Reach for the Stars: 1996–2006: Fame, Fallout and Pop’s Final Party

Reach for the Stars: 1996–2006: Fame, Fallout and Pop’s Final Party PDF Author: Michael Cragg
Publisher: Nine Eight Books
ISBN: 1788707257
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 447

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Book Description
A Times Book of the Year A Telegraph Book of the Year A Guardian Book of the Year A Rock 'n' Roll Book Club Book of the Year A Guardian 50 Best Holiday Reads An Independent Book of the Year A Mojo Music Book of the Year A Resident Book of the Year A Classic Pop Book of the Year 'This really is a wonderful book for pop kids everywhere' - RICHARD OSMAN Using the arrival of the Spice Girls as a jumping-off point, this fascinating new narrative will explore, celebrate and contextualise the thus-far-uncharted period of British pop that flourished between 1996 and 2006. A double-denim-loving time before the glare of social media and the accession of streaming. The bastions of '00s pop - armed with buoyant, immaculately crafted, carefree anthems - provided entertainment, escapism and fun for millions. It was a heady, chorus-heavy decade - populated by the likes of Steps, S Club 7, Blue, 5ive, Mis-Teeq, Hear'Say, Busted, Girls Aloud, McFly, Craig David and Atomic Kitten, among countless others - yet the music was often dismissed as inauthentic, juvenile, not 'worthy' enough: ultimately, a 'guilty pleasure'. Now, music writer Michael Cragg aims to redress that balance. Using the oral-history format, Cragg goes beneath the surface of the bubblegum exterior, speaking to hundred's of the key players about the reality of their experiences. Compiled from interviews with popstars, songwriters, producers, choreographers, magazine editors, record-company executives, TV moguls and more, this is a complete behind-the-scenes history of the last great movement in British pop - a technicolour turning-point ripe for re-evaluation, documented here in astonishing, honest and eye-opening detail.

Reach for the Stars: 1996–2006: Fame, Fallout and Pop’s Final Party

Reach for the Stars: 1996–2006: Fame, Fallout and Pop’s Final Party PDF Author: Michael Cragg
Publisher: Nine Eight Books
ISBN: 1788707257
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 447

Get Book

Book Description
A Times Book of the Year A Telegraph Book of the Year A Guardian Book of the Year A Rock 'n' Roll Book Club Book of the Year A Guardian 50 Best Holiday Reads An Independent Book of the Year A Mojo Music Book of the Year A Resident Book of the Year A Classic Pop Book of the Year 'This really is a wonderful book for pop kids everywhere' - RICHARD OSMAN Using the arrival of the Spice Girls as a jumping-off point, this fascinating new narrative will explore, celebrate and contextualise the thus-far-uncharted period of British pop that flourished between 1996 and 2006. A double-denim-loving time before the glare of social media and the accession of streaming. The bastions of '00s pop - armed with buoyant, immaculately crafted, carefree anthems - provided entertainment, escapism and fun for millions. It was a heady, chorus-heavy decade - populated by the likes of Steps, S Club 7, Blue, 5ive, Mis-Teeq, Hear'Say, Busted, Girls Aloud, McFly, Craig David and Atomic Kitten, among countless others - yet the music was often dismissed as inauthentic, juvenile, not 'worthy' enough: ultimately, a 'guilty pleasure'. Now, music writer Michael Cragg aims to redress that balance. Using the oral-history format, Cragg goes beneath the surface of the bubblegum exterior, speaking to hundred's of the key players about the reality of their experiences. Compiled from interviews with popstars, songwriters, producers, choreographers, magazine editors, record-company executives, TV moguls and more, this is a complete behind-the-scenes history of the last great movement in British pop - a technicolour turning-point ripe for re-evaluation, documented here in astonishing, honest and eye-opening detail.

