Poptimist Books?

[mippy.livejournal.com]

I've just finished reading Pet Shop Boys: Literally, which I rather liked. It felt wonderfully anachronistic to sit on the tube with 1989-era Neil and Chris staring out from the cover, and, as the PSBs were the first band I really liked back when I was wee, to get little insights behind the songs and image. They do come across as a pair of big whiny jessies, though. Guess it goes to show how quickly one gets accustomed to the money and the tedium of popstardom...

Anyway, it's made me want to read more pop books. Trouble is, I feel I've either read all the good ones or can never find what I'm looking for on the library shelves. Past favourites have included:

Feel by Chris Heath
Lost in Music by Giles Smith
Living Through Pop, ed. Andrew Blake (read this for my degree, but it's a good mix of academe and the anecdotal)
The Shoe by Gordon Legge (a novel, but sums up the effect of music on a young boy's life better than anything else I've read)
You Don't Have To Say You Love Me by Simon Napier-Bell
The Look by Paul Gorman
Tainted Life by Marc Almond 
Love Is The Drug, ed. John Aizlewood (I'm quite fond of the Dexys chapter)
Hell for Leather by Seb Hunter (approx 1000x more entertaining than I expected) 
EDIT:
Forgot The Nation's Favourite - one of my favourite books ever, for shame - and Bill Drummond's 45, which isn't really all about music but does have nice pieces in about Crystal Day and the Bunnymen's rabbit ears tour.

I have Saint Morrissey, Rip It Up... and England's Dreaming sat on my shelf, taunting me. I'm after something a bit more, well, suited to reading on the bus in the morning, though. 

What's your favourite pop book? And, even better, what made you throw it across the room with irritation?

Comments

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

may i suggest not trying to read aesthetics of rock by R Meltzer on a bus. it is a small book, so easy to carry, but COMPLETELY BRANE-BENDING...

Morley's words and pictures music is a bit too big for bus reading i'd sa, not quite as big as rip it up, but still quite hefty. speaking of rip it up, i did find it quite disappointing, simon rarely gets going in it, there are swathes of chapters (most of the ones about america for eg) that almost certainly belong in geeta's another book...

how about 45 or The Manual by bill drummond? they're a good size and both aces.

[mippy.livejournal.com]

45 is ACE! How could I forget that? Probably because I'm swearing at journalists.

We have a house joke about Words and Music...everytime Can't Get You Out Of My Head comes on tele one of us intones 'Kylie Minogue is speeding into the heart of pop...' I started reading it once but thought it best to buy my own copy and work through at a slower pace rather than in the three weeks Manchester Libraries allowed. Not got round to it yet, though.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

I've not managed to finish Rip It Up... I've still got it in my desk drawer actually, I came to a halt just after the Human Leg chapter I think. There was a bit of a "yeah, I know... I know... yep....", and then I think I may have stopped at the Fall chapter as I'd just read something else on the Fall (probably Stuart Lee)!!

Seconded the Bill Drummond!

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

'Aesthetics of Rock' is surely, at least for a first 'read', a bus read!

[giddyoldgoat.livejournal.com]

Gulcher for the bus, Aesthetics of Rock for the beach!

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

beneath the beach, teh ROCK!