Lost in Music

by Giles Smith

Librarian's Note: Alternate-cover edition for ISBN 0330339176

'If you have ever watched a band play or bought a pop record you should read this book' John Peel

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography, Autobiography, Audiobook, British Literature, 20th Century

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Giles Smith is a British journalist for The Times. In 1998 he was named best journalist of the year. He attended Colchester Royal Grammar School.

Smith was one of the members of a band called Orphans Of Babylon who in 1983 produced the cassette Pinch Me - I Think I'm In Kent, which was recorded and Produced by their friend, Dave Hoser at Future Studios in Chelmsford. Additional tracks were recorded at Dave Hoser's house in Wivenhoe (Terry and Jean's Fast Fruit and Vegetable Centre). The tracks were edited ( there were over 200 edits ) and mastered at Octopus Studio by Dave.

This cassette featured 36 tracks - including "Helluva Break By Ray Reardon", "You Lawn Tennis", "The Babylon Shuffle", "Love Me Love My Rabbit", "Guru Guru Guru", "Icarus Dicarus, I Smell A Nail", "Tree Mouse", "Banana Legs" and "Rock 'N' Roll Orphans". The artwork for the cassette was produced by Lorna Oakley. The album was remastered by Dave Hoser in 2014.

In 1986 Giles joined the Dumb Mermaids for a one-off concert at the Quay Theatre Sudbury.

Smith's career in journalism began when he joined The Daily Telegraph in 1990 after a spell as one half of the 1980s band The Cleaners From Venus with Martin Newell. Since then he has written chiefly for The Times.

He has published two books, Lost In Music, about life and growing up with music, and Midnight In The Garden Of Evel Knievel, a collection of extracts from his sports columns.

He currently writes a motoring column in The Times, and a thrice weekly sport column in The Times. He was a regular contributor to The Word Magazine. He also writes for the Chelsea FC website.

Reviews

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Lost in Music' (1995) is Giles Smith's part autobiography, part 'Pop Odyssey' (the book's subtitle) about a life as a dedicated pop music fan and aspiring pop star - Smith as an erstwhile member of cult/indie favourites the 'Cleaners From Venus' and his subsequent life as a music critic/writer.

'Lost in Music' is a very funny and very entertaining book, firmly located in Nick Hornby territory (unsurprisingly endorsed by Hornby on the cover) - but written very much in Smiths' own style.

Whilst any book about pop music is by definition, immediately dated upon publication - clearly the world of pop music has changed unimaginably since 1995, however locked though it is to an era 25+ years ago, 'Lost in Music' still stands the test of time.

[Nigeyb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable, if dated, memoir by a music obsessive

This is the second book I have read by a member of The Cleaners From Venus in the space of a few weeks. Following on from the excellent "This Little Ziggy" by Martin Newell, I was keen to read this book (which covers completely different territory).

It's a very enjoyable read. A combination of personal memoir, the confessions of a pop music obsessive, and the diary of a failed pop star. I suspect it was inspired by Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch and adopts a similar style. As such Lost In Music would probably have had greater resonance when it was first published in 1995. The self-depracating confessional style which embraces various nerdy aspects of the obsessive's world (e.g. the need to carefully define and catalogue) is now an over familiar and somewhat tired trope.

I was most interested in The Cleaners From Venus reminiscences. I suspect Giles Smith would have been amazed to learn that in 2014 there have recently been three lavish CD collections of the majority of the Cleaners' back catalogue. It is a strange and surprising world indeed.

I have read some wonderful books about music in the last few months and, whilst this is enjoyable enough, it pales somewhat in comparison to, and to name just a few, Yeah Yeah Yeah by Bob Stanley, This Little Ziggy by Martin Newell, The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds by John Higgs, Glam! by Barney Hoskyns, and The Haçienda: How Not to Run a Club by Peter Hook.

3/5

[the modisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ☆

[Joseph Andros · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quirky, indestructibly vulnerable and engaging piece of work. Not quirky as if ladling it on. The guy's almost self-consciously, apologetically normal in fact, but all this quirky stuff happens and he's obliged to report it, right? Having taken the advance for the memoir.

