Bøger af Peter Ames Carlin

Now the subject of the movie Love & Mercy, starring John Cusack! Brian Wilson was the visionary behind America's most successful and influential rock band. And as the leader of the Beach Boys, he sold 100 million records, produced Pet Sounds, and built a catalog of songs that continues to define the sound and feel of American popular music. He also became one of the culture's most mysterious and tragic figures. But after spending years lost in a wilderness of despair, Wilson has fought his way back to productivity. And now with teh release of Smile - the masterwork that nearly undid him - he has returned to music's center stage.Now Peter Ames Carlin, who conducted in-depth, exclusive interviews with dozens of sources and listened to hundreds of hours of unreleased studio recordings and live music, tells a uniquely American story of the band, the music, and the culture the Beach Boys both sang about and helped create. Carlin brings a fan's passion, a seasoned journalist's objectivity, and a cultural critic's insight to his subject, and the result is a magesterial and authoritative account of the Beach Boys' visionary figure, who has emerged into a new era of creativity.

An electrifying cultural biography of the greatest and last American rock band of the millennium, whose music such as "Losing My Religion," "Man on the Moon," "The One I Love" and "It's the End of the World as We Know It" ignited a generation -- and reasserted the power of rock and roll, from New York Times bestselling music writer Peter Ames Carlin (BRUCE and PAUL McCARTNEY: A Life). In the spring of 1980, an unexpected group of misfits came together to play their very first performance at a college party in Athens, Georgia. Within a few short years, they had taken over the world - with smash records like OUT OF TIME, AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE, MONSTER and GREEN. Raw, outrageous, and expressive, Michael Stipe and R.E.M.'s distinctive musical flair was unmatched, and a string of mega-successes solidified them as generational spokesmen. In the tumultuous transition between the wide-open 80s and the anxiety of the early 90s - from Reagan to Bush to Clinton, followed by the resurgence of spirit, youth and MTV-politics - pop/rock music, led by R.E.M., felt as if it had a message again. Flowing from every FM radio were culturally influential songs like "Shiny Happy People," "Everybody Hurts," "Losing My Religion," "Man on the Moon," "The One I Love" and "It's the End of the World as We Know It." R.E.M. provided a sound track to the 80s and 90s, challenging the corporate and social order. R.E.M. pursued music like true artists, chasing a vision and working tirelessly to cultivate a magnetic, transgressive sound. In this breathtaking biography (by the critically acclaimed author of BRUCE, PAUL McCARTNEY: A Life, and HOMEWARD BOUND: The Life of Paul Simon), Peter Ames Carlin not only documents R.E.M.'s success in the music industry, but also opens a fascinating window into the lives of four college friends - Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry - who stuck together with a common goal. He paints a cultural history of the commercial peak and near-total collapse of rock 'n' roll, and the story of an era and the generation that came of age at the apotheosis of rock.

In Sonic Boom, bestselling music journalist Peter Ames Carlin captures the rollicking story of the most successful record label in the history of rock and roll, Warner Bros. Records, and the remarkable secret to its meteoric rise.The roster of Warner Brothers Records and its subsidiary labels reads like the roster of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, James Taylor, Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, Prince, Van Halen, Madonna, Tom Petty, R.E.M., Red Hot Chili Peppers, and dozens of others. But the most compelling figures in the Warner Bros. story are the sagacious Mo Ostin and the unlikely crew of hippies, eccentrics, and enlightened execs. Ostin and his staff transformed an out-of-touch company, revolutionized the industry, and, within just a few years, created the most successful record label in the history of the American music industry.How did they do it? One day in 1967, the newly tapped label president Mo Ostin called his team together to share his grand strategy: he told them to stop trying to make hit records."Let's just make good records and turn those into hits."With that, Ostin ushered in a counterintuitive model that matched the counterculture. His offbeat crew recruited outsider artists and gave them free rein, while rejecting out-of-date methods of advertising, promotion, and distribution. And even as they set new standards for in-house weirdness, the upstarts' experiments and innovations paid off, to the tune of hundreds of legendary hit albums.Warner Bros. Records conquered the music business by focusing on the music rather than the business. Their story is as raucous as it is inspiring-pure entertainment that also maps a route to that holy grail: love and money.Includes black-and-white photographs

To have been alive during the last sixty years is to have lived with the music of Paul Simon. The boy from Queens scored his first hit record in 1957, just months after Elvis Presley ignited the rock era. As the songwriting half of Simon & Garfunkel, his work helped define the youth movement of the '60s. On his own in the '70s, Simon made radio-dominating hits. He kicked off the '80s by reuniting with Garfunkel to perform for half a million New Yorkers in Central Park. Five years later, Simon's album "e;Graceland"e; sold millions and spurred an international political controversy. And it doesn't stop there.The grandchild of Jewish immigrants from Hungary, the nearly 75-year-old singer-songwriter has not only sold more than 100 million records, won 15 Grammy awards and been installed into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame twice, but has also animated the meaning?and flexibility?of personal and cultural identity in a rapidly shrinking world.Simon has also lived one of the most vibrant lives of modern times; a story replete with tales of Carrie Fisher, Leonard Bernstein, Bob Dylan, Woody Allen, Shelley Duvall, Nelson Mandela, the Grateful Dead, drugs, depression, marriage, divorce, and more. A life story with the scope and power of an epic novel, Carlin's Homeward Bound is the first major biography of one of the most influential popular artists in American history.