FEATURE:
A Design for Life
PHOTO CREDIT: Orion Publishing Co
The Pleasure and Joy of a Music Book…and Why These Books Deserve More Attention
__________
IT is pretty blissful…
IN THIS PHOTO: BBC Radio 3 broadcaster Elizabeth Alker is the author of the incredible new book, Everything We Do is Music: How 20th-Century Classical Music Shaped Pop
when you get to own a hardback music book! I have nothing against a paperback, though nothing beats the feel of a hardback! The toughness and solidity. It is this bulky and weighty book that is a pleasure to own and read. Maybe it is just me, though I don’t think we discuss music books enough. I have spoken about this before. How we review albums and singles, and yet music books are not really included alongside them. They may appear in the ‘Books’ section of a website, though that it is often reserved for non-music books. Fiction. I do feel that there are some amazing works relatively under-discussed because they are not albums. Works from authors not as important as those from artists. I am going to move to look at two recent music books that explore the songs of two decades-running but very different artists. I am starting out with 168 Songs of Hatred and Failure: A History of Manic Street Preachers by Keith Cameron. Published on 11th September, I did not know about this book. I am a Manic Street Preachers fan, so this sounds really interesting. Also, at 560 pages, it is one of the most voluminous and detailed music books of the year! A true tome that should be read by Manics fans and those who maybe do not know that much about the band:
“The story of Manic Street Preachers is unique in pop. Raging out of the stricken mining communities of south Wales in the late 80s, they were bonded by friendships, family ties and a self-styled 'geometry of contempt', whereby James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore would orchestrate the daring intellectual broadsides written by Richey Edwards and Nicky Wire. Seemingly condemned to mere cult status by a cruel juncture of artistic triumph, commercial failure and personal despair, the story took an agonising twist when the tragedy of Edwards' 1995 disappearance was followed by a remarkable rebirth built upon 'A Design For Life's hymn to the band's working-class roots, and then the award-winning, multi-million-selling album Everything Must Go, a majestic soundtrack to history and loss.
Less than five years later, Manic Street Preachers played to 60,000 at the national stadium of Wales and had their second UK Number 1 single. Subsequent output has confirmed the band as both a wellspring of restless creativity and a barometer of the cultural conversation.
Because it was music that saved them, it's through the prism of their music that Keith Cameron tells the definitive history of Manic Street Preachers, drawing on many hours of new interviews to dive deep into 168 songs, from 1988's debut single 'Suicide Alley' to the late day peaks of 2025's album Critical Thinking. Writing with the band's full co-operation, his book charts the dynamic evolution of a universe in which Karl Marx and Kylie Minogue happily co-exist, that accords Rush and The Clash equal favour, and where Morrissey & Marr meet Torvill & Dean via Nietzsche and New Order in a single four-minute pop song - all in the name of what Nicky Wire himself calls 'the fabulous disaster' of Manic Street Preachers”.
I am going to quote from a five-star review MOJO awarded 168 Songs of Hatred and Failure: A History of Manic Street Preachers recently. Truly, you have to admire the passion and work that has gone into this book. Also, at only thirty pounds, it is remarkably good value considering how much information you get! I don’t think that we talk about the importance and relevance of music books. I am going to focus on a couple that document the songs of great artists. However, there are so many different approaches and directions music books can take. From the more hagiographic to something with a unique direction:
“In his brisk introduction to this 550-page triumph, the MOJO writer Keith Cameron perfectly summarises a 37-year career: “Manic Street Preachers built their own reality, then rebuilt it multiple times.”
They arrived from their native south Wales as a neo-punk quartet with a year-zero interview technique. Now, three decades after the disappearance of Richey Edwards, they manage to combine the damaged wisdom of middle age with the restlessness that has always defined them. Which is to say, the Manics remain a completely singular presence, with reference points that no other rock group has ever got near, from Albert Camus to the Skids. That means, of course, that they are a dream subject for the right kind of author, and ideally suited to a Revolution In The Head-esque telling of their story via forensic exploration of their compositions and recordings, and everything that has been poured into them.
In between lies a narrative full of wonderful detail. 1993’s From Despair To Where was based on a brilliantly madcap quest to somehow combine Joy Division’s From Safety To Where with Rod Stewart’s True Blue, and momentarily convinced the Manics’ late manager and mentor Philip Hall that it was “gonna be our transatlantic Number 1, like Maggie May.” On Underdogs, a limited-edition single that trailed 2007’s Send Away The Tigers, Bradfield ruefully admits that he was far too in thrall to Metallica: “I was completely fucking Hetfielded out of my mind. It was too big, too proto-metal, too legs astride.” On a doomed European tour in 1994, Wire survived on “personal stocks of Crunchy Nut cornflakes, which he kept under his bunk on the tourbus.”
The over-arching plot is driven by the aforementioned creative rebuilding – tales of how this most self-aware of bands have consistently transformed what they do, which Wire and Bradfield tell with both insight and bathetic humour. But as well as their contributions, what really clinches the book’s excellence is Cameron’s incisive prose. Nicky Wire’s vocal on 2009’s William’s Last Words, he writes, was “nervous but resolute, like watery early morning sunlight”. The Masses Against The Classes, the ferocious single that reached Number 1 in January 2000, is nailed as “a self-directed booby trap of rage at what the Manics had become”.