Gay Life Stories

Gay Life Stories PDF Author: Robert Aldrich
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
ISBN: 0500778442
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
This book gives a voice to more than eighty people from every major continent and from all walks of life. It includes poets and philosophers, rulers and spies, activists and artists. Alongside such celebrated figures as Michelangelo, Frederick the Great and Harvey Milk are lesser-known but no less surprising individuals: Dong Xian and the Chinese emperor Ai, whose passion flourished in the 1st century BC; the unfortunate Robert De Péronne, first to be burned at the stake for sodomy; Katharine Philips, writing proto-lesbian poetry in seventeenth-century England; and 'Aimee' and 'Jaguar', whose love defied the death camps of wartime Germany. With many striking illustrations, Gay Life Stories will entertain, give pause for thought, and ultimately celebrate the diversity of human history.

Exit Stage Left

Exit Stage Left PDF Author: Nick Duerden
Publisher: Headline
ISBN: 1472277791
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
**INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE MONTH** **GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE DAY** **FINANCIAL TIMES 'BEST SUMMER BOOKS 2022' PICK** 'Incredibly moving.' - Guardian 'Entertaining.' - Telegraph 'Most books about pop stars focus on the way we turn average human beings into demi-gods. In writing a book about how they have to turn back into humans Nick Duerden has done both us and them a service.' - David Hepworth 'Funny, poignant and often inspirational.' - Mat Osman The desire for adulation is a light that never goes out. We live in a culture obsessed by the notion of fame - the heedless pursuit of it; the almost obligatory subsequent fallout. But what's it like to actually achieve it, and what happens when fame abruptly passes, and shifts, as it does, onto someone else? This is the point at which pop stars are at their most heroic, because they don't give up. They keep on striving, keep making music, and refuse simply to ebb away. Some sustain themselves on the nostalgia circuit, others continue to beaver away in the studio, no longer Abbey Road, perhaps, so much as the garden shed. But all of them, in their own individual ways, still dare to dream. Exit Stage Left features tales of drug addiction, bankruptcy, depression and divorce, but also of optimism, a genuine love of the craft, humility and hope. This is a candid, laugh-out-loud and occasionally shocking look at what happens when the brightest stars fall back down to earth. 'Exit Stage Left is the book I've long wanted to read about the PTSD-like after-effects of pop stardom - and Nick Duerden is the perfect writer for the job. The pop star's bittersweet lot is represented with flair and empathy.' - Pete Paphides, author of Broken Greek 'Exit Stage Left is a funny and poignant book, drawing on Duerden's considerable experience as a journalist and interviewer . . . he understands what motivates this strange bunch of people.' - Andy Miller, Spectator 'Fame is the brightest candle, but in this brilliant collection of interviews, Nick Duerden answers the question: what does a candle do after it's burned out?' - David Quantick 'Duerden finds fascinating layers of humanity, pathos, humour and wisdom in equal measure. A brilliant book, for artists and fans alike.' - Frank Turner Featuring brand new interviews with the likes of: Bob Geldof, Shaun Ryder, Robbie Williams, Roisin Murphy, Stewart Copeland, Billy Bragg, Wendy James, Alex Kapranos, Joan Armatrading, Leo Sayer, Gary Lightbody, Lisa Maffia, Tim Booth, Bill Drummond, Rufus Wainwright, David Gray, and Justin Hawkins.

Freak Like Me

Freak Like Me PDF Author: Malcolm McLean
Publisher: eBook Partnership
ISBN: 1913227251
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
In nineties small-town Surrey, watching Top of the Pops was Malcolm's only escape from boredom and the bullies at school ... until a phone call from a pop star changed his life forever. Before long, he was getting compliments from BeyoncaA(c), hanging out at award ceremonies with Posh Spice's mum and sneaking onto All Saints' tour bus. Freak Like Me is the true story of one teenage pop fan who, with a group of like-minded outcasts, witnesses the disposable music industry of the late nineties and early noughties first-hand. Tracking down A-lister itineraries, he gets to meet the real personalities behind the Smash Hits posters adorning his bedroom walls. This hilarious memoir is packed with scandalous gossip and poignant memories from the era of Nokia 3310s and dial-up Internet, when chart positions meant everything and, if you wanted to know what your idols were up to off-screen, you had to track them down yourself!

