Should They Stick to Music?

With six days still to wait until ‘Track 5’s release, I thought I would help fill the gap with a bit of a rant on one of my favourite hobbyhorses.

(An iconic album cover, photo by Robert Mapplethorpe.)

It will come as no surprise to those following ‘Challenge 69’ that I have read a lot of music orientated books over the years, both (auto)biographical and fictional, but with a few honourable exceptions (some of them championed below) I have more often than not ended up underwhelmed, and quite frequently bloody annoyed, by the poor quality of the writing.

There are, obviously, a lot of music journalists now plying their trade in this field (having run short of music publications to write for), whose efforts, once stretched over a format longer than an album review, are often mixed, but what I am really talking about, where that quality plummets, is when musician/industry figures themselves decide to take charge of the (non-musical) keyboard.

Even the most eloquent of lyricists, it seems, can suddenly lose their ability to put words together engagingly (or even grammatically!) when they try turning their hands to prose. Many a story I wanted to hear told; behind a musical career I had always admired, or the making of a much-loved album, has been ruined by the author’s lack of craft. (I do realise of course this sets me up for a charge of, “who’s he to talk!”)

There are far too many examples of this for me to list (and I would hate to give them the publicity), but a recent disappointment will serve to make my point, ‘Creation Stories’ by Alan McGee. What should have been a fascinating tale of building a record label from scratch and somehow, along the way, managing to sign ‘the biggest band on the planet’, essentially became 336 repetitive pages which could instead have been summarised in one sentence, “then I took a lot more drugs and did something else stupid.” I managed to get through to the end, though I still don’t know how (or why).

So, in a minituarised Japanese forest of music writing, who, in my opinion, has managed to grow the tallest bonsai? Which musicians have proven successful alchemists, turning their base lyricism into literary gold?

In a format you will be getting used to by now I will give you my top five music themed book recommendations in a reverse order:

5 - David Byrne - ‘How Music Works’ - Partly autobiographical, but so much more. A hugely ambitious attempt to write a complete history of how music emerged, how it has evolved since, moving right through to the ways it is disseminated in today’s market. It is very opinionated, and I often disagree with David’s assertions (which is part of the enjoyment), but it is brilliantly written and thought provoking throughout.

4 - Mat Osman - ‘The Ruins’ - Music fiction is, as a rule, even worse than biography, with authors failing miserably whenever they try to set their stories in or around the music business, but Mat (the bassist in Suede) proves the exception to that rule, with an engaging, well plotted book based around a (once famous) musician. In my world it is Mat who ought to be topping the bestseller lists, not his (annoying!) brother.

3 - Pat Nevin - ‘The Accidental Footballer’ - The sharp eyed will have spotted Pat is not a musician! This deserves a place on my list though, because in amongst his insights into the weird world of a professional footballer, Pat weaves some fascinating passages where he articulates, as well as I have ever read, the joy to be gained as a fan of (alternative) music. The sections where he sits in on the Peel show are pure gold.

2 - Mark Oliver Everett - ‘Things the Grandchildren Should Know’ - I mentioned this in my last chapter, and it clearly helps if you are an Eels fan, but I think the book transcends that with a vividly articulated tale of a life punctuated by a series of personal tragedies, yet one told with perspective and humour. The passages about his father, a genius (but misunderstood) quantum physicist, are simply fascinating.

And, by a country mile!

1 - Patti Smith - ‘Just Friends’ - I must admit to a bias here, Patti will always be one of my most treasured ‘musical mavericks’, but this is simply a stunning, peerless book. Yes, it is a great, insightful story of how her music career came about, but it becomes much more than that, a poetically told eulogy to her multi-layered relationship with the talented photographer and artist Robert Mapplethorpe. You will never read a better or more touching story of friendship.

Earlier I accused Allan McGee of spreading one sentence over 336 pages, but I now realise I may have just (on a slightly smaller scale) committed the same crime, what I really meant to say was …

… just read ‘Just Friends’, it is brilliant.