New Books in Music Podcast
1) Ani DiFranco and Lauren Coyle Rosen, "The Spirit of Ani: Reflections on Spirituality, Feminism, Music, and Freedom" (Akashic Books, 2026)
Rebekah Buchanan talks with Ani DiFranco about her latest collaborative work The Spirit of Ani: Reflections on Spirituality, Feminism, Music and Freedom (Akashic Books, 2026). In this powerful collabo...Show More
2) Ailbhe Kenny, "Music Refuge: Living Asylum through Music" (Oxford UP, Press 2025)
How can music change people’s lives? In Music Refuge: Living Asylum Through Music (Oxford UP, Press 2025) Ailbhe Kenny, an Associate Professor in Music Education at Mary Immaculate College Ireland, e...Show More
3) Michael Glover Smith, "Bob Dylan as Filmmaker: No Time to Think" (McNidder and Grace, 2026)
A deep dive into one of the most overlooked -- and fascinating -- sides of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature winner: Bob Dylan, the filmmaker. While his music and lyrics have been studied endlessly, ...Show More
4) Stephen Stacks, "The Resounding Revolution: Freedom Song After 1968" (U Illinois Press, 2025)
What happened to freedom singing after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination? Stephen Stacks considers this question in The Resounding Revolution: Freedom Song After 1968 (U Illinois Press, 2025). H...Show More
5) Paul Rees, "Raised on Radio: Power Ballads, Cocaine and Payola - the AOR Glory Years 1976-1986" (De Capo, 2026)
Paul Rees' Raised on Radio: Power Ballads, Cocaine and Payola - the AOR Glory Years 1976-1986 (De Capo, 2026) is a massively entertaining oral biography of the golden era of critically derided yet mon...Show More
6) Ian Gittins, "The Cure: A Perfect Dream" (Gemini Books, 2025)
The story of The Cure: a tall tale of a truly unique British band. The Cure's story is a fantastical pop fable, but their trajectory has not been one of unbroken success. Along the way, their uneven,...Show More
7) Areum Jeong, "K-Pop Fandom: Performing Deokhu from the 1990s to Today" (U Michigan Press, 2026)
K-Pop Fandom: Performing Deokhu from the 1990s to Today (U Michigan Press, 2026) insists that K-pop fan practices and activities constitute a central productive force, shaping not only K-pop’s explosi...Show More
8) Bill Kopp, "What's the Big Idea: 30 Great Concept Albums" (Hozac, 2025)
As long as there has been music, the form has been used as a vehicle for storytelling. Artists who have something to say often find that putting it into music is the ideal means of communicating thoug...Show More
9) Hilary French, "Ballroom: A People’s History of Dancing" (Reaktion Books, 2022)
In the early twentieth century, American ragtime and the Parisian tango fuelled a dancing craze in Britain. Public ballrooms were built throughout the country, providing a glamorous setting for dancin...Show More
10) Justin L. Mann, "Breaking the World: Black Insecurity and the Horizons of Speculation" (Duke UP, 2026)
Breaking the World: Black Insecurity and the Horizons of Speculation (Duke UP, 2026) takes Black speculative fiction as a central archive for understanding global security culture from the Reagan admi...Show More