books about music worth reading

[The Culture Bunker]

I liked that 4ad book though if I remember rightly I came away from it thinking that Robin Guthrie seemed like a complete tool.

Yeah - the old "musician with gripes (usually financial) against the label boss" stuff, though the lads from AR Kane seemed to like him.

[jamiefairlie]

Yeah - the old "musician with gripes (usually financial) against the label boss" stuff, though the lads from AR Kane seemed to like him.

Does piss me off that to be honest. Barney from New Order is always moaning about Wilson and Factory's mismanagement but that was the deal, you got all the advantages of being on an indie with 'principles' but you also have to accept the financial downsides too. Don't expect the big money and freedom to come in the same package.

[The Culture Bunker]

Does piss me off that to be honest. Barney from New Order is always moaning about Wilson and Factory's mismanagement but that was the deal, you got all the advantages of being on an indie with 'principles' but you also have to accept the financial downsides too. Don't expect the big money and freedom to come in the same package.

Sumner maybe has more of a legitimate issue, as by the mid 80s, he had been part of several top 20 singles (and Blue Monday sold by the bucketload) and a few top 10 albums, but a lot of his cash was being poured into the Hacienda. Plus there was the tax bill the band got stung with as the Inland Revenue thought they were hiding the cash made from merch sales - which all turned out to be bootleg stuff that the band saw nothing from due to Factory's purist stance!

I've less sympathy with Guthrie, as I struggle to imagine many other people taking a punt on a band as wonderfully unusual as the Cocteau Twins. But he might just be a miserable auld Scottish git.

[cosmic-hearse]

David Toop's Rap Attack is an excellent account of hip-hop's early years.

As is Toop's Ocean of Sound, which is (loosely) about ambient music.

[Ignatius_S]

Are those 33 1/3 books any good?

Have managed to gather a few, particularly interested in Ezra Furman writing about Transformer

Due to the concept, they're a mixed bag. John Darnielle's one about The Black Sabbath: Master of Reality is essentially looking at the album through the eyes of a fictional character - I suspect most will either love or hate that approach.

Although there's a couple of duff ones I've read, they're quick reads and normally got something out of them. Although a fair few, I suspect the less you know, the more you'd get out of it.

[Ignatius_S]

Sumner maybe has more of a legitimate issue, as by the mid 80s, he had been part of several top 20 singles (and Blue Monday sold by the bucketload) and a few top 10 albums, but a lot of his cash was being poured into the Hacienda. Plus there was the tax bill the band got stung with as the Inland Revenue thought they were hiding the cash made from merch sales - which all turned out to be bootleg stuff that the band saw nothing from due to Factory's purist stance!

I've less sympathy with Guthrie, as I struggle to imagine many other people taking a punt on a band as wonderfully unusual as the Cocteau Twins. But he might just be a miserable auld Scottish git.

A lot of the smaller bands on Factory got royally screwed over and simply didn't see much or any of the money they were due.

[iamcoop]

Shout out for Mark Lanegan's book Sing Backwards and Weep.

Probably the most genuinely brutal of the "drug-addict rock star" books I've read, but it's laced with biting humour and he could really write.

He also pulls no punches in admitting what a cunt he was to a lot of people and it also brilliantly describes how fucking shit it must be to be a heroin addict.

There's no laying on bean bags whilst feeling on-top of the world here - it's more like puking black stuff onto a council flat staircase in Slough whilst desperately trying to score during a shit tour of the U.K, with no money.

Contains an amusing anecdote about nearly getting Josh Homme killed, his beef with Liam Gallagher (which is worth the book cost alone) and a very funny story about Kurt Cobain smashing up a TV in disgust at seeing Smells Like Teen Spirit being played on MTV yet again, only for a car to immediately drive past their hotel window absolutely blasting it out, much to his absolute despair.

9 bags of China white out of 10.

[Ignatius_S]

My bookshelf seems to back this up - quite a few books on music, but they seem to be mostly inventories or list books.

Ones not mentioned above that I'd recommend to people:

Recording The Beatles by Ryan & Kehew
The Fallen by Dave Simpson (The Fall)
Any Day Now: Bowie The London Years 1947-74 by Kevin Cann
Ginger Geezer by Lucien Randall & Chris Welsh (Viv Stanshall)
The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music ed. Colin Larkin - this is like Revolution In The Head, in that it was written in the pre-internet days, and lots of the entries are quite opinionated - you have the choice of the single volume, or the six-volume library edition.

