If You Liked This Song, Why Not Read This?

Others I can think of right away:

Rachel's Sea and the Bells album tells us to read Pablo Neruda. Of course, I'm familiar with his works.

Lambchop's Nixon recommends a number of books about Tricky Dick.

The notes to Black Star tell us that some song was inspired by some Toni Morrison thing and that we should read it.

Oh and to beat Tadeusz to it, I think Zappa's "Chrome-Plated Megaphone of Destiny" (or something on that album anyway, maybe the whole thing) is supposed to be listened to after reading Kafka's "In the Penal Colony".

Sabres of Paradise's "Haunted Dancehall" is allegedly based on a book of the same name. Don't know if that counts as a recommendation. I never checked it out.

In general, I'm pretty disappointed when musical artists recommend books. They're usually profundity-lite or self-help manuals. (Momus is of course an exception.)

Rage ATM does this with a photograph of some reactionary and communist literature. Also the lyrics of Richard Buckner's The Hill is made up of Edgar Lee Masters' poems from the Spoon River Anthology.

Sonic Youth recommends Philip K Dick.
I don't know if Harry Crews qualifies because that was the band name; but hell the name appears on the cover. :-)
As I already knew the names and even read some of their books, it didn't really matter. But I quite like bands doing this. Le Tigre also namechecks on their last album but as far as I remember not writers.

NB DJ Spooky can suck it.

piano magic are always referencing brautigan for some unknown reason. brautigan is awful

The Manics used to do this kind of thing to the point of self-parody. They had about eighteen literary quotes on their first album and Richey used to bore his groupies to death going on about Camus.

I think Damon Albarn said that the Parklife album was inspired by Martin Amis's London Fields.

Matthew Herbert has a list of "essential reading". I bought the Murakami book for my wife. I wish I would somehow find/make the time to read it myself.

Jack's penultimate album recommended Nabokov, but I preferred the idea of nico's CHildren.

Mekons do this on "Honky Tonkin". Recommend a number of books, including cookbooks and travel guides, some paintings and films, and recommend them as sources for specific songs. Quite entertaining really. I think I ended up reading Dashiell Hammett because of these notes, and am a happier man for it.

oh, job you really should.

josh i woke up this morning and found the message about buying a meshell ndegeocello record and hoped to god it was some concept joke, re. olympia and brians plan on how to find a job there.

The Poster Children are major book-recommending fiends, though this happens most often with their website these days.

Thanks for name-checking the PKids, Ned! The Poster Children get my top endorsement for their music, their shows, their website AND their literary taste.

Hurrah! Yes, a wonderful and friendly band -- good balance between Ze Art and Ze Personalities. Must get that DVD...

well, not liner notes, but the lyrics to the first track on the first Dexy's album:

"the man is looking for someone to hold him down
never heard about
can't think about
oscar wilde and brendan behan
sean o'casey, george bernard shaw
samuel beckett, eugene o'neil
edna o'brien and lawrence stern
sean kavanagh and sean mccann
benedict keilly, jimmy hiney
frank o'connor and catherine rhine"

Which is practically a reading list. And the inverse in the last track, 'there there, my dear':

"keep quoting cabaret, berlin, burroughs, jg ballard, duchamp, beauvoir, kerouac, kierkegaard, michael rennie. I don't believe you really like Frank Sinatra."

Which is, I think, an anti - reading list.