A rock journo, apparently, Giles Smith's decided to serve up his life to us in seven-inch and twelve-inch single slices, plus whatever inches albums used to be when they were LPs. It's an autobiography of his record collection, basically - chronicling his love of pop music, his obsession with acquiring and cataloging records (oh, the obsession! oh, the cataloging), and his efforts to carve out some life, any life for himself within those empyrean realms as a songwriter, member of small-time bands, and prospectively eventually, the next Sting. Spoiler, it never happens. It rarely does.

Along the way, we are treated to chapters on Marc Bolan, Stevie Wonder, Nik Kershaw and many others, mostly as framing devices to discuss what was going on in his budding young life at that time. It's an effective conceit, made so by the breathlessly confessional tone with which he shares what made these artists' works so compelling at the time, and (in many cases), so distinctly embarrassing in hindsight. Rarely has the course of one man's blinding, slightly vague ambition been rendered with so little concern for ego after-the-fact.

As an aspiring popstar and later, as a contented settler for a music press credential and a daydream job chronicling the livers of his erstwhile dream (and losing his spleen in the process), he has his brushes with fame, industry shenanigans, a West German album deal and consequent German tour, a band falling apart, and having it all crash down around him rather clamorlessly, plus the not terribly unexpected disillusionment of interviewing Phil Collins and some others. It ends on a happy note, but I shan't dream of spoiling it for you.

He never meets Sting. Or if he does, he plays coy.

That's not the happy note.

Smith is a fast, slippery, quippy, effortlessly entertaining writer. You feel as if the quips and slips just happen to him, and he's reporting them. Every few sentences it seems, a sentence will turn in its course and bite the previous one on the tail, to deeply wry humorous effect. Yet they all march on innocently, as if completely unaware of these pawky tricks and stingers laying in wait, and the reader is taken in as well. The punchlines land often with a cringe and a wince, but it's of sympathetic pain and vicarious shame. There's considerable zing here, and precious little snark.

Very good read. A book for anyone who's ever hopelessly loved music, and especially human beings.

[Alex Sarll]

Thrust on me by a friend when he heard I was getting into the Cleaners from Venus, of whom Smith was a member during their closest approach to fame (which is to say, the dizzy heights of an abortive deal with RCA Germany). I was amused to see Cleaner in chief Martin Newell described as recalling Fagin circa 1985, it being a reference point for which I had independently reached after seeing a couple of recent shows. Generally, the sections about Smith's own time in bands were the ones which grabbed me, and not just because I know and enjoy the Cleaners' music; I'm entirely unfamiliar with the output of covers band Pony and art-prank the Orphans of Babylon, as I suspect is everyone outside late seventies and early eighties Colchester, but their stories still amused me in a way the memories of pop fandom didn't. Possibly these latter were fresher when the book was first released, in 1995; two decades on, much of it has been assimilated into truism (the records you love are seldom loved solely for the music), other bits are hilariously historical (the Walkman! CDs versus vinyl!)*, and some of the remainder is a bit, well, Nick Hornby (he provides a jacket quote). In particular, Lost in Music shares with High Fidelity that stupid line about no pop music being adequate to the situation of a loved one's death. To which I can only ever say - you must have a really shit record collection, mate.
Still, in Smith's defence, at least he's not too much of a rockist; there's the odd lazy dig at eg Bryan Ferry, but it's pleasantly surprising when an alumnus of Q and Mojo confesses complete ignorance of Bob Dylan and Neil Young.

*There is one attempt at prognostication, starting with that most nineties of formats, the CD-ROM (when do they get their revival?), in which Smith sees a more interactive future coming, even as he fails to guess the shape it would take. But then, even a John Brunner would have struggled to call that one. Also, only as I write this does it click; Smith lived through the Second Summer of Love, yet doesn't once mention dance music - an unwitting parallel bto his father's complete failure to get the point of pop?

[Picueta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Este libro se me ha hecho bastante pesado y me ha costado bastante terminarlo porque, sinceramente, la mayoría de los temas que trata no son santo de mi devoción. Todo iba bien hasta que dejó de hablar de Marc Bolan y perdí por completo el interés cuando dice que no le interesaba la obra de Bowie y que no la conocía, ya en los 90 que fue la fecha de la primera publicación del libro.

Admito que tiene capítulos interesantes, como esos en los que cuenta sus desventuras con Pete "el Cabrón" y como se las tuvieron que ver cuando no consiguieron triunfar en la música.

Y, oye, agradecida y emocionada porque le dedique dos páginas a explicar cómo se abre una caja de CD y luego otra más a explicar cómo sacar el libreto del estuche. Tan innecesario como tres cuartas partes del libro.

