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Bedsit Disco Queen: How I grew up and tried to be a pop star
I was only sixteen when I bought an electric guitar and joined a band. A year later, I formed an all-girl band called the Marine Girls and played gigs, and signed to an indie label, and started releasing records.
Then, for eighteen years, between 1982 and 2000, I was one half of the group Everything But the Girl. In that time, we released nine albums and sold nine million records. We went on countless tours, had hit singles and flop singles, were reviewed and interviewed to within an inch of our lives. I've been in the charts, out of them, back in. I've seen myself described as an indie darling, a middle-of-the-road nobody and a disco diva. I haven't always fitted in, you see, and that's made me face up to the realities of a pop career - there are thrills and wonders to be experienced, yes, but also moments of doubt, mistakes, violent lifestyle changes from luxury to squalor and back again, sometimes within minutes.
Then, for eighteen years, between 1982 and 2000, I was one half of the group Everything But the Girl. In that time, we released nine albums and sold nine million records. We went on countless tours, had hit singles and flop singles, were reviewed and interviewed to within an inch of our lives. I've been in the charts, out of them, back in. I've seen myself described as an indie darling, a middle-of-the-road nobody and a disco diva. I haven't always fitted in, you see, and that's made me face up to the realities of a pop career - there are thrills and wonders to be experienced, yes, but also moments of doubt, mistakes, violent lifestyle changes from luxury to squalor and back again, sometimes within minutes.
320 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2013
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January 23, 2013
For me and people my age, Tracey Thorn is the woman half of Everything But The Girl. She is the woman who knew more about the brittle, slightly freaky, break up song long before Adele raised an arm at singing school.
She is also the woman who I mistakenly believed had started her career during the Britpop era, wrote a one hit wonder and then disappeared. I can remember it being a total revelation when one of my older siblings pointed out that she and the band had been around for years in one guise of another.
Having read her BRILLIANT book it is with a shamed face that I recall the musical ignorance of my youth. EBTG, and Thorn in particular, were anything but the overnight 90s sensation I had them pegged as.
Thorn was far from being a musical moron like me when she grew up and devoured genres and immersed herself in the nuts and bolts of musical production. I loved the images of her and her various bandmates hammering out tunes (her singing from inside a wardrobe at one point, so full of doubt in her abilities), recording them in a shed and then distributing the resulting tapes to local shops.
This book is the anthesis to the X-Factor conveyor belt pop that we suffer through today. Her journey is so far removed from Cowell’s instant hit machines it seems almost comical. I couldn’t imagine any of the major stars that are currently clogging up the chart having to put in half as much effort. It was refreshing and enlightening to read about a musician (not a star, not a “sleb”) putting so much effort into everything she did for the sheer love of music, and being completely modest and self-deprecating about it at the same time.
This is ultimately a book about music, but it is also about love, feminism, friendship and motherhood, all told with delicious womanly wisdom. What moved me the most was Thorn’s descriptions of sitting at the bedside of her partner and band mate Ben Watt when he became dangerously sick with a mystery illness. I was floored by her descriptions of the sickening whirl of emotions she felt when a doctor admitted Ben might die. I was totally convinced by her that nothing in this world, no ambition, no amount of money or fame could ever fill a gap left by him.
I was punching the air with glee when having recovered, Ben and Tracey go on to have a MASSIVE hit with Missing. It was like the moment at the end of a film when your two favourite heroes eventually make it against the odds and everything ends the right way and you leave the cinema positively glowing.
Thorn’s chatty writing style makes Bedsit Disco Queen read like a really, really good interview and I found her immensely funny and endearing. This would make a perfect bookshelf buddy to last year’s How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran.
The only thing I’m annoyed about is that I discovered (upon finishing the book I spent a good 48 hours listening to everything she has ever recorded) that she has a christmas album which I will now have to wait a WHOLE YEAR to enjoy properly.
