Alternative Rock : Third Ear - The Essential Listening Companion - Softcover

Thompson, Dave

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0879306076 ISBN 13: 9780879306076

Publisher: Backbeat, 2000

Synopsis

This book looks inside the artists and music that transformed the American and British soundscape of the 1980s and '90s. Scene-setting essays ä some with interviews of key figures ä explore alternative rock's primary influences from Captain Beefheart to Brian Eno and its many subgenres from punk to grunge and Brit pop to trip hop. Reviews and profiles cover over 2 000 recordings and more than 500 musicians such as The Beastie Boys The Cure R.E.M. Marilyn Manson XTC and hundreds more. This comprehensive guide also examines the cultural scenes technologies and people behind the alternative sound. From the author of ÊDepeche ModeÊ and ÊNever Fade Away: The Kurt Cobain StoryÊ.

About this title

About the Author:

Dave Thompson has published over 70 rock music books, including the best-selling Never Fade Away: The Kurt Cobain Story, as well as Perry Farrell and Better to Burn Out. He has written for Alternative Press, Rolling Stone, Mojo, Goldmine, Q and many other leading magazines, and liner notes for such artists as Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, and Christian Death. Thompson also wrote the forthcoming Third Ear--The Essential Listening Companion guide Funk.

From Library Journal:

This massive and inclusive reference work by best-selling rock music writer Thompson (Never Fade Away: The Kurt Cobain Story) fills a gap by providing a reasonably priced, useful, and informative guide to a highly popular musical subgenre alternative rock. In the historically fascinating introduction, Thompson provides a time line that traces the jelling of three factors in 1975 that led to a rock sound whose main rule is that there are no rules: the release of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, Patti Smith's Horses, and the blowup of the Sex Pistols. Noting that his goal "is not to chronicle every performer ever to be categorized as an 'alternative rock' act, but to isolate a sampling of those who have made the greatest contributions" to the form, he then launches into a fine selection of essays that define the music's complicated saga, both in the United Kingdom and America. This is followed by encyclopedic A-Z coverage of the artists whom Thompson considers the "alt" music scene's movers and shakers. Some may quibble about selection and other topics, but this writer knows his stuff and can organize and write well about it. The stories of such lesser-known groups as Black '47 and Disorder are handled with the same aplomb and deftness as the wildly popular Blondie (then) and Marilyn Manson (now). Libraries that pride themselves on well-rounded music and pop culture collections should purchase this third entry in the fine "Third Ear" series. David M. Turkalo, Suffolk Univ. Law Sch., Law Lib., Boston
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Backbeat
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0879306076
• ISBN 13: 9780879306076
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 800