Penguin Books Australia

The Rolling Stones have stood like a Colossus over the rock 'n' roll scene for almost five decades.  At the heart of the band is Keith Richards one of the greatest guitarists of his generation.  Famous for some of the greatest riffs of the last century, he is equally well known for his outrageous rock 'n' roll lifestyle.  The man who topped the Most Likely To Die chart for more than...

In the early twentieth century being a female composer was a dangerous game; one composer was diagnosed as mentally insane by her psychiatrist husband, several achieved success only after their divorces and often the only way to get their music published was to lie about their gender. Still, the allure of writing music enticed women from all walks of life, and from the convent and the nappy-change...

In Try Whistling This , join a perceptive critic on a pleasurable journey through music and musicians, ideas and history.

Andrew Ford traces the concept of dirty dancing back to 1610, marvels at the weirdness of Percy Grainger and considers the decision of Wilhelm Furtwängler to keep conducting under the Nazis. He explores the intersection of words and music, the bugbear of Australian musical...

A delightful and informative history of modern music.

Harmony is created by bringing sounds together. In music lessons, we learn how to do this in a formal way: we learn about chords and keys, and we are given rules for using them. This is the textbook way; this is legal harmony.  Everything else – including the sounds that constantly surround us, those of ticking clocks, dogs, traffic...

'She was the unchallenged queen of the New York rock scene...Dorothy Parker of Max's Kansas City' - Rolling Stone

From the pubs of the Sydney Push to New York's legendary nightclubs, Lillian Roxon set the pace for an era that changed the world.

The Rough Guide to Classical Music is the ideal handbook, spanning a thousand years of music from Gregorian chant via Bach and Beethoven to contemporaries such as Thomas Adès and Kaija Saariaho.

An essential guide to more than 1,000 years of classical music

Lose yourself in the fascinating story of classical music in The Complete Classical Music Guide . Full of beautiful colour photographs, over 300 inspiring composer biographies, analyses of major classical works and information on every genre, style and form, instrument and ensemble, this is essential reading for every lover of classical...

The 28-page introductory section includes spreads which display the instruments of the modern symphony orchestra, and some of their antecedents.

The composer's music is explored in successive spreads.

A colourful biography of George Gershwin, arguably the 20th-century's greatest songwriter.

A survey of this controversial and distinctive style of concert music.

Minimalism is arguably the most popular style of concert music that the late twentieth century produced, revered by the widest possible audience, including fans of rock, jazz and classical music. It is an ecstatic and vibrant movement that interweaves classical, popular and non-Western elements to create a highly distinctive style...

The history of jazz from its beginnings to its present day.

Dubbed by Leonard Bernstein as 'the only original American art form', jazz is the epitome of spontaneous musical expression. Its development is traced here through the lives of 12 landmark jazz-legends: Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Buddy Bolden, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Miles Davis...

The ultimate music fan's bible packed with insight into the world of rock 'n' roll

Off the Record brings together the best interviews and articles from Australia's music street press, about bands on the cusp of greatness to megastars at the height of their powers – all imbued with a cool street-press indie sensibility. Many pieces come from Time Off , a magazine established in 1979 and the first...

Based on 400 hours of interviews with over seventy of The Stone Roses' closest associates, including six former band members, War and Peace is the first major biography of the band that defined a generation.

The Charlatans have had three UK Number One albums and seventeen Top Thirty singles. But they've also had to face the imprisonment and death of keyboard player Rob Collins and an accountant who ran off with all their money. Not to mention the rock 'n' roll excesses of singer Tim Burgess.