Glitter Up the Dark

Glitter Up the Dark PDF Author: Sasha Geffen
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 147731878X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Why has music so often served as an accomplice to transcendent expressions of gender? Why did the query "is he musical?" become code, in the twentieth century, for "is he gay?" Why is music so inherently queer? For Sasha Geffen, the answers lie, in part, in music’s intrinsic quality of subliminal expression, which, through paradox and contradiction, allows rigid gender roles to fall away in a sensual and ambiguous exchange between performer and listener. Glitter Up the Dark traces the history of this gender fluidity in pop music from the early twentieth century to the present day. Starting with early blues and the Beatles and continuing with performers such as David Bowie, Prince, Missy Elliot, and Frank Ocean, Geffen explores how artists have used music, fashion, language, and technology to break out of the confines mandated by gender essentialism and establish the voice as the primary expression of gender transgression. From glam rock and punk to disco, techno, and hip-hop, music helped set the stage for today’s conversations about trans rights and recognition of nonbinary and third-gender identities. Glitter Up the Dark takes a long look back at the path that led here.

Going Deaf for a Living

Going Deaf for a Living PDF Author: Steve Lemacq
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781787601277
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Steve Lamacq marks forty years of fandom, and more than twenty-five years of the Radio 1 award-winning music show, the Evening Session with the re-release of Going Deaf For A Living, twenty years after its original publication date. Now updated with an introduction and an additional chapter, bringing the book up to date, this is the title for anyone who has ever had even a passing obsession with 1990s pop, an overview of the era that saw the rebirth of British music.

The Ministry of Pop

The Ministry of Pop PDF Author: Mark Elliott
Publisher: Flood Gallery
ISBN: 9781911374008
Category : Composers
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Pop Journalist Mark Elliott has written the ultimate guide to one of the greatest independent success stories in music history, with extensive source material and a foreword written by Mike Stock. The Ministry of Pop is a lavish, full-colour book which tells the amazing story of 10 sensational years, including a year by year hit list, 846 images including every single & album release and many magazine covers & spreads from the period. For anyone who bought the records, the pop magazines or crowded around the TV for Top of The Pops or the Saturday morning shows, this deluxe book will bring back hundreds of memories and is the definitive story behind some of the greatest British pop music ever produced. Stock, Aitken & Waterman dominated the charts for more than a decade with a catalogue of smash-hit songs and a technicolour cast of pop sensations. The trio launched the careers of Kylie Minogue, Rick Astley, Jason Donovan & more, even established artists like Donna Summer, Cliff Richard and Bananarama benefitted from their Midas touch.

Bending Adversity

Bending Adversity PDF Author: David Pilling
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143126954
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
“[A]n excellent book...” —The Economist Financial Times Asia editor David Pilling presents a fresh vision of Japan, drawing on his own deep experience, as well as observations from a cross section of Japanese citizenry, including novelist Haruki Murakami, former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, industrialists and bankers, activists and artists, teenagers and octogenarians. Through their voices, Pilling's Bending Adversity captures the dynamism and diversity of contemporary Japan. Pilling’s exploration begins with the 2011 triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown. His deep reporting reveals both Japan’s vulnerabilities and its resilience and pushes him to understand the country’s past through cycles of crisis and reconstruction. Japan’s survivalist mentality has carried it through tremendous hardship, but is also the source of great destruction: It was the nineteenth-century struggle to ward off colonial intent that resulted in Japan’s own imperial endeavor, culminating in the devastation of World War II. Even the postwar economic miracle—the manufacturing and commerce explosion that brought unprecedented economic growth and earned Japan international clout might have been a less pure victory than it seemed. In Bending Adversity Pilling questions what was lost in the country’s blind, aborted climb to #1. With the same rigor, he revisits 1990—the year the economic bubble burst, and the beginning of Japan’s “lost decades”—to ask if the turning point might be viewed differently. While financial struggle and national debt are a reality, post-growth Japan has also successfully maintained a stable standard of living and social cohesion. And while life has become less certain, opportunities—in particular for the young and for women—have diversified. Still, Japan is in many ways a country in recovery, working to find a way forward after the events of 2011 and decades of slow growth. Bending Adversity closes with a reflection on what the 2012 reelection of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and his radical antideflation policy, might mean for Japan and its future. Informed throughout by the insights shared by Pilling’s many interview subjects, Bending Adversity rigorously engages with the social, spiritual, financial, and political life of Japan to create a more nuanced representation of the oft-misunderstood island nation and its people. The Financial Times “David Pilling quotes a visiting MP from northern England, dazzled by Tokyo’s lights and awed by its bustling prosperity: ‘If this is a recession, I want one.’ Not the least of the merits of Pilling’s hugely enjoyable and perceptive book on Japan is that he places the denunciations of two allegedly “lost decades” in the context of what the country is really like and its actual achievements.” The Telegraph (UK) “Pilling, the Asia editor of the Financial Times, is perfectly placed to be our guide, and his insights are a real rarity when very few Western journalists communicate the essence of the world’s third-largest economy in anything but the most superficial ways. Here, there is a terrific selection of interview subjects mixed with great reportage and fact selection... he does get people to say wonderful things. The novelist Haruki Murakami tells him: “When we were rich, I hated this country”... well-written... valuable.” Publishers Weekly (starred): "A probing and insightful portrait of contemporary Japan."

