Sean Egan (1) (1942–)

I won my copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway.

I usually find collections of interviews a bit tedious, but despite the almost unavoidable repetitiveness in this book, it was surprisingly readable. Sure, every interviewer wants David Bowie to talk about the same parts of his life, so that you get his perspectives on his 1970's albums and shows when they are new, and in every few interviews for the rest of his life. After he had his bad drugs experience, that became one of the stories everyone had to get him to talk about, all the way up to recent interviews, and the two less inspired commercial pop albums he released in the 80's became the other story about Bowie, to the point that much of the book is telling and retelling these two episodes of Bowie's life. But each time the story comes across differently, depending on how sympathetic or interested or informed the interviewer is, and on Bowie's current perspective. The way the biography morphs over time was quite interesting to observe.

I wound up listening to most of Bowie's albums on spotify while reading this book. Really, for anyone my age or younger, who was not really old enough to buy music when David Bowie was a big deal, it is hard to get much out of this book without listening to the albums being discussed. Even the music industry people I know through my old music blog who live and breathe music and were alive and buying music in the 70's still may not actually remember the earlier albums without rehearing them. It is a fun thought, actually, and one that dovetails nicely with some of the conversations in this book, that we can, with Internet access and a free spotify account, listen to most of David Bowie's music whenever we wish. I found several songs while reading this book that I actually quite liked (I am not fond of "Let's Dance" or most of the other songs of his that are popular on US radio), and I would have liked to have spent some time chatting with Mr. Bowie myself, I think, about books, an area I had not known he was so fond of.

I definitely recommend this book to any readers who like music history, music, or biographies.



… (altro)

Very informative book covers the Stones up to A Bigger Bang with plenty of cool features such as top 50 songs and an album by album overview section. Although I found the book to be very well researched, it clearly has a very sharp bias towards the early Stones and is very dismissive of their later output after Tattoo You (and even then some). I think in general there does tend to be a very negative view of the latter Stones and its a shame this book subscribes to that viewpoint. In any case the book does a good job of outlining allot of the behind-the-scenes struggles of the band, such as the decline and death of Brain Jones and the departure of Bill Wyman. For a handy source on the Greatest Rock N' Roll Band, its hard to beat this one, just as long as you avoid the obvious negative bias.… (altro)