How Music Works
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Narrated by:
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Andrew Garman
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David Byrne
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By:
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David Byrne
About this listen
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • David Byrne’s incisive and enthusiastic look at the musical art form, from its very inceptions to the influences that shape it, whether acoustical, economic, social, or technological—now updated with a new chapter on digital curation.
“How Music Works is a buoyant hybrid of social history, anthropological survey, autobiography, personal philosophy, and business manual”—The Boston Globe
Utilizing his incomparable career and inspired collaborations with Talking Heads, Brian Eno, and many others, David Byrne taps deeply into his lifetime of knowledge to explore the panoptic elements of music, how it shapes the human experience, and reveals the impetus behind how we create, consume, distribute, and enjoy the songs, symphonies, and rhythms that provide the backbeat of life. Byrne’s magnum opus uncovers thrilling realizations about the redemptive liberation that music brings us all.
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“Brilliantly original.”—The New York Times Book Review
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From behind the walls of a handful of well-hidden, unlikely recording studios in the Los Angeles area, legends-in-waiting created masterpiece albums. It was a time of astonishing creativity and unprecedented fame and fortune. It was also a time of unfettered excess that threatened to unravel everything along the way. With access that only a longtime music business insider can provide, Kent Hartman packs Goodnight, L.A. with never-before-told stories about the most prolific time and iconic place in rock 'n' roll history.
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great stories and insight into a miraculous time
- By RWM on 05-27-22
By: Kent Hartman
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Your Song Changed My Life
- From Jimmy Page to St. Vincent, Smokey Robinson to Hozier, Thirty-Five Beloved Artists on Their Journey and the Music That Inspired It
- By: Bob Boilen
- Narrated by: Bob Boilen
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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From the beloved host and creator of NPR's All Songs Considered and Tiny Desk Concerts comes an essential oral history of modern music, told in the voices of iconic and up-and-coming musicians, including Dave Grohl, Jimmy Page, Michael Stipe, Carrie Brownstein, Smokey Robinson, and Jeff Tweedy, among others - published in association with NPR Music.
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Cool if you know all interviewed artists
- By Farfield on 12-05-16
By: Bob Boilen
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Let’s Go Crazy
- Prince and the Making of Purple Rain
- By: Alan Light
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Purple Rain is a song, an album, and a film - each one a commercial success and cultural milestone. How did this semiautobiographical musical masterpiece that blurred R&B, pop, dance, and rock sounds come to alter the recording landscape and become an enduring touchstone for successive generations of fans?
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A Must-Read For Any PRINCE Fan
- By Bryan K. Chavez on 05-06-16
By: Alan Light
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Beatles '66
- The Revolutionary Year
- By: Steve Turner
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
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The year that changed everything for the Beatles was 1966 - the year of their last concert and of Revolver, their first album created to be listened to rather than performed. This was the year the Beatles risked their popularity by retiring from live performances, recording songs that explored alternative states of consciousness, experimenting with avant-garde ideas, and speaking their minds on issues of politics, war, and religion. Music journalist and Beatles expert Steve Turner investigates the enormous changes that took place in the Beatles' lives and work during 1966.
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Great listen
- By Tad Davis on 07-28-18
By: Steve Turner
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The History of Rock & Roll
- Volume 1: 1920-1963
- By: Ed Ward
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 15 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Ed Ward covers the first half of the history of rock & roll in this sweeping and definitive narrative - from the 1920s, when the music of rambling medicine shows mingled with the songs of vaudeville and minstrel acts to create the very early sounds of country and rhythm and blues, to the rise of the first independent record labels post-World War II, and concluding in December 1963, just as an immense change in the airwaves took hold and the Beatles prepared for their first American tour.
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Author's blindspots mar this book
- By Mark Clark on 03-28-17
By: Ed Ward
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Bright lights dark shadows
- The real story of Abba
- By: Carl Palm
- Narrated by: Adrian Mulraney
- Length: 26 hrs and 2 mins
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An exploration of all aspects of the Abba member’s lives and careers. Amazingly detailed, it examines the group member’s family backgrounds, the pre-Abba days, the legendary 70s, the marriages, the divorces, the business ups and downs, and the post-Abba solo careers.
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Awesome! -- All the Swedish words pronounced!
- By Howard_a on 06-18-12
By: Carl Palm
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Chairman at the Board
- Recording the Soundtrack of a Generation
- By: Bill Schnee
- Narrated by: Bill Schnee
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With over 125 gold and platinum records, and two Grammys for Steely Dan's Aja and Gaucho, Schnee has been called a living legend - recognized and respected in the industry as the consummate music man with an incomparable career that he lovingly shares with listeners in humorous detail.
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Worst narration ever!
- By Anonymous User on 01-26-23
By: Bill Schnee
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The Wrecking Crew
- The Inside Story of Rock and Roll's Best-Kept Secret
- By: Kent Hartman
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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If you were a fan of popular music in the 1960s and early '70s, you were a fan of the Wrecking Crew - whether you knew it or not. On hit record after hit record by everyone from the Byrds, the Beach Boys, and the Monkees to the Grass Roots, the 5th Dimension, Sonny & Cher, and Simon & Garfunkel, this collection of West Coast studio musicians from diverse backgrounds established themselves as the driving sound of pop music - sometimes over the objection of actual band members....
