Bodies: Life and Death in Music

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The author comes across as another one of those self obsessed and odious individuals that plague the music industry. Rather than providing a comprehensive overview and making arguments based on critical analysis, this is more of a memoir - with first hand accounts and anecdotes from the author’s time as a music journalist. How stressful it is, how drugs, alcohol, etc are normalized, but I feel like it didn't live up to its potential. As Daily Mail readers sometimes use the platform to know what they should be thinking rather than having a balanced view on something, many people used to use the publications to find out who they should be listening to, and this books shows how parts of it all works. However, I think in places it tried too hard to be sensationalist and in others demanded a more authoritative POV and in both instances it comes up short.This book is full of cautionary accounts ( he's not afraid to mention names) and stories about the pitfalls /downside of the lives of many musicians and those working in music business , and of course Ian's own personal experiences of addiction and mental health issues.

The guy seems likeable and honest and, even if I’m not a fan of most of the bands mentioned, the stories of life on the road were very interesting.That means longer periods living in an unreal environment where drink and drugs are ever-present, bad behaviour is indulged and where, at the lower end of the ladder, working conditions sound enough to make even the most level-headed musician consider rendering themselves insensible. The question of what the music industry does next is one it’s started to answer incrementally, concludes a three-years sober Ian, though it’s happened all too slowly. Anyone with any interest in the real stories behind the music they love should devour this; but they should brace themselves for some difficult stories. But for Winwood, it’s also a telling story: Watkins’s bandmates and management were aware that he had problems, and had attempted to help, but had no idea how bad things actually were, because the problems they thought Watkins had were so commonplace within the music industry, where drug addiction and “gruelling and maddeningly dysfunctional behaviour” are normalised. I read this over the course of a plane journey and it was entertaining enough, just ultimately very insubstantial.