Books like Your favorite band is killing me by Steven Hyden

Nick Hornby's witty debut follows Rob, a record‑shop owner with encyclopedic music knowledge but shaky relationship skills, as he navigates love, friendship and commitment in contemporary England.

David Byrne explores how time, place, and recording technology shape music, tracing evolutionary patterns and cultural responses that culminated in the transformative practices of the 20th century.

Invisible Republic traces the recordings Bob Dylan and the Band made in 1967 at Big Pink, exploring how these secret basement sessions reflected Dylan’s musical evolution and the cultural tensions of the 1960s.

Interviews with the Beach Boys, their collaborators, and fans reveal the stories behind fifty of the band's songs, including "Surfin' U.S.A.," "California Girls," and "Good Vibrations."

xiii,356,[14]p. : 25cm

Black‑comedic memoir of 1990s Britpop from the perspective of Luke Haines, frontman of The Auteurs, tracing his rise, setbacks, and the shifting landscape of British rock.

The fabled city of Memphis has been essential to American music--home of the blues, the birthplace of rock and roll, a soul music capital. We know the greatest hits, but celebrated author Robert Gordon takes us to the people and places history has yet to record. A Memphis native, he whiles away time in a crumbling duplex with blues legend Furry Lewis, stays up late with barrelhouse piano player Mose Vinson, and sips homemade whiskey at Junior Kimbrough's churning house parties. A passionate listener, he hears modern times deep in the grooves of old records by Lead Belly and Robert Johnson. The interconnected profiles and stories in Memphis Rent Party convey more than a region. Like mint seeping into bourbon, Gordon gets into the wider world. He beholds the beauty of mistakes with producer Jim Dickinson (Replacements, Rolling Stones), charts the stars with Alex Chilton (Box Tops, Big Star), and mulls the tragedy of Jeff Buckley's fatal swim. Gordon's Memphis inspires Cat Power, attracts Townes Van Zandt, and finds James Carr always singing at the dark end of the street. A rent party is when friends come together to hear music, dance, and help a pal through hard times; it's a celebration in the face of looming tragedy, an optimism when the wolf is at the door. Robert Gordon finds mystery in the mundane, inspiration in the bleakness, and revels in the individualism that connects these diverse encounters.