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fletchski's review against another edition
4.0
I read this in just over a day and absolutely loved it.
Radcliffe writes in a confident conversational tone delivering lots of info in a concise and often humorous way. I knew a lot of the detail already like what a shit Serge Gainsbourg was but there’s a fair bit I didn’t know or had forgotten.
I was expecting more of the 60th birthday road trip that opens the book but soon forgot about it and find myself wanting a set of Eno’s Oblique Strategies cards - only £50 a pop!
If you love music and the history of popular music and like a good laugh then this is for you.
Radcliffe writes in a confident conversational tone delivering lots of info in a concise and often humorous way. I knew a lot of the detail already like what a shit Serge Gainsbourg was but there’s a fair bit I didn’t know or had forgotten.
I was expecting more of the 60th birthday road trip that opens the book but soon forgot about it and find myself wanting a set of Eno’s Oblique Strategies cards - only £50 a pop!
If you love music and the history of popular music and like a good laugh then this is for you.
jonnybrick's review against another edition
4.0
A quick tour of popular music with a personal touch (Mark wrote this having recovered from cancer). Meandering is a good way to describe his narrative voice, going hither and indeed thither and breaking off from tangents with other tangents. Lovely, all the same.
pili_pala's review against another edition
4.0
Loved this. I am not a massive music geek so a lot of this was new to me. All of the book was enjoyable, either because I was engaged in pleasurable nostalgia over something I remembered well (Nirvana), or because it told me stuff I didn't know about things I thought I was familiar with (the absolute insanity involved in recording 10cc's 'I'm Not In Love'), or because I knew nothing about it at all (quite a lot of the rest). I now have a list of new music to listen to.
I listened to the audio version, which was a delight, as Mark and Lard on Radio 1 were a fixture of my teens and early twenties. All the digressions and personal reminiscences added to the fun for me. Lovely.
I listened to the audio version, which was a delight, as Mark and Lard on Radio 1 were a fixture of my teens and early twenties. All the digressions and personal reminiscences added to the fun for me. Lovely.
1mpossiblealice's review
3.75
enjoyed this book. Each chapter is about a different "crossroad" or important moment in music history, and for me there was a good mix of stuff I knew about, had heard of, and had no idea about, which worked well. He goes off on quite a few tangents and asides, but I enjoyed that - it's conversational. If that annoys you, probably don't read this.
I like a non-fiction book that has distinctly separate subjects for each chapter, as it means I dip into it instead of doing things like scrolling on my phone, and I can read a section in a lunch break without getting embroiled in an ongoing story and being late back. So this works really well in that way. I'm sure you could sit and read it all in one go if you wanted to but for me it was like a non-fiction version of a linked short story collection.
I'm mostly glad I read this because I learned about Brian Eno's oblique strategies which has already provided me with loads of amusement.
I like a non-fiction book that has distinctly separate subjects for each chapter, as it means I dip into it instead of doing things like scrolling on my phone, and I can read a section in a lunch break without getting embroiled in an ongoing story and being late back. So this works really well in that way. I'm sure you could sit and read it all in one go if you wanted to but for me it was like a non-fiction version of a linked short story collection.
I'm mostly glad I read this because I learned about Brian Eno's oblique strategies which has already provided me with loads of amusement.
bodger's review against another edition
5.0
A lovely walk through pivotal moments in pop rock, metal, ambient and more. Heavily recommended, and the audiobook is read by the author, well worth tracking down.
spoko's review against another edition
funny
informative
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
3.75
It took me a couple of chapters to realize that the book was going to be 75% Radcliffe enjoying his own jokes and 25% actual rock history. But fortunately, once I did realize that, it turned out that I also kind of enjoyed his sense of humor. And the history bits tended to focus on things I didn't already know. So in the end I liked it more than I would have guessed.
js24's review against another edition
3.0
Witty and engaging look into musical events that changed the landscape.
js24's review against another edition
3.0
Witty and engaging look into musical events that changed the landscape.