Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From The American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 Michael Azerrad (2001) - Inspirational. A ground-level view of overlooked bands from the USA like The Minutemen and Dinosaur Jr whose greatness has never been quite celebrated, or examined fully, to this day.

England Is Mine: Pop Life in Albion From Wilde to Goldie: Michael Bracewell (1997) That rarest of things - a book written by an Englishman about pop music which focuses on concepts and ideas, not band histories, boldly showing how the Pet Shop Boys and Evelyn Waugh, the Fall and Graham Greene are all part of the same thing. Smashing the barriers between low' and 'high' culture, this is an exhilarating and inspirational ride through 20th century British culture.

Re-Make/Re-Model: Art, Pop, Fashion and the Making of Roxy Music 1953-1972: Michael Bracewell (2007) - In the style of an art biography such as Alan Wood's study of Ralph Rumney, the Map Is Not The Territory, Bracewell's study of Roxy Music uncovers their deep roots in radical ideas in British art in the 1960s at the expense of their musical foundations. Despite its less thrilling nature than England Is Mine, it's still a fascinating study of an era and, typically, Bracewell spots links between different concepts, genres and spheres that no one else is even looking for. A truly modern critic.

The Creation Records Story: My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry For The Prize David Cavanagh (1999) The one single book you must read to understand the British indie scene of the 1980s and 90s and how its bands fitted, or didn’t, within the industry. Plus it shows just what a chancer record boss Alan McGee was.

Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House Matthew Collin and John Godfrey (1997)
Particularly good on the early Rave scene and the short-lived ‘Baggy’ era bands such as Happy Mondays, the real strength of this well-researched history is the light it shines on the links between drugs and politics and both of these on music. Early Rave party organisers weren't so much revolutionaries as entrepreneurs.

Night Beat: A Shadow History of Rock n Roll Mikal Gilmore (1997)  - Many of these articles appear to understand the very soul of some of the artists it explores, particularly Kurt Cobain’s Road from Nowhere and Allen Ginsberg: For the Fucking and Dying.

Last Sho Standing: What Happened to Record Shops? Graham Jones (2009) - When we (Graham and James) first started Charm magazine in 1997, Sony records plugger Tony, known as 'Tony from Sony', used to cover local press and radio in Yorkshire and parts of the north. By 1999, staff cuts from central headquarters meant Tony from Sony was trying to push this huge, multi-billion pound company's well-known acts in the whole of the north and large parts of Scotland, too.  I last saw him in 2001, standing outside the Leadmill in Sheffield, unemployed, handing out flyers at the end of a fantastic show by Flaming Lips when they still had a dark side live. This book's must- read strength comes from the fact Jones himself worked in record retailing himself from the 1980s onwards. He knows that some shops were badly-run but he was also on hand to witness the corporate greed that also fuelled their decline - and still does.

The Dark Stuff: Selected Writings on Rock Music Nick Kent (1994)  - Like a great American critic except writing from a British perspective and with a heavy emphasis on impressionistic road stories. Great as he is, he only truly seems to hit that peak when he‘s writing about an artist from the 1960s or 1970s (i.e. Brian Wilson, Syd Barrett, Lou Reed, yes - the Rolling Stones).

The Best of Rolling Stone (ed) Robert Love (1993) - The articles from the late 1960s/early 1970s (MC5/Rolling Stones) show you why Rolling Stone emerged from the counter-culture with such a high reputation. Later music articles show you why that reputation declined, on the music side at least.

Lipstick Traces - A Secret History of the 20th Century Greil Marcus (1989) -  Linking obscure French political radicals the Situationists to the Sex Pistols seemed a bold idea at the time. Only Greil Marcus would make the case so convincingly with a brilliant understanding of abstract ideas as well as musical history.

In The Fascist Bathroom: Writings on Punk 1977-92 Greil Marcus (1993) - Marcus wrote the equivalent of Rip It Up at the time, as it happened, Simon Reynolds wrote it 20 years later. Both books are great.

The People’s Music Ian McDonald (2003) - Britain’s best rock music critic of all time, this man understood modern music, if only at the end of his life it could have given him more joy.

Senseless Acts of Beauty - Cultures of Resistance Since The Sixties George McKay (1996) - Reveals the direct link between the different eras of hippies, punks and ravers in the UK, between the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s.

Joy Division: Piece by Piece: Writing About Joy Division 1977-2007 - Paul Morley (2007) - One of Britain’s few truly great living critics, largely because he lives in the world of ideas, not a case of over-crowding in this country. A writer for NME in its final great phase of the early 1980s, the other part of his greatness lies in his dislike of cosy  nostalgia. This brilliantly-written collection, ironically, is the first, and last, word on a band who died nearly 30 years ago. Morley’s complete writings on Joy Division, from then and now,  burrow as deep as anyone would ever want to go inside their legend.

