100.

Hamilton: The Revolution

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter, 2016

Don�t call it a libretto. This doorstop of a volume features every lyric and line
of dialogue in Lin-Manuel Miranda�s groundbreaking musical, but it also gives a
comprehensive account of the show�s backstory, creation, and production, amounting
to Miranda�s Cliff�s Notes guide to his show�s ideas and themes.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, "Hamilton: The Revolution"

99. Kill Your Friends
John Niven, 2008

Former A&R man Niven�s first novel doesn�t so much mock the nineties music business
as set fire to it. Niven mixes his experiences in the UK industry during its final-
days-of-Rome period with the satirical ultraviolence of American Psycho. His lead
character eviscerates every talentless young band, and clueless exec, that comes
his way, creating a story of brilliant savagery.

98. You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup
Peter Doggett, 2011

Many books have chronicled the financial battles of The Beatles, both with their
business associates and between themselves. But no other work has the devilish
detail of Doggett�s. In surprisingly clear language, he traces every dollar,
offering an account that�s by turns hilarious and depressing as it shows how money
changed everything for the Fab Four.

97. This Is Your Brain on Music

Daniel Levitin, 2007

Ever wonder why a song lingers long enough to feel like an integral part of your
life? Levitin, both a record producer and a neuroscientist, studied the human brain
and discovered how it breaks songs down into sound patterns, as well as how those
patterns affect our emotions. In his surprisingly readable prose, we learn about
all the ways music has affected us, how it aided in our evolution and even how it
ensured our survival as a species.

96. Bob Dylan: An Intimate Biography

Anthony Scaduto, 1971

Suzanne Vega on the impact this biography had on her:

I was 11 years old when this book came out. I had just started playing guitar,
pressing my fingers to the fretboard, working on my callouses and cutting my
fingernails. I didn�t write my first song for another three years, but I loved
songwriters, particularly Dylan and The Beatles. This was Dylan�s first bio and I
ate it up. I learned about Gerdes Folk City, where Dylan got started and where,
nine years later, I got my own first break when I was booked for a Sunday afternoon
matinee show. And I never looked back!

95. The Disco Files 1973-1978: New York�s Underground, Week by Week
Vince Aletti, 2009

Aletti started writing about disco at its start, in 1973. This book � indispensable
thanks to its methodical documentation of thousands of forgotten classics by
lesser-known names � collects his pioneering coverage, principally chronicled in
his weekly column for the trade publication Record World.

94. The Music of Black Americans: A History

Eileen Southern, 1971

Southern was the first black woman to be appointed a full tenured professor at
Harvard, and her book is a towering work of scholarship, drawing on memoirs,
ledgers, slave advertisements in newspapers and other sources to reconstruct the
history of African-American music-making from 1619 to the age of hip-hop. A
musicologist, Southern is strong on both music and the history behind it, expertly
shaping a story of exile, oppression and resistance.

93. The Rap Yearbook

Shea Serrano, 2015

One of the best kinds of music books: a delightful argument-starter by a witty,

informed writer that you can�t put down even when you want to hurl it across the
room. The premise is simple: Serrano chooses the most important rap song from each
year since 1979, then subjects it to an obsessively close read, complete with
history, footnotes, �style mapping,� and other musical metrics.

92. The Recording Angel: Music, Records and Culture from Aristotle to Zappa
Evan Eisenberg, 1987

Music has existed for millennia, but recorded sound only arrived with Thomas Edison
in the late 19th century. How did the advent of records change music? It�s a huge,
thorny question, and Eisenberg�s book remains the classic treatment. He approaches
his subject from both philosophical and psychological standpoints, probing the
difference between communal and private listening, examining the ways records
function as commodities, and explaining how people define themselves by the records
they listen to.

91. Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting

Jimmy Webb, 1998

Webb offers a master course in how to write a song. It�s fascinating to follow his
unusual approach, and the book excels because it describes, in meticulous detail,
the thought patterns of a guy who writes entirely outside the box.

90. Rod: The Autobiography

Rod Stewart, 2012

Stewart knows what his readers want and he delivers it. From seven solid pages on
his hairstyle and its maintenance to an explanation of the Faces� technique for
getting drunk off a single can of beer, Stewart�s self-deprecating memoir is
ceaselessly entertaining.

Rod Stewart, "Rod: The Autobiography"

89. How Music Got Free
Stephen Witt, 2015

Business journalist Witt turns a tangled story about money and technology into a
page-turner by zooming in on three key players � the tech disruptor, the mogul and
the pirate. Without realizing it, that trio helped upend the principle of paying
for music. With methodical reporting and subtle, sardonic humor, Witt explains
exactly how it all played out while implying that, one way or another, the collapse
of the old system was inevitable.

88. The Love Song of Jonny Valentine: A Novel

Teddy Wayne, 2014
It would be a cheap stunt for someone to pen a snide satire about a contemporary
teen idol. Teddy Wayne has done nothing of the sort with his novel about an eleven
year old who�s a clear Justin Bieber stand-in. Wayne uses the young Valentine as
his narrator, letting us feel from the inside what it�s like to deal with pressures
many grown-up pop stars never learn to handle. It�s a sympathetic portrait, but
also a knowing one, with one eye towards the machinations of pop stardom, the other
on the flawed souls themselves.

87. Yesterdays: Popular Song in America

Charles Hamm, 1979

Hamm�s groundbreaking 1983 study did what previous generations of musicologists

regarded as beneath their dignity: It lavished the kind of scrupulous scholarly
attention previously reserved for Mozart and Beethoven on several centuries of
American popular song. Hamm is no rock critic (the book�s weakest section is the
one devoted to 1970s and 80s rock and pop), but it�d be hard to find a book that
better captures the rich tradition of American songwriting.

86. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America
Tricia Rose, 1994

In one of the first academic books on hip-hop, and still one of the finest, Rose
places rap in its historical framework, framing hip hop as a technologically-
advanced folk music which emerged from the ruins of post-industrial New York. In
2016, the book�s handwringing about rap�s relationship to pop can sound dated, but
Rose�s scholarship stands up, as does her insistence that the genre rates as late-
20th-century America�s greatest art form.