The following booklist represents a portion of the books available in the Northglenn High School library. For additional books on this topic or related topics, please visit the library or use Destiny to search the collection.

Hip-Hop is History

782.42164 QUE

This is a book only Questlove could have written: a perceptive and personal reflection on the first half-century of hip-hop.

When hip-hop first emerged in the 1970s, it wasn't expected to become the cultural force it is today. But for a young Black kid growing up in a musical family in Philadelphia, it was everything. He stayed up late to hear the newest songs on the radio. He saved his money to buy vinyl as soon as it landed. He even started to try to make his own songs. That kid was Questlove, and decades later, he is a six-time Grammy Award-winning musician, an Academy Award-winning filmmaker, a New York Times bestselling author, a producer, an entrepreneur, a cofounder of one of hip-hop's defining acts (the Roots), and the genre's unofficial in-house historian.

The Classical Music Book

781.68 CLA

From Mozart to Mendelssohn, this fresh new guide goes beyond your typical music books, offering a comprehensive overview to classical music history and biography. If you thought it was difficult to learn about music theory, The Classical Music Book presents key information in an easy to follow layout. Explore the main ideas underpinning the world's greatest compositions and musical traditions, and define their importance to the musical canon and into their wider social, cultural, and historical context.

Dreaming in Ensemble: How Black Artists Transformed American Opera

782.1 CAP

The inauguration of a "golden age" in Black opera is often dated to 1955, when Marian Anderson became the first Black singer to perform in a leading role at New York's Metropolitan Opera. Yet Anderson's debut was actually preceded by a rich Black operatic tradition that developed in the first half of the twentieth century. Lucy Caplan tells the stories of the Black composers, performers, critics, teachers, and students who created this vibrant opera culture, even as they were excluded from the genre's most prominent institutions. Their movement, which flourished alongside the Harlem Renaissance, redefined opera as a wellspring of aesthetic innovation, sociality, and antiracist activism.

I'll Love You Forever: Notes from a K-Pop Fan

92 KWO

Written from the perspective of a bilingual and bicultural Korean American, I'll Love You Forever blends the critical with the personal. Kwon interweaves profiles of different K-pop idols with ruminations on various aspects of Korean culture, from the country's attitude toward plastic surgery and female sexuality to its obsession with academia. Combining insightful critique and adoring analysis, I'll Love You Forever provides readers with a fuller picture of a culturally and socially complex industry and the machine and heart behind its popularity. Above all, Kwon offers up the passion of a superfan, finding joy in K-pop along the way.

Long Live: The Definitive Guide to the Folklore and Fandome of Taylor Swift

782.42164 POM

Long Live explores the evolution of Taylor Swift, as well as the ride that fans have been on with her through two decades of personal milestones—hers and ours, good and bad. Take a trip through Taylor's eras from the start of her career, stopping at each album and its iconic songs, the hidden Easter Eggs, and the relationships that have informed her music.

3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool

920 KAP

In 1959, America's great indigenous art form, jazz, reached the height of its power and popularity. James Kaplan's magnificent 3 Shades of Blue captures how that golden era came to be, and its pinnacle with the recording of Kind of Blue. It's a book about music and business and race and heroin, the cities that gave jazz its home, and the Black geniuses behind its rise. It's an astonishing meditation on creativity and the strange environments where it can flourish most. It's a book about the great forebears and founders of a lost era, and the disrupters who would take the music down truly new paths. And it's about why the world of jazz most people know is a museum to this never-replicated period.

Heartbreak is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music

782.42164 SHE

A cultural phenomenon. A worldwide obsession. An agent of emotional chaos. There's no parallel to Taylor Swift: a teenage girl who turns into the world's favorite pop star, songwriter, storyteller, guitar hero, live performer, changing how music is made and heard. An all-time great on the level of The Beatles, Prince, or David Bowie. Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music is the first book that goes deep on the musical and cultural impact of Taylor Swift.

Playing for Freedom

92 ADI

As an Afghan girl, Zarifa Adiba has big, unfathomable dreams. Her family is poor, her country mired in conflict. Walking to school in Kabul, Zarifa has to navigate suicide bombers. But Zarifa perseveres, nurturing her passion for music despite its "sinful" nature under Taliban law. At sixteen she gains admission to the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, and at eighteen she becomes the lead violist, co-conductor, and spokesperson for Zohra, the first all-female orchestra in the Muslim world.

Playing for Freedom is the deeply compelling story of a woman who dares to compose a masterpiece even with all odds stacked against her.

Roots Punk: A Visual and Oral History

781.66 ENS

Punk rock evokes dissent and disruption, abrasive and anarchic musicality, and a host of countercultural aesthetics. Featuring original interviews and over one hundred images, Roots Punk: A Visual and Oral History focuses on how punk merged with roots music to create a rich style that incorporated honky-tonk, rockabilly, doo-wop, reggae, ska, jazz, folk, blues, and labor ballads.

The History of Gangster Rap: From Schoolly D to Kendrick Lamar: The Rise of a Great American Art Form

782.42164 BAK

The History of Gangster Rap is a deep dive into one of the most fascinating subgenres of any music category to date. From still-swirling conspiracy theories about the murders of Biggie and Tupac to the release of the 2015 film Straight Outta Compton, the era of gangster rap is one that fascinates music junkies and remains at the forefront of pop culture. Filled with interviews with key players such as Snoop Dogg, Ice-T, and dozens more, as well as sidebars, breakout bios of notorious characters, lists, charts, and more, The History of Gangster Rap contextualizes the importance of gangster rap as a cultural phenomenon.

Country Music

781.642 KAL

While country music has deep roots in American culture, new country sounds by artists like Kasey Musgraves and Kane Brown are appealing to an increasingly diverse group of listeners. Country Music discusses what today's musicians are doing, how they attract a following, and what they are saying through their music.

K-Pop

781.63 KAL

South Korean K-pop bands like BTS, EXO, and Black Pink are breaking music industry records on the pop charts, in the concert halls, and on social media websites. K-Pop discusses what today's musicians are doing, how they attract a following, and what they are saying through their music.