Continuum

This is a brilliant study of the creation, impact, and legacy of one of rock's great albums, and a hymn to the nature of teenage fandom. Released in 1979, AC/DC's

Derided as one-hit wonders, estranged from their original producer and record label, and in self-imposed exile in Los Angeles, the Beastie Boys were written off by most observers before even beginning to record their second album. But, Paul's Boutiqu e eventually transformed the Beasties from a fratboy novelty to hiphop giants.

By turns obsessive, passionate, creative, and informed, the Thirty Three and a Third series explores critically acclaimed and much- loved albums by famous recording artists.

This book is a fascinating, fictional, psychological insight into the teenage metal mind, from one of America's most beloved indie songwriters.

Bruce Springsteen is best known for his most public acts. It's in the concert hall - more than on the stereo or the screen - that he engages his audience as few other performers ever have. And yet, the most important moments of his career have taken place in utter solitude. A writer's work takes place far from an audience, and anyone seeking to understand Springsteen's work has to investigate those solitary moments. The most important of all those moments took place in the waning weeks of 1981 a s he sat alone in his house in Colt's Neck, New Jersey, and wrote "Born in the U.S.A."...

Use Your Illusion marked the end of rock as mass culture. In this book, Eric Weisbard shows how the album has matured into a work whose baroque excesses now have something to teach us about pop and the platforms it raises and lowers, about a man who suddenly found himself praised to the firmament for every character trait that had hitherto marked him as an irredeemable loser.

Electric Ladyland is one of the greatest guitar albums ever made. During the recording process, Jimi Hendrix at last had time and creative freedom to pursue the sounds he was looking for. In this remarkable and entertaining book, John Perry gets to t he heart of Hendrix's unique talent - guiding the reader through each song on the album, writing vividly about Hendrix's live performances, and talking to several of Hendrix's peers and contemporaries.

The author of the cult book Techgnosis writes about the big, big Led Zeppelin album. Featuring every heavy metal fan's favourite epic Stairway to Heaven, the huge sound of this album has set the template for rock. Also includes Black Dog and Rock `n' Roll. Erik Davis has been writing about music, subcultures, and technoculture for fifteen years. His cult book Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (1998), was translated in five languages and has just been republished wi th a new introduction by Serpents Tail. He is a regular contributor to Wired, and lives in San Francisco.

Though Nevermind was Nirvana's most commercially successful album, and the record that broke them - and the grunge phenomenon - internationally, In Utero has increasingly become regarded as the band's best album, both by the critics and the band memb ers themselves. This work tells the story behind the creation of In Utero .

This book demonstrates how Horses transformed the possibilities of both poetry and rock music.

Through a series of interviews with a wide range of people connected to Pink Floyd in their earliest days, John Cavanagh paints a vivid picture of how this remarkable debut album was created. He brings to life the stories behind each track, as well as Pin

The band that took US college rock across the world and turned it into stadium rock. This is their first album that kicked off their journey to stardom and remains a cult obsession to the legions of dedicated fans. Features their classic song Radio F ree Europe. J. Niimi writes about rock music for a number of publications including the Chicago Reader and Seattle Weekly, and is a regular contributor to City Pages. He worked as a studio engineer and record producer, and toured and recorded five al bums with his band Ashtray Boy. He lives in Chicago, where he hosts Radio Zero, a weekly rock show on WHPK 88.5 FM.

It was virtually impossible to ignore Radiohead's Kid A when it was released in early October 2000. But the Album was more than just a ten-track collection of songs written by five musicians from Oxfordshire, more than the weird follow-up to the crit ics' fashionable go-to record of choice OK Computer, more than what the Village Voice described as the biggest, warmest recorded go-fuck-yourself in recent memory. Kid A was an event. By pulling Kid A from its canonical status and grounding the album in various contexts, Marvin Lin explains not only why Radiohead suddenly adopted a new songwriting methodology, but also how properties like genre and authenticity distracted us from understanding our reactions to it. From bovine growth hormones and neurological impulses to Dada poetry and bandwidth throttling, the book articulated the politics behind both Radiohead's music and our listening experiences. But in a period of socio-political unrest, is listening to Kid A a waste of time? In and th rough the album, Lin seeks to answer this question by examining what Kid A does to us over time, what Kid A tells us about the future, and whether it's possible (or even desirable) to use Kid A to transcend time altogether.

The band to introduce the blues to the British mainstream and who continue to sell millions of records 40 years on. This bleak album is now regarded as their finest hour. Includes Rocks Off. Bill Janowitz is the lead singer, guitarist, and primary so ngwriter in the band Buffalo Tom. He has also released two solo albums. He has written extensively for the All Music Guide online site, www.allmusic.com. He lives in Massachusetts.

Stephen Catanzarite takes a close look at what many consider to be U2's most fully formed album through the prisms of religion, politics, spirituality, and culture, illuminating its previously unexplored depths, arguing that it's a concept album abou t love and the fall of man.

Trent Reznor rode into music mythology on "Pretty Hate Machine", powered by Futurist industrial pistons and covered in ice-spiked synth hooks shined by new wave robots. Then there was his voice. Whispered verses and screamed hooks before Kurt Cobain paten