Staff Picks

If you grew up in the era when emo music exploded and ever wondered how the bands started out and later found success, this in-depth history is for you. Told exclusively through interviews with the members of the biggest bands and those who worked closely with them, this is an interesting look back at a time when wearing skinny jeans and writing heartbreaking lyrics was all the rage. Nostalgic and honest.

 

Publisher's description:

Told through interview with more than 150 people, including bands, producers, managers and fans, a music journalist offers an authoritative, impassioned and occasionally absurd account of the turn-of-the-millennium emo subculture that took over the American music scene from 1999 to 2008.

 

Tom Breihan is my favorite music writer, and his online series at Stereogum covering every Billboard #1 Pop Hit is essential reading. This book covers twenty of those hits from Chubby Checker through BTS, going into detail about the artists, songs, and cultural background from a storyteller who clearly loves music and research. Highly recommended!

 

Publisher description:

When Tom Breihan launched his Stereogum column in early 2018, “The Number Ones” -- a space in which he has been writing about every #1 hit in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, in chronological order—he figured he’d post capsule-size reviews for each song. But there was so much more to uncover. The column has taken on a life of its own, sparking online debate and occasional death threats. The Billboard Hot 100 began in 1958, and after four years of posting the column, Breihan is still in the early aughts. But readers no longer have to wait for his brilliant synthesis of what the history of #1s has meant to music and our culture. In The Number Ones, Breihan writes about twenty pivotal #1s throughout chart history, revealing a remarkably fluid and connected story of music that is as entertaining as it is enlightening. The Numbers Ones features the greatest pop artists of all time, from the Brill Building songwriters to the Beatles and the Beach Boys; from Motown to Michael Jackson, Prince, and Mariah Carey; and from the digital revolution to the K-pop system. Breihan also ponders great artists who have never hit the top spot, like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and James Brown. Breihan illuminates what makes indelible ear candy across the decades -- including dance crazes, recording innovations, television phenomena, disco, AOR, MTV, rap, compact discs, mp3s, social media, memes, and much more -- leaving readers to wonder what could possibly happen next.

 

Rememberings is a nice quick memoir of the powerful singer, songwriter, and activist Sinead O'Connor. While it covers her childhood, music, family, and controversies, it also shows how sincere and deep her talent and convictions were. She is an artist that I'll miss.

 

Publisher description:

Blessed with a singular voice and a fiery temperament, Sinéad O’Connor rose to massive fame in the late 1980s and 1990s with a string of gold records. By the time she was twenty, she was world famous—living a rock star life out loud. From her trademark shaved head to her 1992 appearance on Saturday Night Live when she tore up Pope John Paul II’s photograph, Sinéad has fascinated and outraged millions. In Rememberings, O’Connor recounts her painful tale of growing up in Dublin in a dysfunctional, abusive household. Inspired by a brother’s Bob Dylan records, she escaped into music. She relates her early forays with local Irish bands; we see Sinéad completing her first album while eight months pregnant, hanging with Rastas in the East Village, and soaring to unimaginable popularity with her cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2U.” Intimate, replete with candid anecdotes and told in a singular form true to her unconventional career, Sinéad’s memoir is a remarkable chronicle of an enduring and influential artist.

 

When I moved from my country to the U.S., I didn't know what to expect. Patti Smith's words gave me the courage I needed to fly higher. When Patti left Philadelphia and moved to New York, she didn't have much more than hopes and dreams. Isn't that what most of us have before starting anew?

 

Publisher's description:

In this memoir, singer-songwriter Patti Smith shares tales of New York City : the denizens of Max's Kansas City, the Hotel Chelsea, Scribner's, Brentano's and Strand bookstores and her new life in Brooklyn with a young man named Robert Mapplethorpe--the man who changed her life with his love, friendship, and genius.

 

While not shying away from interpersonal band drama in the Talking Heads, especially between David Byrne and Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz wrote a wonderful memoir sharing his love of making music with Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club and his deep connection with his wife Tina Weymouth.

