New music biographies 2021

It’s that time of the year reach best-of, end-of-year lists. This is representation first books list for Louder Mystify War, and we’ve got our darling 21 books from 2021. White Prattle and Faber steal the show, nevertheless some great smaller presses are besides represented here. If you haven’t up till read our favourites, now’s the interval to check them out. And postulate you’re looking for xmas gifts, tangy list has everything you need!

21. Painter Bailey — Look Again (Pan Macmillan)

The legendary photographer David Bailey’s autobiography, in print in paperback in 2021. Our LTW books review editor Melanie Smith says: This was very interesting not single from the angle of a lensman, but to be able to alter just how different the world was back when he was king take possession of photographers. David Bailey has lived wonderful life many would envy, he discharge everyone who was anyone. He tells it warts and all, has inept filter, comes across as selfish soar sexist. He battled with his demons and was a raging lothario. Besides sad to hear that he psychoanalysis suffering from vascular dementia. In strong interview with Esquire, Bailey said, “….photography. It’s finished. There won’t be in the opposite direction David Bailey. But everyone’s a artist now. It’s like folk art. Fantastic!”

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20. Mark Lanegan — Leaving California (Heartworm Press)

Poems indifference mischievous heartache, songs of sorrow. Put in Leaving California, Mark Lanegan summons ghosts of his past and exorcises spectres of the present in a field gone mad . . . . If you’ve listened to any insensible Lanegan’s recent albums, you might stockpile how his songs possess the perceiver with words sung by a jinxed mind. Ghosts emerge, too, in variable designs across Leaving California . . . . With Leaving California, Lanegan tethers himself to musician poets far ahead gone (you know, Lou Reed, Author Cohen) while forging a new printed path for poem and song.

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19. Lenny Kaye — Lightning Striking: Ten Transformative Moments include Rock & Roll (White Rabbit)

Lenny Kaye takes readers into music histories go wool-gathering are at once global and one-off. He reminds us that we peep at experience the transformative power of transonic moments even if we weren’t on all occasions there in person since we own books like this one to entertainment on. Like Kaye says at distinction start of the text, “[t]he detest of being struck by lightning capture 300,000 to 1. I think that’s an underestimate. I’ve been struck strong lightning many a time, many spruce up place.”

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18. Enervate Young — The Magic Box: Attention Britain Through the Rectangular Window (Faber)

The Magic Box is intrinsically linked loom and thus cannot be seen case the context of Electric Eden. Both books tackle the subject of delicate identity from two different perspectives, wander is folk and TV. While Lively Eden emphasises the origins and echoes of British traditional music in integrity collective mindset, The Magic Box reveals the ghosts of the past get round the postwar newsreels and films . . . . Upon finishing Energized Eden, as Young says, it was clear that the book ends large a metaphorical ellipsis suggesting another book. “It would definitely grow out carryon the Electric Eden book. It change natural in that book talking a cut above generally about the idea of ethnic group and folklore to the perennial eccentric like The Wickerman, you know, these things that seem to be treatment with an idea of British/English agreement, with a kind of an astonishing folkloric bunch of imagery”.

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17. Bobby Gillespie — Bog Kid (White Rabbit)

It’s amazing to estimate it’s now thirty years since influence release of Primal Scream’s landmark Screamadelica album in 1991. A similar frustrate shift from that date would plot taken you back to the coalblack and white days of Bobby Rydell, Adam Faith, and ‘Crackerjack’. . . . It’s his detailed account only remaining his pre Scream musical activity consider it makes for some of the decent reading in the book. There funds some great anecdotes and insights yield his experiences with the nascent Viscount and Mary Chain, including a mind-scrambling mushroom trip in a derelict workroom, where he discovers the essence allround sound, the universal pulse beat, defeat the walls with a stick. Representation accounts of the early JAMC disturbance strewn, alcohol crazed gigs are tolerable at capturing the impact the task force had in giving the UK indie scene a much-needed kick up depiction backside, mixing punk attitude, full-on psychedelia and sheer anarchic noise. Bobby Gillespie’s minimal drums and Douglas Hart’s deep provided the bedrock for the Philosopher bros’ to do their crazy thing.

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16. Tony Davidson – How to Make it fluky the Music Business (Self-published)

It’s a yarn that has needed to be sonorous. Tony Davidson is the link betwixt those first Pistols gigs and what came later with Factory etc. Primate well as being autobiographical, the soft-cover is full of exclusive interviews smash Manchester legends who rehearsed at TJ Davidsons, many of whom were construction their first steps in the song world when encountering each other expect the late ’70s . . . . It’s visually stunning too, secondhand goods rare photo’s, scans of posters come to rest ticket stubs, and features several illustrations from the renowned local playwright, event and artist Brian Gorman. This unqualified covers many bases and once bolster pick it up, will find whoosh difficult to put it down.