It Still Moves - Lost Songs Lost Highways & The Search For The Next American Music: Amanda Petrusich (2008) Part-travelogue, part-socio-economic study, part music history and part unintended expose of the disgusting eating habits of herself (and most Americans) on the road, this writer for Pitchforkmedia.com applies a light and personal touch on her journey across the southern states of the USA. Her reverence for music as a form doesn't translate into such sentiments for any particular individual artist, idea or trend. What you get is a modern take on the past and present and one achieved with impressive brevity, humour and insight. If you can only get one book about the deep roots of "Americana", this is the one to get. Greil Marcus's Mystery Train is the gold standard in this territory but that was written when Wilco were still in diapers.

Rip It Up and Start Again: Post-punk 1978-1984 Simon Reynolds (2005) - Any band worth writing about in that era is here, and nailed concisely with mostly great taste - and entertaining but equally tightly focussed personal anecdotes from most of the players. A truly classic book. Also see Reynolds' newly-expanded version of

Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and dance culture. Simon Reynolds (1998) This new version of the book first published in 1998 brings his incisive and typically multifaceted survey of the British dance and electronic scene as it exploded from the mid-1980s onwards bang up to the present day.

Bring the Noise: Twenty Years of writing about Hip Rock and Hip Hop Simon Reynolds (2007) - Like a more street-wise version of Jon Savage, Reynolds’ writings on modern music culture continue to be the only ones in the UK that focus on big ideas without either fixating on white boys with guitars, viewing events through the prism of the 60s and 70s or being mired in elitist esoterics.

The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century Alex Ross (2008)
Strictly speaking a book about classical music rather than rock and pop etc, such is the breadth of vision of New Yorker reviewer Alex Ross intellectually breath-taking and idiosyncratic appraisal of the last century’s music, that it sucks in everything from Mahler to The Beatles, Gershwin to the Velvet Underground, Strauss to Eno. Composers who today are venerated in a stuffy museum of snobbery are brought to life as flesh and blood, subject to personal impulses like anyone, their work a reflection of the constraints and influences of their times. Ross's rejection of a "goal-obsessed narrative" of music history and his belief that "music unfolds along an unbroken continuum" also ties in with Modern Music Review's view that there was no golden age of pop/rock music to mourn.

Time Travel: From The Sex Pistols to Nirvana: Pop, Media and Sexuality 1977-96 Jon Savage (1996) - As pretentious (a good thing in our book) as Greil Marcus without quite that man’s expansive overview and penetrating eye, everything Savage writes is quality. Very good on the post-punk era even though those chapters were written during the post-punk era.

On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno David Sheppard (2008)
Ironically, British rock journalist David Sheppard’s old-fashioned, fact-based approach to a man who pioneered ambient music in the UK, as well as making acts such as Roxy Music, David Bowie, Talking Heads, U2 and Coldplay more interesting than they otherwise would have been (well, maybe not in Coldplay’s case), is the exact antithesis of his ultra-modern subject. Still, such is Eno’s importance someone needed to give you the story straight.

Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don't Get Stockhausen: David Stubbs (2009)
Ideas galore in this though-provoking examination published by admirably radical publisher Zero Books of why 'avant garde' art is in the mainstream while 'avant garde' music remains in the margins. The answers come slim and slow in this enjoyably more hard- headed version of Michael Bracewell's style of cultural musings. An unfashionably feisty and passionate little tome (just 137 pages), Stubbs turns the original question into an excuse for a quickfire, potted history of musical experimentation in classical and pop music over the last 100 years. To be read in conjunction with The Rest Is Noise.

Ocean of Sound David Toop (1996) - As well as being a musician of note himself, Toop follows the trail of ambient music through its many tributaries to its earliest sources while playing fast and loose with concepts of time.

Rough Trade: Labels Unlimited Rob Young (2006) - A bit glossy and shiny surface but any book about the UK’s most important independent label is worth reading.

Undercurrents - The Hidden Wiring of Modern Music (ed) Rob Young (2002) - Wire magazine may have some trouble explaining exactly who gets to be inside its cover and why when other artists don’t but it’s got a breadth of vision and dry intelligence that these days is unique.

The Wire Primers - A Guide To Modern Music Edited by Rob Young (2009)
For some people, the best part of esoteric art music magazine The Wire is its monthly guide to a particular artist. Since the section was launched in 1998, its choices have ranged from Stockhausen to Sonic Youth, James Brown to Dubstep, Ornette Coleman to Turntablism. This new collection is the best primer and any wannabe pseud could ever hope to lay hands on - and it's a good read

Warp: Labels Unlimited Rob Young (2006) See Rough Trade above.

