Sound and Vision: A guide to music's cult artists―from punk, alternative, and indie through to hip hop, dance music, and beyond

by John Riordan

Love music? Love illustration? Want to know more about some of the best musicians ever to record—from Bowie and the Beastie Boys to The Smiths and St. Vincent? Then Sound and Vision is for you.

Love music? Love illustration? Want to know more about some of the best musicians ever to record—from Bowie and the Beastie Boys to The Smiths and St. Vincent? Then� Sound and Vision �is for you.

Featuring 100 of the coolest artists from the last five decades, Sound and Vision reveals the influencers and tastemakers who have helped to shape the contemporary music scene. Award-winning illustrator and comic artist John Riordan profiles cult musicians from genres including punk, indie, alternative, hip-hop, and electronic music. Not only does John create amazing illustrations, he also outlines key works from the artists and provides engaging trivia to accompany each entry. Enlightening, often amusing, and always stunning to look at,� Sound and Vision is a unique blend of the aesthetic and the acoustic and is an essential addition to any music fan’s collection.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

160 pages, Hardcover

Published October 4, 2016

Reviews

[Giulia Renzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

The parts about the ‘70’s and the 80’s are quite complete to me. There are all the names you want to know about and something more, but the book kinda lost itself in the 90’s 2000 and mid 2000. That’s probably because the author haven’t focused on a specific genre of music and it’s quite difficult to make everyone happy but, c’mon. Green Day, the whole emo scene and and even Madonna and Lady Gaga weren’t even mentioned. It is true that the author said that he would’ve wrote only about the musicians he likes but still, there are a lot of things missing. I don’t blame him, writing books about music could possibly be one of the hardest things to do. Gave 3 stars because the book it’s wonderfully illustrated and actually made me discover a bunch of musicians I didn’t know about until I read this book.

[Rashika · Rating 3 out of 5]

All the artists from the 70s and 80s really did model their specific decade. John really did showcase their beauty with interesting tidbits. But he really lost me from the 2000s and beyond. There were some pretty amazing artists that shaped the 2000s and 2010s and they were not mentioned at all. Instead what came in were some mediocre or unknown artists from these two eras. But at the same time, the author did mention that this book was about his likes. So on that point, he's right.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very high level look at some iconic artists, but the art is incredible. (Sort of British bias.)

[Martin Bainbridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three stars for the writing and five stars for the fantastic drawings.

[Emilie Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This book totally rules. I could talk about it for ages but I'll try to be concise.
Essentially it's a profile of some of the top cult-favorite musical artists of the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s and 10s. Each decade gets between 10-15 artist, each artist with 1-2 pages dedicated to them. It gives a little profile, maybe history, to try and paint a picture of that artists influence at the height of their relativity. It also lists their best album and track, complete with a cartoony illustration by the author John Riordan.

But what makes this book totally unique-- it comes with a Spotify playlist!!! So you can literally read about the musicians while listening to the song selected to represent them. From there, a Spotify user can be like "oh dang, that album sounds cool I wanna hear it NOW!" or you read about the inspiration for a specific song, and you can BAM listen to that right then and there. I personally took to just saving the albums that peaked my interest, and then in musical downtime I head to my saved albums and continue my research. I've discovered so many artists and new appreciations for old favorites from this book. I can't believe I've gone this long in my life without actively listening to Joni Mitchell, or Lou Reed, or even knowing who Tom Waits was. Buy this book for yourself, buy it for a friend, just have it and share it because life will be better.

[Jehnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An encylopedic list of the author's top 100 non-mainstream musicians. Riordan makes some unexpected distinct choices but he has a ton of knowledge. It's a fun book for music fans.