Books on the shelf that I haven't read yet (but got recommended to me):

Eternal Troubadour: The Improbable Life Of Tiny Tim by Alanna Wray McDonald and Justin A. Martel
Inner City Pressure: The Story of Grime by Dan Hancox
Relax Baby Be Cool by Jeremy Allen (Serge Gainsbourg)
Letters To Gil by Malik Al Nasir (Scott!! Heron!!!)

Edited to add Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981–1991 by Michael Azerrad. Must have got that off LibGen...

There's another book about Tiny Tim, which is worth reading - by Lowell Tarling. He states that he's written it from a fan's perspective and says as there's Eternal Troubadour, there was no point trying to do a biography - however, Tarling is far more objective than he claims and his brevity arguably offers something that ET doesn't; it's about half the length and I feel there's a decent argument that less can be more, but it's great to have options.

[pigamus]

bass culture - reggae - lloyd bradley

exit stage left - afterlife of pop stars - nick duerden

small hours, the john martyn book

[Good Hank]

A lot of the ones I'd recommend have been mentioned, but I'll add some floating around my head right now:

Totally Wired: Post-Punk Interviews and Overviews by Simon Reynolds - companion piece to Rip It Up but worthwhile on its own.

You Never Give Me Your Money by Peter Doggett - scabrous tread through The Beatles' finances.

The Dirt by Motley Crue - ridiculous, and they're all arseholes, but very entertaining.

Before We Was We by Madness - oral history of the band which stops as soon as My Girl is a hit. Great but a bit disappointing unless they've planned a sequel.

Don't Look Back in Anger, Too Much Too Young, Walls Come Tumbling Down and Like Some Forgotten Dream, all by Daniel Rachel - books on britpop, 2 Tone, RAR/Red Wedge and an alternative Beatles 70s respectively. Only the latter is a bit meandering.

Both of Duane Tudahl's Prince books - completely exhaustive and absorbing.

Curepedia by Simon Price - I'm up to about C in this and I don't imagine any other books on The Cure need to be written.

Rockonomics by Alan B. Kreuger - an eye-opening and surprisingly readable walk through of the modern music industry.

John Higgs' book on The KLF is wonderful, as is his book linking The Beatles/James Bond.

Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids by Nige Tassell - self-explanatory; great fun.

Adventures in Modern Recording by Trevor Horn - surprisingly self-deprecating riffle through the great man's career.

[markburgle]

Englands Dreaming - Jon Savage.

I - while admittedly a relatively shallow young bloke - kept bailing on England's Dreaming, finding it boring, and only cracked it when I skipped the first 60 or so pages, which I remember being mostly about the Situationists and Malcom McLaren's art degree. The meat of it was fantastic though.

I don't understand why anyone likes The Fallen. It's less about the Fall than about the author - a fairly annoying ordinary bloke - and his attempts to write the book you're reading. Tracking down everyone who played in the band seems pointless if you're just going to ask them how mental Mark E Smith was though, was he mental, bet he was mental wasn't he etc

[iamcoop]

Can I also recommend the podcast Songbook - The White Rabbit Podcast , hosted by the fantastic Jude Rogers.

White Rabbit books are a great publisher of music books, and this podcast interviews musicians or authors (or anyone involved in the arts)  about their favourite music books, and just about music writing in general.

If you're into music books and podcasts I can't recommend it enough, and I've discovered so many amazing books I would never have even heard about had I not discovered it.

Essential listening, for me Clive.

[iamcoop]

I don't understand why anyone likes The Fallen. It's less about the Fall than about the author - a fairly annoying ordinary bloke - and his attempts to write the book you're reading. Tracking down everyone who played in the band seems pointless if you're just going to ask them how mental Mark E Smith was though, was he mental, bet he was mental wasn't he etc

I know what you mean about this, and it certainly has its self-indulgent moments, but as a Fall obsessive who's read pretty much everything ever written about the group I think it's one of the better ones.

Whilst it's based on the "he sacked everyone" myth that isn't actually true, it is kind of a fun narrative and it was interesting to read the side of the story from the bit-part players.

Also most of them actually say stuff along the lines of "He's insane and was a complete cunt to me, but it was the most exhilarating three months of my life and I'd go and play with him again in a heartbeat" so it's not quite the Mark Smith hatchet job a lot of people seem to think it is.

[Cleveland Steamer]

Are those 33 1/3 books any good?