[Guy Winter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a hilarious, unfailingly candid account of a lifelong obsession with pop music with a tragicomic conclusion- Giles is above all a pop fan, not a real pop star. But he's a wonderfully gifted, insightful writer whose chequered pop career got him into some extraordinarily funny situations! By the end you may even want to track down some Cleaners from Venus albums...

[Kevin Long · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book. A great read. Highly recommended. It way surpassed my expectations (especially after reading some of the reviews). I’m not a musician, but Giles’s makes this book so much better than Nick Hornby’s HiFidelity {which some reviews compare it to, and I thought was a wonderful book} by his experiences with The Cleaners from Venus, great insight into the challenges of musicians trying to make it.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Any book whose back cover soundbite reviews exhort me to "laugh out loud" tends to strenthen my resolve not to, but I did exhale a few chuckles here.



Despite it being very different, in emphasis and structure, to Nick Hornby's '31 Songs', I can't help but compare them. And there were a few moments that felt a bit, er, familiar, which doesn't reflect well on Hornby, his musical memoir being written nearly a decade after Smith's. But I put this down to their being of a similar age and thus the same seminal artists being around them, and the universality of how everyone experiences music.



Besides, the balance was soon tipping back in Hornby's favour. Giles' account, whilst undeniably more comprehensive, lacks the warmth and intimacy of the later book, so that the more vulnerable passages (e.g. the Hodgkin's disease chapter) were slightly jarring.



And there was a foundation of bitterness underpinning the whole book, which spread like dry rot as it began to be mostly about hisown failed pop career. Whereas Hornby, who cheerfully offers up his complete lack of musical talent as mere fact, has no such baggage and is able to focus more on the joy of music.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found myself really wanting to enjoy this book, but skimming a lot of pages instead. It was just too much like Smith'd written down his inner chats for his own enjoyment without consideration for the enjoyment of the reader. His book read like the stories i create in my head to fill in slow moments; you know the ones when we re-live our past like we're telling it to an interviewer. But i don't need to turn this inner story telling into a book to know they are mainly only of interest to me and maybe, just maybe, the people they also include, but not to the general public. So sadly i liked this book less than i'd hoped. He could've summed it up in one his final stories a paraphrasing of which is: i'm more of a music fan then i am a musician; the end.

[Julio Reyes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fan o músico. El espejismo más cruel del rock es hacer(nos) creer que todos podemos ser músicos. Smith aprende que ambos son incompatibles, pero que lo más divertido es seguir soñando.

[Tracey Sinclair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable, very much in the Nick Hornby vein.

[Jeremy Walton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rock and roll I gave you the best years of my life
I read a friend’s copy of this ages ago, and asked for it for my last birthday so I could revive its memory. It’s mostly about the author’s attempts throughout the 80s to form a band, make a record, go on tour and have some modicum of success. It's probably not too hard to guess how that turns out, but I was more interested in his memories of discovering music in the seventies (and becoming hooked on it for the rest of his life), which rang many bells with me, being of roughly the same age as the author. On p30 he describes playing a T Rex single on a radiogram "which was, in essence, a coffin on legs": the record was rested "on the flanges of the miniature silver pole in middle of the turntable, and clipped [...] there with the L-shaped bracket" before flopping down onto the turntable "and we watched the big, bulbous arm, like a helicopter on a stick, travel above the platter and put down on the single's rim" - a simile so exact that it invoked memories of the interior of my grandparents' radiogram.

He describes his love for records and bands with - in some cases - shame: how he was a follower of 10cc way beyond their heyday, culminating in his purchase of "10" (their tenth album, which I'd never heard of), and "I'm pretty sure I never even got around to playing side two" [p59] Elsewhere, his enthusiasm for Stevie Wonder shines through the disappointment ("if you didn't respond to the clipped keyboard over the striding drums in the introduction to 'Superstition' the chances were that you had died" [p83]), and he has a healthy disregard for Pink Floyd ("[Roger] Waters was, some would argue, the band's lynchpin - though don't get into this with serious Floyd fans unless you've got at least a week to spare" [p88]).