His most vivid observation of all is that whatever the crises and fireworks scattered through this book, what really matters is the art: “Songs made the Manics, offered them a means to escape, to transcend and to celebrate themselves, and songs saved them and sustain them still.” This is the story told here, so consummately that it feels completely definitive”.
There is another song-by-song book that has come out recently that, again, pairs music passion and depth into this beautiful hardback. Whilst quite a few books about Beyoncé have been written, I don’t think there has been enough focus on this iconic and hugely important artist. One of the most influential of her generation. Annie Zaleski’s Beyoncé: The Stories Behind the Songs: Every single track, explored and explained is a book that interests me greatly – as a big Beyoncé fan. Here are some details:
“Discover the full story behind every single song Beyoncé has ever released.
From Destiny's Child to Cowboy Carter, this is the definitive guide to one of music's greatest ever talents, covering hundreds of songs including:
- hit singles
- hidden gems
- soundtracks
- cover versions
- deep cuts
...and much more besides.
Award-winning music writer Annie Zaleski (Rolling Stone, Billboard, the Guardian) explores and explains the fascinating details of every song, from early group hit 'Say My Name' to solo work such as 'Crazy In Love' and 'Run The World (Girls)' - and including the all-conquering Cowboy Carter.
A journey through pop, hip-hop, R&B, gospel and even country, this is Beyoncé's story told through her incredible music”.
Fans will know about this book no doubt. Anyone who follows Annie Zaleski on social media. However, I cannot find any reviews for this book. No interviews with her either. It is amazing that we do not really spend much time with music books or give them even a fraction of the time we do on albums in terms of promotion and inspection.
PHOTO CREDIT: Headline Publishing Group
These two books are about specific artists. There have been some brilliant recent music books published recently. I published a feature about Elizabeth Alker’s Everything We Do is Music: How 20th-Century Classical Music Shaped Pop. Fortunately there was a bit more in the way of spotlighting and investigation. However, even then, I don’t think enough websites and music sites put this amazing book on their pages! I am going to quote from the start and end of a review from The Arts Desk for one of this year’s best music books:
“Composers and musicians explore acoustic space. Generally, they have got by with combinations of readily accessible sounds, with occasional novelties as instruments improved, bit by bit.
In the 20th century that changed radically. New technologies offered almost unlimited increase in the sounds that could be conjured up on stage or in the studio. And conceptually, the range of sounds some considered musical expanded just as much, abolishing the boundary between music and noise, and even – thanks to John Cage – permitting the composer to propose no sounds at all.
Elizabeth Alker dives into this history with great verve. Her chapters generally pair a well-known track from a pop hit-maker with one or more pioneers of composition or technology, often linking to a scene or scenes where new sounds were mixed, and remixed, by experimentally-minded artists.
Alker’s openness to new sounds and the range of her enthusiasms is admirable, if slightly dazzling. Each chapter deals with a different acoustic world, and, like all good music books, her writing invites pausing to listen to new things, or revisit old ones with a different appreciation. It’s a book to keep on the shelf to cue new exploration when the stuff you have been listening to feels a little too predictable.
The description fits another excellent recent title from the same publisher, one that prompts a final acknowledgment for one of the conditions of this book’s excellence. Alker’s day job is as a presenter for BBC Radio 3, after stints with Radio 6 Music. It’s hard to imagine anywhere better for an ace communicator who is at home with a vast range of contemporary composition as well as the full gamut of pop genres to develop their work. Her book comes just a few years after fellow Radio 3 person Kate Molleson’s Sound Within Sound, which concerns 20th-century composers who deserve a wider hearing. The books go together very well, and it seems fair to take both as added benefits of the licence fee. Lisa Nandy, please note”.
There is precious little in the way of websites that document the music books that have been released this year. The Guardian is a rare exception when it comes to archiving the music books that have come out this year. However, these are only a small percentage of what has been released. I am not sure if there is a website that is dedicated to music books. It is a pity that they are not regarded as highly as albums. However, the main point of this feature was to wax lyrical about the beautiful feel of a music book in hardback. I have provided details of three. However, there has been a whole host this year that could easily sit on any music lover’s bookshelf! To me, there are few finer experiences than buying a music book and getting lost in its pages. Ranging from two-hundred to over five-hundred, you can spend days and weeks pouring through them! Whether it relates to a band like Manic Street Preachers and a selection of their important songs, or is a broader look at the link between Classical and Pop music in the twentieth-century. The authors work so hard researching for these books and putting them out. They can take a lot longer than albums. The authors do not have the same opportunities as artists when it comes to touring to earn revenue. Sure, they profit from a slice of the books sales, yet we often put them in a quiet corner of the room, whilst artists are given much more prominence and time. I don’t think that is fair! We do need to properly respect and value these amazing people. Those whose books will delight people for years to come. The very real and tangible pleasure of putting a chunky hardback on the shelf alongside a selection of other music books! Maybe this is specific to me, though I don’t think that it is! Dedicate more column inches to music books and their worth. Talk to these authors more and publish reviews frequently. Change the script and…
TURN the page.