The ones I've read haven't been very good - either poorly written/researched or more about the person writing it than the record itself. And the 69 Love Songs one was just bizarre. The one about Spiderland was alright, although you're better off watching Breadcrumb Trail.

[Cleveland Steamer]

Shout out for Mark Lanegan's book Sing Backwards and Weep.

Probably the most genuinely brutal of the "drug-addict rock star" books I've read, but it's laced with biting humour and he could really write.

He also pulls no punches in admitting what a cunt he was to a lot of people and it also brilliantly describes how fucking shit it must be to be a heroin addict.

There's no laying on bean bags whilst feeling on-top of the world here - it's more like puking black stuff onto a council flat staircase in Slough whilst desperately trying to score during a shit tour of the U.K, with no money.

Contains an amusing anecdote about nearly getting Josh Homme killed, his beef with Liam Gallagher (which is worth the book cost alone) and a very funny story about Kurt Cobain smashing up a TV in disgust at seeing Smells Like Teen Spirit being played on MTV yet again, only for a car to immediately drive past their hotel window absolutely blasting it out, much to his absolute despair.

9 bags of China white out of 10.

+1 for this post. A grim, miserable and bleakly hilarious book. Even if you don't give a shit about his music, Lanegan was a damn good writer.

[bobloblaw]

A lot of the ones I'd recommend have been mentioned, but I'll add some floating around my head right now:

Totally Wired: Post-Punk Interviews and Overviews by Simon Reynolds - companion piece to Rip It Up but worthwhile on its own.

You Never Give Me Your Money by Peter Doggett - scabrous tread through The Beatles' finances.

The Dirt by Motley Crue - ridiculous, and they're all arseholes, but very entertaining.

Before We Was We by Madness - oral history of the band which stops as soon as My Girl is a hit. Great but a bit disappointing unless they've planned a sequel.

Don't Look Back in Anger, Too Much Too Young, Walls Come Tumbling Down and Like Some Forgotten Dream, all by Daniel Rachel - books on britpop, 2 Tone, RAR/Red Wedge and an alternative Beatles 70s respectively. Only the latter is a bit meandering.

Both of Duane Tudahl's Prince books - completely exhaustive and absorbing.

Curepedia by Simon Price - I'm up to about C in this and I don't imagine any other books on The Cure need to be written.

Rockonomics by Alan B. Kreuger - an eye-opening and surprisingly readable walk through of the modern music industry.

John Higgs' book on The KLF is wonderful, as is his book linking The Beatles/James Bond.

Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids by Nige Tassell - self-explanatory; great fun.

Adventures in Modern Recording by Trevor Horn - surprisingly self-deprecating riffle through the great man's career.

Seconded for Higgs' books. Recommend listening on audiobook as he's got a great reading voice

Anyone read any of Jeff Tweedy's books?

Quite fancy Gil Scott Heron's autobiography, The Last Holiday, and Sly Stone's recently-published one, too- can anyone recommend either?

[BJBMK2]

Seconded for Higgs' books. Recommend listening on audiobook as he's got a great reading voice

Anyone read any of Jeff Tweedy's books?

Quite fancy Gil Scott Heron's autobiography, The Last Holiday, and Sly Stone's recently-published one, too- can anyone recommend either?

I'm a big fan of Higgs too, but please, anyone reading who's not familiar, get the old paperback edition of the KLF book, with the yellow cover. The new hardback edition contains some very poor, self aggrandizing, unfunny footnotes, sort of an attempt at a "directors commentary", that doesn't come off at all.

[flotemysost]

Great thread idea, and seconding the gratitude for all the recs so far - some really interesting-sounding stuff.

Enjoyed This Is What It Sounds Like by Susan Rogers and Ogi Ogas when it came out a couple of years ago - basically it's Prince's sound engineer attempting to accessibly and entertainingly demystify the neuroscience of how and why music affects us how it does, seasoned with the occasional example or anecdote from her expansive CV (but never in a overtly name-drop-y way).

Anyone who's more technically clued-up about this stuff than me (an extremely low bar) might find it simplistic or going over familiar ground, but as someone who's endlessly fascinated by the sheer sorcery of how music packs such a profound and immediate emotional punch above other art forms, I found it very readable. Also I've only just realised while typing this post that the title is a reference to When Doves Cry, duurrr.

