Kirjahaku

The definitive account of the first rise and fall of Boy George and Culture Club, and British pop music in the 1980s.NEW EXPANDED EDITION, WITH A FOREWORD BY NEIL TENNANTFEATURES A BONUS CHAPTER ON DURAN DURAN AND A NEW AFTERWORD'Speaks from the centure of pop's beating heart.' DYLAN JONES'Fascinating.' NEW YORK TIMES'A controversial and honest account.' NME'Music journalism at its best.' THE WORDA story of money, sex, stardom, screaming fans and forgotten ideals, Like Punk Never Happened is Dave Rimmer's witty, authoritative, fast-moving and provocative insider account of the roller-coaster ride that was Boy George & Culture Club and the new '80s pop.'Rimmer is among the most entertaining writers ever to pen a rock book.'ROCK AND ROLL CONFIDENTIAL'The funniest, smartest book I know about the connections between pop glitter and real-life human passion, the erotics of fandom, or the dirty details.'ROB SHEFFIELD, author of Talking to Girls about Duran Duran'As sharp a study of British pop as we'll get.'SIMON FRITH, CITY LIMITS

Detroit was a Jazz city in the 1950s, but with the dawn of the the Sixties, the sound the city wanted was Soul Music. You can't ignore the influence that Berry Gordy Jr had on the city's music. He built the largest Black American owned company in the world with his Motown Empire. But there was so much more to the music of the Motor City. There were hundreds of little labels who produced music just as good as that of the major labels, but for one reason or another (Usually a lack of promotion and money) they failed to become hits. This book tries to redress that balance, by focusing on the smaller labels and the artists who made great records, but never got the hits. Stuffed full to the brim with Label Listings and Artist Discographies, this is a book for the serious Detroit afficianado.

The Southern States were a rich vein of Soul music, from the major labels, to the little ones with only a couple of releases. This book pulls together the label listings and artist discographies that made that distinctive sound.

The West Coast, sunshine and Soul Two cities dominate the book, Hollywood, and Los Angeles, and not surprisingly the same names keep appearing, either as label owners, or producers, or artists who label hopped. And the address that keeps appearing time and time again is the iconic Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. So it's no wonder there was such an interchange between the different labels really when a huge number of them were on the same street, no matter how long it is.The same format is used in this book as previous ones, I've tried to feature as many little labels that only had a few releases as well as some of the majors who had hundreds. The same with the artists. Some like Ike Turner has a career that strectched over multiple labels, and decades of releases, whereas others might have managed only one or two releases.

New York, from the swooping sounds of Doo Wop, and the grittier sounds of R & B, the Big Apple had it all. And as the 1960's dawned a certain style was developing in New York. Some of the best songwriters and arrangers in the world lived and worked in the city. This coupled with some truly gifted singers created what has become known as the Big City Soul Sound. Suave, sophisticated and Soulful, it's a style that is still revered today by all aficionardo's of quality Soul music. The big players in the city were the Atlantic / Atco group, closely followed by the Scepter / Wand group. There were also the smaller labels, and the artists that didn't make more than one record. The book pulls it all together in a feast of discographical information.

Chicago, the Windy City. Another city with its own sound. Back in the Sixties you could spot which city records were made in by the sound. The writing, production, and arrangements, and of course the musicians, all contributed to that sound. Of course it was partly because the same people in each city tended to play on records for lots of labels, and the same guys in each city owned lots of little independent labels as well. So this book is about that distinctive Chicago sound.For many years the dominate group of labels in Chicago were those owned by the Chess Brothers. From early Blues through R & B, to the heyday of the labels in the Sixties. But as with all the other cities, whilst Chess / Cadet / Argo were the main players, there were lots of other, equally as good, labels, and Okeh ran them a close second, producing some wonderful Soul music.