Real musicians don’t sign autographs, date models, or fly in private jets. They spend their lives in practice rooms and basement clubs or toiling in the obscurity of coffee-shop gigs, casino jobs, and the European festival circuit. The ten linked stories in Power Ballads are devoted to this unheard virtuoso: the working musician. From the wings of sold-out arenas to hip-hop studios to polka bars, these stories are born out of a nocturnal world where music is often simply work, but also where it can, in rare moments, become a source of grace and transcendence, speaking about the things we never seem to say to each other. A skilled but snobby jazz drummer joins a costumed heavy metal band to pay his rent. A country singer tries to turn her brutal past into a successful career. A vengeful rock critic reenters the life of an emerging singer-songwriter, bent on wreaking havoc. The characters in Power Ballads—aging head-bangers, jobbers, techno DJs, groupies, and the occasional rock star (and those who have to live with them)—need music to survive, yet find themselves lost when the last note is played, the lights go up, and it’s time to return to regular life. By turns melancholy and hilarious, Power Ballads is not only a deeply felt look at the lives of musicians but also an exploration of the secret music that plays inside us all.

The first book to explore the ballad's history and emotional appeal, surveying seventy years of the genre in modern America.

A collection of candid, surreal, and wickedly funny poems and prose.

"Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork and over 150 interviews with gang-affiliated youth in the "Taylor Park" neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Ballad of the Bullet reveals that those coming of age in America's poorest neighborhoods are developing new, creative, and online strategies for making ends meet. Dislocated by the erosion of the crack economy and the splintering of corporatized gangs, these young people exploit the unique affordances of digital social media to capitalize on an emerging online market for urban violence (or, more accurately, a market for the representation of urban violence). In the past, violence functioned primarily as a means of social control, allowing urban youth to compete in illegal street markets and defend the social statuses otherwise denied to them by mainstream society. Today, with the rise of platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter, violence has become a premier cultural commodity in and of itself. By amassing millions of clicks, views, and followers, these young people convert their online displays of violence into vital offline resources, including cash, housing, drugs, sex, and, for a very select few, a ticket out of poverty" --

Power Ballad: A Definitive Guide to Hard Rock's Softer Side Volume One revisits the decade of decadence like no other before, putting the big hair and spandex rockers' most significant pop culture contribution under the microscope. In Power Ballad, author Timothy D. Minneci dissects the history of the genre and the defining essential criteria before diving in track-by-track to determine the songs worthy of the title "Power Ballad." Born out of frustration with an internet culture that had allowed Celine Dion and other non-rock pop stars to be placed alongside Every Rose Has Its Thorn and When I See You Smile, Power Ballad seeks to reclaim the mantle for the worthy, deconstructing songwriting, influences and band histories with perceptive insight and biting humor. Because all Power Ballads were not created equal, even those who successfully survive the cut are not spared honest critiques, whether it's Aerosmith's heavy reliance on outside songwriters and Alicia Silverstone, Jon Bon Jovi's desire to write a Western concept album, or Great White's knack for writing cringe-inducing lyrics. Multi-platinum selling acts such as Def Leppard, Motley Crue and Whitesnake receive as much love (and scorn) as obscure lesser-knownand less successful bands like Craaft, Tyketto or Southgang, with every song getting a chance to prove its mettle. Fans of classic and hard rock can finally settle the age old debate of which songs are truly worthy of being called a Power Ballad.

From Academy Award-winning film director Neil Jordan comes an artful reimagining of an extraordinary friendship spanning the revolutionary tumult of the eighteenth century. South Carolina, 1781: the American Revolution. An enslaved man escaping to his freedom saves the life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, a British army officer and the younger son of one of Ireland's grandest families. The tale that unfolds is narrated by Tony Small, the formerly enslaved man who becomes Fitzgerald's companion—and best friend. While details of Lord Edward's life are well documented, little is known of Tony Small, who is at the heart of this moving novel. In this gripping narrative, his character considers the ironies of empire, captivity, and freedom, mapping Lord Edward's journey from being a loyal subject of the British Empire to becoming a leader of the disastrous Irish rebellion of 1798. This powerful new work of fiction brings Neil Jordan's inimitable storytelling ability to the revolutions that shaped the eighteenth century—in America, France, and, finally, in Ireland.

"Damage Incorporated" is the first book about the legendary heavy metal band Metallica that provides a detailed exploration of the group’s music and its place within the wider popular music landscape. Written with a broad readership in mind, it offers an interdisciplinary study that incorporates a range of topics which intersect with the band’s music and cultural influence. For students of popular culture, mass media, and music, "Damage Incorporated" will be necessary reading, and sets a new standard for the study and exploration of metal within the field of popular music studies.