends through the whole of American popular music. In Apocalypse Jukebox, Edward Whitelock and David Janssen trace these connections through American music genres, uncovering a mix of paranoia and hope that characterizes so much of the nation's history. From the book's opening scene, set in the American South during a terrifying 1833 meteor shower, the sense of doom is both palpable and inescapable; a deep foreboding that shadows every subsequent development in American popular music and, as Whitelock and Janssen contend, stands as a key to understanding and explicating America itself. Whitelock and Janssen examine the diversity of apocalyptic influences within North American recorded music, focusing in particular upon a number of influential performers, including Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, John Coltrane, Devo, R.E.M., Sleater-Kinney, and Green Day. In Apocalypse Jukebox, Whitelock and Janssen reveal apocalypse as a permanent and central part of the American character while establishing rock-and-roll as a true reflection of that character.

Uses interviews with such notables as Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Ice T, and Richard Thompson to explore the celebration of death and destruction through popular music and includes a list of the forty greatest death records of all time.

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.

The writings in this book are extracted from volumes 1 through 20 of our 33 1/3 series - short books about individual albums. In here you'll find a wide variety of authors, albums, and approaches to writing about those albums. So sit back, put on your headphones, cue up your favourite songs, and let our writers transport you to a time when: Dusty Springfield headed south to Memphis to record a pop/soul classic; The Kinks almost fell to pieces, and managed to make their best album while doing so; Joy Division and their mad, brilliant producer created a debut record that still sounds painfully hip today; James Brown mesmerized a sell-out crowd at the Apollo, in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis; The Rolling Stones shacked up in the South of France and emerged with one of the best double-albums ever; The Ramones distilled punk rock into its purest, most enduring essence... 33 1/3 Greatest Hits, Volume 1: it's like a compilation album, without the filler.

Music exhilarates, enchants, fires, liberates, calms, comforts, heals. Like hardly any other medium, it lets us take off into a world beyond time and space. How does that work? What is the mystery of sound? There are theories, suppositions and hunches from the most diverse fields, but in no epoch has it been possible to lift the veil definitively. Tenaciously, playfully and at times ironically, Swiss musician and book author Richard Koechli searches for answers as to how and why music touches us and, in the sense of transcendence, even takes us beyond ourselves. What processes are going on there, in the brain and in the soul? How has all this influenced the history of humanity? Meticulously, Koechli examines explanations from musicology, natural science, psychology, music therapy, sociology, literature, philosophy, mysticism, spirituality and metaphysics. He passionately quotes legendary stars as they experience the magic. Worried, he also asks why, since time immemorial, the «drug» of music is often not enough for us, why we believe we can top the high with some substance or occult practice. Last but not least, Richard Koechli ends the 200-page book with a fascinating foray through the history of «Psychedelic Rock», because it was this music from the hippie era that taught him how to take off. And in his role as a multiple award-winning blues musician and singer-songwriter, he complements it all with a very personal album: «Transcendental Blues» (download link in the book), a complex musical trip through the ups and downs of being human. For anyone involved in music in any way. A relevant book because it multiplies respect for the mystery of sounds. A stirring one, because it takes the love for music to infinity.

Listen to Psychedelic Rock! contains more than 50 entries covering the people, records, places, and events that shaped one of the most exciting and influential periods in popular music. This addition to the Exploring a Music Genre series concentrates solely on psychedelic rock music. Listen to Psychedelic Rock! Exploring a Musical Genre covers over fifty topics, arranged alphabetically, that are central to learning about psychedelic music and will enable readers to understand the breadth and ongoing influence of psychedelia through to the present day. The title contains biographical sketches on selected artists, "song-by-song" descriptions of many albums, and short, informative essays on participants who were influential in the original psychedelic movement. A background section introduces the genre and a legacy section shows how psychedelic music has cemented its place in the world, while another section shows the tremendous impact the music has had on popular culture. Information on record labels and year-of-release dates for all musical entries make it easy for any reader to navigate this title - a must-have for high school and college readers as well as for music scholars and fans of the genre.

Whether you're cleaning out a closet, basement or attic full of records, or you're searching for hidden gems to build your collection, you can depend on Goldmine Record Album Price Guide to help you accurately identify and appraise your records in order to get the best price. • Knowledge is power, so power-up with Goldmine! • 70,000 vinyl LPs from 1948 to present • Hundreds of new artists • Detailed listings with current values • Various artist collections and original cast recordings from movies, televisions and Broadway • 400 photos • Updated state-of-the-market reports • New feature articles • Advice on buying and selling Goldmine Grading Guide - the industry standard