Archive for Paul McCartney

The Bad Penny’s Top 10 Music Books of 2025

Posted in Features, Lists, What You Readin' For? with tags , , , , , , , , , on 11/19/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Most music fans can’t read music. But they can read about music – the larger-than-life personalities, the history of various genres, the often-times truth-is-stranger-than-fiction dynamics that keep one of the entertainment industry’s least profitable yet universally beloved pillars standing.

For the first time ever, The Bad Penny shares what we consider to be the most essential nonfiction books about music that came out in a year during which citizens across the country tolerated book bans and censorship in Authoritarian America. Mark these words: What happened this year and is still happening in libraries and schools in the U.S. will go down as one of the most shameful “chapters” in this country’s history.

Read whatever books you want to read, and enjoy doing so, because in this unpredictable hellscape, who knows what rights we might lose next.

1. Patti SmithBread of Angels: A Memoir (McNally Jackson)

Buy here.

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Cover Me: Mark Bacino’s Queens English

Posted in Cover Me, Features, Interviews with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on 09/20/2010 by Kurt Orzeck

In the latest installment of “Cover Me,” power-pop prince Mark Bacino re-envisions his latest album, Queens English (DreamCrush/ Redeye), which dropped earlier this summer on Amazon and iTunes. In addition to granting the Bad Penny a downloadable MP3 (scroll to the bottom of the post), he wonders what the songs would sound like if they were performed by Steve Earle, Jeff Tweedy, even Archie & Edith Bunker – and seals it all with a Kiss. Continue reading