10 It Gets Me Home, This Curving Track: Objects โจAnd Essays
Ian Penman
Fitzcarraldo
Incapable of dumbing down, Penman had NME readers reaching for their dictionaries in the post-punk years. He retains the โจsame daunting intelligence in this essay collection, which featured a fine take on mod, a gloomy assessment of James Brown and a sublime meditation on Frank Sinatra. Challenging, but worth it.
9 Year Of The Monkey
Patti Smith
Bloomsbury
Another metaphysical ramble in the vein โจof her 2015 outing โจM Train, Year Of โจThe Monkey was โจa walking tour through the proto-punk poetโs 70th year, punctuated by moody photographs, delicious breakfasts and foreboding visions. One way or another, those horses are still running wild.
8 Cruel To Be Kind: โจThe Life & Music Of Nick Lowe
Will Birch
Constable
A pub-rock powerhouse in โจhis own right, ex-Kursaal Flyer Birchโs portrait of โBasherโ is not as cheery as the Stiff records superstarโs knockabout reputation might suggest. However, his enormous respect for his subject is evident as Birch carefully plots Loweโs path from Kippington Lodge to third-age master craftsman.
7 Face It
Debbie Harry โจ
Harper Collins
Blondie made amazing records, but singer Debbie Harry remembered only heroin, exhaustion and โจbad business as โจshe recalled the bandโs peak years in this tell-all account. Her adventures in pre-gentrification New York are at times joyful and terrifying, though her intelligence and resilience shine through. Fair but hard.
6 I Put A Spell On โจYou: The Bizarre โจLife of Screaminโ โจJay Hawkins
Steve Bergsman
Feral House
A smart sophisticate โจforced to live theโจlife of a carnival sideshow, Screaminโ Jay Hawkins boiled with rage as Nina Simone and Creedence Clearwater Revival made more from his most famous song than he ever did. Bergsmanโs study of the schlock icon was a thrilling portrait of an arch narcissist. Spoiler alert: it ends badly.
5 Afternoons With The Blinds Drawn
Brett Anderson
Little Brown
The sequel to Coal Black Mornings that Anderson said he would never write, this exorcism of โจhis Suede years tracked the bandโs swift ascent to โจthe NME front cover and slow โจdecline into back-biting and drugs โจas their Britpop crown fell to โจโbands who waved flags and dropped their aitchesโ. Bitter, twisted, but very classy.
4 Defying Gravity: Jordanโs Story
Jordan with Cathi Unsworth
Omnibus
The madame guillotine of the punk years, Jordan surveyed the movementโs triumphs and tragedies from behind the counter of Malcolm McLarenโs Sex boutique. The best punk book since Englandโs Dreaming, her story offered a unique perspective on the Sex Pistols and the PVC-clad nihilism of the time.
3 Me
Elton John
MacMillan
The former Reg Dwightโs garish, stack-heeled autobiography detailed his musical triumphs, suicide attempts and A-list adventures with a delightfully surly twinkle. An eyewitness account of deranged times starring Rod Stewart, John Lennon, Queen, the Queen, โจand one of the worst mothers in showbiz history.
2 Fried & Justified
Mick Houghton
โจFaber
โThe legendary โจMick Houghtonโ, according to Julian Cope, was the โจgo-to PR man for generations of offbeat talent in โจthe indie age. His illuminating memoir was a glorious K-Tel collection of anecdotes concerning the finest leftfield โจtalent of his age: The Undertones, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Felt, the KLF and many more.
1 This Searing Light, โจThe Sun And Everything Else โ Joy Division: The Oral History
Jon Savage
Faber
Bandmates were in stitches when hotel staff admonished Ian Curtis for urinating into an ashtray; the laughter continued after William Burroughs told Joy Divisionโs troubled singer to โfuck offโ when Curtis tried to shake the author down for a free book. Savageโs first-person patchwork honoured the ur-Manchester bandโs dour power, but also presented Joy Division as excitable, gawky kids, too unworldly to understand how dark things were getting until Curtis killed himself in 1980. โTo have done something for Ian would have taken someone with responsibility,โ says guitarist Bernard Sumner. Here are the young men, then โ but as this superb account shows, the weight on their shoulders remains.