In those days, music came on physical objects which required collection, maintenance and curation: there's a great chapter where he attempts to purge his collection, and ended up moving (just) thirteen records to the bottom of his wardrobe. He then describes each one, and the reasons it didn't make the cut - including the eponymous 1976 Wild Cherry album, demonstrating why you should "never buy an album on the strength of a single", although the killer was its cover, in which a woman is "sliding a particularly glutinous cocktail cherry between her teeth. It's just a hunch, but possibly this was meant to be some sort of sexual reference" [p157]. The converse of this story is the one about how he goes into record shops to look at records he already has seeking, he surmises, "some kind of pointless confirmation. 'Yep, here's Scritti Politti's "Cupid & Psyche 85". In front of the board saying Scritti Politti. In the S section", and traces this habit back to the primary school where "someone would skim through their bubblegum cards, football stickers or similar collectibles while someone else stood at their shoulder announcing the relation of this collection to their own: 'Goddit. Goddit. Haven't goddit. Goddit', etc." [p175]. This - well, let's call it an - obsession leads onto the mid-80s transition from vinyl to CD; there's a lengthy paragraph on p198 discussing the best way to open a CD case, and the rest of the chapter addresses the vexed question of whether to buy an album on CD if you already have the record. Which seems to have only one answer, as he describes shopping for "CD versions of records I already possess, [prowling] the browsers wide-eyed and tensed up, as if I was involved in some mad, self-generated game of Snap" [p203]. (It should go without saying that each of these stories had me nodding in intimate recognition with my hand covering my mouth). Finally, the contrast between the physical world of the past and today's is nicely brought out in a forward (written for the 2023 edition) acknowledging that the Internet has "thrown everything musical, old and new, into a big box, and put it out on the street with a hand-written sign on it saying 'Please Take'" [pix].

There are memorable encounters with one or two famous musicians - most memorably, Nik Kershaw (who lived locally) before and after his breakthrough with "I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me". Prior to that, he was the guitar player in a skilled covers band called Fusion: Smith notes that their members were dispersed across a fifty mile radius, which was inconvenient for a working band but had "a simple explanation: if you were as talented as each of them was, you'd have to drive around a bit before you found anyone worth playing with" [p137]. Later, as a music journalist, he describes bumping into Phil Collins at a record company party in New York and attempts to remind him that he'd accompanied him on a promotional visit to Rome eight months previously. He characterises Collins' succinct response ("And now you're here") as disheartening, but undeniably true.

A great memoir, which brought back many musical memories. Recommended.

[Clemens · Rating 4 out of 5]

„Im Frühjahr 1989, kurz nach meinem 27. Geburtstag, als ich im Graupelschauer an einer Bushaltestelle in Colchester stand, dämmerte es mir, dass ich wahrscheinlich gescheitert war in meiner Mission, der neue Sting zu werden.“ Schon mit diesem ersten Satz wird klar, womit es der Leser hier zu tun hat, einem Buch der Popliteratur.
Giles Smith‘ „Lost in Music“ ist in Großbritannien zur gleichen Zeit wie Hornbys „High Fidelity“ erschienen und dort ebenso gefeiert worden. In Deutschland erschien das Buch erst Anfang des Jahrtausends, als der Hype um die Popliteratur bereits am Abklingen war.
Smith erzählt in dem Buch seine eigene Biographie. Aufgewachsen in den 70er und 80er Jahren in der englischen Provinz, verfällt er früh dem Zauber der Popmusik und träumt, wie wohl so viele, davon, Popstar zu werden.
Im Buch erzählt er nun charmant davon, wie die Popmusik über ihn kam. Angefangen hat alles mit T. Rex, später kommen dann Stevie Wonder und XTC hinzu. Die Bedeutung der Popmusik wird auch im Buchaufbau ersichtlich. So ist jedes Kapitel mit dem Namen einer Band oder einer:s Musiker:in überschrieben. Somit stellt er den Bezug der Musik zu bestimmten Abschnitten seines Lebens her. Da finden sich nicht nur die bekannten Popmusiker:innen sondern auch die Namen der Bands, in denen der Autor sich selbst erfolglos versuchte.
Als Musiknerd wird man sich bei vielem Erzähltem wieder erkennen, sei es der Umgang mit Peinlichkeiten in der Plattensammlung, der Musikgeschmack der Geschwister etc.
Die Umwälzungen der Musikindustrie der letzten 20 Jahre haben das Buch etwas veralten lassen. Denn von der Digitalisierung der Musikwelt weiß der Autor nur so viel, dass die CD noch das Maß aller Dinge ist.
Aber das sind Marginalien, die dem Lesespaß keinen Abbruch tun. Das Buch liefert ein kurzweiliges Lesevergnügen. Wie ein guter Sommerhit eben.

