PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewIts densely packed pages offer vivid and timely anecdotal lessons on the impact, suppression and self-obliteration of radical art ... A child of the ’60s himself, J. Hoberman writes authoritatively on harmolodic jazz, censored comedians, the Fluxus art movement, experimental film, immersive theater, political protest and the birth of rap. Some of these stories— the emergence of Bob Dylan, for instance—are oft told. But our guide through this subterranean blues knows all the craziest, twisted tales, and where the bodies are buried ... Everything has everyone—Hoberman is encyclopedic in his recounting of the breakthroughs, breakdowns and bombings. It’s a performer- and performance-driven narrative, vividly told ... But one key figure is elusive. Every now and then Hoberman breaks the fourth wall with a wry parenthetical or a confessional memory, but overall the author remains doggedly offstage: a historian who was occasionally a witness. It’s a strangely objective, master-narrator stance for a milieu that was about dismantling barriers, prosceniums and structures, and centering collaboration. When he does interject, Hoberman conveys paragraphs in just a few words ... Unfortunately, though, the forest often gets lost for the trees. Without a strong narrative providing critical context, it’s hard to keep track of all the players and their acts. As compelling as the tales are, sometimes I reeled from information overload. The wildly visual subjects also beg for photos, which are minimal ... Offers instructional examples for today’s divisive world ... The book ends, finally and charmingly, with the story of how Hoberman himself entered the narrative.
Kathleen Hanna
PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewUnfolds in raw, ragged segments. She has always explored difficult subjects, but without the music’s cathartic power and her commanding stage presence, the book can be dark ... Her story, along with Bikini Kill’s upcoming tour, couldn’t feel more necessary.
Dorothy Carvello
PositiveThe New York TimesAnything for a Hit: An A&R Woman’s Story of Surviving the Music Industry goes a long way toward explaining the culture of misogyny that, at best, looked the other way as women were mistreated and, at worst, cultivated abuse ... One thing missing from this memoir, which could provide some light in all the darkness and strengthen our trust in the narrator, is music. Carvello never shows any sense of wonder at hearing a great song or discovering a beautiful voice. Her greatest claim to fame as a woman who has spent most of her career scouting talent is bringing the hair metal band Skid Row to Atlantic. O.K., that and her affair with the INXS singer Michael Hutchence. Having good ears is essential to A&R; Carvello’s book convinces me she has good eyes.
Tina Turner
PositiveThe New York Times Book Review\"That Turner’s story is an archetype doesn’t make it any less true, or harrowing ... Unlike I, Tina, which was written with the journalist (and former MTV News anchor) Kurt Loder using a sort of Rashomon chorus of voices, My Love Story is told entirely from Turner’s point of view with the help of the co-authors Deborah Davis and Dominik Wichmann ... Turner, who has been a committed Buddhist for decades, comes off as neither sensationalistic nor self-serving. My Love Story doesn’t carry the literary value that Loder’s historic descriptions provided, but for a famous sex symbol who has turned a tragedy into a fairy tale, Turner is charmingly down to earth ... One question goes unanswered in both of Turner’s books. Many people must have known what was happening between Ike and Tina, who frequently had black eyes and visible bruises. Did no one intervene? Why did record labels, promoters and performers tolerate seeing a talent clearly and repeatedly abused?\
Bruce Springsteen
PositiveThe Los Angeles Review of BooksBorn To Run surprises and compels. Its author reveals a psychological depth and vulnerability that is brave for a star of his magnitude ... He understands the demons that bedevil American culture not merely as an empathic fellow traveler, but on an intimate, lived level. When it comes to issues of race and gender, Bruce sometimes stumbles on the page, but he’s a man on a quest for understanding ... In this moving memoir, the Boss pulls back the curtains of the myth-making machinery and shows that for him, the political is personal ... Bruce writes like he talks. There are colorful characters, embarrassing details, and a moral as punch line at every climactic finale. He’s a smart guy, a well-read autodidact with a driving intellect, but he tends to write in capital letters rather than big words. He’s not always so good at deconstructing the big picture, but his aim is true.
Patti Smith
MixedLos Angeles Review of BooksCertainly, M Train is self-indulgent. It’s the experimental work you get to do after you’ve made bank. Patti paid her dues for decades, finally got paid, and can write whatever she wants as far as I’m concerned. Sure, I got a little tired of all the paeans to dead dudes. But I ached to be in the Alamo; her dream of life there flew off the page.
Chrissie Hynde
MixedThe Los Angeles TimesHynde offers a story of coming of age in the heartland's baby-boom bust, with sometimes brutal passages told in her inimitable blunt, jocular and occasionally woefully tone-deaf vernacular.
