Good books about music

Please kill me.

Oh well. Read it anyway. It's amazing. And Our Band Could Be Your Life. If you're interested in criticism, check out Psychotic Reactions and Carbeurator Dung or anything by Lester Bangs or one or two Greil Marcus books (The Basement Tapes). I'd stay away from Camden Joy, contrary to popular opinion.

I need something that doesn't take too long to get into

But you're going to college, man! Just buy Adorno's Essays on Music and accept that the next 4+ years of your life are going to be like that mwahahaha...

I also enjoyed Last Night a DJ Saved My Life and there's the ever-classic Generation Ecstasy.

I had never heard of Tate until I saw him speak not long ago. He is a BAD. ASS. Does he still write for The Voice? I feel like I never see him in there. Does he have a blog?

I'm mostly interested in reading a book of his since his prose is fairly magnificent.

If you want a cracking funny read on hip-hop, though, pick up The Rough Guide to Hip-Hop by Peter Shapiro, which has just been updated and enlarged (it was a pocket-size the first time, now it's 8 x 10). Best line goes to the Bad Boy Records writeup, when he notes that Puff Daddy, having been responsible for 40% of all 1997's number ones, moved to the Hamptons "so he could live by the sea, just like his magic dragon namesake."

Same here! (Of course there's also the Led Zep bio.)

Next week on "The O.C.": Seth and Ryan get into a fatal disagreement over "James Taylor: Marked For Death," while Summer meets a new hottie who shares her disgust of Nick Hornby.

Dino by Nick Tosches (about Dean Martin; as deep as Catch a Fire by Timothy White, as entertaining as that Motley Crue book)

Backbeat: Earl Palmer's Story, by Tony Scherman (oral history/autobiography of the New Orleans drummer; had me at "Louis Armstrong was a pimp"...)

We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk by Marc Spitz and Brendan Mullen (better than Please Kill Me, kind of like L.A. punk itself)

I was torturing this guy in the garage of my mom's house in this nice suburban neighborhood with my whole family inside eating Easter dinner... and I'd got this guy tied up in the rafter with a rope around his legs and I'm beating him with a two-by-four. I said, "Hang on a minute," and put the two-by-four down and walked into the house and kissed my aunt and said like, "Oh hi, how you doing?" I grabbed a deviled egg, told them I'd be back in a minute, and I went back out, grabbed the two-by-four, and kept workin' on the guy. I finally had to get out of Vicious Circle 'cause of the violence. There were constant stabbings and beatings and people cruising by my house at night, shooting up the neighborhood....

I did something pretty bad to somebody and they retaliated with guns. It was a big deal, I had to split to Alaska for a while, they cut the lines on my car, blew up my car... fuck...I don't wanna say who they were, but they weren't punks... boy, they were pissed off.

i went on holiday with the Deborah Curtis book and the Nick Drake biography once. happy times, let me tell you.

if you ever find dave rimmer's "once upon a time in the east", abt berlin east and west b4 the fall of the wall, i utterly UTTERLY recommend it: tho it's only somewhat abt music - unlike his earlier (and also good) "like punk never happened"

Joe Carducci's Rock and the Pop Narcotic is being reissued sometime this year.

Electronic and Experimental Music by Thom Holmes
also; Wireless Imagination (d kahn / g whitehead)
Paul Griffiths - A Concise History of Avant-Garde Music
Paul Griffiths - Modern Music And Beyond
Curtis Roads
William Duckworth : Talking Music
Cage: Silence / A Year From Monday
Cage / Feldman: Conversations
James Tenney : Meta / Hodos
Karlheinz Stockhausen - Stockhausen on Music (Compiled by R Maconie)
Sound By Artists (ed. Dan Lander)
Chris Cutler - File Under Popular
Attali - Noise
Russolo - The Art of Noises (get a hold of a copy any way you can)
Trevor Wishart - On Sonic Art
Douglas Kahn - Noise Water Meat

i think the attali book is lousy at book length—it's a good short polemic idea bulked out to a contradictory nonsense schema—and wireless imagination is patchy (which is a pity, cz it's a great idea for an essay collection)

The Elvis Guralnick books - again, you don't have to care about the subject matter to enjoy them (personally, I was so-so on Elvis before readin' 'em, am now an unabashed fan), and the second one is one hell of a car wreck: the descent starts like twenty pages into it, and by the end of the book you can't even feel sorry for the guy anymore, you just wonder why he hasn't kicked the bucket already.

"Where Did Our Love Go?" by Nelson George has some nice anecdotes, and is probably the best book on Motown around, tho to be frank I didn't learn all that much from it.

