HORSES Gloria (In Excelsis Deo) Redondo Beach Birdland Free Money Kimberly Fire of Unknown Origin Break It Up Land Elegie RADIO ETHIOPIA Ask the Angels Ain't It Strange Poppies Pissing in a River Pumping (My Heart) Distant Fingers Chiklets Radio Ethiopia/Abyssinia EASTER Till Victory Space Monkey Because the Night Ghost Dance Babelogue Rock n Roll Nigger We Three 25th Floor High on Rebellion Godspeed Easter WAVE Frederick Dancing Barefoot Revenge Citizen Ship Seven Ways of Going Broken Flag Wave Hymn DREAM OF LIFE People Have the Power Up There Down There Paths That Cross Somalia Wild Leaves Dream of Life It Takes Time Where Duty Calls Going Under As the Night Goes By Looking for You (I Was) The Jackson Song Memorial Song GONE AGAIN Gone Again Beneath the Southern Cross About a Boy My Madrigal Summer Cannibals Dead to the World Wing Ravens Fireflies Farewell Reel Come Back Little Sheba PEACE AND NOISE Waiting Underground Whirl Away 1959 Don't Say Nothing Dead City Blue Poles Death Singing Memento Mori Last Call GUNG HO One Voice Lo and Beholden Boy Cried Wolf Persuasion Gone Pie China Bird Glitter in Their Eyes Strange Messengers Grateful Upright Come New Party Libbie's Song Gung Ho TRAMPIN' Trampin' Jubilee Mother Rose Stride of the Mind Cartwheels Gandhi Trespasses In My Blakean Year Cash Peaceable Kingdom Radio Baghdad

This four-volume work provides provocative critical analyses of 160 of the best popular music albums of the past 50 years, from the well-known and mainstream to the quirky and offbeat. The Album: A Guide to Pop Music's Most Provocative, Influential, and Important Creations contains critical analysis essays on 160 significant pop music albums from 1960 to 2010. The selected albums represent the pop, rock, soul, R&B, hip hop, country, and alternative genres, including artists such as 2Pac, Carole King, James Brown, The Beatles, and Willie Nelson. Each volume contains brief sidebars with biographical information about key performers and producers, as well as descriptions of particular music industry topics pertaining to the development of the album over this 50-year period. Due to its examination of a broad time frame and wide range of musical styles, and its depth of analysis that goes beyond that in other books about essential albums of the past and present, this collection will appeal strongly to music fans of all tastes and interests.

"In lyric essays, a story, poems, and photographs, Smith illuminates the whirl of chance and choice that stokes a writer's imagination, recounting her fascination on the eve of a trip to Paris with Simone Weil and an evocative, accidentally discovered film about Stalin's mass deportation of Estonians. In France, a gravestone, a televised figure-skating competition, a meal, and a garden all converge in what becomes Devotion, [a] ... fairy tale about a young, displaced Estonian skater and a solitary dealer in rare objects and arms. This ... fable about creativity and obsession, possession and freedom is followed by a meditation on how a work of art is, for other artists, a call to action"--Booklist, 08/01/2017.

Nicknamed the “Godmother of Punk,” Patti Smith rose to fame during the 1970s New York counterculture movement where she welcomed a new breed of rock and roll. Smith sanctioned the presence of a strong-willed woman in the mainstream rock community by breaking not only the fragile glass ceiling, but also the “rules” about women on the rock stage. Smith pushed right up to the front of the punk scene, stripping down sexual, religious, and emotional barriers to create a raw, viscerally personal message. In Patti Smith: America’s Punk Rock Rhapsodist,musician and historian Eric Wendell delves into the volatile mix of religious upbringing and musical and literary influences that gave shape to Smith’s lyrics, music, and artistic output. Wendell explores how Smith’s androgynous stage presence pulled the various societal triggers, adding a new layer of meaning to popular music performance. Songwriter and singer, performance artist and poet, Smith created work that drew together biography, history, and music into a powerful collage of an artist who shaped a generation of musicians. For poets and performers, as well as fans of Patti Smith and punk rock history, Patti Smith: America’s Punk Rock Rhapsodist is the perfect introduction to Smith’s achievements and the politics and art of a generation that is still felt.

