History & Criticism
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Art Record Covers. 40th Ed.
Since the dawn of modernism, visual and music production have had a particularly intimate relationship. From Luigi Russolo’s 1913 Futurist manifesto L’Arte dei Rumori (The Art of Noise) to Marcel Duchamp’s 1925 double-sided discs Rotoreliefs, the 20th century saw ever more fertile exchange between sounds and shapes, marks and melodies, and different fields of composition and performance.
In Francesco Spampinato’s unique anthology of artists’ record covers, we discover the rhythm of this particular cultural history. The book presents 450 covers and records by visual artists from the 1950s through to today, exploring how modernism, Pop Art, Conceptual Art, postmodernism, and various forms of contemporary art practice have all informed this collateral field of visual production and supported the mass distribution of music with defining imagery that swiftly and suggestively evokes an aural encounter.
Along the way, we find Jean-Michel Basquiat’s urban hieroglyphs for his own Tartown record label, Banksy’s stenciled graffiti for Blur, and a skewered Salvador Dalí butterfly on Jackie Gleason’s Lonesome Echo. There are insightful analyses and fact sheets alongside the covers listing the artist, performer, album name, label, year of release, and information on the original artwork. Interviews with Tauba Auerbach, Shepard Fairey, Kim Gordon, Christian Marclay, Albert Oehlen, and Raymond Pettibon add personal accounts on the collaborative relationship between artists and musicians.
About the series
TASCHEN is 40! Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible publishing, helping bookworms around the world curate their own library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia at an unbeatable price. Today we celebrate 40 years of incredible books by staying true to our company credo. The 40 series presents new editions of some of the stars of our program―now more compact, friendly in price, and still realized with the same commitment to impeccable production.
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£19.80£23.80Art Record Covers. 40th Ed.
£19.80£23.80 -
Pride, Pop and Politics
Pride, Pop and Politics charts the development of gay culture and the rise of LGBTQ politics in the UK, from the formation of the Gay Liberation Front to the present day, through the music that provided the soundtrack.Fifty years on from Britain’s first Pride march, the long road to LGBT equality continues. Through protest songs and gay club nights, street theatre activism and fundraising concerts, the performing arts have played an influential role in each great stride made.With new interviews with musicians and DJs, performers and activists, including Andy Bell, Jayne County, John Grant, Horse McDonald and Peter Tachell, Pride, Pop and Politics hears from those whose art has been influenced by the campaign for LGBT rights – and helped push it forward.This informative, eye-opening book is the first to focus on the relationship between gay nightlife and political activism in Britain.Darryl W. Bullock won the prestigious Penderyn Music Book Prize in 2022 with The Velvet Mafia, a thrilling account of the gay men who ran the swinging sixties.Read more
£10.40Pride, Pop and Politics
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Song & Dance Man: The Art of Bob Dylan – Vol. 2 Yonder Comes Sin: Dylan’s Gospel Period And All of His 1980s Work (The 50th Anniversary Series)
“SONG & DANCE MAN: The Art of Bob Dylan” is unique in its scope, integrating biographical, literary and musical contexts into a powerful scrutiny of Dylan as songwriter and performer. This is Volume 2 of the new series celebrating 50 Years since the first edition’s release. It makes available again the complete out-of-print text from Song & Dance Man III.Volume 2 – ‘Yonder Comes Sin’ centers on Dylan’s late 1970s move to Born Again Christianity and studies his 1980s albums from Slow Train Coming to Oh Mercy plus special looks at some outtakes from these records such as Groom Still Waiting At The Alter. It also includes a chapter devoted to the celebrated “Infidels” outtake ‘Blind Willie McTell’.
The work in these three volumes has been called “Monumental, endlessly illuminating.” (Rolling Stone) “Probably the greatest book about the work of a single popular musician ever to have been published.” (London Review Bookshop) and “The definitive critical work.” (Evening Standard). The 50th Anniversary Series makes this classic book obtainable again after over a decade out-of-print. It contains no new material but rather turns the contents of the 3rd edition into three new volumes.
Author Michael Gray is recognized as a world authority on the work and career of Bob Dylan; he was the first to consider Dylan’s writing as worthy of treatment as serious art. As author K G Miles said: “People forget that the road to the Nobel Prize was very long, took many years, and began with that book; it began with Michael Gray.”
The 50th Anniversary Series also includes Volumes 1 and 3:
- VOLUME 1: Language and Tradition – Contains the foundational and timeless analysis that made this title a classic – looking at how Dylan’s writing and performance were influenced by folk music, rock music, and literature. It deeply inspects and discusses Dylan’s use of language, both his early bursts of complexity and his later move towards simplicity. Included is a special review of the song ‘Lay Down Your Weary Tune’ which Gray finds particularly effective and impressive, and an over 100-page chapter detailed Dylan’s fascination with and use of the pre-war blues.
- VOLUME 3: World Gone Right – Explores Dylan’s 1990s work, including a defense of “Under The Red Sky”, a history of the folk & blues covers albums Good As I Been to You and World Gone Wrong, an extensive analysis and ultimately a re-assessment of “Time Out Of Mind” – plus and an overview of Dylan’s rise, fall, and rise in terms of his artistry.
Generations of listeners have turned to Song & Dance Man to more deeply understand and appreciate Dylan’s work and unique creativity. Now you can too.
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£15.10