I invariably end up reading musicians' autobiographies when I'm on holiday, and unsurprisingly lots of the ones by 80s/90s rock stars published in the 00s really ramp up the "lurid tour anecdotes" aspect. Now I'm not naive enough to think this isn't the main selling point in many cases, but at risk of sounding like the biggest square in all of Boringville, unless someone's a cracking storyteller then much like in real life, listening to someone harping on about that time they got really wasted often *isn't* actually all that riveting, imho. Once you've read a couple of "shock value" yarns about groupies and drugs it all kind of washes over you a bit, I find - ooh I wonder what's going to happen in this next chapter, LET ME GUESS

(Reading Slash's detailed account of heroin withdrawal symptoms while weathering a potent swell of motion sickness on a long-haul flight was probably unwise, I'll admit.)

Anyway, Lanegan's effort sounds like an exception to this - interest definitely piqued by your description there, @iamcoop. Also had a big (sad) laugh at that Cobain story. Mate.

'Complicated Game: Inside The Songs of XTC' by Andy Partridge and Todd Bernhardt

Aw, enjoyed this one a lot as an incipient fan - as mentioned above, am intrigued by the songwriting process in general so was ace to read about the nuts and bolts of a newfound musical preoccupation.

Anyone read Simply Thrilled: The Story of Postcard Records by Simon Goddard? Have had a copy loitering on my shelf for years, but as with so many things I've yet to get round to it. Really useful addition to the thread there, I know.

[Good Hank]

Anyone read any of Jeff Tweedy's books?

I read How to Write One Song, which was very slight but supportive. The takeaway is 'write, even if it's shit, because at least you're writing a song'.

[jobotic]

Has anyone read...

Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit for Rotti g Vegetables by Alex Ogg?

been meaning to get it out of the library.

The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross

I did get this out of the library and didn't get round to reading it.


I also have Girlsville: The Story of The Delmonas and Thee Headcoatees to get round to reading.

[badaids]

Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klostermann is a sort of US counterpart the aforementioned very wonderful book Hell Bent For Leather by Seb Hunter. Except it's by a young metal fan that grows up in some piss hole American town in the 80s.  It's good, very funny and lots of very insightful Taylor Parkes-esque thoughts on metal musings?  I.e. what is the difference between hard rock and heavy rock? I won't spoiler the answer.

[Good Hank]

I once listened to I Am Ozzy, Osborne's autobiography, read by Frank Skinner. That was a hoot.

A few more while they've come to me:

This Must Be the Place by David Bowman - Talking Heads biog; David comes off much better than Tina, who the author seems to have a great deal of contempt for.

Broken Greek by Pete Paphides - heartbreaking, affirming memoir by one of the most beautiful music writers out there.

Everybody Loves Our Town by Mark Yarm - an oral history of grunge. Pretty good and quite balanced between the stars and also-rans.

The Song Machine by John Seabrook - how are pop hits made? Boringly, according to this.

Perfecting Sound Forever by Greg Milner - fascinating history of recorded sound itself and the quest for the highest fidelity we can manage.

Rememberings by Sinéad O'Connor. Like a poem. What a writer - all power to Sinéad.

Like Punk Never Happened by Dave Rimmer. Interesting time capsule of the peak of the New Pop. I think they're re-releasing this soon.

Denim and Leather by Michael Hann - fun oral history of NWOBHM. No Maiden and all the better for that.

Don't Stop the Music by Justin Lewis - day by day music trivia by decent Twitter bloke.

Burning Down the Haus by Tim Mohr - ace exploration of the East German punk movement and how the regime tried to eradicate it.

The Show That Never Ends by David Weigel - illuminating history of the glory years of prog.

[Kankurette]

Other music books what I have read:
 - Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. by Viv Albertine (Slits guitarist, a real eye opener for how shit life was for women in the '60 and '70s)
 - Passion is a Fashion, a Clash biography by Pat Gilbert
 - The World's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Scandals by David Cavanagh, although I was a bit young to really get it - btw it has a good section on trans musicians
 - Rat Girl aka Paradoxical Undressing by Kristin Hersh (Throwing Muses singer)
 - Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth)
 - Piece by Piece by Tori Amos (would not recommend unless you're a big fan, also you will never want to hear the word 'archetype' again after reading it - Resistance is better and made me cry when she talked about her mum's death)

I've not read Michael Azzerad's biography of Kurt Cobain, but it's meant to be excellent. A friend said it made him cry (in a good way).

