Lucy OBrien Livres

478pages. 24x15x4cm. Broché.

A memoir from Skin, lead singer of rock band Skunk Anansie.

Fully revised and updated with fresh interviews and a striking new cover to celebrate its 25th anniversary, She Bop is the definitive in-depth study of women in popular music.

Madonna is the biggest female pop star in the world yet there is no serious biography of her, and no biography at all by a woman. Existing books are either gossipy style manuals or rehashes of press cuttings and they all end in 2001 with Madonna's marriage to Guy Ritchie. Yet her story hardly ends there, as evinced by her two record breaking world tours since then...Lucy O'Brien's extensive and well-researched biography will look at Madonna the artist, giving detailed analysis of her music, complete with revealing interviews with musicians and producers. It will focus on her cultural impact and the way she uses cinema, photography, visual art, theatre and dance in her work. It will take an in-depth look at how - and, more to the point, why - Madonna has reinvented herself through her twenties, thirties, forties and will no doubt do so again in her fifties. It will also look at the wider context and include interviews with similarly crusading female artists like Tori Amos, Laurie Anderson, Jeanette Winterson and Tracey Emin.This will be, quite simply, the definitive Madonna biography.

The story of Dusty Springfield from the people who knew her, from her troubled childhood to 60s mod queen and enduring pop music icon.

Since She Bop was first published in 1995, digital downloading has transformed the music landscape. But has issue of gender inequality changed too? For She Bop, Lucy O’Brien conducted over 250 interviews with female artists and women working behind the scenes in A&R, marketing, music publishing, and production to write a groundbreaking exploration of sexism in the music industry. Fusing many untold stories, O’Brien presents a feminist history of women in popular music, from 1920s blues to the present day. Talking to iconic artists from Eartha Kitt and Nina Simone to Debbie Harry, Poly Styrene, and Beyoncé, she charts how women have negotiated "old boy" power networks to be seen and to get their music heard. This revised edition updates that story through many fresh interviews and new perspectives. In a new introduction and additional closing chapter, O’Brien asks why, in 2020, women own just 13 percent of music publishing and are still a minority among festival headliners. She celebrates the rise of unique women such as Lizzo and Billie Eilish who are bursting through and creating new possibilities for female artists, while also looking at the struggles of artists like Kesha and Aaliyah, and wondering whether the pop industry has had its #MeToo moment. When she first wrote She Bop, O’Brien questioned the way the music press lumped female artists together under the term "Women in Rock," saying that the ultimate goal was to make that phrase redundant. Now, despite the gender inequalities that still exist, greater awareness means few magazine editors would dare to feature women in such a derogatory way. Published to celebrate the original book’s 25th anniversary—and in the year that also marks the 50th anniversary of Women’s Liberation—this new She Bop will appeal to a huge cross-section of readers, from music fans to the LGBT audience and women of all generations.

A pioneering biography re-evaluating the life and legacy of transcendent musician Karen Carpenter.

A pioneering biography re-evaluating the life and legacy of transcendent musician Karen Carpenter.

Madonna Cicconeová je finančně nejúspěšnější zpěvačka všech dob, jedna z největších žijících popových ikon a nejspíš i nejslavnější žena na světě. Autorka vypráví složitý příběh umělkyně, která neustále přicházela s něčím novým a třicet let po vydání prvního singlu stále ovládá první příčky hitparád. Nechybějí detailní analýzy Madonniny hudby ani zajímavé rozhovory s lidmi jejího okolí - hudebníky, producenty, tanečníky a filmovými režiséry. Autorka sleduje Madonninu cestu od nelehkého dětství přes bouřlivá první léta v New Yorku, skandály v 90. letech, kontroverzní knihu ''Sex'' až po jednadvacáté století, v němž se Madonna stává anglickou dámou a řeší skandál s adopcí malawijského chlapce. - anotace z přebalu knihy