"The Heart Of Rock & Soul" seconded, and throw in the "New Book Of Rock Lists" too, if only for the sheer joy of reading the sentence "Tragedy The Intelligent Hoodlum Lists..." over and over again (not that book of rock jokes, tho, that was awful.) And also "Fortunate Son: The Best Of Dave Marsh", great stuff on Elvis, Muddy Waters, latino rock, etc.

I remember reading Maryiln Manson's "The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell" in my early teens and being surprised by how good it was (I'd always loathed the guy's music.) Dunno if it holds up.

"Sweet Soul Music", hell yeah.

I've read the entirety of Christgau's consumer guide online, and there's some great, great stuff there. So the books are recommended, too.

yay I've been wanting to read that one for a while!

adding to my prev post here leroi jones 'blues people' which I just finished this morning: most gd bks on music accept that they aren't just abt notes and chords.

You mean it's not long enough? I loved the book. Should re-read it...

I also loved the Lexicon Devil (bio on Darby Crash) though it's certainly not essential...

the ONLY thing wrong with JMC's line is that he somewhat slightly seems to accept the assumption that the social dimension—the "dance"—isn’t also always part of all music in the West (though he does this in the context of getting ppl to see/hear/look for the fuller sense of the meaning of music): taking his insights abt Africa (Ghana, to be more accurate) and applying them everywhere else is revelatory

Most of it is a charming telling of him learning African drumming in Ghana

And I hope someone someday undertakes a lengthy Sabbath bio.

Reading this: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo245098701.html

feels kind of relevant for the next time I have to go The Rapist Memorial Center for the Rape Arts (formerly the Kennedy Center).

Shouting Out Loud Lives of the Raincoats
By Audrey Golden
Good biography of d.i.y. punk band best known as all female but they didn't start out as such or remain permanently that once they had gone all female. Remained extremely interesting throughout though.

Formed out of the punk and squatting scenes but were still a bit outside of that for most of their existence. I'm not sure what the sound was with original male guitarist and drummer cos I'm not sure if anything was recorded at the time. Certainly nothing professional.

But reading this has me listening to Odyshape a bit more and thinking of buying their other albums.

Thanks, and like I replied when Stevo gave us this news on What Are You Reading, 2025 Gina Birch album is really good (thanks to sleeve for posting about it).

Street-level superstar, Lawrence biography by will Hodgkinson. A would be star, a music lifer living in public housing as he walks around town yearning for what could have been while never really wanting to escape his fringe existence. Funny read, and his new Mozart Estate album rocks too

Glenn McDonald's You Nave Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song: How Streaming Changes Music is an important book if you have questions about the whole streaming thing, from how your subscription money is distributed to what they are listening to in the Philippines and Estonia (partial answer: not just Bieber and Drake (though that too)). Better yet, it is a deeply enjoyable book if, like me, you were an avid reader of The War Against Silence back in the day. Plus, I Love Music gets a mention!

Just saw that book at the Jefferson Market Library on the Pay-What-You-Wish shelf.

Aw, thanks!

In today's newsletter I review Now Jazz Now, a catalog of essential free jazz releases 1960-1980 compiled by Byron Coley, Mats Gustafsson and Thurston Moore. Plenty of records I've loved for years, plenty I've never even heard of.

https://burningambulance.substack.com/p/now-jazz-now

I second that Jazzactuel collection. One of my favorite little various artist comps.
Don't think I'll get the book, but am happy you listed 10 to check out, as I haven't heard any of those.

Actually, most of the albums in your second list are available to t0rr3nt – the Tom Prehn is the only one I haven't been able to find, which isn't that surprising when you consider that only three copies of it are known to exist (I assume one of them is with Gustafsson). Personally, I'm happy to listen to flacs – my crate-digging days are long gone.

Wife preordered the new Alice Coltrane by Andy Beta for me for Valentine's Day, looking forward to it.

I'm reading Alan Light's book about Fleetwood Mac's Rumours right now. It's not very deep but it is an interesting approach, largely looking at how the album has been a cultural force in various ways in the past 50 years, including Clinton's use of "Don't Stop" and the pandemic phenomenon of the guy on the skateboard drinking Ocean Spray and listening to "Dreams." He talks to a lot of random Gen Z folks to find our how they've experienced different songs, and again it's an interesting tactic though a little overdone, I think he goes pretty hard on it to pad out the book's length.

The Masahiko Togashi, Michel Portal, and Edward Vesala albums on your second list are on Tidal.

In today's newsletter I review Now Jazz Now, a catalog of essential free jazz releases 1960-1980 compiled by Byron Coley, Mats Gustafsson and Thurston Moore. Plenty of records I've loved for years, plenty I've never even heard of.

https://burningambulance.substack.com/p/now-jazz-now

― placeholder username till I think of a better one (unperson), Tuesday, February 17, 2026 11:25 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I enjoyed the book very much, and learned a lot, but I'll say this: while I have the utmost respect for Gustaffson as an artist and scholar of this music, his writing leaves much to be desired.