[Jim Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

OK, as a failed musician and self-deluded aspiring rock star I am an absolutely sucker for books written by self-deprecating failed musicians and self-deluded aspiring rock stars. This one ticks all the boxes.

Giles Smith is not only a train-spotting music fan dressed up as a professional musician, he is also, like me, a journalist and incorrigible list-maker. He’s even close to my age - three or four years younger. So I immediately warned to his personal tale, one full of laugh-out-loud moments.

Giles’ story of his music dreams, turned nightmares is worse than my own but so many of the beats struck a chord with me - the half-arsed wedding and social events in cover bands, the illusion that he was a real songwriter, the artistic dalliances with real, though impossibly impractical creatives. I identified with Giles.

It’s a shame this book cut off at 1995, because so much has changed in music since then. To be sure, this has been updated recently with a new foreword and afterword, but I do think everything has been transformed in the intervening years - in areas such as music streaming, the death of CDs, the end of the great songwriters.

Having said that, one feels a level of nostalgia for the days of analog recording, cassette tapes and industry A&R people, when they had clout.

I also share Smith’s early taste preferences with people like T-Rex, Stevie Wonder, XTC and Steely Dan. But as he says, he was too much of a music fan and nerd to ever be a rock star.

‘Lost in Music’ is that rarest of things - a thoroughly funny music autobiography.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pure nostalgia and re-lived experience for someone born in late fifties. And with the added advantage (?) of having a laptop on hand to look up every obscure reference ... or worse... having to listen to the song he describes as life-chantingly wonderful or dreadful. Memories of the ritual of going to school with a completely unnecessary LP under your arm (there was nowhere to play it) or your allegiance to your current fad painted onto the back of your canvas school haversack. You'd swap them around in a manner every bit as carefully organised as a nineteenth century circulating library. You'd be pleased to get you're own music back. I always preferred Lindisfarne and The Doors to Manfred Mann's Earthband (Peter Baker). Bebop Deluxe (Nick Coussins), Tubular Bells (Sorry can't remember), Aqualung (Stephen Whitham). And for forty-five years I'd happily remembered the good stuff and completely forgotten the rest. And here is Giles Smith bringing the shrapnel of this music back to the surface.

A real treat.

I've been a fan of Giles Smith's football journalism for years but hadn't been aware of his musical work. In both he is perceptive, acute and very, very funny. This book contains the best capture of the nature of local journalism and the best timed fart joke I have read in years. The latter directed at Dark Side of the Moon (Nick Heywood ...no not that one; a bloke I used to work with who belatedly (2007) almost got me into Pink Floyd).

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you look up the reviews for this book you will often see it described as "hilarious" and laugh-out-loud" and... that wasn't entirely my experience. It is funny in places, but I would say more warm-hearted than "hilarious". Still, it's a fun read. The writing style is interesting in that it's not entirely linear – Smith hops about a bit, which is slightly confusing in places but, at the same time, prevents it from turning into, "and then this happened, and then this happened, and then..." which I'm sure must be a potential pitfall with biographical works. If you're of a certain age, you will very much enjoy the trip down memory lane provided by all the music references. The stories and anecdotes are great, too – these days, of course, social media exists and so people often have a sense of who musicians and other stars are, but back then, we only knew them as faces in magazines or newspapers. As such, this book fills in one or two gaps. There's also a full list of songs at the end which allows you to create a playlist which is a great listen.

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cleaners of Venus. Das Leben mit Musik, der Autor schildert wie er vom frühen T.Rex-Fan die nächsten Jahre lebt, sehr anschaulich, besonders anschaulich macht er, wie sehr es vom Zufall abhängt welche Gruppen man mag. Ein Mitschüler, den er nicht leiden kann, mag Bowie, also wird der Widerwillen auf Bowie übertragen, sehr lustig, wie er verhinderte, Pink Floyd Fan zu werden usw. 10cc liebte er, aber irgendwann machten die eben nur noch Schrott. Wie wahr. Komischerweise scheint er Stevie Wonder selbst Birthday zu vergeben. Daneben die hübsche Geschichte seiner eigenen Musik-Karriere. Cleaners of Venus, gar nicht so schlecht, sogar mit deutschem Plattenvertrag. Sehr gute Schlusspointe, wo sein Exkollege ihn nach vielen Jahren auffordert auf Tour durch Japan zu gehen. Da kommen alle vernünftigen Gegenargumente, und beinahe glaubt man ihm, aber natürlich fragt er: Wann beginnen die Proben?

