Showing titles in Music

For the past 30 years, Usher has exhilarated audiences with stadium-sized anthems, innovative choreography, and dazzling charm that has made him a once-in-a-generation superstar. The Last Showman is an introspective look into the past, present, and future of a beloved global R&B icon. Usher opens up about the inspirations, heartache, and growth that fueled the creation of his record-breaking magnum opus, Confessions, while revisiting some of its most iconic tracks.

In his gripping, bestselling debut memoir Dark Days, Lamb of God vocalist D. Randall (Randy) Blythe unflinchingly wrote about some of the most harrowing episodes of his past. Now, in his highly anticipated follow-up Just Beyond the Light, Blythe shares how he works daily to maintain positivity in a world that feels like it is spinning out of control. In his own words, Just Beyond the Light is a "tight, concise roadmap of how I have attempted to maintain what I believe to be a proper perspective in life, even during difficult times."

Steve Parish was never one to walk the straight-and-narrow, even during his childhood growing up in Flushing Meadow, Queens. Busted as a teenager for selling acid in the summer of 1968, Parish landed in Riker's Island. The experience changed him, and after getting out, he did his best to stay out of trouble, securing a job moving music equipment at the New York State Pavilion. The first show he worked was a Grateful Dead concert in July of 1969, and Parish was captivated by the music. A life seemingly headed nowhere had suddenly found its calling.

Book of Longing is a critically-acclaimed collection of poetry by the late Leonard Cohen. The audiobook features edited and remastered archival recordings of the author himself, reading the poems in a home environment. The result is a rare, personal experience from one of the western world’s most popular and innovative creative artists.

Music journalist Chris Payne experienced emo's mainstream takeover from sweaty crowds and mosh pits growing up in New Jersey. In Where Are Your Boys Tonight? he offers an authoritative, impassioned, and occasionally absurd account told through interviews with more than 150 people, from the scene's biggest bands, producers, and managers to the teenage fans who helped redefine American music culture.

Work in Progress with Sophia Bush features frank, funny, personal, professional, and sometimes even political conversations with people who inspire Sophia about how they’ve gotten to where they are, and where they think they’re still going. These discussions stem from her "aha" moment of realizing you are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress, simultaneously.

As lead singer and songwriter for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Anthony Kiedis has lived life on the razor's edge. Much has been written about him, but until now we've only had his songs as clues to his experience from the inside. In Scar Tissue, Kiedis proves himself to be as compelling a memoirist as he is a lyricist, giving us a searingly honest account of the life from which his music has evolved.

As an A&R man at Epic Records, Tom Werman helped introduce the world to REO Speedwagon, Boston, Ted Nugent, and Cheap Trick; he also discovered KISS, Rush, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, but his record label passed on all of them. Then, as an independent producer, he oversaw landmark albums by Mötley Crüe, Twisted Sister, Lita Ford, Jeff Beck, Poison, and many more. All in all, his record-making resume includes twenty-three gold- or platinum-selling albums and cumulative sales of more than fifty-two million copies.

Histories of music overwhelmingly suppress stories of the outsiders and rebels who created musical revolutions and instead celebrate the mainstream assimilators who borrowed innovations, diluted their impact, and disguised their sources. In Music: A Subversive History, Ted Gioia reclaims the story of music for the riffraff, insurgents, and provocateurs. Gioia tells a 4,000-year history of music as a global source of power, change, and upheaval.

New York Times best-selling poet and multiplatinum singer-songwriter Jewel explores her unconventional upbringing and extraordinary life in an inspirational memoir that covers her childhood, rise to fame, marriage, and motherhood. She writes beautifully about growing up amid the natural wonders of Alaska, about pain and childhood trauma, and about discovering her own identity years after the entire world had discovered the beauty of her songs.

An in-depth biography of Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page by the acclaimed biographer of Bob Marley and Joe Strummer, based upon the author's extensive research and interviews.

In 1959, America’s great indigenous art form, jazz, reached the height of its power and popularity. James Kaplan’s magnificent 3 Shades of Blue captures how that golden era came to be, and its pinnacle with the recording of Kind of Blue. It’s a book about music, and business, and race, and heroin, and the cities that gave jazz its home, and the Black geniuses behind its rise. It’s an astonishing meditation on creativity and the strange environments where it can flourish most.

No Bull Music Theory for Guitarists is the groundbreaking guitar theory book for guitar players. Now, guitarists of all levels can understand most of the music theory they'll ever need, without the confusion. Easy-to-understand language, explanations, and practical examples mean you can understand in hours music theory concepts that can confuse guitar players for years. No music reading or theory knowledge required!

Rock-and-roll icon and three-time best-selling author Nikki Sixx tells his origin story: how Frank Feranna became Nikki Sixx, chronicling his fascinating journey from irrepressible Idaho farmboy to the man who formed the revolutionary rock group Mötley Crüe.

A living, breathing sonic blender of a podcast. Over eight episodes, we’ll celebrate the re-release of The Black Album (“Enter Sandman,” “Nothing Else Matters”), and the incredible band that made it. This is more than a “Making Of” look at the album. It’s the story of James, Lars, and Kirk — not just how the album got made, but why.

Song Exploder is a podcast where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. Each episode features an artist discussing a song of theirs, breaking down the sounds and ideas that went into the writing and recording. Hosted and produced by Hrishikesh Hirway.

The 1990s were a chaotic and utterly magical time for music, a confounding barrage of genres and lifestyles and superstars, from grunge to hip-hop, from sumptuous R&B to rambunctious ska-punk, from Axl to Kurt to Missy to Santana to Tupac to Britney. In 60 SONGS THAT EXPLAIN THE '90s, Ringer music critic Rob Harvilla reimagines all the earwormy, iconic hits Gen Xers pine for with vivid historical storytelling, sharp critical analysis, rampant loopiness, and wryly personal ruminations on the most bizarre, joyous, and inescapable songs from a decade we both regret entirely and miss desperately.

In 1997, amid Aerosmith's sold-out world tour and number one album release, Joey revealed in an interview his ongoing struggles with depression. The response from fans and people battling those same internal demons was overwhelming. Joey now tells the complete story: the early days of the band, glamorous drug-addled events leading up to their eventual sobriety, battles within his family and among bandmates, and the explosive internal dynamics in Aerosmith.

There are rappers who everyone loves and there are rappers who every rapper loves, and Corey Woods, a.k.a. Raekwon the Chef, is one of the few who is both. His versatile flow, natural storytelling, and evocative imagery have inspired legions of fans and a new generation of rappers. Raekwon is one of the founding members of Wu-Tang Clan, and his voice and cadence are synonymous with the sound that has made the group iconic since 1991.

On December 31, 2020, the world was shocked to learn about the death of hip-hop legend MF DOOM. Born in London and raised in the suburban enclave of Long Beach, New York, Daniel Dumile Jr.'s love of cartoons and comic books would soon turn him into one of hip-hop's most enigmatic, prolific, and influential figures. Sweeping and definitive, The Chronicles of DOOM: Unraveling Rap’s Masked Iconoclast recounts the rise, fall, redemption, and untimely demise of MF DOOM.