Speaking of which, who is RESPONSIBLE!! for this kind of U L T R A Stylized dippy Hepcat jazz PROSE? Do we blame Amiri Baraka for this?

I feel like Byron Coley has been doing that for decades. I inherently distrust most things Coley and Moore have to say about music because everything for them so clearly revolves around crafting an impeccable aura of perfect taste. It just puts me off. But I am not opposed to mining their writing for recommendations for new music and leaving everything else in the dumpster

maybe that's not fair to Byron, my comment really only applies to Thurston on reflection

You're right, this is a longtime Byron affectation, but I guess he's been doing it for so long that I barely notice. I guess when other people attempt to write in that style, I just find it conspicuous to the point of distraction

Coley’s writing has gotten more normal over the years, at least in his Wire column which is the only writing of his I see, and our Skot thinks he’s good people so that’s what counts to me for boomers lately

^ definitely factors into my assessment of him as well

I have met him on several occasions, he's definitely good people

I inherently distrust most things Coley and Moore have to say about music

But I am not opposed to mining their writing for recommendations for new music and leaving everything else in the dumpster

do what now?

I’ve been on a Nina Simone binge and read What Happened, Ms. Simone? by Alan Light was pretty good and more detailed than the documentary of the same name. I also picked up her autobiography but haven’t read it yet. I gather she is not the most trustworthy source, but reading her perspective should be interesting.

The new My Bloody Valentine book is fine. There’s some good bits but there’s not a lot of meat there. It’s not a fair comparison, but after reading about Nina, MBV was short on interesting stories.

I wouldn't blame Baraka for that kind of writing, at least not when he was still Leroi Jones and wrote Black Music and Blues People (although he wasn't above the occasional sneer at those who didn't dig the kind of music he championed).

But yeah Coley got better in the Wire and Perfect Sound Forever (his PSF John Fahey piece was credited with reviving Fahey's career, when the Rhino dudes read it and put together Return of the Repressed.)

Coley totally a R Meltzer disciple

New book chronicles Sheffield's music history across seven decades
https://ra.co/news/84686

Groovy, Laidback And Nasty maps the city's DIY lineage, from post-punk and synth futurism to bleep techno, bassline and indie rock.

Groovy, Laidback and Nasty
A History of Independent Music in Sheffield
Author
Daniel Dylan Wray

https://store.whiterabbitbooks.co.uk/products/groovy-laidback-and-nasty?_pos=1&_sid=d9c977e11&_ss=r

Spanning seven decades and with over 150 new interviews, including Richard Hawley, Arctic Monkeys, Self Esteem, ABC, Pulp, Def Leppard, The Human League, Toddla T, Cabaret Voltaire, Warp Records, Clock DVA, Heaven 17 and many more

From dazzling electronic futurism to pioneering post-punk, via pop, metal, bassline, bleep techno and generation-defining indie rock, Sheffield has long been a crucible for world-leading music.

Some artists have excelled on the fringes, others have achieved global success, but all remain connected through a fervently independent ethos. In Sheffield, creativity flourished in the face of isolation, economic decline and bleak political circumstances, resulting in some of Britain's most groundbreaking and singular music. But the region's ingrained humility and dogged stoicism means it has never been documented or celebrated to the level of more hubristic cities.

In Groovy, Laidback and Nasty, acclaimed Sheffield journalist Daniel Dylan Wray sets out to remedy this, telling the story of the city's DIY spirit and the musical visionaries and innovators who helped build its inimitable legacy.

Both a compelling cultural study and an unapologetic love letter to the city, this - finally - is the definitive musical history Sheffield so richly deserves.

Published: May 07 2026
Pages: 416
ISBN: 9781399625234

new bio of Alice Coltrane (by Andy Beta) comes out today, looking forward to this one.

oooooh groovy laidback and nasty.

Uncharted Territory by Chris Dalla Riva is an interesting one, in which the author analyzes Number One songs from the Billboard Hot 100 going back to the '50s and tries to isolate trends and patterns in those songs over time. It's a book sure to start arguments over its methodology and its many conclusions, but it represents a different, macro way of looking at pop music and it also functions as a primer on the music business written in a style that's simple and clear almost to a fault.

Any similarity to what Chris Molanphy does on Slate ("Why Is This Song No. 1?")?

xxp i started the Alice Coltrane book last night, its good so far. His big problem is that there's such a dearth of material about her for a biographer to draw upon - hardly any interviews or profiles from her lifetime. But he does a good job so far of writing around the holes in her bio in a way that doesnt feel like padding, painting a kaleidoscopic picture of Detroit's 50s jazz scene, the black church culture she grew up in, etc.

I just got a PDF of it from the publisher - am going to start reading it myself, probably this weekend. First I need to finish a review of two books about Prestige Records, one a history of the label and the other a coffee-table book focused on their album art.

