Pop/Rock music in fiction

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I've just finished reading P-P Hartnett's "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide," which got me wondering if there are any good novels about pop/rock musicians. Parts of this book had me cursing aloud, especially when Hartnett 'samples' Manics (and other) lyrics:

"The skin was stretching taut across his chest, clingfilm on the bone. Diet was not a big enough word for what he had been subjecting himself to over the past two years. Since the moment he he had seen himself in all the clarity of his first DVD, he had wanted to be so skinny that he rotted from view. So light that he could walk in the snow and not leave a footprint behind him."

At points such as these I recoil in embarassment for Hartnett. If you haven't read the book, the plot concerns a teenage rock star, more than loosely modelled on Richey Edwards, who after an exhausting tour, finds that he cannot go through with his suicide attempt and does a disappearing act into the life of his self-mutilating, No.1 fan.

Although not quite plunging to the depths of irredeemable dross (It does instill a great sense of dislocation,) I found "Rock 'N' Roll" suicide to be a deeply unsatisfactory read. I'm not sure why this seems to be the case in every book I've read that has attempted to portray a musician as the central character. I found Iain Banks's "Espedair Street" to be lightweight, though maybe surprisingly I found Jackie Collins's "Rock Star" to be the most credible attempt, piled high with intrigue and back-stabbing. There are also a couple of others so dire that I forget what they're called.

So what is it that makes these novels so bad (terrible band names/song titles for a start?) Are there any half-decent ones, or should I have a go myself?

So to recap: Pop/Rock music in fiction: RFD, RFI, C/D, S&D, whatever.

― Ben Dot, Monday, 8 September 2003 01:59 (twenty-one years ago)

There's this brilliant trash early seventies paperback I found about a year ago -- maybe even in NZ? -- called Song of the Scorpions by one Paul Tabori. A very thinly veiled take on the Stones' travails in the sixties (oddly enough, the Stones are even mentioned in the book) combined with a Brian Epstein like manager. No classic, but wonderfully weird and insane.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 8 September 2003 02:04 (twenty-one years ago)

For Salman Rushdie's "The ground beneath her feet" decent is the word. DeLillo's "Great Jones street" is good.

― Bruno- (Bruno-), Monday, 8 September 2003 02:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I'll back up Rushdie, though only on the grounds of the prose itself. Spectacular storytelling, but admittedly, aside from some humorous re-writing of (music) history, it's rather shoddy on the rock-star side of the business. I mean, Rushdie studied fucking U2 for insight, so there you go.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 8 September 2003 02:15 (twenty-one years ago)

I strongly recommend "Not Fade Away" by jim Dodge - his descriptions of real and fictional rock n' roll and Jazz Music are excellent and, at times, moving. The story is rather lovely too.

― jed (jed_e_3), Monday, 8 September 2003 02:30 (twenty-one years ago)

"Powder" is a not-bad novel that does this sort of thing. it helps if you picture the band as Coldplay or Starsailor

― the surface noise (electricsound), Monday, 8 September 2003 03:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I've heard good things about Great Jones Street, but being both a fan of pop music and DeLillo(just finished the most wonderful 'The Names'), I've held off reading it, either through fear of disappointment or having my head explode at the sheer goodness. should I go for it?

― derrick (derrick), Monday, 8 September 2003 04:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Camden Joy - "The Last Rock Star" is about Liz Phair. But I've never found a copy (and forget to Amazon it), so I dunno if it's any good.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 8 September 2003 04:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Second 'Powder' (I imagined The Verve) and Espedair St.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Monday, 8 September 2003 04:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, Derrick, read it. A classique book! I read Cosmopolis as well and, though most panned it, I really enjoyed it. But then compared to Great Jones Str it is indeed a stinker. :-)

― nathalie (nathalie), Monday, 8 September 2003 10:27 (twenty-one years ago)

anne rice to thread

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Monday, 8 September 2003 10:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Currently enjoying 'Basket Case' by Carl Hiasen. it's a crime novel centred arounds the death of some Nick Cave-like character - the singer in Jimmy Stoma nad the Slut Puppies. What were the band called in 'Espedair Street', alled, though. Frozen Gold, or something. Always reminded me of Marillion.

