Anyone a fan of these kinds of books?
Wether it's biography, album analysis or scene study, I love them...second only to my amateur interest in philosophy books.

I understand some people hate them, some seem to think it removes the mystique of an artist, or the magic from an album or song, but I've never seen it that way, perhaps because I dislike romanticised views of things.

I've read quite a lot, but I'll list a few off the top of my head

"Strange Fascination : David Bowie" by David Buckley
Essential reading for any Bowie fan, and goes up to the Reality tour, so it's pretty complete. My only complaint was that it glossed over some of Bowies nasty cocaine fuelled moments in the 80's, having said that, it's still my favourite.

"Touching at a distance : Ian Curtis & Joy Division" by Deborah Curtis
Which I thought was great, though I've found some of what she says contradicted by Ians family, friends and New Order.
"Joy Division and the making of Unknown Pleasures" by Jake Kennedy
I found this very interesting, but couldn't recommend it to casual fans, it's very dry.

Theres a third JD book I've read, but I can't recall the title or author.
I didn't enjoy it as much as the other two, it goes over a lot of covered ground, but it does have some interesting interviews with people relevant to JD and the scene they came from eg. The Cure & Throbbing Gristle.

As with the 3rd JD book, I don't recall the title or author, but this one is about The Cure.
It's an awfully written book, but as I haven't read any cure bio's it was full of info to keep me interested.

"The road to Nirvana" (I believe it was called "The road to Hell" in the US) can't recall the author
Despite the title, it isn't focused so much on Nirvana as much as the scene that bore them, I think it was good, but it was over 10 years ago that I read it, so I don't remember much, except a chapter on Fugazi.

"Electronic Punks : The Prodigy" can't recall the author.
Pure fanboyism, but some interesting insights into their early years

"Long hard road out of hell" by Marilyn Manson
It was ok, wasn't all that interested in it TBH

"Heart of darkness : NIN" - can't recall the author
Again, it was ok, some repetition of stories from Mansons book, but I prefered this one as...well I prefer NIN

"The Clash" by...eh...The Clash
Good read, nothing really new learned, lots of photos, some of them great.

"The Smiths : songs that saved your life" by Simon Goddard
.I thought it was pretty good. Discusses every song they ever recorded (in chronological order) with the band (minus Morrisey), though it's mainly Marr, then lists all concert, tv and radio performances of the song.

"Open Up and Bleed" by Paul Trynka
All about Iggy Pop, terribly written, this and the one about The Cure are the worst I've read.

Hmm, I might have gotten carried away here
...so, anyone else?

I keep meanig to read all of those 'biographies' about Freddie, but knowing how much he always treasured his private life I just can't bring myself to intrude.

I'd actually be interested to read one, to be honest, I've never gotten into queen, but I imagine Freddie led an interesting life

Anyone read...I think its called The Tattoo book somehting like that, its a bunch of artwork inspired by Tori Amos songs. My friend showed it to me, its huge, and some of the work is AMAZING.

Not a fan myself, but I have read some books in this genre, or started to read them but didn't finish (sometimes I couldn't stand the romanticism or the uncritiqued idolising of artists). I think there is only one book that (is originally in English &) I finished, and that is The Dirt by Motley Crüe and some ghostwriter. I heard that book being recommended twice on tv here, which is odd since they never scored a hit here I think, and saw some positive comments online. So, I tried it. I thought it was quite entertaining to read, but it's not great literature or anything. If you don't expect too much out of it, it's a entertaining read.

But why don't you combine interest numbers 1 & 2? There have to be books about philosophy and music? I'm sure that there are philosophy books on aesthetics, so I'd expect there to be more specialised philosophy books about music. And if you mean more philosophically inspired books (instead of books by Plato, Kant, Nietzsche and the like) there will be probably be books about that too. (Judging by your sig I don't think that you consider books like The Secret philosophy, right?)

heroin diaries was pretty good,and i am ozzy was good,read it twice

Dennis McNally's "A Long Strange Trip", on the Grateful Dead. Absolutely excellent piece of work.

I've personally never seen any books that combine the two, but I'm sure someone has, I imagine a particularly pretentious musician would have attempted it rather than a philosopher though.
I've read about as much of "The Secret" as I could stomach, and while I may strongly disagree with it's ideas, and to be honest can pretty much dismiss much of what I saw as easily disproven, it is a philosophy, just not one I'll ever subscribe to



I don't think I've ever listened to GD, but I've always found their way of doing things fascinating, a few of the bands I listen to jam on stage, but not to the extent I've heard GD do, I might check that out sometime.

The Dirt-Motley Crue was one hell of an (auto)biography.

While I have to admit that I didn't get very far in The Secret (maybe I should try again), I'm not sure I consider books like that to be philosophy. To me (and I hope this makes sense in English too), there's a difference between philosophy and a philosophy. The first is about strict reasoning about various subjects, which can range from science via knowlegde to ethics. One of it's characteristics is argumentative reasoning (whether or not it's presented in an academic format; could also be a novel), and it is often dealing with more general problems/subjects. I normally refer to philosophical work by the name of the author and 'philosophy', like: Nietzsches philosophy.

The latter is the more colloquial use of the word, I think , which refers 'to ways of thinking about the universe and how to live in it'. To me, it's often esotery confused with philosophy. And most esotery I read - which I have to admit I have often not finished - is really focused on personal gain and growing (whether or not this is in relation to the universe). Sometimes, it is not vague 'theories', but novels based some vague 'theories'. Example (that I have actually finished): The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo. Many people have recommended that book as something perfectly for my philosophical interest. I disagreed.

Then again, I discarded The Secret quite quickely, so maybe you're right. Given that I'll not subscribe to that either, I 'm doubt I'm going to try to read it again so see. But what philosophers do you like to read, besides Nietzsche? Talking about philosophy made me curious.

This could be worth a thread of it's own, I think.

I was wondering about that too, shall we start one??

Let's! Shall you do the honours?