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Left Guessing
- By Patrick King on 04-29-14
By: Kent Hartman
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How Music Works
- The Science and Psychology of Beautiful Sounds, from Beethoven to the Beatles and Beyond
- By: John Powell
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Have you ever wondered how off-key you are while singing in the shower? Or if your Bob Dylan albums really sound better on vinyl? Or why certain songs make you cry? Now, scientist and musician John Powell invites you on an entertaining journey through the world of music. Discover what distinguishes music from plain old noise, how scales help you memorize songs, what the humble recorder teaches you about timbre (assuming your suffering listeners don’t break it first), and more.
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Nearly everyone will get something out of this!
- By Tim on 02-18-11
By: John Powell
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The Secret Life of the American Musical
- How Broadway Shows Are Built
- By: Jack Viertel
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
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For almost a century, Americans have been losing their hearts and losing their minds in an insatiable love affair with the American musical. It often begins in actors and reaches its passionate zenith when it comes time for love, marriage, and children, who will start the cycle all over again. Americans love musicals. Americans invented musicals. Americans perfected musicals. But what, exactly, is a musical?
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Great review lacked music
- By joseph f mcgovern on 10-14-18
By: Jack Viertel
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What listeners say about How Music Works
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-26-23
Brilliant from start to finish!
Besides being one of the greatest working artist alive (let alone musician/songwriter), David Byrnes curiosity and exploration is thorough and thoughtful. This, to me, is a MUST read/listen for anyone interested or simply instinctively drawn to making things.
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- J. Goldthwaite
- 11-07-23
Like a class I would have liked to take in college
Though I wish there was more from the last 10 years. It got me to think about music in ways I never had before. Definitely worth listening to.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Grant Newsom
- 01-18-23
Great book. Decent reading
This is not really a book on theory and not the story of David Byrne. This is a philosophical look at music from the perspective of one of the modern geniuses. David is so expressive it makes the monotonous reading a little hard to get through but worth while to have the book in the library.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Mark A. Alexander
- 08-29-24
Lovely meditation on the nature of music
It’s cool to read David Byrne in his own voice. Great rundown on business and licensing models, useful outside music in entrepreneurial ventures.
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- George Reis
- 08-23-24
Interesting concepts about music creation
Byrne brings up issues that I never thought about regarding the creation, performance, and listener's perspective of music. He discusses how certain constraints like the acoustics of the venue it will be played, or the length of a recording on a 78 record, or the compression of CDs, all influence how music is written. The ideas of whether music is written to be listened to live or on a recording were interesting. His work with music of multiple cultures and the responses (or maybe his perception of the responses) were also quite interesting.
He kind of lost me when he spent a lot of time on issues of money in music and some of his political views - but it's his book. He managed to do quite well in spite of the bleak way he describes the renumeration for creating music.
I found the book to be engaging and thought-provoking.
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- ERIC D
- 08-11-24
One of the best
Picked this up on sale, and was pleasantly surprised. This is such a great overview of the artistic approach to pop music from one of the greats. I have always been a Talking Heads fan, but many friends make Byrne out to be a pompous and arrogant A-hole. I went into the book with no expectations but was constantly amazed by the detail and color of the author’s observations and personal experiences. I learned at least 3 books worth of history and references from the first half of this book alone. It’s truly a gift to be able to get such a vivid peek behind the curtain of one of our generations most creative pop artists.
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- Judi S.
- 03-14-23
An Examination of Music and Sound Unlike Any Other
David Byrne’s book both informs and delights. It is both unexpected and predictable. It is both autobiographical and historical. It touches on the mystic as much as it does the scientific. He doesn’t agree with everything, and no one else would either. But he has examined music and sound from all possible directions and many different points of view.
It is impossible for me to imagine the depth and breadth of sound as it affects our existence being covered any better or any more completely. I would recommend this book to anyone as long as they enjoyed deep reflection.
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1 person found this helpful
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- H. Anderson
- 11-15-23
Brilliant and Encyclopedic
I’m always trying to learn more about music, and David Byrne has furthered my knowledge in ways I never imagined. The fact that music was composed to fit the venues in which it was performed, had never occurred to me, nor had the features and limitations of recordings on the composition of music. Byrne explores music’s history, philosophy and science, but he also provides a thorough examination of the music business, including the different kinds of distribution contracts available to recording artists. The only thing that would have improved this book would have been if Byrne had read it, instead of just the preface. Although the reader was good, his repeated mispronunciation of Eli Broad’s surname—it’s Brode,, not Brawd—was irritating. David Byrne knows better.
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- Jon
- 06-21-22
Great content, bland delivery
Many insights here are wonderful, from one of the greatest pop musicians of our time. Some of the information about the music industry is outdated, but still somewhat relevant.
The narration is pretty bland and sounds monotone, akin to a customer service automated system.
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- Rich A.
- 08-18-22
Great Book and Narrator
This is a great book that combines stories about DB's origin and development, with practical info about the music industry over time, aspects of music theory not often explained, and predictions and preferences for where music is going.
The performance of the book was great as well. I can imagine that DB used his ear for sound to select someone who presents his thoughts as he would have.
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2 people found this helpful