10 Brilliant Music Books on the Art & Industry
From rock to hip-hop to country to punk to emo, here’s a list of superb music books to deepen the education for you or the music lover in your life.
Lists
These lists highlight the best in music, film, books, television, and games.
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MetalMatters: The Best Metal Albums of January 2025
In January’s best metal, Dax Riggs unexpectedly returns, Sacrifice’s thrash shows no signs of rust and Necromaniac invoke proto-death/black nightmares.
MetalMatters: The Best Metal Albums of December 2024
In December’s best metal, Blackdeath explore off-kilter black metal, Misanthropy open gateways in death metal, and An Axis of Perdition make a return.
15 Awe-inspiring Rock Guitar Solos You Might Not Know
Guitar solos are an intrinsic highlight of rock history. Here we turn over some stones to discover 15 performances lacking the plaudits they deserve.
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The 30 Best Polish Albums of 2024
The best Polish albums featured intriguing new projects, greater stylistic diversity, along with superb post-punk and diffusion jazz.
What If Donald Trump’s Cabinet Picks Really Were Looney Tunes?
Many of Donald Trump’s 2025 cabinet picks came from Fox News. Would the nation be better served if he binged Looney Tunes instead?
5 Great Books That Reinvent Music Criticism
This is by no means a comprehensive survey of contemporary music criticism, but these five books all point a way forward for the field.
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The 80 Best Albums of 2024
The best albums of 2024 challenged orthodoxies, blended and created new genres, and spanned a vast range of musical styles and traditions, while looking forward.
The Best Film of 2024
Our Best Film of 2024 commemorates intriguing films, emerging voices and celebrated doyens searching for stranger narratives and new angles on existing legends.
The Best Books of 2024
PopMatters Best Books of 2024 include a broad range of nonfiction, many books on music, short fiction, a novel that turns a Mark Twain classic inside out, and much more.
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The 15 Best Brazilian Pop Albums of 2024
In Brazilian pop, it’s hard not to connect the best music released in 2024 with the themes that dominated politics, culture, and social media discussions.
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The 20 Best Experimental Albums of 2024
The best experimental albums highlight the breadth of human expression and take listeners to heretofore unknown realms in music, pushing boundaries.