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How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop
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- Buy It NowHow to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop
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Located in: Weaverville, North Carolina, United States
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eBay item number:156965626096
Item specifics
- Condition
- Type
- Book
- Narrative Type
- Ethnomusicology
- Intended Audience
- N/A
- ISBN
- 9781933633886
About this product
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Melville House Publishing
ISBN-10
1933633883
ISBN-13
9781933633886
eBay Product ID (ePID)
77543009
Product Key Features
Book Title
How to Wreck a Nice Beach : the Vocoder from Stalin to Frampton to Bambaataa
Number of Pages
352 Pages
Language
English
Publication Year
2010
Topic
Genres & Styles / Rap & Hip Hop, History & Criticism, Ethnomusicology, Genres & Styles / Electronic, Acoustics & Sound
Illustrator
Yes
Genre
Music, Science
Format
Trade Paperback
Dimensions
Item Height
1 in
Item Weight
27.1 Oz
Item Length
9 in
Item Width
7.3 in
Additional Product Features
Intended Audience
Trade
LCCN
2009-050617
Dewey Edition
22
Reviews
"It's unquestionably brilliant, not only one of the best music books of the year, but also one of the best music books ever written." -Los Angeles Times "Dave Tompkins is seven steps ahead of science and several leagues outside of time." -Sasha Frere-Jones, Pop Music Critic, The New Yorker "The best hip hop writer ever born." -Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation, winner of the American Book Award "One of the most bugged, brilliant guys I know." -Oliver Wang, NPR music critic "No one knows more about the vocoder than Dave Tompkins, not even the dude who invented it. [A]n awesome book about the vocoder and its cultural impact… read it immediately." -The Fader "How to Wreck a Nice Beach is much more than a labor of love: It's an intergalactic vision quest fueled by several thousand gallons of high-octane spiritual-intellectual lust. Outside of, say, William Vollmann, it's hard to think of an author so ravished by his subject... A hallucinatory stew of Rimbaud, Tom Wolfe, Lester Bangs, and Bootsy Collins." -New York "This one has cult audience written all over it." -Booklist, "It's unquestionably brilliant, not only one of the best music books of the year, but also one of the best music books ever written." - Los Angeles Times "Dave Tompkins is seven steps ahead of science and several leagues outside of time." -Sasha Frere-Jones, Pop Music Critic, The New Yorker "The best hip hop writer ever born." -Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation , winner of the American Book Award "One of the most bugged, brilliant guys I know." -Oliver Wang, NPR music critic "No one knows more about the vocoder than Dave Tompkins, not even the dude who invented it. [A]n awesome book about the vocoder and its cultural impact& read it immediately." -The Fader " How to Wreck a Nice Beach is much more than a labor of love: It's an intergalactic vision quest fueled by several thousand gallons of high-octane spiritual-intellectual lust. Outside of, say, William Vollmann, it's hard to think of an author so ravished by his subject... A hallucinatory stew of Rimbaud, Tom Wolfe, Lester Bangs, and Bootsy Collins." - New York "This one has cult audience written all over it." - Booklist, "Dave Tompkins is seven steps ahead of science and several leagues outside of time." -Sasha Frere-Jones, Pop Music Critic,The New Yorker "The best hip hop writer ever born." -Jeff Chang, author ofCan't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation, winner of the American Book Award "One of the most bugged, brilliant guys I know." -Oliver Wang, NPR music critic, "Dave Tompkins is seven steps ahead of science and several leagues outside of time." -Sasha Frere-Jones, Pop Music Critic, The New Yorker "The best hip hop writer ever born." -Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation, winner of the American Book Award "One of the most bugged, brilliant guys I know." -Oliver Wang, NPR music critic "We urge you to get robotic and add this gem to your reading list." -Dublab "No one knows more about the vocoder than Dave Tompkins, not even the dude who invented it. [A]n awesome book about the vocoder and its cultural impacthellip; read it immediately." -The Fader
Dewey Decimal
621.38224
Synopsis
The history of the vocoder: how popular music hijacked the Pentagon's speech scrambling weapon The vocoder, invented by Bell Labs in 1928, once guarded phones from eavesdroppers during World War II; by the Vietnam War, it was repurposed as a voice-altering tool for musicians, and is now the ubiquitous voice of popular music. In How to Wreck a Nice Beach --from a mis-hearing of the vocoder-rendered phrase "how to recognize speech"--music journalist Dave Tompkins traces the history of electronic voices from Nazi research labs to Stalin's gulags, from the 1939 World's Fair to Hiroshima, from artificial larynges to Auto-Tune. We see the vocoder brush up against FDR, JFK, Stanley Kubrick, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Kraftwerk, the Cylons, Henry Kissinger, and Winston Churchill, who boomed, when vocoderized on V-E Day, "We must go off " And now vocoder technology is a cell phone standard, allowing a digital replica of your voice to sound human. From T-Mobile to T-Pain, How to Wreck a Nice Beach is a riveting saga of technology and culture, illuminating the work of some of music's most provocative innovators., From T-Mobile to Nazi research labs via Kanye West, this is a riveting saga of technology and culture, illuminating the work of some of music's most provocative innovators., Originally designed as a military device, the vocoder has now become the voice of hip-hop and pop music. It has served both the Pentagon and the roller rink, a double agent of pop and espionage. Music journalist Dave Tompkins traces its incredible history from Nazi research labs to Stalin's gulags, from Hiroshima to Manhattan nightclubs and the Muppets. The result is an amazing chronicle of post-war music and culture, filled with unexpected and surprising encounters with John F. Kennedy, Stevie Wonder, Kanye West and Stanley Kubrick.
LC Classification Number
ML1380.T66 2010
Item description from the seller
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