A comprehensive overview of the musical career of Elton John provides the full story behind all of the musician's recordings, a complete chronicle of his concert tours, an assessment of his musical odyssey, and a study of his sometimes turbulent personal life, along with more than forty photographs and a complete discography.
From the shutdown of Planned Parenthood clinics and rising rates of HIV to opposition to marriage equality and bathroom bills, the New South is the epicenter of the new sex wars. Antagonism toward reproductive freedom, partner rights, and transgender rights has revealed a new and unacknowledged era of southern reconstruction centered on gender and sexuality. In A Dirty South Manifesto, L. H. Stallings celebrates the roots of radical sexual resistance in the New South—a movement that is antiracist, decolonial, and transnational. For people within economically disenfranchised segments of society, those in sexually marginalized communities, and the racially oppressed, the South has been a sexual dystopia. Throughout this book, Stallings delivers hard-hitting manifestos for the new sex wars. With her focus on contemporary Black southern life, Stallings offers an invitation to anyone who has ever imagined a way of living beyond white supremacist heteropatriarchy.
Who is R. Kelly? Three-time Grammy winner, who has sold more than 35 million records worldwide. Legendary writer and producer, who collaborated with such music icons as Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, Jay-Z, and Aretha Franklin. Visionary cultural messenger, who created the hip hopera phenomenon Trapped in the Closet. Creative genius. Sex symbol. The man who puts the "R" in R&B. Through the iconic anthem "I Believe I Can Fly" and such sexy R&B mega-hits as "Bump N’ Grind," "Ignition," and "When a Woman’s Fed Up," R. Kelly has proven to be one of the greatest musical talents of his generation. Yet his rollercoaster ride to the top has been as perilous as it has been exhilarating. In Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me, Kelly shares his life story through episodic tales and exclusive color photographs, exploring his meteoric rises and sudden falls. From the crippling learning disorder that rendered him unable to read or write, to the teacher/mentor who prophesized that his destiny was in music, not basketball, we follow his evolution from Chicago street performer to struggling L.A. musician and beyond. Kelly reveals his hard-won ascent to superstardom and his battle to move forward after legal and personal ordeals that threatened to destroy his life. Now back at the top, Kelly recounts the surprising twists and turns that have taken him to new heights of maturity and artistry. Part memoir, part keepsake, Soulacoaster unlocks the door to R. Kelly’s story as only he can tell it, promising his fans an intimate and unforgettable ride.
Following the 1960's sexual revolution, rock and pop have continued to map the societal understanding of sexuality, feminism, and gender studies. Although scholarship has well established how early rock and roll encouraged and affected issues of sex in the baby boomer generation, this book asks how subsequent pop music has maintained that tradition. The text discusses the gendered performances and biographical experiences of individual musicians, including Patti Smith, Rufus Wainwright, Etta James, and Frank Ocean, and how their invented personae contribute to musical representations of sexuality. It evaluates lyric structure and symbolic language of these artists, and overall emphasizes how pop music, while a commodity art form, reflects the diversity of human sex and gender.
National Society of Film Critics dares to go where few mainstream critics have gone before-to the heart of what gets the colored lights going, as they say in A Streetcar Named Desire. Here is their take on the films that quicken their (and our) pulses-an enterprise both risky and risque, an entertaining overview of the most arousing films Hollywood has every produced. But make no mistake about it: This isn't a collection of esoteric "critic's choice" movies. The films reflect individual taste, rubbing against the grain of popular wisdom. And, because of the personal nature of the erotic forces at play, these essays will reveal more about the individual critics than perhaps they have revealed thus far to their readers. The Society is a world-renowned, marquee-name organization embracing some of America's most distinguished critics, more than forty writers who have followings nationally as well as devoted local constituencies in such major cities as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Minneapolis.Yes, The X List will have something for every lover of film-and for every lover.
First published in 1994. Lyric Texts and Lyric Consciousness presents a model for studying the history of lyric as a genre. Professor Miller drawls a distinction between the work of the Greek lyrists and the more condensed, personal poetry that we associate with lyric. He then confronts the theoretical issues and presents sophisticated, Bakhtinian reading of the development of lyric form from its origins in archaic Greece to the more individualist style of Augustan Rome. This book will appeal to classicists and since English translation of passes from ancient authors are provided, to those who specialise in comparative literature.
Take funny music seriously! Though often dismissed as silly or derivative, funny music, Lily E. Hirsch argues, is incredibly creative and dynamic, serving multiple aims from the celebratory to the rebellious, the entertaining to the mentally uplifting. Music can be a rich site for humor, with so many opportunities that are ripe for a comedic left turn. Taking Funny Music Seriously includes original interviews with some of the best musical humorists, such as Tom Lehrer, "the J. D. Salinger of musical satire"; Peter Schickele, who performed as the invented composer P. D. Q. Bach, the supposed lost son of the great J. S. Bach; Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome of the funny music duo Garfunkel and Oates; comedic film composer Theodore Shapiro; Too Slim of the country group Riders in the Sky; and musical comedian Jessica McKenna, from the podcast Off Book, part of a long line of "funny girls." With their help, Taking Funny Music Seriously examines comedy from a variety of genres and musical contexts--from bad singing to rap, classical music to country, Broadway music to film music, and even love songs and songs about death. In its coverage of comedic musical media, Taking Funny Music Seriously is an accessible and lively look at funny music. It offers us a chance to appreciate more fully the joke in music and the benefits of getting that joke--especially in times of crisis--including comfort, catharsis, and connection.
The ages of Thatcherism and New Labour are two of the most significant of the twentieth century, and more alike than they would care to admit. Out of these years of political turmoil have come many brilliant, often politically dissenting, British albums which have captured the landscape of the time. This is the story of those albums.
Bachelor Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,1, Bielefeld University, language: English, abstract: Preliminaries The first song whose rhythmic style of singing predates rapping was already published in the 1920s. About 50 years later, the first historically known rap song was published. Since then, this genre has undergone many changes and has been examined from diverse angles. Various cultural, historical and language-centered studies have been conducted on rap music. There is, however, little research particularly concerned with the different musical categories of rap, vocal deliveries of rap and the usage and understanding of language in contexts of rap from a pragmatical point of view. To investigate some of the genres linguistic properties, the main focus of this paper will be on the genres, prosody and pragmatics of rap music. The paper is divided into five chapters and three major parts. After the introduction and some general thoughts about the history of rap music, the first major part deals with the generic classification of this genre in chapter three. A general overview of the different genres of rap is given here by focusing on their musical, thematic and vocal style variations. It will be explored whether genres of rap are related to each other, overlap and whether each genre encompasses a different style of vocal delivery. All the lyrics of the songs which will be mentioned and discussed in this thesis are available in the appendix accompanied by a CD of songs and files. Taking into account the different vocal styles, which will be mentioned in chapter three, in chapter four, particular focus will be drawn to the prosodic variations of vocal styles, especially to stress. In this respect, an experiment has been conducted by which prosodic differences of vocal styles will be discussed in chapter four. It is not the objective of this thesis to focus on the physical nature of musical s