She is also the woman who I mistakenly believed had started her career during the Britpop era, wrote a one hit wonder and then disappeared. I can remember it being a total revelation when one of my older siblings pointed out that she and the band had been around for years in one guise of another.
Having read her BRILLIANT book it is with a shamed face that I recall the musical ignorance of my youth. EBTG, and Thorn in particular, were anything but the overnight 90s sensation I had them pegged as.
Thorn was far from being a musical moron like me when she grew up and devoured genres and immersed herself in the nuts and bolts of musical production. I loved the images of her and her various bandmates hammering out tunes (her singing from inside a wardrobe at one point, so full of doubt in her abilities), recording them in a shed and then distributing the resulting tapes to local shops.
This book is the anthesis to the X-Factor conveyor belt pop that we suffer through today. Her journey is so far removed from Cowell’s instant hit machines it seems almost comical. I couldn’t imagine any of the major stars that are currently clogging up the chart having to put in half as much effort. It was refreshing and enlightening to read about a musician (not a star, not a “sleb”) putting so much effort into everything she did for the sheer love of music, and being completely modest and self-deprecating about it at the same time.
This is ultimately a book about music, but it is also about love, feminism, friendship and motherhood, all told with delicious womanly wisdom. What moved me the most was Thorn’s descriptions of sitting at the bedside of her partner and band mate Ben Watt when he became dangerously sick with a mystery illness. I was floored by her descriptions of the sickening whirl of emotions she felt when a doctor admitted Ben might die. I was totally convinced by her that nothing in this world, no ambition, no amount of money or fame could ever fill a gap left by him.
I was punching the air with glee when having recovered, Ben and Tracey go on to have a MASSIVE hit with Missing. It was like the moment at the end of a film when your two favourite heroes eventually make it against the odds and everything ends the right way and you leave the cinema positively glowing.
Thorn’s chatty writing style makes Bedsit Disco Queen read like a really, really good interview and I found her immensely funny and endearing. This would make a perfect bookshelf buddy to last year’s How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran.
The only thing I’m annoyed about is that I discovered (upon finishing the book I spent a good 48 hours listening to everything she has ever recorded) that she has a christmas album which I will now have to wait a WHOLE YEAR to enjoy properly.
November 20, 2012
I've enjoyed Tracey Thorn's music for many years, dating back to the days of Everything But The Girl's "Amplified Heart" record (and they'd done quite a few before that one...) right up to her recent solo albums "Out of the Woods", "Love and Its Opposite" and this year's Christmas record "Tinsel and Lights". So what was I expecting from her memoir?
Not what I got, is the actual answer. I was expecting celebrity anecdotes and a look back at a successful, if not stratospheric, pop career. Instead, I read about a childhood growing up post-punk, a youth spent struggling to succeed in music in the days when fanzines, self-produced cassette albums and rough gigs in all the wrong places were part and parcel of getting somewhere. I read about fortuitous meetings and messy band splits eventually leading to the creation of EBTG. Struggles with the record label, touring, recording, terrifying life-threatening illnesses, surprising collaborations with cutting edge musicians (Massive Attack) and the eventual exhausted abandonment of anything to do with music in order to raise a family - culminating in a triumphant, if surprising return to the business in her late forties.
Funny, thoughtful, sad and uplifting, this is a great read. It's not the memoir of someone who revels in fame and fortune - but someone who just wanted to make music despite everything that life threw at them. Highly recommended.
Not what I got, is the actual answer. I was expecting celebrity anecdotes and a look back at a successful, if not stratospheric, pop career. Instead, I read about a childhood growing up post-punk, a youth spent struggling to succeed in music in the days when fanzines, self-produced cassette albums and rough gigs in all the wrong places were part and parcel of getting somewhere. I read about fortuitous meetings and messy band splits eventually leading to the creation of EBTG. Struggles with the record label, touring, recording, terrifying life-threatening illnesses, surprising collaborations with cutting edge musicians (Massive Attack) and the eventual exhausted abandonment of anything to do with music in order to raise a family - culminating in a triumphant, if surprising return to the business in her late forties.
