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dr_oligo's review
4.0
Totally enjoyable even if I don't have a strong connection to all of the music being discussed. My take away is that it is hard to leave behind the passions of your formative years, regardless of whether it still loves you back. There is something about those years that becomes hard-wired into your brain.
flightyrachel's review
What happens when pop and rock stars fall out of fashion and people stop buying their records? This is a light, enjoyable read which gets a little samey as the author carefully avoids anything too dark or tragic. He's definitely more likely to interview Ian Watkins of Steps than Ian Watkins of lostprophets. So you have several chapters of the druggies, the people who got a proper job, and the people still making music despite no one really listening to it. It's breezily written and sometimes very funny (I particularly enjoyed the wry recounting of Leo Sayer's words of wisdom).
The moral, if there is one, is that the best thing to do as a UK musician is buy a London townhouse house cheaply in the 1970s or 80s and then sell it a decade or two later for a million pounds, or failing that, move to Australia or the US and tell everyone you're big in the UK, whilst never going back and finding out that you're not.
(I was completely charmed by lovely Natalie Merchant, who, unlike almost every other musician featured, realised she'd made a life changing amount of money, and quietly set about changing the lives of others, working unpaid with disadvantaged children. )
The moral, if there is one, is that the best thing to do as a UK musician is buy a London townhouse house cheaply in the 1970s or 80s and then sell it a decade or two later for a million pounds, or failing that, move to Australia or the US and tell everyone you're big in the UK, whilst never going back and finding out that you're not.
(I was completely charmed by lovely Natalie Merchant, who, unlike almost every other musician featured, realised she'd made a life changing amount of money, and quietly set about changing the lives of others, working unpaid with disadvantaged children. )