Rock History

In this new audiobook, broadcaster and music writer Alan Cross narrates the definitive history of Oasis. Cross succeeds once again in revealing the fascinating history behind the music in the same compelling way we've come to expect from his long broadcasting career.

Glen Colson lived through the golden age of Rock & Roll during the sixties, seventies and eighties, working as PR for many of the best loved acts in rock history. Among them Lindisfarne, Genesis, Pink Floyd, The Nice, Elvis Costello, Dr Feelgood, Ian Dury, Nick Lowe, Graham Parker, and Van der Graaf Generator. As the press officer at two of the UK's most iconic record labels, Stiff and Charisma, Glen worked alongside managers who made the music industry tick. Famously dry of wit, Glen's take on the inside workings of the music business is both informative and never short of laughs.

By the early 1970s, practically everyone under a certain age liked rock music, but not everyone liked it for the same reasons. We typically associate the sounds of classic rock 'n' roll with youthful rebellion by juvenile delinquents, student demonstrators, idealistic hippies, or irreverent punks. But in this insightful and timely book, author George Case shows how an important strain of rock music from the late 1960s onward spoke to and represented an idealized self-portrait of a very different audience.

First as a music writer and then as an editor, promoter, manager, broadcaster, publicist and author, Stuart Coupe has experienced the giddy highs and crushing lows of a life lived in the creative fast lane. Shake Some Action is your backstage pass to his remarkable story, from starting his first magazine at the age of fourteen to hoovering heroic amounts of cocaine before interviewing Boy Dylan (who asked him where he got his drugs from).

“What are the greatest rock albums of all-time?” Perhaps one of the more common questions examined between music-loving chums, that has led to many a good-natured debate. But if you really dig deeper into the question…is it from the standpoint of the album’s importance in rock history? A classic release that proved significant to an artist’s career? Or perhaps merely a personal favorite, that you just can’t get enough of?

Esta desternillante antología de ensayos, reseñas, autopsias y semblanzas rescata del más inmisericorde de los olvidos algunas de las piezas más delirantes del impenitente grafómano y crítico por antonomasia del rock.

Respected broadcaster Alan Cross narrates the definitive history of alternative rock over the last 30 years. He recounts the stories of David Bowie, The Velvet Underground, The Clash, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, and Iggy Pop.

Rocking in the Free World explains how Americans came to believe they had learned the truth about rock 'n' roll, a truth shaped by the Cold War anxieties of the fifties, the countercultural revolutions (and counter-revolutions) of the sixties and seventies, and the end-of-history triumphalism of the eighties.

As unconventional a biography as Adler was in his own creative ventures, California Dreamin’ is the first book to show how Adler became the pacesetter of the rock industry along the West Coast, a master tastemaker walking the razor's edge between highbrow and lowbrow, redefining the sound of a whole generation in his wake.

Look to the shadowy corridor between chart-topping hits and the cryptic tales that lurk behind them in “Rock & Roll Nightmares: Blood On The Tracks.” This electrifying true crime tome peels back the curtain on the eerie nexus of melody and morbidity, guiding you through a chilling journey where the anthems of the airwaves meet their macabre muses.

Kerrang! has an unparalleled reputation as one of the world's best-loved rock-focused publications. It continues to be at the forefront of alternative music, flying the flag for metal, hardcore, punk and beyond, introducing millions to their new favorite bands. Anyone who's anyone in the metal scene has featured Kerrang's hallowed pages and this unique book chronicles these appearances. If it happened in metal, Kerrang! covered it, as confirmed in this year-by-year survey of alternative music.

Un concienzudo y emocionante repaso a la historia del rock progresivo, desde sus raíces contraculturales en los años sesenta a la fusión con otros lenguajes musicales, pasando por la veta sinfónica británica o la instrumentación multicultural que marca tendencia en la actualidad. Un audiolibro ideal para entendidos en la materia y para neófitos que quieren iniciarse en el apasionante mundo del rock progresivo.

Two months before he shot himself, Adolf Hitler saw where it had all gone wrong. By failing to seize Gibraltar in the summer of 1940, he lost the war. The Rock of Gibraltar looked formidable but was extraordinarily vulnerable. Though menaced on all sides by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Vichy France and Francoist Spain, every day Gibraltar had to let thousands of people cross its frontier to work, among them spies and saboteurs eager to blow up its 25 miles of secret tunnels.

Rockin' in the Ivory Tower takes a close look at two smaller universities, Drew in New Jersey and Stony Brook on Long Island, to see how the culture of rock music played an integral role in student life in the late 1960s.

In the second of four volumes, Alan Cross reveals the fascinating stories behind the music, focusing on the following top performers: Joy Division, New Order, The Cure, Depeche Mode, U2, Brian Eno, Skinny Puppy, and The Pixies.

In this excerpt from her historically significant autobiography first published in 1889, American suffragette, educator, and president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union Frances Willard gives us a deeper understanding of the ethos of the woman’s temperance movement, as well as the day to day struggles and triumphs of the movement in the US at the time.

Sex, Drugs & Rock Stories. Alles, was ein wahrer Rockfan wissen muss. Warum wollte Axl Rose einst David Bowie verhauen? Was verbindet AC/DC mit einem Serienkiller? Und was haben Faith No More mit dem Fall der Berliner Mauer zu tun? Die Musikgeschichte steckt voller Sonderbarkeiten, aberwitzigen Begebenheiten und wilden Geschichten, die der Journalist und ehemalige Metal Hammer-Chefredakteur Christof Leim in diesem lustig-krachenden Anekdotenreigen für die Ewigkeit festgehalten hat.

Over 400 years ago, I was just a rock lying on the shore of America. It was so boring. I wished something exciting would happen to me, anything! I’m just a rock head. I’m made of granite. Only, just don’t take me for granted, please!

Over three decades and more than 150 million albums, AC/DC has established itself as much more than just a great rock band. For millions of fans spanning several generations across the world, they are an ear-bleedingly loud, sweat-soaked religion, courtesy of such classic albums as Highway to Hell and Back in Black. Now, in a book of astonishing breadth and scope, comes, for the very first time, the complete story of AC/DC.

For millions of kids, high school is a tumultuous time, with social highs and lows, academic pressure, and extracurricular wins and losses, but for the Little Rock Nine, the first African American students to attend a previously segregated high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, those years were nightmarish.