Funny, thoughtful, sad and uplifting, this is a great read. It's not the memoir of someone who revels in fame and fortune - but someone who just wanted to make music despite everything that life threw at them. Highly recommended.
February 16, 2020
Since reading this book I've become a Tracey Thorn fan.
I always quite liked her but Bedsit Disco Queen: How I Grew Up and Tried to Be a Pop Star has given me a new perspective.
She's fab
Bright, thoughtful, self deprecating, self aware, interesting, and with an intriguing tale to tell, especially if you lived through punk and what followed, or if you have any interest in idiosyncratic pop music from slightly outside the mainstream.
And isn't "Bedsit Disco Queen" one of the all time great book titles? A title this enjoyable and interesting autobiography lives up to.
4/5
I always quite liked her but Bedsit Disco Queen: How I Grew Up and Tried to Be a Pop Star has given me a new perspective.
She's fab
Bright, thoughtful, self deprecating, self aware, interesting, and with an intriguing tale to tell, especially if you lived through punk and what followed, or if you have any interest in idiosyncratic pop music from slightly outside the mainstream.
And isn't "Bedsit Disco Queen" one of the all time great book titles? A title this enjoyable and interesting autobiography lives up to.
4/5
March 6, 2014
BOTWIf you liked Anything But The Girl as much as I did, then this is for you.
Blurbs: Written and read by Tracey Thorn.
Abridged by Alison Joseph
Produced by Allegra McIlroy.
http://youtu.be/Hp8NmI8kbgY
May 28, 2014
Perhaps previous bands had inspired those with genuine musical talent to buy instruments, start practising and dream of one day being good enough to perform. But after 1977 it seemed there was no need to fanny around wasting time on things like practising, or honing your craft – you could just buy an instrument, get together with anyone else who had one and go out and do a gig. Right now. For teenagers with the patience and attention spans of goldfish, this was enormously appealing. There was the added bonus that the grown-ups hated it all, and so wouldn’t try to spoil it by being supportive ...It's been said that the British national pastime is the practice of embarrassment, but somehow that doesn't fully serve a rock-bio (which this is no matter how determinedly it wants to be indie or alt). Tracey Thorn narrates this tale of the end-of-century music biz in England, and is constitutionally unable to self-dramatize it. Which, if you like the band in question, suits their overall vibe anyway, so it's fairly matched to its intended audience.
Astoundingly though, the story of how the band Thorn fronted got its peculiar name "Everything But The Girl" -- doesn't make the book. (A sign in a shop window that sold furniture, often to the new-adult or student class, advertised their wares under this quirky banner. The days after punk saw a million band names like this, from a telephone booth ad or a matchbook cover. This one had a poignant, self-consciously lovelorn ring to it, that stuck.) That's in keeping with the modest approach throughout, as Thorn is from the generation of Britons that took the no-airs/no-drama flag into the battle that music was having with itself in the eighties.
After Beatles, after Disco, after Punk, after Glam and Stadium Rock, there was a surging nonmovement that started with the principle that it was truly coolest to shrug off fame and be anonymous. Paul Weller broke up The Jam and began what he called The Style Council, chief exponent of what would be misnomered as Café Rock or New Jazz ... And one of the vocalists chosen for tracks on that recording was Tracey Thorn. Who here narrates the category and some differentiations within it:
“ ... Sade and her band were in and out of the same studio, Power Plant in Willesden, while we were recording 'Eden', and while being very nice people, they were all intimidatingly gorgeous and fashionable and just absolutely not indie. They seemed wholeheartedly to embrace and embody the New Jazz cool soul aesthetic in a way that was so pure and simple as to be easily translatable into pop terms. 'Diamond Life' was patently NOT a bizarre hybrid. (Which is why it won the Brit Best Album Award that year, while we sat at home in a rented flat, watching the whole ceremony on a rented telly.)
