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Bedsit Disco Queen: How I Grew Up And Tried To Be A Pop Star (2013)

by Tracey Thorn(Favorite Author)

4.1 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1844088669 (ISBN13: 9781844088669)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Virago UK

review 1: This book ruined my holiday.I started it sitting on a sunbed in a hot climate. I finished it sitting on the same sunbed some 5 or 6 hours later. Sitting in the sun for 6 hours in a hot climate is not a good idea. I was ill for the rest of the holiday.But this isn't the first time Tracey Thorn's words have changed the course of my life. She's less than a fortnight older than me, from a similar background, sat the same (literally in some cases, I suspect) exams as me, went to University the same week as I did, and left with a similar result as I had three years later. By that time, I was already aware of her early musical prowess, and her words, along with those of her partner Ben Watt, were to be part of the tapestry of my life for the next 20 years or more.We all have a fa... morevourite band - Everything But The Girl has been mine for the majority of my adult life. The experiences they sing about have resonated closely - 3 or 4 songs per album from 1984 onwards - with my own life experiences. A handful of their songs would be in any "Desert Island Disc" selection I'd ever have to make - which realistically, would only ever happen if a close family member stepped into Kirsty Young's shoes at some stage in the future, but you get my point, right?Often when you read autobiographies of people whose work - or play - you've admired, you somehow feel a little disappointed afterwards - the Ian Bothams, Geoff Boycotts, George Bests, Barry Johns, Nick Faldos, Anthony Hopkins', Holly Johnsons (especially Holly Johnson!) and their ilk just don't come over in their autobiographies as the sort of characters you've pictured them to be in your mind's eye. By demystifying their collective mystiques, they've somehow managed to lessen themselves.This book has the complete opposite effect - maybe because she never chased the limelight, we never knew that much about Tracey Thorn other than what we'd learnt about her through her music. Through the course of this book, we get a completely charming and down to earth take on how her life has developed up until now - often tied back into some of the songs we got to know her by originally. But not only is the style of writing completely without ego, it is also witty, insightful, philosophical and just simply oozing with humanity.It is an autobiography which doesn't try to sell anything - it just tells the remarkable story of a person who sees herself as completely unremarkable - hence the charm of the book, and also probably the charm of the songs over all of these years.If you were alive and aware in the 80's and 90's, you'll love this book. And if you're not already in love with the songs, I guarantee you that you will be, soon after reading this book. My book of the year, if not the decade, by a country mile with each and every smile - and yes, that almost is a line out of an EBTG song or two! Simply brilliant - you must read this book.
review 2: Tracey Thorn's career has followed a very unique trajectory, unlike any other pop act, and she documents it with acerbic wit and candour in this immensely readable book. Thorn's early teens sees her morph into a new-born punk aficionado that leads to her joining an amateur all-male band as the token girl who could only sing from inside a closet. She goes on to set up an all-girl band Marine Girls, with their ironically twee anti-rock anthems, and enjoys a brief turn as a solo artist with an eight-track album she records in a shed. She finally meets her lifelong partner Ben Watt, a labelmate in a fledgling record company, with whom she becomes Everything But the Girl, the group which she has almost been ubiquitously associated with for almost three decades, and to finally become a solo artist again.What is immediately evident from the first few pages of this memoir of sorts is how naturally Thorn transposes her immense talent as a lyricist into that of a bonafide prose writer. There is a certain elegance in her writing that makes you identify her immediately as the real deal, and not a glamorous pop diva who is keen to paint a poignant rags-to-riches picture of herself. Instead, what the reader gets is an honest and at times humorously self-effacing account of her uncertain foray into the music world, and the exciting yet perilous journey that ensues. The reader celebrates with her when EBTG scores their first hit single "Each and Everyone", and sympathises when people lumps them with the lite/nu-jazz movement when they were trying so hard to protest (albeit quietly), and when they are finally dumped by their record company for not being the kind of pop band they thought they were, and is encouraged by a sense of providence when they win their biggest hit "Missing" to date almost immediately after that happens. Thorn's modesty comes through in the way she tells of how she never felt EBTG fitted into the whole pop circus. For example, though pop stars in their own right, Thorn still gets starstruck and speechless when Courtney Love scoots over the stage when recording a programme to tell her she loved her work with the Marine Girls and that the late Kurt Cobain had been one of their fans.As a longtime fan of both her work with EBTG and as a solo artist, it was a special treat to read the lyrics of songs interspersed at the ends of chapters, which gave a fresh insight into the context of those familiar songs which I had loved and lines that I had sung along to over the years. They defined for me the term "singer-songwriter", because Thorn's lyrics were often as personal as diary entries. A definite must-read for any EBTG/Tracey Thorn fan. less

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