The choices for books by and about rock stars are almost endless this season. Here are a few.
How Music Works :: By David Byrne :: McSweeney's :: 352 pages :: $32 :: Less a tell-all autobio than a textbook, this is Talking Head Byrne's treatise on what he has gleaned from four decades in the music business. It's divided into four sections that journey from the existential questions at the center of music to the heart of darkness that is the business, with a few autobiographical passages amid the much lengthier ruminations on the nature of sound and the culture of performance.
Related:
Review: Appetite for Self-Destruction, Arbouretum | Song of the Pearl, The Big Hurt: Jacko solvent! Boyle swelling! Lupus dissed!, More 
- Review: Appetite for Self-Destruction
Like any good murder mystery, Steve Knopper's Appetite for Self-Destruction keeps the tension high and the action swift as the search for a culprit drags on.
- Arbouretum | Song of the Pearl
Dave Heumann has learned much in stints backing Oldham brothers projects like Bonnie Prince Billy and Anomoanon.
- The Big Hurt: Jacko solvent! Boyle swelling! Lupus dissed!
If you had your heart set on picking up a gently used chimp tuxedo or a suspicious child skeleton, you're outta luck
- Michael Jackson and his fears
At the dead end of a decade when everyone was too discouraged to wonder if pop had a center, Michael Jackson's Off the Wall (1979) gathered up disillusioned factions of fans as confidently as it punted four singles into the Top 10.
- The Thriller is gone
With the release of Bad (Epic), Michael Jackson ends a recording hiatus of nearly five years. He could have stayed away for 10 years and still not have escaped the shadow of Thriller , the biggest-selling album of all time.
- Abnormal encounter of the suds kind
What better place to show off your new brand of beer, Three Stooges, than at the annual Stooges convention in California? That's exactly what Dewey Parsons was doing recently when word came that the convention had to close early to allow a certain VIP to wander through.
- Mommy, what's with Michael?
" After I got HIStory , I played it incessantly. It was the greatest, strangest, angriest, most bizarre thing I ever heard. Michael Jackson is this iconic persona..."
- Britney Spears and Michael Jackson fight it out
Cue up track six on the new Britney (Jive) and prepare yourself for the Technicolor disco flash-back of the year, swooning string section, chunky Nile Rodgers guitar riff, and all. The song's called "Anticipating," and it captures the most famous 19-year-old girl in the world at her guileless, sentimental best.
- The Wiz is alive in Boston
For many years, people have been asking me, 'Quincy, what was your very first big assignment?' My answer now is, "THE WIZ." – Anytime you have 9 singing principals, 120 dancers, 6 sound technicians, 3 conductors, 4 contractors, 300 musicians, 105 singers, 9 orchestrators, 6 copyists, 5 music editors; you are talkin' big numbers.
- The Wiz arrives in Boston
"If you believe in yourself, you will have brains, heart and courage to last your whole life through. . ."
- Reaction Jackson
There was Michael the living, breathing, singing performer and Jackson the commercial spectacle. We surrendered to the former, he to the latter.
- Less
Topics:
Books
, Neil Young, Michael Jackson, Pete Townshend, More
, Neil Young, Michael Jackson, Pete Townshend, gift guide 2012, Less