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Massive apologies to my coworker Jenny from three years ago who lent me this book, which I’ve only finished just now, you’re never getting it back (thankfully it seemingly was £1 at Oxfam so we’re good)

Honestly such a great book and weirdly relatable in the sense of being so involved in the music industry but also not. As I grow older I can see myself as turning maybe into Giles Smith, but also maybe his opposite. Maybe a slightly different version of him. I think we’d get along, I like the way he writes. And I also think someone should make a Scott Pilgrim style film out of this.

[Marinho Aguilar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tenía mucho tiempo que no me reía tanto. La biografía de Giles Smith en función de su relación con la música puede ser la de cualquiera que ha disfrutado un álbum, una canción. Cualquiera que ha sentido el cosquilleo de abrir un disco nuevo. Cualquiera que se ha emocionado en ir a buscar o encontrar nueva música en vinil, casette o CD. Como dice el mismo Giles "Cuando el pop no era la banda sonora de tu vida, era tu vida".

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some parts of this that ring true for all music fans.
Its his journey through his musical experiences of trying to be in a band, his successes and failures.
From tapes to vinyl to CDs to streaming, music is just that, loved by all.
Its gently amusing and I laughed a couple of times when it really hit home.
Trying to find the difference in listening pleasure by upgrading the wires to the speakers was one of these. Its an easy listen and I liked it.

[Esteban Galarza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un modo muy personal de describir una fascinación que nos acompaña a todos los que decidimos dar un paso más en la música e internarnos a comprar, coleccionar e inclusive intentar ser músicos. En completa consonancia con Nick Hornby, creo que éste es uno de esos libros de y sobre la música que hay que leer y tener, junto con High fidelity, But Beautiful de Dyer y la autobiografía de Miles Davis

[miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

i mean, i was really bound to like this as someone from colchester, but it truly was so much funnier and much more entertaining than i anticipated. this arrived in the post today, i opened it planning to read a chapter to see how it read, and ended up reading the whole thing in 5 hours straight. i cannot understate how entertaining this book was lol.

[Mel Perera · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decided to read this as interlude between my diet of penguin classics.

Didn't find it that funny or stimulating.

Found the few chapters about the author's failed attempts at musical stardom rather dull.

Highlight was the chapter about Nik Kershaw where I learned that he was actually a very good guitarist who taught people and is from Essex.

[Colm Mccrory · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like what many others have said, I wasn't that interested in the different music he was interested in. I ended up skipping through all that to read about The Cleaners from Venus. This is where it all got very engaging and genuinely funny.
The CoV chapters are clearly marked so easy to run through.

[Neil · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing. No stories, jokes or events I'd pass on to friends here. Shocked this was made into a book. The bands didn't make it big because of not being very good and, even worse, they weren't that interested. Appreciated his love for Stevie Wonder and vinyl.

[Miles Hamer · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Read the updated 2023 edition.)
Delightfully light yet wonderfully canny traipse through the author’s very funny personal pop journey. Often found myself gasping with recognition at the behaviour on the page. Great start to 2024.

[Pete Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable read - he has somehow taken the unpromising raw material of his failed attempt to become a rock star in the 1980s, and turned it into something you want to keep coming back to. Along the way a few interesting short chapters about the pop stars of the day. He crosses paths with Nik Kershaw and Captain Sensible of the Damned, but never makes the grade himself. I did laugh out loud at one point, but felt bored at other times. Worth a look if you enjoy 80s pop nostalgia.

[Leon Sidebottom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent tbf

I don't usually laugh out loud but this book made me do that.

If you like eighties music and have knowldge of how the music business worked back then you will like this book

Worth a read

[Philli · Rating 5 out of 5]

In meiner deutschen Ausgabe leider etwas beschissen übersetzt :(
Ich konnte trotzdem nicht die Augen davon lassen.
Dieses Buch ist für alle, die verrückt nach Fame, Popgeschichte, Platten und die Musik der 70s und 80s sind. Echt witzig und sehr persönlich