Pop category: 3054 books

In this narrative history and memoir, journalist, musician, and Monctonian Jason Murray follows the rise of the band that put the Maritimes on the map. Eric's Trip was a band defined as much by its DIY ethos as its low-fi, discordant music. The four-piece formed in an early-'90s Moncton basement...

The sequel to the New York Times bestseller Whatever You Say I Am, chronicling the last 20 years of rapper Eminem's life, based on new, exclusive interviews with the artist, his friends, family, and associates. In 1999, a former dishwasher from Detroit became the most significant, controversial,...

Oasis's incendiary 1994 debut album Definitely Maybe managed to summarize almost the entire history of post-fifties guitar music from Chuck Berry to My Bloody Valentine in a way that seemed effortless. But this remarkable album was also a social document that came closer to narrating the collective...

As the only person with a camera attending the first Sex Pistols gig outside London at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester on Friday June 4th 1976, I unwittingly captured a piece of musical history which still intrigues people to this day. I was covering the event for the magazine that I was producing...

The extraordinary personal and professional journey of Scott Walker who went from golden-voiced sixties pop-singer to iconoclastic musical adventurer. Author Paul Woods examines how the celebrated vocal range and philosophical concerns of Noel Scott Engel - aka Scott Walker - continue to challenge the accepted territory and subject matter of popular music.

In 1960, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stu Sutcliffe and Pete Best first played together as The Beatles. On 5 October 1962, The Beatles with Sutcliffe and Best out and Ringo Starr in released their debut single, Love Me Do. The subsequent seven years saw them revolutionise Sixties music...

Aja was the album that made Steely Dan a commercial force on the order of contemporaries like Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles and Chicago. A double-platinum, Grammy-winning bestseller, it lingered on the Billboard charts for more than a year and spawned three hit singles. Odd, then, that its creators saw...

In Meeting Jimmie Rodgers, the first book to explore the deep legacy of "The Singing Brakeman" from a twenty-first century perspective, Barry Mazor offers a lively look at Rodgers' career, tracing his rise from working-class obscurity to the pinnacle of renown that came with such hits as "Blue Yodel"...

Nico was revered as ‘the most beautiful creature who ever lived’. She was Andy Warhol’s femme fatale and the High Preistess of Weird, yet few knew her real name or her wretched origins. When she called herself ‘a Nazi anarchist junkie’, they thought she was joking. Bob Dylan wrote...

For many years, John Lennon has been seen as the crazed and eccentric Beatle who provided some of the most memorable melodies the music world has ever known. After remaking pop in his own image with The Beatles, the erstwhile would-be artist and Liverpudlian reprobate went on to carve out a significant...

Anyone who grew up in Canada in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, knows how amazing this country’s music scene was in those magical decades. Etched in the musical memories of millions of Canadians are great tunes, television appearances and live shows featuring The Diamonds, Lighthouse, Steppenwolf,...

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. Informed by exclusive interviews with the band,...

Five boys. Millions of devoted fans. One Direction! Since graduating from TV talent show The X Factor in 2010, cleancut cuties One Direction have taken the pop world by storm, breaking chart records on both sides of the Atlantic with their debut album Up All Night and setting girls' hearts racing....

In the past eight-years, the face of popular culture has changed radically and with it, the music that will define the decade. Gone are the pop saturated songs of the 70's and 80's. Today's sound is a fusion of grunge, hip-hop, metal, hardcore and funk. Disparate sounds that together create something...