Notorious C.O.P.

Notorious C.O.P. PDF Author: Derrick Parker
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1429907789
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Throughout his career, Derrick Parker worked on some of the biggest criminal cases in rap history, from the shooting at Club New York, where Derrick personally escorted Jennifer Lopez to police headquarters, to the first shooting of Tupac Shakur. Always straddling the fence between "po-po" and NYPD outsider, Derrick threatened police tradition to try to get the cases solved. He was the first detective to interview an informant offering a detailed account of Biggie Smalls's murder. He protected one of the only surviving eyewitnesses to the Jam Master Jay murder and knows the identity of the killers as well as the motivation behind the shooting. Notorious C.O.P. reveals hip-hop crimes that never made the paper—like the robbing of Foxy Brown and the first Hot 97 shooting—and answers some lingering questions about murders that have remained unsolved. The book that both the NYPD and the hip-hop community don't want you to read, Notorious C.O.P. is the first insider look at the real links between crime and hip-hop and the inefficiencies that have left some of the most widely publicized murders in entertainment history unsolved.

Re-run the Fun

Re-run the Fun PDF Author: Pat Sharp
Publisher: Constable
ISBN: 1472134648
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
'The perfect antidote to 2020' Huffington Post 'A must-read if you like funny things' Greg James 'I had no idea Pat Sharp's life story would be so hilarious and I strongly suspect neither did he' Nish Kumar Pat Sharp is a man out of time. For those of a certain generation, he is an iconic figure synonymous with good fun, great hair and excess gunge. For others, he's just that bloke with a mullet. Fame is a fickle beast and, since the cancellation of Fun House in 1999 ('Just ten years into its run, when it was finally finding its feet'), Pat has become a reclusive figure, only emerging from his splendid isolation to pop up on things like I'm A Celebrity: Get Me Out Of Here, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Come Dine with Me. Until now. With time on his hands and now reliant on a faulty memory, Pat has expertly blended fact and . . . fiction: revealing all about his adventures with David Hassselhoff at the Berlin Wall in 1989; how he broke up a fight between Damon Albarn and Liam Gallagher at a house party; the time he suggested Geri's dress be a Union Jack; and much more. A definitive work (based on very little fact) that anatomises the cultural trends of the '80s and '90s, Re-run the Fun is just the kind of sorta-biography we need in these turbulent times. Finally, the Great British public can learn what life is like just about in sight of the top - the highs, the lows and the hair tips. 'It's easy to forget, as I had, that Pat Sharp is so much more than an iconic haircut and a helter-skelter - and this well overdue book goes into hilarious, largely-fabricated detail about Pat's critical role in shaping our world today' Rick Edwards 'No previous knowledge of Pat Sharp is required' Paul Sinha