Books on, or from, the classic era of rock

Psychotic Reactions & Carburettor Dung Lester Bangs (1987) -  The granddaddy of all serious music criticism, even though he died in 1982 aged 33. He lived the life and he wrote the life and his genius was to combine gross self-indulgence with keen insight into the meaning of music without ever losing that gut level passion that goes beyond keen analysis. And he wasn’t afraid to like anything he happened to like, even if it was completely uncool. Like the J Geils Band!

Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: Pop From The Beginning Nik Cohn (1969) -  Oooh, this boy could write. Aged only 22 at the time he conjured up the first ever British history of rock’n’ roll in just 241 pages, Cohn, who later inspired the movie Saturday Night Fever, could nail the nature of an act of the stature of Eddie Cochran or The Who in two sentences flat. And he was always right, though he seemed to like The Who’s Tommy, even though it was a concept album and stood for almost everything that his beloved teenage ‘pop’ was against.

Any Old Way You Choose It - Rock and other pop music 1967-73 Robert Christgau (1973) -  Intelligent and honest enough to question what he likes and why he likes it, this excellent collection includes articles from Cheetah magazine to Rolling Stone.

The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion Caroline Coon (1982) -  She knew what she was talking about at the time she wrote about The Sex Pistols and The Clash and for that reason this collection of old articles from the defunct Melody Maker hasn’t dated.

The White Album Joan Didion (1979)  - Strictly speaking, this collection of essays is almost totally non-musical, except for the title piece which touches on a drunken Jim Morrison during a recording session in 1968 for the Waiting For The Sun album with The Doors. She is such a clinical and honest journalist though, tough as nails on herself and everyone else yet still utterly human - and it’s not often those words can be used in that context.

The Age of Rock: Sounds of the Cultural Revolution; a reader Jonathan Eisner (1969) - This is seriously enlightening, both about the music of the times and the difference between critics now and then - like, they actually spent a long time trying to work out what the music meant. If you can only read two articles from this book, check out Jon Landau on John Wesley Harding (Bob Dylan) and Robert Christgau’s amazing Rock Lyrics Are Poetry (Maybe).

Hotel California: Singer-Songwriters and Cocaine Cowboys in the LA Canyons, 1967-1976 Barney Hoskins (2006)  - Anything Barney Hoskins writes is going to be well-researched with impeccable taste and this snaking ride through the valley of acoustic hippie-dom lays the scene out bare without sentiment.

Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music Greil Marcus (1975) - Compare and contrast with Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom. They’re both about the early era of rock’n’roll. One views it from above, the other from within. One covers everything and everybody from 1955-1969 at breakneck speed, the other goes from Elvis to Randy Newman via Sly & The Family Stone and The Band with a meandering exploration of deep ideas. Guess which one is Marcus’s?

The Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes Greil Marcus (1996) - How can anyone sees so much in half-finished bootlegs? Only someone with X-ray vision for the invisible links lying beneath the surface of the mundane and vitally important.

Revolution In The Head The Beatles’ Records & The Sixties Ian McDonald (1994)  - Never mind Oasis, what made The Beatles suddenly completely relevant to the UK public again in the mid-1990s was this book by the late, great Ian McDonald who, in analysing the means and the method, not to mention the meaning, of every single track the Fab Four ever did, brought leant them a new intellectual standing 25 years after they split up.

The Rolling Stone History of Rock n Roll (ed) Jim Miller (1981) - Most of the older generation of rock critics’ perceived wisdom on who’s musically important and who isn’t is reflected in this mammoth book. The statue stands to this day.

Lilian Roxon’s Rock Encyclopaedia Lilian Roxon (1969) THE first-ever ‘Rock Encyclopaedia’, Lilian Roxon encapsulated the whole sprawling whirlwind development of rock in the days when the word itself could encompass everything from the Everly Brothers to Leonard Cohen to Led Zeppelin. That’s how undeveloped the money side of music truly was.

England’s Dreaming (Sex Pistols and Punk Rock) Jon Savage (1991) - The first 150 pages about the roots of the Sex Pistols and punk in the entire socio-economic and cultural system of the UK in the late 1960s/early 1970s Britain are about the smartest, best-written 150 pages ever written by a British music critic.

Brian Wilson & The Beach Boys: How Deep Is The Ocean Essays & Conversations exploring the mysteries of their incomparable musical accomplishments Paul Williams (1997) - You think it’s easy to explain a few doo wop harmonies, giant harmoniums and barking dogs, it’s not, but Crawdaddy! magazine founder Paul Williams’ free-ranging conversations, often with Capitol Records’ David Anderle, show just how much you can find below the surface of those glorious Beach Boys songs if you‘ve got a good ear and time to kill.

Graham Chalmers

© Modern Music Review (2009)