Pop Music Legends

“Music affects every person. It is the soundtrack of our happiness, zest for achievement and relationships to others. Music brings great ideas and feelings. It soothes the soul. It creates and sustains memories.” – Hank Moore Pop Music Legends covers change and growth of the music recording industry. It is based on the Hank Moore’s involvement in music over the years, interviews with hundreds of music stars and his knowledge of pop culture. It is the only book that encompasses a full-scope music perspective and is designed to have high appeal mass appeal, historical, entertainment and is applicable to a broad audience.

Each Top 40 Famous title introduces readers to a fascinating non-fiction subject through its 40 most famous people or groups. An illustration, short biography and pull-out boxes with statistics brings each alive in a fun, accessible way. In this inspiring title, learn about Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Madonna, Beyoncé, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie and many other rock and pop legends. Key aspects are pulled out for young readers, such as genre, look and famous performances.

Whether it’s rock and roll, country, or hip-hop, popular music is an important and exciting part of our culture. Over the past decades, many artists have risen to worldwide fame. This book highlights 10 legendary performers—music megastars whose stories and songs touch the lives of people around the globe.

For fans, history buffs and book afficionados, Legends of Pop, part of a trio of collectible hardcover books, features the biggest pop legends of all time (see also Legends of Rock and Legends of Country) . Branded by VHI, this book contains fascinating stories and trivia revealing the people behind the fame of each pop legend. You will also find great quotes by and about these legends as well as Greatest Hits sidebars that list the songs that made the artists famous. Legends of Pop is full of hundreds of full-color images of the legends of pop from the first icons to modern day hit-makers. It includes an appendix of best-selling chart timelines for singles and albums. Some featured artists and groups are: The Beatles, Bon Jovi, Cher, Eminem, Janet Jackson, Eagles, Elvis Presley, The Monkees, Stevie Wonder, Madonna, and Elton John, among many, many more

Two generations of American music lovers have grown up listening with Robert Christgau, attuned to his inimitable blend of judgment, acuity, passion, erudition, wit, and caveat emptor. His writings, collected here, constitute a virtual encyclopedia of popular music over the past fifty years. Whether honoring the originators of rock and roll, celebrating established artists, or spreading the word about newer ones, the book is pure enjoyment, a pleasure that takes its cues from the sounds it chronicles. A critical compendium of points of interest in American popular music and its far-flung diaspora, this book ranges from the 1950s singer-songwriter tradition through hip-hop, alternative, and beyond. With unfailing style and grace, Christgau negotiates the straits of great music and thorny politics, as in the cases of Public Enemy, blackface artist Emmett Miller, KRS-One, the Beastie Boys, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. He illuminates legends from pop music and the beginnings of rock and rollÑGeorge Gershwin, Nat King Cole, B. B. King, Chuck Berry, and Elvis PresleyÑand looks at the subtle transition to just plain ÒrockÓ in the music of Janis Joplin, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, and others. He praises the endless vitality of Al Green, George Clinton, and Neil Young. And from the Rolling Stones to Sonic Youth to Nirvana, from Bette Midler to Michael Jackson to DJ Shadow, he shows how money calls the tune in careers that arenÕt necessarily compromised by their intercourse with commerce. Rock and punk and hip-hop, pop and world beat: this is the music of the second half of the twentieth century, skillfully framed in the work of a writer whose reach, insight, and perfect pitch make him one of the major cultural critics of our time.

"Zambian Music Legends is a marathon journey into the history of Zambian music. This journey surveys the wonderful art from its traditional function in the distant past to the presenet era where 'Zam-ragga' and hip hop have taken root. The book also plays tribute to the often unsung heroes who have devoted their lives and careers to the growth of the music industry. Music is an essential mass media tool that contributes to the socio-cultural development of society. As a result of this the book further attemps to look at the role music has played in shaping the socio-cultural and economic development of the country"--Cover.

Beginning early in the 1980s, a dance music revolution swept across Europe and Britain, merging rock, new wave, disco and worldbeat sounds. The resulting explosion of high-energy, increasingly electronic dance-pop caused a sensation worldwide. In this book of original interviews, 32 of the era's most celebrated artists, producers and industry professionals discuss their lives and careers: Thomas Anders (Modern Talking's "You're My Heart, You're My Soul"), Pete Burns (Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)"), Desireless ("Voyage Voyage"), Phil Harding (PWL Mixmaster), Junior ("Mama Used to Say"), Leee John (Imagination's "Just an Illusion"), Liz Mitchell (Boney M.'s 1988 "Megamix"), Fab Morvan (Milli Vanilli's "Girl You Know It's True"), Taco ("Putting On the Ritz"), Jennifer Rush ("The Power of Love"), Sabrina ("Boys"), Spagna ("Call Me"), Amii Stewart ("Knock on Wood"), Yazz ("The Only Way Is Up") and many more. Includes special commentary by Academy Award winner Mel Brooks and Audrey Landers, star of Dallas.

This collection provides readers with a diverse and contemporary overview of research in the field. Drawing upon scholarly writing from a range of disciplines and approaches, it provides case studies from a wide range of 'non Western' musical contexts. In so doing the volume attends to the central themes that have emerged in this area of popular music studies; cultural politics, identity and the role of technology. This collection does not seek to establish a new theoretical paradigm, but being primarily aimed at researchers and students, offers as comprehensive a view of the research that has been carried out over the last few decades as possible, given the global scope of the subject. Inevitably, the experience of globalisation itself runs through many of the contributions, not only because musicians find themselves part of an immense flow of international culture, technology and finance, but also because Western scholarship can also be considered an aspect of such a flow. The articles selected for the volume take different disciplinary approaches; many are close ethnographic descriptions of musical practices whilst others take a more historical view of a musical 'scene' or even a single musician. Some essays consider the effects of emerging technologies upon the production, dissemination and consumption of music, whilst the political context is central to other authors. The collection as a whole serves as a resource for those who wish to be better acquainted with the diversity of research that has been carried out into non-western pop, whilst also highlighting the broader themes that have, so far, shaped academic approaches to the subject.