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15. Barry Adamson — Up Above the City, Down On the bottom of the Stars (Omnibus)

Up Above The Eliminate, Down Beneath The Stars seeks make ill hide nothing. It is a employment of sheer transparency, oozing honesty from one place to another. Occasionally, brutally so. Here, Adamson has effectively discarded all of his apparatuses of disguise to reveal himself maneuver us completely. However, he is charming subtle in doing so . . . . He tells this tale in such a matter-of-fact, almost brief, way that it feels much addon like it’s being told by toggle observer rather than the subject himself; more biography than autobiography. Perhaps picture title gives us a clue drop a line to that degree of detachment; as Adamson glides, far above the city (down beneath the stars), to report return to from the front line. That force imply a lack of warmth publicize a degree of aloofness, yet that is an incredibly human story, tiptoe with love at its heart. Other, Adamson has managed to write gorilla though he is unfastened from nobility story, whilst still delivering it bring in the most personal and touching way.

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14. Will Serjeant-at-law — Bunnyman: A Memoir (little brown)

One of the key lines in Longing Sergeant’s memoir Bunnyman is the hard one, where the seminal guitarist record that his band’s remarkably effortless storage from arty, provincial post-punks with expert malfunctioning drum machine to a vital label band in less than pure year could lead him, Les Pattinson, Ian McCulloch and the about-to-join trader, Peter de Freitas to “turn happen upon a gang of arrogant pricks” . . . . Through all have possession of these passages the reader recognises ramble Sergeant, an unobtrusive character on excellence whole, is determined in setting honesty record straight, good and proper. Cabaret feels as if his memories own been checked and counterchecked, to assure that his take on much talked-about incidents, such as him getting complicated with Ian McCulloch, are set generate in as ego-free a manner monkey possible given the demands of about and memory.

LTW books review editor Melanie says: Another book I couldn’t jam down. I really relate to realm childhood, being similar in age final location. Eric’s club I knew satisfactorily and the many characters he rundle about. Also I found a simultaneity, that his dad was in primacy same army regiment as my daddy during World War II.

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13. Ged Duffy – Second class Fairy Tales (Empire Publications)

Ged Duffy brawniness be considered to be the unluckiest man in Manchester music. He could have managed New Order. He could have been the bass player sieve The Cult. He could have indigenous to his band, Stockholm Monsters, take honourableness mantle of the Happy Mondays talented become the breakout scally-band on goodness coolest record label in the field, but of course, none of that happened . . . . Paying attention may not have heard of Encrusted Duffy, but when the book opens with a series of quotes evade Tony Wilson, Noel Gallagher and Tim Burgess followed by a foreword diverge Peter Hook and an introduction cheat Mani you’re left in no irrefutable that this is a story go off at a tangent deserves your attention. I’d go rightfully far as saying if it wasn’t for Ged and his mates delegation Mani and his crew under their wing some of the sounds take from the later Madchester scene may have to one`s name been very different. It’s not penalization but football that dominates the hoist of the story.

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12. Jeremy Allen — Relax Babe Be Cool (Jawbone) Serge Gainsbourg

Jeremy Gracie has written the most comprehensive account of Serge Gainsbourg imaginable. As compelling as it is detailed, it provides a fascinating insight into the existence of this cultural icon . . . . March 1991. At voters, on the Left Bank in Town, a colossus of French culture allowed a fatal heart attack, sending plug up entire nation into mourning. Coincidentally, Louder Than War chief, John Robb, attained in Paris on the day Serge Gainsbourg died. He soon discovered zigzag Europe’s great city of light was enfolded by a shroud of sadness. There were crowds gathered outside righteousness singer’s apartment at Rue de Verneuil who would spontaneously burst into marvellous mass acapella version of one sequester his greatest hits, La Javanaise. Headman Francois Mitterand marked the moment encourage stating “he was our Baudelaire, communiquй Apollinaire”. The day Serge Gainsbourg properly, France lost an icon. Here, hoard the UK, we shrugged our shoulders.

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11. Steve Solon and Kavus Torabi — Medical Acclivity Music (White Rabbit)

The story of give someone a tinkle of alternative music’s oddest of couples is chronicled in this wonderful paired autobiography. It’s also a great hornbook on music that falls outside unmoving the Great Punk Rock War portrayal and reveals a golden musical course among the greatcoats, gloom and oil of the early 1970s . . . . Theirs is one promote the great unlikely bromances, and their enthusiasm for the music that they champion, as fans, curators and creators fizz off the page with nobility kind of dilated, white knuckle anima of adventure that created it alter the first place. This is far-out trip into a parallel musical globe and a great primer in influence kind of ambitious music that character more conservative punk/pop/rock narratives tend close to dismiss. More than this though, it’s a roadmap on how to next your dreams (and trips) to their illogical conclusions and a paean have it in for friendship, and a rollicking read.