Any similarity to what Chris Molanphy does on Slate ("Why Is This Song No. 1?")?

Not sure, I've never heard that. The Chris Dalla Riva book deals with such measures as "lyrical complexity," how many #1 songs are written or produced by the artist, average "acousticness" of #1 hits, structure of #1 hits in terms of verse-chorus-bridge etc., average size of Wikipedia entry for different #1 hits (which is kind of an interesting one), and so on.

Sounds like it could be an interesting thing to read alongside Tom Breihan's The Number Ones, which picked 20 #1 hits from the 1950s to the 2000s and analyzed the songs, the performers' career arcs, musical trends, stuff like that, kinda attempting to explain what each song "said about America" at the time.

A link for Chris Molanphy's column:

https://slate.com/tag/why-is-this-songno1

Yes, it looks like there could be some overlap with what Molanphy is writing about there. And the Breihan book sounds kind of adjacent as well.

I met Coley outside smoking a couple times at the 1000 Incarnations of the Rose Fahey fest in Takoma Park, couldn't have been friendlier, fun guy to talk to

The new My Bloody Valentine book is fine. There’s some good bits but there’s not a lot of meat there. It’s not a fair comparison, but after reading about Nina, MBV was short on interesting stories.

Turn My Head Into Sound? I've found that to be kind of a sub par book, to be honest. It's got a lot of recording/gear stuff that's wrong, implying Rowland S Howard made the jazzmaster famous (it was actually Jaguar in the 80s- pedantic maybe, but this is a shoegaze book), wrong year for Marquee Moon, guitar "peddles." I'd have to read it again, but the head-spinning description of "glide guitar" seems to be fundamentally misunderstood, or at least poorly conveyed. I get that literally the entire thing is sourced from 80s/90s press but it hit a point with errors on practically every page that I had to just put it down.

Well shit, I was thinking that at least it had cool gear info.

https://old.tapeop.com/tutorials/26/my-bloody-valentine-1/

https://tapeop.com/interviews/26/my-bloody-valentine-2

Buncha stuff to chew on there if you haven't ever seen those.

I've reviewed the Alice Coltrane biog at length for the next We Jazz, but I'd agree with the comments above. There's more of Coltrane's voice in there as we get into their mature work, but I think Beta finds good workarounds. I really loved reading about the Detroit she grew up in, and while he draws quite heavily on Mark Stryker's Jazz From Detroit, he adds plenty of his own research, including valuable interviews with some of Alice's peers like Bennie Maupin.
I'd echo Richard Williams' comments that Beta tends to take the spiritual stuff on face value. I think that's probably the right decision as a more sceptical/critical approach might seem disrespectful. He leaves it to reader to make of it what they will, but some might want a bit more scrutiny.
Personally, I'd have liked a bit more musical analysis, but perhaps that's another book. But he does do a good job of recognising the range of her music, including how intense and harrowing it can be, aspects a lot of current spiritual/ambient jazz artists claiming her as an influence dilute/erase.

Really enjoyed the section on her early groups in Detroit and it hipped me to her first recorded appearance from 1957. That rippling piano style is immediately recognisable. Lovely stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JhfSMUV8n4

Picked up the Alice Coltrane book last night, excited to dive in, also got the Sonny Simmons bio Better Do It Now Before You Die Later that Blank Forms published last fall

Just started the Alice bio this morning. Long awaited, excited to be digging in.

Really enjoyed the section on her early groups in Detroit and it hipped me to her first recorded appearance from 1957

Yeah i was blown away to discover she was represented in the Fortune Records catalog! Two worlds that I never wouldve thought collided

Wait, what?

yeah the first record she played on, with early group The Premiers, was on Fortune (per Stew's youtube embed)

also got the Sonny Simmons bio Better Do It Now Before You Die Later that Blank Forms published last fall

― chr1sb3singer, Wednesday, March 4, 2026 10:28 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Didn't know about this, please report back after you read it.

Keen to read the Simmons too. Point of Departure published an extract: https://www.pointofdeparture.org/PoD93/PoD93Simmons.html

Anyone in NY read Ronen Givony's Us v. Them: The Age of Indie Music and a Decade in New York (2004-2014)?

Craig Robertson's Chris Knox bio Not Given Lightly is remarkable, though 'd be curious how the surrounding cultural context reads to non-NZers. Growing up in 50s/60s Invercargill, brrrr.

I wrote about Paul Elie's The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex and Controversy in the 1980s, which isn't entirely about music (he also talks about Andy Warhol, Salman Rushdie, The Last Temptation of Christ and Czeslaw Milosz) but is mostly about how pop stars (Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, U2, Sinéad O'Connor) grappled with religion and social issues in the '80s.