 

Publisher's description:

Two iconic bands. An unforgettable life. One of the most dynamic groups of the '70s and '80s, Talking Heads, founded by drummer Chris Frantz, his girlfriend Tina Weymouth, and lead singer David Byrne, burst onto the music scene, playing at CBGBs, touring Europe with the Ramones, and creating hits like "Psycho Killer" and "Burning Down the House" that captured the post-baby boom generation's intense, affectless style. In Remain in Love, Frantz writes about the beginnings of Talking Heads-their days as art students in Providence, moving to the sparse Chrystie Street loft Frantz, Weymouth, and Byrne shared where the music that defined an era was written. With never-before-seen photos and immersive vivid detail, Frantz describes life on tour, down to the meals eaten and the clothes worn-and reveals the mechanics of a long and complicated working relationship with a mercurial frontman. At the heart of Remain in Love is Frantz's love for Weymouth: their once-in-a-lifetime connection as lovers, musicians, and bandmates, and how their creativity surged with the creation of their own band Tom Tom Club, bringing a fresh Afro-Caribbean beat to hits like "Genius of Love." Studded with memorable place and names from the era-Grace Jones, Andy Warhol, Stephen Sprouse, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, and Debbie Harry among them-Remain in Love is a frank and open memoir of an emblematic life in music and in love.

 

The bestselling author of High Fidelity mines the biographies and work of two wildly different cultural icons to produce an engaging little book about creativity and genius. Fans of Chuck Klosterman's accessible yet richly detailed cultural analyses will find much to enjoy here. 

 

Publisher's description:

Every so often, a pairing comes along that seems completely unlikely--until it's not. Peanut butter and jelly, Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong Un, ducks and puppies, and now: Dickens and Prince. Equipped with a fan's admiration and his trademark humor and wit, Nick Hornby invites us into his latest obsession: the cosmic link between two unlikely artists, geniuses in their own rights, spanning race, class, and centuries--each of whom electrified their different disciplines and whose legacy resounded far beyond their own time. When Prince's 1987 record Sign o' the Times was rereleased in 2020, the iconic album now came with dozens of songs that weren't on the original--Prince was endlessly prolific, recording 102 songs in 1986 alone. In awe, Hornby began to wonder, Who else ever produced this much? Who else ever worked that way? He soon found his answer in Victorian novelist and social critic Charles Dickens, who died more than a hundred years before Prince began making music. Examining the two artists' personal tragedies, social statuses, boundless productivity, and other parallels, both humorous and haunting, Hornby shows how these two unlikely men from different centuries "lit up the world." In the process, he creates a lively, stimulating rumination on the creativity, flamboyance, discipline, and soul it takes to produce great art.

 

Music and dance defy segregation in this gorgeous picture book. Spirited images of musicians and dancers illustrate the story of a mixed-race mambo team in 1948. You'll want to cue up some Latin Jazz (ideally Machito and His Afro-Cubans; otherwise, maybe some Tito Puente) after this inspiring read!

 

Publisher's description:

Millie danced to jazz in her Italian neighborhood. Pedro danced to Latin songs in his Puerto Rican neighborhood. It was the 1940s in New York City, and they were forbidden to dance together . . . until first a band and then a ballroom broke the rules. Machito and His Afro-Cubans hit the scene with a brand-new sound, blending jazz trumpets and saxophones with Latin maracas and congas creating Latin jazz, music for the head, the heart, and the hips. Then the Palladium Ballroom issued a bold challenge to segregation and threw open its doors to all. Illustrated with verve and told through real-life characters who feature in an afterword, ¡Mambo Mucho Mambo! portrays the power of music and dance to transcend racial, religious, and ethnic boundaries.

 

Get lost in the funky rhythms of this sweet picture book! Perfect for anyone who loves putting their little one to sleep with a song and a dance.

 

Publisher's description:

With a simple clap of hands, an itty-bitty beboppin' baby gets his whole family singing and dancing. Sister's hands snap. Granny sings scat. Uncle soft-shoes--and Baby keeps the groove. Things start to wind down when Mama and Daddy sing blues so sweet. Now a perfectly drowsy baby sleeps deep, deep, deep. Lisa Wheeler and R. Gregory Christie pair up for a celebration of music, imagination, and big families--but they know that even a jazz baby needs to snooze. Oh yeah.

 

This is a novel about many things, but its main theme is families: the ones we're born into, the ones we create, the ones that are about friends more than blood ties, the ones we fantasize about being a part of (rightly or wrongly), and, in the end, the ones that, if we are lucky and see a good thing for what it is, can sustain us through tough times both personally and globally. It helps that this book also features clever characters, snappy dialogue, humor and compassion, and sharp commentary on current affairs starting with the 1980s and leaping to the present.

 

Publisher's description:

Two generations of an American family come of age on either side of the September 11 attacks, transforming their ambitions against a backdrop of dramatic political and environmental changes.