Music

John Peel, the balding, self-deprecating Liverpudlian with the wilfully obscure taste in music, was an unlikely national institution. Yet with a pioneering radio career that spanned almost forty years, in...

Sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, love, discovery and death - this is the journey mapped through music taken by us all. Here, writers, artists, poets and players, makers of films and young...

FOREWORD BY RADIOHEAD'S ED O'BRIENExplore the story of Radiohead - perhaps the finest band of a generation - through the lens of legendary Melody Maker chief photographer Tom Sheehan.Through more...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'A unique and thoughtful musical memoir' Observer'Gritty coming-of-age story . . . plenty of anecdotes to keep us hooked, and his memories of Joy Division's Ian Curtis...

Founding member and guitarist of Joy Division and the lead singer of New Order, Bernard Sumner has been famous over the years for his reticence. Until now... An integral part...

COWBOYS AND INDIES is the story of the 'record men' - the mavericks and moguls who have shaped the music industry from the first sound machines of the 1850s through...

Fearlessly jump and fall into the world of Taylor Swift with this illustrated appreciation of her music by Swiftian Theory co-founder Satu Hameenaho-Fox.This is the book for all Swifties of...

Eminem is currently the world's biggest and most controversial music star. He has been blasted for what many of his critics regard as overtly homophobic and misogynistic lyrics, and resented...

Tax & Drugs & Rock'n'Roll is the story of how an influx of British pop stars in the early 1980s was a significant catalyst in the miraculous transformation of Ireland...

Born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, George Michael was raised in a family of Greek Cypriot immigrants in North London, and dreamed of stardom when he was a little boy. At just...

A ROUGH TRADE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023Paused in Cosmic Reflection is the definitive story of The Chemical Brothers. Told in the voices of Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons, with...

The inside story of The Cure'Beautifully realised' Irish TimesComing of age in Thatcher's Britain in the late 70s and early 80s was really tough, especially if you lived in Crawley....

Simon Reynolds's first book in eight years is a celebration of music that feels like a taste of tomorrow. Sounds that prefigure pop music's future - the vanguard genres and...

The definitive biography of Shane MacGowan, fully updated to include Shane's final months and the response to his passing.Punk protagonist, legendary drinker, Irish musical icon. The complete and extraordinary journey...

The Chieftains have become international superstars as well as being an institution in Folk Music. They have performed and recorded with such stars such as Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, The...

Peter Doherty's is the last of the great rock 'n' roll stories - bad boy and public enemy. To his devoted fans, he is a cult hero, a modern-day Rimbaud....

The genius behind such classic songs as "Suzanne", "Bird on the Wire" and "Hallelujah", Leonard Cohen has been one of the most important and influential songwriters of our time, a...

Popoff turns the microphone outward to an assembled panel of Lizzy scholars and devotees. Together, the moderator and his brain trust deconstruct each of Thin Lizzy's 12 studio albums and...

Ireland s love affair with the Eurovision began with the National Song Contest in 1965, when Brendan Bowyer and Dickie Rock participated. Over the past fifty years, no country has...

Since she signed her first professional contract at the age of sixteen, Shirley Bassey has become one of the most prestigious singers of her time. Her work has inspired and...

The New York Times bestselling memoir from the legendary Gucci Mane spares no detail in this "cautionary tale that ends in triumph" (GQ). For the first time Gucci Mane tells...

Iconic drummer Stephen Morris presses play once more to the tune of the long-awaited second volume of memoirs . . .Poised on the brink of success, the dizzying heights of...

Since bursting into the spotlight aged nine, Coleen Nolan has experienced more highs and lows than most people have had hot dinners. Now she's ready to share the lessons she's...

By the time he was forty, Lorenzo Da Ponte had been a poet, priest, lover and libertine, a friend of Casanova, collaborator then enemy of Salieri, and ultimately the librettist...

Kenneth MacMillan's ballets are in constant demand by world-famous companies, particularly Romeo and Juliet, Manon and Mayerling. However, MacMillan was tormented by an acute sense of being an outsider, and...

THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER 'Writing about yourself is a funny business...But in a project like this, the writer has made one promise, to show the reader his mind. In these...

From The Police's earliest days together to their final tour, photographer Lynn Goldsmith had unparalleled access to Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers, capturing their meteoric and often turbulent rise...

Bob Dylan's impact on popular music has been incalculable. Having transformed staid folk music into a vehicle for coruscating social commentary, he then swept away the romantic platitudes of rock...

Andrea Corr's Barefoot Pilgrimage is a compelling and honest memoir. In part, an exercise in coming to terms with and making sense of life and mortality following the loss of...

Explosive autobiography of Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver bass guitarist Duff McKaganDuff McKagan was a co-founder of Guns N' Roses, with a 13-year tenure on bass in what was...

'I don't think I was ever sober for long enough to get a hangover. I thought it was normal to inject drugs. I saw it as a lifestyle - my...

Liverpool in the 1980s. With prospects for the city's youth bleak, a scheme for unemployed musicians commenced, inadvertently shaping the future for members of Cast, Space, the Lightning Seeds and...

The Black Dog Opera Library is the best, easiest and most informative and budget-friendly way to enjoy four of the greatest operas of all time. Finally available again, and packaged...

Once-in-a-generation memoir of a rock legend - the No. 1 SUNDAY TIMES bestseller.'Electrifying' New York Times'A masterpiece' The Word'Funny, poignant, brutally honest' Sunday TelegraphWith the Rolling Stones, Keith Richards created...

The all new, must-read memoir by legendary Kinks guitarist Dave Davies'BOOK OF THE DAY' - Guardian'This powerful tell-all from the Kinks guitarist puts the spotlight on his own bad behaviour,...

Coming to London aged thirteen from desperate poverty in Jamaica; pregnant at fifteen after being abused by a family friend; fifteen years later singing in Boney M, one of the...

Discover the stories behind the songsTHE LIFE OF A SONG contains the stories of 100 songs exploring each song's biography and how they took on a new life following their...

'The greatest book ever written on British independent music' Guardian'One of the best British music books of the last ten years' MojoFounded by Alan McGee in 1983, Creation Records achieved...

Break-ups, make-ups, groupies, band politics, court battles, the tragic death of Rick Parfitt . . . This is Francis Rossi as you have never seen him before.Status Quo have sold...

Over 100 handwritten manuscripts of the Beatles' original lyrics, tracked down from friends of the band, museums, universities and collectors.Hunter Davies, author of the only authorised biography of the Beatles,...

A Rough Trade Book of the Year The much-anticipated first book from Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler With over 70 million records sold, heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath are one...

'For all these years I've told stories. Sometimes these days I also tell them on the radio. I've met some amazing people and their stories need told too. The first...