Our album 'Eden', on the other hand, was a much stranger record. We had by now come up with a fairly clear-cut musical manifesto, consisting of a somewhat esoteric set of ground rules which informed the recording sessions... What we liked about the small-combo, 1950s-style jazz that we were inspired by was the precision of the playing, the no-fuss, no-frills approach, which we saw as being the antithesis to rock’s excesses. In the austerity of the jazz trio we saw a continuation of the purity of punk."
The idea was that a kind of bohemian, quiet swing sound-- passionate, though, if slow-burning, soulful-- was an antidote to the trend-encrusted excesses of post-seventies pop music. And if any single voice hit the right place, it was Tracy Thorn. Even the much more million-selling Sade didn't have the blend of sophistication and regret-tinged conflictedness that Thorn and her partner Ben Watt could wrench out of a three or four minute pop song.
This book somehow manages to underplay everything though, and if it weren't for the enduring influence of this unsung band it would be a miss. For this reader, though, there were too many direct-hit musical encounters from EBTG over the years -- their albums Eden, from 83, Idlewild in 88, and then a complete second wind with Amplified Heart in 94, and the criminally under-acknowledged Temperamental from 99-- to be anything like a fluke.
Thorn's vocals found themselves on many era-specific tastemaker outings, too, starting with the Paul Weller track and including later records with Lloyd Cole and then, massively, with Massive Attack on their huge Protection record, among others. Basically, by the mid-nineties, she was the role model for the guest vocalist that floats above the trip-hop or acid-jazz mix; the beret and vintage-frocked ingénue of the early eighties had translated to the electronica world of the next decade with aplomb. If you had two turntables, microphone, and Tracey Thorn, all was well.
There is a history that is touched upon here, the diaspora of postpunk and new-wave finding a million threads through grunge and Britpop, alongside house and rave, that isn't quite covered. How we get from there to EDM and all of its variants isn't the main topic of this book, but many of the early stops along the way are covered.
Put the needle in the groove, says the book.
October 25, 2015
I was so happy when I saw that Tracey Thorn wrote a memoir. I have loved her since 1984 when I heard her on The Style Council's first album, singing The Paris Match. I had a bit of an obsession with Paul Weller in high school so the fact he had included her on his album was like the Good Housekeeping seal of approval to me. Then Eden came out shortly after that and I got to hear her for an entire album and it confirmed my love for her singing. If I was able to choose anyone's voice to sing like, I would choose Tracey's. I also love Ben Watt's voice - it's like butter, so smooth.
Thus I am biased when it comes to reading this memoir. I have reads loads of rock memoirs but usually not of people I truly love. I just like memoirs in general and rock memoirs are a fun subcategory. Even though I love her music, I did not know a lot about her personal life. EBTG really flew under the radar press-wise. They didn't tour much in the states either so the 2 times I saw them live I was besides myself with excitement. Even though I play her music a lot for some reason I never felt compelled to find out a lot about her or the band. I guess the songs were enough for me.
Her memoir is not the standard rock star memoir. No debauched behavior. No groupies or hard drugs or trashing hotel rooms. I felt like I was listening to a friend talking - granted, a friend with a pretty cool life, but not so removed from my own experiences to feel alien to me. Some rock memoirs I have read, it's like listening to a alien, their perspective on life is so radically different from mine. Her insecurities about her career made her seem very human. I can't get over that she thinks of herself as "someone who sings" rather than a singer. I'm currently reading Richard Hell's memoir (whoa, so different from this one) and Richard brings up some interesting points about famous rock singers and how they have to be overbearingly narcissistic in order to be a successful frontman in a band. And Tracey is certainly not overwhelmingly narcissistic. The story of how the first time she sang with a band she had to hide in the wardrobe to do so was funny. I'm glad she was able to overcome her shyness so I could get to know her singing.
