Individual composers & musicians, specific bands & groups

  • Schumann: The Faces and the Masks

    £20.00

    ‘Schumann: The Faces and the Masks’ is a groundbreaking account of a major composer whose life and works have been the subject of intense controversy ever since his attempted suicide and early death in an insane asylum. Schumann was a key figure in the Romanticism which swept Europe and America in the 19th century, inspiring writers, musicians and painters, delighting their enthralled audiences, and reaching to the furthest corners of the world. All the contradictions of his age enter Schumann’s works, from the fantastic disguises of his carnival masquerades and his passionate love songs to his great ‘Spring’ and ‘Rhenish’ Symphonies. He was intensely original and imaginative, but he also worshipped the past-especially Shakespeare and Byron, Raphael and Michelangelo, Beethoven and Bach. He believed in political, personal and artistic freedom but struggled with the constraints of artistic form.

  • Madonna

    £18.99

    Madonna. Always provocative. Always talented. Always controversial . . . And now, in this book, finally understood.

  • David Bowie

    £9.99

    Dylan Jones’s engrossing, magisterial biography of David Bowie is unlike any Bowie story ever written. Drawn from over 180 interviews with friends, rivals, lovers, and collaborators, some of whom have never before spoken about their relationship with Bowie, this oral history weaves a hypnotic spell as it unfolds a remarkable rise to stardom and an unparalleled artistic path.

  • The Sex Pistols – 1977: The Bollocks Diaries

    £25.00

    On the 40th anniversary of the release of ‘Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols’, this is the official, inside story of the whirlwind year of 1977 – the recording and release of the album and the year the Sex Pistols changed everything. From ‘God Save the Queen’ to ‘Holidays in the Sun’ and everything in between, it was a year of chaos and creation. Straight from the mouths of the Sex Pistols and their collaborators, with first-hand stories of secret gigs, recording sessions, fights, record label meltdowns and a media storm like nothing ever seen before, it is the inside line, told by the people who were there.

  • David Bowie: The Life

    £20.00

    Dylan Jones’s engrossing, magisterial biography of David Bowie is unlike any Bowie story ever written. Drawn from over 180 interviews with friends, rivals, lovers and collaborators, some of whom have never before spoken about their relationship with Bowie, this oral history weaves a hypnotic spell as it unfolds a remarkable rise to stardom and an unparalleled artistic path.

  • Ed Sheeran: A Visual Journey

    £16.99

    Take one acclaimed singer-songwriter and pair him with one of the most talented young artists of his generation and what do you get? A stunningly original visual documentary of one of the world’s best-loved and most successful musicians of his generation, now released for the first time in paperback.

  • Set The Boy Free

    £20.00

    Johnny Marr was born in 1960s Manchester to Irish emigrant parents and knew from an early age that he would be a musician. Forming his first band at thirteen, Marr spent his teenage years on the council estates of Wythenshawe playing guitar, devouring pop culture and inventing his own musical style. It wasn’t until the early eighties, when Marr turned up on the doorstep of a singer named Steven Patrick Morrissey, that both a unique songwriting partnership and the group recognised as one of the most iconic bands of all time were formed. In 1983 The Smiths released their first single, and within a year their eponymous debut album reached number two in the UK chart, paving the way for mainstream and critical success on their own never stopped. Here, for the first time, he tells his own side of the story.

  • M Train

    £9.99

    ‘M Train’ begins in the tiny Greenwich Village cafe where Smith goes every morning for black coffee, ruminates on the world as it is and the world as it was, and writes in her notebook. Through prose that shifts fluidly between dreams and reality, past and present, and across a landscape of creative aspirations and inspirations, we travel to Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul in Mexico; to a meeting of an Arctic explorer’s society in Berlin; to a ramshackle seaside bungalow in New York’s Far Rockaway that Smith acquires just before Hurricane Sandy hits; and to the graves of Genet, Plath, Rimbaud and Mishima. Woven throughout are reflections on the writer’s craft and on artistic creation.

  • Memoir

    £20.00

    In a career that has spanned six decades, Sir Tom Jones has performed with almost every major recording artist, from Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis and Sinatra, to Robbie Williams, Van Morrison and Jessie J, across every imaginable genre, from rock and pop to country, blues and soul. The one constant throughout has been his unique musical gift and unmistakable voice. In this autobiography, Tom revisits his past, both personal and professional, exploring the twists of fate that took a boy from a poor Welsh coal-mining family to global celebrity status.

  • M Train

    £18.99

    ‘M Train’ begins in the tiny Greenwich Village cafe where Smith goes every morning for black coffee, ruminates on the world as it is and the world as it was, and writes in her notebook. Through prose that shifts fluidly between dreams and reality, past and present, and across a landscape of creative aspirations and inspirations, we travel to Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul in Mexico; to a meeting of an Arctic explorer’s society in Berlin; to a ramshackle seaside bungalow in New York’s Far Rockaway that Smith acquires just before Hurricane Sandy hits; and to the graves of Genet, Plath, Rimbaud and Mishima. Woven throughout are reflections on the writer’s craft and on artistic creation.

  • Reckless

    £20.00

    Rich and incredibly frank, Chrissie’s uncompromising memoir will include her 1950s childhood in Akron, Ohio; the Cleveland rock scene and the Kent State University riots; Paris and London in the early 1970s; a strikingly intimate portrayal of the nascent punk movement; and the formation and bittersweet success and tragedy of The Pretenders. Funny, evocative and candid, Chrissie Hynde’s memoir has a surprise on every page and is sure to go down as a classic of the genre, and an unmissable treat for all rock fans.

  • Words Without Music

    £22.50

    Whether recalling his experiences working at Bethlehem Steel, travelling in India, driving a cab in 1970s New York, or his professional collaborations with the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Ravi Shankar, Robert Wilson, Doris Lessing, and Martin Scorsese, Philip Glass affirms the power of music to change the world.