Books About Popular (Or Unpopular Music)
Sam Sweet, Hadley Lee Lightcap, All Night Menu Books (2017)
This quiet, ethereal biography of a quiet, ethereal band is perhaps the best book about indie guitar music ever written. Once forgotten, 1990s “slowcore” pioneers Acetone are forgotten no longer thanks in part to writer and self-styled L.A. historian Sam Sweet’s compassionate but unflinching—and unfailingly subtle—reconstruction of the band’s life and times.
Jarett Kobek, Do Everything Wrong!: XXXTentacion Against the World, We Heard You Like Books (2018)
Florida rapper Janseh Onfroy, known professionally as XXXTentacion, led a short, hard, and disturbingly violent life. During that life, he revolutionized hip-hop (whether for better or worse is a thorny question). Pundits, music critics, and the news media were spectacularly ill-equipped to understand or explain XXXTentacion’s life, death, music, or his extraordinary popularity. Jarett Kobek’s book has some fascinating (and withering) insights as to why that might have been the case, delivered with the I Hate The Internet author’s signature clarity and searing wit.
Dylan Jones, Wichita Lineman: Searching for the Sun in the World’s Greatest Unfinished Song, Faber Social (2019)
“Wichita Lineman” is a weird song. Composed by songwriting legend Jimmy Webb, its telegraph-mimicking riff is as instantly recognizable as it is incongruous with the rest of the song. Its lyrics—told from the perspective of a telephone line repairman eavesdropping on the object of his affections—are downright Hitchcockian. Weirdest of all, it was a massive hit for country legend Glen Campbell upon its release in 1968. For most people who care about these sorts of things, the brilliance of “Wichita Lineman” is self-evident, but best of luck explaining why. British journalist Dylan Jones tries anyway, and encounters some fascinating characters along the way.
Nige Tassell, Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids? An Indie Odyssey, Nine Eight Books (2022)
For a certain type of music listener, “C86”(the name of a cassette compilation issued by New Music Express) is a code word. It evokes a lost world of witty, shambolic, and very British bands, doing pretty much everything themselves and writing brilliant pop songs while they could barely tune their guitars–like punk, really, but with less bravado and more sweaters. Tassell does a great job of celebrating the compilation while also demythologizing it. Some C86ers went on to become quite famous, while others disappeared quietly back into the mists of everyday life. He tracked down quite a few of them for this book. Readers should be grateful.
Fiona McQuarrie, Fountains of Wayne, J-Card Press (2025)
Finally, a biography of Fountains of Wayne, the legendary nerds who made five incredible studio albums of cerebral, funny, self-effacing and compassionate pop music between 1996 and 2011. Their big single, “Stacy’s Mom” was a double-edged sword, providing them with the resources to tour the world, but leaving in its wake a permanent misunderstanding of what the band was about. To make matters worse, bassist/co-songwriter Adam Schlesinger’s death from COVID in 2020 has cast a permanent pall of sadness over the band’s story. I can’t say I love every aspect of McQuarrie’s attempt: It’s polite when it should probe, a bit credulous when it should be a bit skeptical, and it takes “no” for an answer when it should pester. (And why, for that matter, did the surviving band members decline to participate?) But I love finding out new things about Fountains of Wayne. I love that someone made the attempt, and I hope there will be more attempts in the near future.
Compiled by Joel Harold Tannenbaum