I enjoyed the inclusion of various song lyrics throughout the book and how they tied in with that particular point in her life. Interesting to know the background behind the writing of the song. Her perspective as a female in the rock music industry was also quite fascinating. She is not traditionally beautiful or sexy and this added to her insecurity. I'm sure the men in marketing had no idea how to sell her. I haven't read as many female rock star memoirs, but they all discuss the issue of beauty and sex in regards to their career. All of them. Male rock stars, not so much. Oh, they might talk about how once they became famous they had the opportunity to have more sex and with more beautiful women, but they never write about how the record label or the press or their management needed them to be sexy and handsome. They don't need to be. I mean, my God, I read Bill Wyman's memoir where he discusses the thousands - yes, you read that correctly - the thousands of women he had sex with and he looks like a toad. A boring toad. But it didn't matter - he's in a rock band! Tracey mentions that she naively started a band for the same reasons boys do, to attract the attention of the opposite sex. But it didn't work. Boys in bands didn't want to date a girl in a band, they wanted to date a girl who was a groupie. And there weren't any male groupies flocking around after shows. Too intimidating? I wonder.
I had always wondered why the band ended and her explanation of why she quit the industry was not what I was expecting. However, it made total sense. After Ben nearly died of his rare illness in the mid-90s, she had an epiphany about what was really important in life. And what she wanted was to be a mother. She tried to do both, be a mom and be a rock star, but it sounded hellish. Touring with 18 month old twins - good grief, what an absolute nightmare! I would have quit too. Again, interesting how male rock stars can procreate all over the place and not bat an eyelash about leaving their kids for months on end while they tour. Not as easily done when you are the mother. I hope now that her kids are older she will record more. I had no idea she had even released solo albums - I need to go get them.
This is well worth a read for anyone interested in the music industry. You don't need to be a fan, I think. However, don't go into it for the lurid rock-n-roll stories because there aren't any. There are quite a few funny anecdotes she tells - George Michael shouting hello to her from his range rover while she waits outside her daughters' preschool with the other moms is very funny. The Liam Gallagher one is funny too. Of course, nothing tops the Ozzy Osbourne anecdotes in his memoir, but really, what could?
Thus I am biased when it comes to reading this memoir. I have reads loads of rock memoirs but usually not of people I truly love. I just like memoirs in general and rock memoirs are a fun subcategory. Even though I love her music, I did not know a lot about her personal life. EBTG really flew under the radar press-wise. They didn't tour much in the states either so the 2 times I saw them live I was besides myself with excitement. Even though I play her music a lot for some reason I never felt compelled to find out a lot about her or the band. I guess the songs were enough for me.
Her memoir is not the standard rock star memoir. No debauched behavior. No groupies or hard drugs or trashing hotel rooms. I felt like I was listening to a friend talking - granted, a friend with a pretty cool life, but not so removed from my own experiences to feel alien to me. Some rock memoirs I have read, it's like listening to a alien, their perspective on life is so radically different from mine. Her insecurities about her career made her seem very human. I can't get over that she thinks of herself as "someone who sings" rather than a singer. I'm currently reading Richard Hell's memoir (whoa, so different from this one) and Richard brings up some interesting points about famous rock singers and how they have to be overbearingly narcissistic in order to be a successful frontman in a band. And Tracey is certainly not overwhelmingly narcissistic. The story of how the first time she sang with a band she had to hide in the wardrobe to do so was funny. I'm glad she was able to overcome her shyness so I could get to know her singing.
