Best rock autobiographies
The 50 Greatest Rock Memoirs of All Time
So many CBGB-era punk memoirs out there, but Richard Hell’s is unique — poetic yet never pompous, bemused without corny punch lines. As a year-old Kentucky kid, he runs off to NYC to be a poet, but ends up a rock & roller. “‘Sacred monster’ is definitely the job description,” Hell writes. “Being a pop star, a front person, takes indestructible certainty of one’s own irresistibility. That’s the monster part.” He depicts his music comrades — Tom Verlaine, Robert Quine, Patti Smith, Lester Bangs — and all the girls he’s loved before. (Hell was the punk Leonard Cohen in that department.) He quips about his popularity with critics, “because they were predisposed to favor noise, intellect, and failure.” In the final scene, he runs into his old nemesis Verlaine for the first time in years — flipping through the dollar bins outside the Strand Bookstore — and walks away in tears, musing, “We were like two monsters confiding.”
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Best rock star biographies and memoirs: it&#;s pure debauchery
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We're talking sex, drugs and bloody good stories
Rock stars of yesteryear had all the fun. The best rock star biographies shed light on those glory days, answering questions you didn’t know you wanted answering.
From tales of debauchery to gritty insights into life on the road, the best biographies share the low points as well as the highs. Teasing details about their lives, many of these access-all-areas biographies allow you to be a fly on the wall for some of the most dramatic moments in musical history.
UPDATE: We've added a couple more key picks from the world of rock autobiographies. Elton John's Me makes the cut for the sheer style of its retelling of one of the iconic careers in rock music. And for those after a less classic biopic-style approach should check out Viv Albertine's memoir Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. It's a top read.
Here we’ve picked out a selection of the very best rockstar memoirs. They feature some of rock’s most prominent figures… as well as some who we’re glad we’ve been able to find out even more about.
Upvote your favourite read, and suggest any we've missed at the bottom.
Best rock star biographies
No list of rockstar memoirs would be complete without a mention of the Rolling Stones guitarist and rock stalwart Keith Richards. Life spans several decades of music, drugs and life on the road – from the more glamorous elements to the hard reality of some of what he went through. As with all the best memoirs, Life shows a new side of its subject while retaining the kind of honesty and vulnerability which was often hidden from those who only saw his public persona.
2. Mötley Crüe - The Dirt: Confessions of the World&#;s M
Biographies About
Rock Stars & Punk Rebels
Electrifying guitarists, dazzling drummers, smokin’ lead singers, daring indie artists—
famous or infamous, these musicians have thrilling life and tour stories to tell.
A Dream About Lightning Bugs
- A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons
- By: Ben Folds
- Narrated by: Ben Folds
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
Overall
Performance
Story
Ben Folds is a celebrated American singer-songwriter, beloved for songs such as "Brick", "You Don’t Know Me", "Rockin’ the Suburbs", and "The Luckiest", and is the former frontman of the alternative rock band Ben Folds Five
- 3 out of 5 stars
I wanted to like this more than I did.
- By R on
Required Reading: 79 Rock Memoirs
The life of a rock 'n' roll artist involves a lot of ups and downs, trials and tribulations.
Many memories are naturally made along the way. Some are positive: the first record deal a band lands, the first time they scored a great opening gig or their first No. 1 hit song. Others can be a little less rosy: complicated lineup changes, shifty managers and bandmates lost to drug addiction or other circumstances.
Most rock artists spend a huge portion of their lives on the road, a nomadic existence that inevitably makes life seem like it's running at top speed all the time. After decades of carrying on like this, it can be intriguing to look back at everything, which many have done in the form of personal memoirs.
Some of the artists in the below list of Required Reading: 79 Rock Memoirs don't feel like they need to put their lives down in a book. Robert Plant, Mick Jagger and Ringo Starr are among the high-profile rockers who've made it clear that penning a memoir isn't for them. "I mean, what &#x; who &#x; for?" Plant said in "Those stories are locked nicely between my two ever-growing ear holes. So fuck it. There's a lot in there, and that's where it's staying.
Still, dozens of other artists feel differently, as you'll see in the below list of books that detail everything from debauchery to struggles to celebrations. Happy reading!