From Queen Latifa to Count Basie, Madonna to Monk, Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music traces popular music back to its roots in jazz, blues, country, and gospel through the rise in rock 'n' roll and the emergence of heavy metal, punk, and rap. Yet despite the vigor and balance of these musical origins, Martha Bayles argues, something has gone seriously wrong, both with the sound of popular music and the sensibility it expresses. Bayles defends the tough, affirmative spirit of Afro-American music against the strain of artistic modernism she calls 'perverse.' She describes how perverse modernism was grafted onto popular music in the late 1960s, and argues that the result has been a cult of brutality and obscenity that is profoundly anti-musical. Unlike other recent critics of popular music, Bayles does not blame the problem on commerce. She argues that culture shapes the market and not the other way around. Finding censorship of popular music "both a practical and a constitutional impossibility," Bayles insists that "an informed shift in public tastes may be our only hope of reversing the current malignant mood."

There's a Hole in Your Soul That Only God Can Fill

"God-Shaped Hole will change you as a reader, writer and human. It is rare books like this one that remind me why I fell in love with the written word." — Colleen Hoover When I was twelve, a fortune teller told me that my one true love would die young and leave me all alone... When Beatrice Jordan meets the unpredictable Jacob Grace, the two wild souls become instant allies. Together they discover an escape in each other's creativity and insecurities, while running from secrets they cannot seem to shake — or a fate that could throw them to the ground . . . This 15th Anniversary reissue of Tiffanie DeBartolo's classic love story introduces a new audience of dreamers to a quintessentially real and raw vision of spirit, and inspires everyone to live — and love — as vividly as possible. "This generation's Love Story." — Kirkus "If Holden Caulfield were a twenty-seven-year-old woman living in LA, this is the book he'd write, or read. It's very fast and very funny, and at its core it's that rarest of things - a truly convincing love story." — Dave Eggers "With wit and humor, the author brings these characters and their quirky, artsy friends alive. Bottom Line: You'll dig it" — People

“A gloriously over-the-top scare fest that has hidden depths. Readers will root for Kris all the way to the explosive, poignant finale.”—Publishers Weekly From the New York Times best-selling author of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. Only a girl with a guitar can save us all. Every morning, Kris Pulaski wakes up in hell. In the 1990s she was lead guitarist of Dürt Würk, a heavy-metal band on the brink of breakout success until lead singer Terry Hunt embarked on a solo career and rocketed to stardom, leaving his bandmates to rot in obscurity. Now Kris works as night manager of a Best Western; she’s tired, broke, and unhappy. Then one day everything changes—a shocking act of violence turns her life upside down, and she begins to suspect that Terry sabotaged more than just the band. Kris hits the road, hoping to reunite Dürt Würk and confront the man who ruined her life. Her journey will take her from the Pennsylvania rust belt to a celebrity rehab center to a satanic music festival. A spine-tingling horror novel, We Sold Our Souls is an epic journey into the heart of a conspiracy-crazed, pill-popping, paranoid country that seems to have lost its very soul.

Your depression, anxiety, & unfulfillment are the result of a life disconnected from your soul--your own true self, which has been waiting for decades deep inside to be rediscovered. In this book you'll reconnect to your true voice, free yourself from the fears that dog you & find the courage to experience true ALIVENESS, lasting joy & inner peace

There aren't many publications on the market today that can explain the causes of strongholds in the way that Holes in the Soul does. It's powerful and revealing. Imprints can be the root of many thought processes that we inadvertently believe to be normal. What if we are wrong and our belief systems are flawed? How can we know if what we believe is real truth? These and many more questions are answered within these pages. You will be amazed once you discover what makes you think the way you do. It can change your life and perhaps free you from bondages you never knew you had. Dr. Devon Blanton carefully dissects the causes of negative thinking processes and reveals their effects in a way that anyone can understand. This is a powerful and compelling study!

The hole in our holiness is that we don't care much about holiness. Or, at the very least, we don't understand it. And we all have our reasons too: Maybe the pursuit of holiness seems legalistic. Maybe it feels like one more thing to worry about in your already overwhelming life. Maybe the emphasis on effort in the Christian life appears unspiritual. Or maybe you've been trying really hard to be holy and it's just not working! Whatever the case, the problem is clear: too few Christians look like Christ and too many don't seem all that concerned about it. This is a book for those of us who are ready to take holiness seriously, ready to be more like Jesus, ready to live in light of the grace that produces godliness. This is a book about God's power to help us grow in personal holiness and to enjoy the process of transformation.