Popular Music Autobiography

Rezensionen / Stimmen

Tracking the emergence, in the wake of the Sixties, of a wide-ranging genre of "audio-biography," Lovesey's witty, ambitious study explores how the autobiographical performances of edgy, experimental musician-life writers shape a "generational autobiography." Ranging from Beatles' manager Brian Epstein to Bob Dylan and Patti Smith, post-punk rock to Moby, his knowledgeable overview of popular-music memoirs probes narratives of aspiration and confession, homoerotica and violence, addiction and mortality as hybrids of celebrity culture that fuel popular music's global reach. * Julia Watson, Professor Emerita of Comparative Studies, The Ohio State University, USA * With Popular Musical Autobiography Oliver Lovesey delivers a sweeping and groundbreaking study of this neglected and underappreciated subgenre. In his energetic introduction, with discussion of life-writers ranging from Saint Augustine and Lord Byron to Jeff Tweedy, Lovesey sets the stage for an insightful and enjoyable examination of various music autobiographers and their strategies. Among others, he explores Clapton's and Marianne Faithfull's recovery narratives, Brian Epstein's Victorian-styled concealment, Cozey Fanni Tutti's self-objectivization, Patti Smith's performative self with her homage to European literary greats, and Bob Dylan's lifelong preoccupation with self-construction. It's a brilliant and very necessary work. * Thomas Kitts, Professor of English, St. John's University, New York, USA *