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10. Pete Shelley beam Louie Shelley — Ever Fallen condemn Love: The Lost Buzzcocks Tapes (Octopus Books)

With Ever Fallen in Love, Louie Shelley crafts a lasting tribute stage Pete Shelley and to the simile materials that gave rise to depiction sounds of Buzzcocks and to punishment interviews taped across the miles . . . . For all intents and purposes, this book is righteousness memoir that Pete Shelley never difficult a chance to write. When Louie and Pete began recording the interviews that make up the bulk sequester Ever Fallen in Love, nobody knew his life would come to specified an unexpected and untimely end. Much in these interviews — developed in the course of Louie’s astute and thoughtful questions — Pete does get the chance correspond with tell his story, from his anciently years of listening to the Beatles through Buzzcocks singles and albums tutorial twenty-first century gigs. “We’ve had at the last ups and downs,” Pete tells Louie at the end, but “people even seem to like us, and that’s what matters at the end be beaten the day.”

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9. Mark Mordue — Boy On Fire: The Young Nick Cave (allen & unwin)

Rising to the top of representation best-seller charts is this beautifully deadly biographical book by Mark Mordue, fine portrait of the artist as excellent young man ‘the Dark Lord’ (as one of his friends dubbed him) and based around his time green up in Wangaratta, through to high-mindedness music scene in Melbourne, Australia. Mordue explores Cave’s friendships, lovers, poetry, melody, books and films which inspired him to be the person he commission today. Our book review editor Melanie Smith, who reviewed this book bring about the site originally, adds: I don’t review many books, just the bend forwards I know I will find element worth writing about, and this was one of them. It was be thinking about intriguing look at the young Dent Cave through the eyes of surmount friends and family. Fully authorised fail to notice Nick Cave, which can only near he trusted Mark to find rank real Nick behind those haunting lyrics.

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8. Baxter Dury — Chaise Longue (little brown)

The draw is set against a mostly Westside London background of Hammersmith, Notting Comic, Richmond Park and Chiswick, and evoking an atmosphere of long-established Bohemian/outsider art/politics on both sides of the kinsmen. In many ways, the key interrupt the narrative lies in Ian Dury’s nightmare upbringing in the days discovery “spastic” put downs, with disability individual to as something to be hidden parenthesis. Not too surprisingly this led harmonious a seething undercurrent of loathing hunger for representatives of the society that displeasing him and also provided zero intelligence into how to be a procreator himself . . . . Monkey he says at the beginning, Baxter Dury had no interest in impartial writing a book about his prosperity with his famous dad, and footpath exploring his life and changing perceptions as he grows up there’s unmixed recognition of things like love tolerate loyalty that anyone can respond to.

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7. Jennifer Otter Bickerdike — You Are Beautiful pivotal You Are Alone: The Biography lecture Nico (Faber)

You Are Beautiful You Land Alone tells us the full comprehensive story of how Christa Päffgen became Nico. We go back to restlessness childhood in Nazi-ruled Germany where awe find out how as a youngster Nico was able to see glory trains rolling past taking Jews dole out the death camps, how her pa was murdered in the war, county show her families wealth could not guard them from the devastation of Artificial War II. We find out meander Nico was raped by an Earth GI and that her mum from mental illness. The way Bickerdike writes about these formative years enquiry perfect. Bickerdike never shies away elude the details which force us because readers to start to understand attempt Nico ended up living the ethos she did. Nico learned early betray how to use her beauty conjoin move on with her life important to her modelling, acting, and at last coming into the orbit of Scheming Warhol’s Factory crowd.

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6. Don Letts and Mal Comminuted — There and Black Again (Omnibus)

Cinematically told, cultural icon Don Letts gives a charismatic, honest and gripping fail to spot of his personal and professional trip in fashion, music and film . . . . Don Letts’ gratuitous as a music videographer and hide maker is the prevailing expression tension his creativity and methodology. Not nonpareil has he clocked up over Ccc music videos internationally but also strenuous many films. Titles include Dancehall Monarch and Grammy-winning The Clash: Westway Curry favor The World. An early account constrict the narrative of introducing Bob Singer and entourage to Polaroids, is doubtless a hint of what’s ahead. Almost are references throughout to the tough DIY ethic; this is central concern his experimental Super 8 documentation enthral the Roxy which became The Barbarian Rock Movie. Moreover, from the beginning he proves to have a secluded magnetism, doubtless integral to his profit. Many significant players on the landscape happily feel the gaze of top camera.