[Dirty Boy]

General:
Our Band Could Be Your Life (80's-90's punk/hardcore)
Future Days the Krautrock book
Conform To Deform the book about the Some Bizzare label although i found the second half rather tedious.
Medical Grade Music (Steve Davis and Kavus Torabi evangelizing weirdo prog and electronic music and ending up DJing at Glastonbury and forming a band together)
Who Cares Anyway by Will York (San Francisco punk and post-punk oddities all the way from The Residents to FNM/Mr Bungle. I'd never heard of most of these bands, but you get a real in depth sense of the music/art scene as a whole)

Individual bands:
All Gates Open (Can)
Small Victories (Faith No More)
Sacrifice and Transcendance (Swans oral history)
Lydia Lunch - The War Is Never Over
Mike Barnes Captain Beefheart book
Space Is The Place (Sun Ra)
Henry Cow The World Is A Problem (overly academic imo, but i enjoyed it)

Autobiographies:
Miles
The Big Midweek (Bassist from The Fall)
Art Sex Music - Cosey from Throbbing Gristle
My Bloody Roots - Max Cavalera
Psychiatric Tissues - Jeff Schneider from noise rock band Arab On Radar

Just finished the Rob Halford one. Very funny.

Seconding or thirding the Mark Lanegan one. Not very funny. That and Art Pepper's Straight Life are the most brutal ones i've read.

[flotemysost]

My Bloody Roots - Max Cavalera

Just thought I'd say I'm absolutely creasing up at this title. Dunno, something about the low-effort "sincere pun" format usually reserved for X factor also-ran type memoirs.

Sorry, as you were (solid list of suggestions there, btw)

[Cleveland Steamer]

Who Cares Anyway by Will York (San Francisco punk and post-punk oddities all the way from The Residents to FNM/Mr Bungle. I'd never heard of most of these bands, but you get a real in depth sense of the music/art scene as a whole)

Woooh this looks extremely up my street, will try and track down a copy, cheers.

[Dirty Boy]

Just thought I'd say I'm absolutely creasing up at this title. Dunno, something about the low-effort "sincere pun" format usually reserved for X factor also-ran type memoirs.

True :D Not a bad read though if you ignore him banging on about how some medicore song on Soulfly's 23rd album is the heaviest thing ever.

Woooh this looks extremely up my street, will try and track down a copy, cheers.

If you do, the author also does a very good podcast under the same title.

[BJBMK2]

Wondrous Place by Paul du Noyer, about Liverpool music over the years. Revolution in the Head is a rundown of every Beatles song but is very technical and can be a bit dry at times (and I like Helter Skelter, Ian McDonald can stfu).

Two of my favourites are Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein and Fingers Crossed by Miki Berenyi, from Sleater-Kinney and Lush respectively. Avoid Bit of a Blur by Alex James. If you didn't already hate him, you will by the time you've finished.

He calls Helter Skelter "literally a drunken mess", like that's some kind of bad thing? Some of my best friends are literally drunken messes. They also have blisters on there fingers.

Props also to the weird little bit in the Glass Onion entry, where he appears to blame Lennon for his own death (via Lennon's love of cryptic wordplay and trolling his audience).

Thing is, I can appreciate a lot of the wrong, WRONG opinions in Revolution In The Head, cos there mostly put together in an entertaining and well written way. But then you remember, the author committed suicide when he was only in his 50s. Yes, I'm playing Ceattee Psychologist, but it kind of colours all his cynical takes in that book, especially in that latter chapter when he just dismisses virtually every piece of music made after about 1972.

-------

I would call myself quite the Blur fan, but I've never picked up that Alex James book, and never plan to tbh. I've read the one Graham put out last year, Verse Chorus Monster. He comes off as a fairly decent bloke, even when he's talking about his days as an alcoholic bellend in the 90s. It does slightly rub me the wrong way though, when he VERY casually describes his gf and child that he just abandoned.

[Kankurette]

Did not know that about McDonald killing himself. Damn.

He's right that Piggies is awful though.

[steveh]

bass culture - reggae - lloyd bradley

Seconded - also Sounds Like London, his history of black music in the capital. Bradley does proper social history unlike most, explaining how things fit with the wider picture. I learned a lot about Jamaican history from Bass Culture. In contrast, Bob Stanley's Yeah Yeah Yeah I liked but he generally treats music in isolation rather than how it was affected by social, political and technological changes. Both of Bradley's books do tail off at the end of the eighties though and he's quite harsh on later dancehall and slackness.