A stunning collection of photographs from Frank Stefanko featuring the Godmother of Punk herself, iconic musician and author Patti Smith. "There I was sitting in a booth at the co-op of Glassboro State College, a bucolic school in the farmlands of South Jersey. . . Suddenly, the double doors of the co-op swung open and standing there in the vacuum created was an incredible apparition, a vision in a white leather coat with long, jet-black hair flowing down her back. She moseyed in like the bad guy walking into a saloon in an old western movie. This was the first time I set eyes on Patti Smith, and I was captivated.” So begins Frank Stefanko’s wonderfully personal photographic tale of his friendship and artistic collaboration with Patti Smith. Stefanko’s photographs and his warm, personal recollections show us an amazing young woman, long before she became Patti Smith, the cultural icon. Through images and words, we follow her search for a unique voice—from the early days of the Chelsea Hotel to spoken word at the St. Mark’s Poetry Project to the release of her seminal album, Horses, and so much more. These photographs, along with the Stefanko’s first-hand account, capture an incredible era from the mid-1960s to the late- 1970s when a whole new genre of music and art was being born. Prior to the release of this collection, many of these stunning portraits had never before been published. They appear here in high-quality quadratone reproduction, highlighting Stefanko’s artistry and his uncanny ability to capture his subject’s inner spirit. Memorabilia from Smith’s personal collection adds to this rare and intimate look at the emergence of one of America’s most respected artists. With an opening poem from Patti Smith that sets an evocative mood, an introduction by Lenny Kaye, Smith’s longtime guitarist, and a compelling afterword by editor Chris Murray, this book sets the reader on a journey from small-town New Jersey and highlights the enigmatic artist’s triumphant career.

Artwork by Patti Smith. Edited by John Smith. Text by David Greenberg.

Singing for Themselves: Essays on Women in Popular Music is a fresh look at a topic that has attracted increasing interest in recent years. In this collection, scholars from a number of disciplines look at various artists and movements and come to some new conclusions about the ways in which female artists have contributed to the past four decades of pop, rock, blues and punk. From new looks at major artists Etta James, Laura Nyro and Patti Smith to later figures Ferron, Bjørk, and Melissa Etheridge, these chapters suggest new ways to view—and hear—music that is already part of our culture. Essays on the Indigo Girls, Dixie Chicks and Destiny’s Child prove that the girl-groups tradition is alive and well, but with additional new dimensions, and a three-essay section on Joan Jett and the Riot Grrrls phenomenon sheds new light on their implications for feminist artistic expression. The final piece, an annotated bibliography of academic writing on women in rock, helps make this collection a useful addition to the library of students of popular music, while the solid research and accessibility of the text make this a good choice for the general reader as well as the seasoned scholar. "If you think that adoration of certain pop music is a guilty pleasure, not worthy of higher intellectual aspirations, then Singing For Themselves offers absolution. It's far from trivial to ponder the Tao of Canadian singer Ferron, the classical allusions of Laura Nyro's lyrics, the postfeminist booty-shaking of Destiny's Child, or the historical milieu that turned Jamesetta Hawkins into blues great Etta James. Reading these essays made me want to go right back to the music - feeling wiser, yes, but also validated in the desire to go as deep as any song or singer can take me." Michele Kort, author of Soul Picnic: The Music and Passion of Laura Nyro, and senior editor at Ms. magazine "I've read Singing for Themselves: Essays on Women in Popular Music, and am happy to provide an endorsement. Singing for Themselves is a consistently interesting collection of new essays on women and popular music. The collection is all the more welcome for being so current. It mixes essays on recent phenomena (such as electronic/punk group Le Tigre and the Dixie Chicks' stirring of political controversy) with new perspectives on canonical figures like Patti Smith or Etta James. The essays gathered here are written with clear commitments, but all are marked by care and scholarly rigour. I found the interdisciplinary breadth of Singing for Themselves refreshing; new avenues for research are opened up here, and new theoretical paradigms are explored." Will Straw, PhD, Acting Director, McGill Institute for the Study of Canada Associate Professor, Department of Art History and Communication Studies "Opening this book was like opening the door onto a surprise party. Everyone I've ever wanted to meet was in there, including myself!" Ferron