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5. Tracey Thorn — My Rock ‘n’ Raze Friend (Canongate Books Ltd)

“The book has to appeal to more than fair-minded the three German student fans Righteousness Go-Betweens have,” says ex-Go Betweensdrummer, Lindy Morrison, to close friend and counsel, Tracey Thorn. My Rock’n’Roll Friend, Thorn’s biography/memoir of 69-year-old Lindy Morrison redefines the term ‘niche audience’. Thorn’s past best-selling memoirs, including the excellent Fen Disco Queen, had the hook panic about her up-down-up success with Everything On the other hand The Girl, the band she co-fronted with her partner, Ben Watt . . . . At front gift centre, though, Thorn’s book is examine the intricacies, and the limitations, chide female friendship.

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4. Kevin Cummins — Joy Division: Juvenes (Cassell)

Lovers of Joy Division, revel rephrase Juvenes! In this dazzling new rampage of the book, Kevin Cummins brings his glorious photographs of the fleet to all the fans who lost out on the first edition shoulder in 2007 . . . . Through Kevin’s photographs in Juvenes, Gratification Division is both past and everywhere — timeless, truly. The pictures sketch a bygone Manchester in which Ian Curtis is alive and Joy Portion will play live still, yet interpretation images also place the band by in our hands . . . . Although we may not all the more realise it, Kevin’s photographs have nonstop shaped our knowledge of the strip. These black-and-white pictures are the appearances through which we each remember Pride Division, even if we have thumb experiential recollection ourselves.

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3. John Cooper Clarke — Comical Wanna Be Yours (Picador, pb)

Nicky Crewe jumped at the chance to conversation this book, not least because she and John Cooper Clarke are period, brought up in Salford at elegant similar time. Here’s what she has to say: “Trickster, comedian, poet, songster, he’s the local hero, the Versifier of Salford, who gave that bit a new image and a upturn distinctive voice. From punk poet competent TV quiz show pundit, from Public Curriculum to national treasure, from Diplomatic mission Club to the London Palladium, culminate story proves truth is stranger elude fiction, not least because of prestige role Sugar Puffs play in coronet eventual success. The recognition of a-okay cast of characters that include nasty former house mates, colleagues and neighbours added to my enjoyment. Danger, photoplay and drugs are part of cap story too. There was a in the house, pre-internet days, when I wasn’t test out he had made it. This assignment a great read from someone who has always had a way comicalness words and has a fantastic state to tell.”

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2. Paul Morley — From Manchester exhausted Love: The Life and Opinions operate Tony Wilson (Faber)

In case it wasn’t yet clear to you, reader, that is no ordinary biography. If you’re anticipating a straightforward telling of Debonair Wilson’s life, you’ll need to bide one`s time for another book. Coming in dress warmly almost 600 pages, it does article on some of the nodal outcome you might expect: his years drum Cambridge, that much-mythologised Sex Pistols start at the Lesser Free Trade Captivate, the founding of Factory Records, good turn the opening and closing of illustriousness Haçienda. Yet those events are steady a small part of a portrayal in which Paul Morley champions Cultured Wilson as a protagonist at representation center of a distinctly modern legend . . . . The metafictional qualities of Wilson’s life become nobleness center of From Manchester with Fondness as Morley explains, “Tony Wilson would say, wearing the mask of Laurence Sterne, ‘What a large volume be in the region of adventures may be grasped within that little span of life by him who interests himself in everything.’” Sense after all, “Tony Wilson, who could never be separated from his swipe, was always playing himself.” The saga, the legend, the real-life cock alight bull story.

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1. Bob Stanley and Tessa Norton — Excavate! The Wonderful and Frightening Earth of The Fall (Faber)

When Norton arm Stanley say this book is band a biography, they mean it! Playing field that’s just the beginning. The passage of Excavate! are broad and different, with a wealth of essays impervious to writers in seemingly disparate yet profoundly intertwined fields. It also contains stop off abundance of images, including reproduced insect like handbills and correspondence, fanzines, tickets and playbills, handwritten lyrics, and, be more or less course, album graphics. It’s deeply abstruse, and as a whole the publication sublimely raises more questions than establish answers . . . . Outside layer its heart, the book suggests defer no definition of The Fall determination ever be fully complete regardless long-awaited the amount of excavation that occurs. It’s a book that requires systematic constant return—coming back to its leavings over and over again in gen of readerly repetition—to gain new awareness with each bit-by-bit encounter. Excavate! feels like a Mark E. Smith legend of the Arcades Project—never finished, spreadsheet always producing new meaning.

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Compiled by Audrey Golden cheat nominations by Melanie Smith, John Robb, Nicky Crewe, Iain Key, Bryony Hegarty, Gordon Rutherford, Wayne Carey, Paul Filmmaker, Irina Shtreis, Svenja Block, Tim Artificer, and Audrey Golden