― laticsmon, Monday, 8 September 2003 10:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Ground Beneath Her Feet gets everything that matters wrong.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Monday, 8 September 2003 11:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I second Paul Tabori's Song of the Scorpions. I read this as a 13 year old and had never imagined such stuff - bisexuality! drucks! iirc the nascent scorpions hang out in a club called "the womb" (?) whose entrance is suitably designed. re-read a year or two ago and its enjoyable trash. better than Powder which I couldn't finish, Espedair St is fun and if we're aloud to move into film/TV I have fond memories of Johnny Jarvis, and the David Essex vehicles.

― geoff, Monday, 8 September 2003 12:06 (twenty-one years ago)

What was the name of the rapper in A Man in Full? Doctor Ram-Ram or something? That shit was funny.

― Tom Breihan (Tom Breihan), Monday, 8 September 2003 12:12 (twenty-one years ago)

One of the main characters in The Stand by Stephen King is a pop singer that has a big hit right at the time everything goes to shite.

I read a short story by Garrison Keilor a long time ago about a local rock band that was pretty funny and much more on the mark than you would expect, considering the writer.

― earlnash, Monday, 8 September 2003 13:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Wow, I thought I would have been the only one to hear of this! It's required reading for Sean and Arthur at least.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 8 September 2003 13:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Nick Cave-like? Never thought of that.
on a timely and topical whatsit, Zevon cowrote some of the Basket Case lyrics and then Hiaasen (who's mentioned Zevon plenty in his books), I think, returned the favour on My Ride's Here, which also feat. Hunter S. Thompson.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 8 September 2003 14:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Brett Easton Ellis ownz.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Monday, 8 September 2003 14:54 (twenty-one years ago)

ownz whut?

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 8 September 2003 14:59 (twenty-one years ago)

you!

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Monday, 8 September 2003 15:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah Rushdie has awful tastes. but the reflection on music is interesting. not the "rock-star side" (Ormus Cama) but the PoMo side (Vina Apsara).
Strangely enough my favorite novel about pop music is french (but it isn't available in translation)

― Bruno- (Bruno-), Monday, 8 September 2003 16:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Powder, I only got halfway through.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 8 September 2003 17:03 (twenty-one years ago)

D: Kicking Tomorrow by Danny Richler. Pee-yew! "a punk rock Catcher in the Rye" proclaims a blurb on the cover. Pee-yew!x1,000,000!

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 8 September 2003 17:04 (twenty-one years ago)

i liked a lot of the bitchy music biz stuff in powder, but i didn't enjoy it on the whole.
the exes by pagan kennedy and our noise by nick gomez cover the american indie thing. the former is okay, the latter is pretty terrible - total pseudo-sensitive boyrock navel-gazing stuff. ick.
there's also barney hoskyns' lonely planet boy, which gets the desperate fan thing right if nothing else.

― lauren (laurenp), Monday, 8 September 2003 18:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Strangely enough my favorite novel about pop music is french (but it isn't available in translation)

What's it called Bruno?

― Angus Gordon (angusg), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 03:51 (twenty-one years ago)

harlan ellison's "spider kiss" (his only novel!), a 1950s roman-a-clef about jerry lee lewis that everyone not unreasonably assumed was about elvis. has anyone else read this? it's long out of print I think, my copy is a severely battered old original paperback.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 04:41 (twenty-one years ago)

the exes by pagan kennedy and our noise by nick gomez cover the american indie thing.

i enjoyed both but yeah Our Noise is terribly namedropping. the follow-up Geniuses of Crack is utterly wretched

― the surface noise (electricsound), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 04:43 (twenty-one years ago)

harlan ellison's "spider kiss" (his only novel!)

Er? No it isn't -- I admit he hasn't written epics but he has done other short works.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 04:55 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, I know, but are any of them officially "novels"? i seem to remember ellison once complaining about people (he's good at that, isn't he?) who didn't take him seriously because he didn't write them.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 05:47 (twenty-one years ago)

What's it called Bruno?

Jean-Jacques Schuhl, Rose poussière

― Bruno- (Bruno-), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 17:18 (twenty-one years ago)

eleven years pass...

Has anyone ever told the story of a fictional band well, in any medium?
Other than Spinal Tap, obv...
I remember liking the Paddy Doyle Commitments books and the movie but I have no idea if they hold up.
Maybe the key to pulling this off is to tell the story of a not-great band?

― Brio2, Monday, 8 December 2014 17:44 (ten years ago)

I enjoyed Gary Benchley, Rock Star, personally.

― Οὖτις, Monday, 8 December 2014 18:55 (ten years ago)

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