Essential music books

Telling the story of the greatest pop band of all time could’ve resulted in (yet another) by-the-numbers ABBA biography, but Jan Gradvall simply did not allow it!

Tracing biographical loops around the subjects, entering the Swedish schlager scene via its interactions with punk, detailing the band’s wranglings with a herring factory, the surgeon who performs 14-hour life-saving procedures while listening to Ulvaeus/Andersson deep cuts, giving their inestimably skilled session musicians their deserved plaudits… all these elements and countless more are arranged with symphonic precision so that by the time you get to the chapter in which Gradvall literally sits with Benny Andersson at the piano as he tinkles out ‘Thank You For The Music’, you cannot fail to be weeping in awe. Measured, inventive and wholly joyous.

All I am asking for now is a similarly deep-cut English-language biography of Ted Gardestad, nothing more.

Where We Come From is one of the most important music books of the decade (please take it from us, we have read our share of over-egged hyperbolic rock bios), one that not only understands the societal strictures that create a musical ecosystem but immerses itself with the people at the centre of it. Like a refined gonzo-journalist approach, if you like? All the action but none of the self-centredness?

Anyway, the inherent drama and virtuosity of the UK rap scene plays out in all its stormy glory and Aniefiok Ekpoudom’s galloping prose is the perfect method of delivery – cannot recommend it enough, no matter your level of acquaintance with the subject matter.

A history and celebration of all things drone-related, from the subterranean rumblings in below-ground churches to the days-long ‘happenings’ of the New York scene, right up to the punishing, face-melting assault of the modern drone scene.

It’ll have you reaching for the expensive headphones and the easy chair (if you ever left it).

This Pulitzer-winning memoir focuses on the college years of aimless music obsessive Hua Hsu, wrestling with how best to present himself to the world as a second-generation Taiwanese-American who also happens to be preoccupied with pop culture minutiae, zines, the supremacy of his alternative music taste, and hating Pearl Jam.

At this seemingly unremarkable time in his life, he builds a friendship with Ken, a fellow student who forces Hsu to reconsider his own attitudes to authenticity, relayed in simple but aching prose that neatly sidesteps nostalgia at all times. This gentle narrative is upset by a tragedy, however, and that’s when the book dissolves and rearranges itself as something else, something strangely hopeful in the face of immense sadness. Beautiful, compulsive reading.

Simultaneously a true muso-person book and also the total opposite of a capital-M “Music Book”. It’s the anti-music-book music book?

Michel Faber is not here to tell you what he likes and why it’s superior to other forms of music. He does, tangentially, talk about what he likes – the songs that make him cry, his love of avant garde noise, the records his father owned. But he’s not interested in taste because some forms of taste are superior to others. He’s interested in why we like what we like, and why we think it’s important, why we read music critics and why we care what they like.

Over the course of the book we dive into whether animals can appreciate music, whether nostalgia and our social “tribes” are the most important factor for discerning our taste, and the records most often found in charity shop bargain bins, why anglophone listeners don’t listen to music in foreign languages. It’s a hell of a journey, and ultimately refreshingly unpretentious. 

Negatives is an absolute whopper of a coffee table book on all things from the late 90s-early 2000s emo scene, including American Football, Christie Front Drive, Hot Water Music, Jets to Brazil, Cap’n Jazz and later emo-iterations in the form of Fall out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Paramore and countless others. Phwoar!

Caustic, messy, chaotic and extremely, morbidly entertaining memoir of grunge excess from one of the defining voices of the early ’90s. Motivated seemingly by revenge and an unparalelled self-destructive streak, Lanegan’s tales of fights, overdoses and worse (much worse) are horrifyingly compelling.

Effortlessly and irresistibly readable, this is Billie in her own words – lyrical and dynamic.

The details of her early life are best enjoyed with some knowledge of her music, but even if you’re coming to it cold you’ll be entranced.

Exploratory and psychedelic summary of one of hip-hop’s greatest albums. The angles from which Ashon examines this legendary record can sometimes seem wilfully obtuse, but the connections he makes are genuinely mind-altering. Music writing as it should be: interrogate, contextualise, enthuse, entertain.

A poet’s approach to music criticism, an essayist with a romantic’s sensibility: Abdurraqib is a one-off.

This mingling of life-writing, music history and a barnstorming celebration of black excellence is gorgeous, entertaining and exhaustive. Topics include Chewbacca’s blackness, why Beyonce can never be a support act, and the restorative effects of a good game of spades.

Thrillingly (or depressingly), we are now of an age where the music of our youth is starting to be documented in wonderful books like this – the splendidly entertaining urtext account of the pre-indie landfill scene of the early 2000s, told by those who lived through it (and then probably threw up on it).

Even if you’re not a fan of Sleater-Kinney and the altrock explosion of the 90s, this heartfelt and exquisitely written memoir of life on the road foregrounds the personal. No tiring deconstructions of the hits, just the ennui and toil of being in a band that got a little bit bigger than expected and – crucially – what happens to a rock star after the band winds down.

Was Karen Carpenter a queer icon? Karen Tongson makes a persuasive case, arguing that Karen’s work was misunderstood, underappreciated and restricted by those around her.

This is the story of Karen Carpenter and The Carpenters, but also of Karen Tongson’s life and the significance Karen had for queer kids, immigrants and outsiders. I read this knowing very little about Karen or The Carpenters, but thoroughly enjoyed it in its own right.