I enjoyed the inclusion of various song lyrics throughout the book and how they tied in with that particular point in her life. Interesting to know the background behind the writing of the song. Her perspective as a female in the rock music industry was also quite fascinating. She is not traditionally beautiful or sexy and this added to her insecurity. I'm sure the men in marketing had no idea how to sell her. I haven't read as many female rock star memoirs, but they all discuss the issue of beauty and sex in regards to their career. All of them. Male rock stars, not so much. Oh, they might talk about how once they became famous they had the opportunity to have more sex and with more beautiful women, but they never write about how the record label or the press or their management needed them to be sexy and handsome. They don't need to be. I mean, my God, I read Bill Wyman's memoir where he discusses the thousands - yes, you read that correctly - the thousands of women he had sex with and he looks like a toad. A boring toad. But it didn't matter - he's in a rock band! Tracey mentions that she naively started a band for the same reasons boys do, to attract the attention of the opposite sex. But it didn't work. Boys in bands didn't want to date a girl in a band, they wanted to date a girl who was a groupie. And there weren't any male groupies flocking around after shows. Too intimidating? I wonder.
I had always wondered why the band ended and her explanation of why she quit the industry was not what I was expecting. However, it made total sense. After Ben nearly died of his rare illness in the mid-90s, she had an epiphany about what was really important in life. And what she wanted was to be a mother. She tried to do both, be a mom and be a rock star, but it sounded hellish. Touring with 18 month old twins - good grief, what an absolute nightmare! I would have quit too. Again, interesting how male rock stars can procreate all over the place and not bat an eyelash about leaving their kids for months on end while they tour. Not as easily done when you are the mother. I hope now that her kids are older she will record more. I had no idea she had even released solo albums - I need to go get them.
This is well worth a read for anyone interested in the music industry. You don't need to be a fan, I think. However, don't go into it for the lurid rock-n-roll stories because there aren't any. There are quite a few funny anecdotes she tells - George Michael shouting hello to her from his range rover while she waits outside her daughters' preschool with the other moms is very funny. The Liam Gallagher one is funny too. Of course, nothing tops the Ozzy Osbourne anecdotes in his memoir, but really, what could?
September 4, 2023
It was with utmost delight I found out that Tracey Thorn in fact got a third memoir out this year, because that means I have not one, but two more to look forward to.
This first one was an absolute delight; open-hearted, funny and a very appealing voice (yes, even on paper). Thorn manages to expose and even make a bit fun of herself, without ever falling into self-depreciation or ever sounding dishonest. She offers a lot of insight into the music industry, letting us know how much is up to chance, timings and trends. Likewise, she gives insights to musicians (and actually, improbable as it sounds, it seems to me that even the famous ones are actually people).
Spice this with a liberal smattering of references to loads of music that I love, not least The Smiths, who seem to get most of the sometimes paraphrased and sometimes verbatim chapter headings. As for her own music, it has always been on the fringe of my listening. I was compelled to dig out the one EBTG album in my collection, The Language of Life, only to realise it must have been in the bunch I got rid of when packing for moving. In the times of Spotify, the actual listening can of course be easily accomplished, but at the same time it really is not necessary to enjoy this book.
This first one was an absolute delight; open-hearted, funny and a very appealing voice (yes, even on paper). Thorn manages to expose and even make a bit fun of herself, without ever falling into self-depreciation or ever sounding dishonest. She offers a lot of insight into the music industry, letting us know how much is up to chance, timings and trends. Likewise, she gives insights to musicians (and actually, improbable as it sounds, it seems to me that even the famous ones are actually people).
Spice this with a liberal smattering of references to loads of music that I love, not least The Smiths, who seem to get most of the sometimes paraphrased and sometimes verbatim chapter headings. As for her own music, it has always been on the fringe of my listening. I was compelled to dig out the one EBTG album in my collection, The Language of Life, only to realise it must have been in the bunch I got rid of when packing for moving. In the times of Spotify, the actual listening can of course be easily accomplished, but at the same time it really is not necessary to enjoy this book.
April 8, 2016
Kindly disregard this book review. Whatever is written here is certain to be extremely biased. For readers who know little of EBTG just try 'the best of' album as a great intro.
'Bedsit Disco Queen' was featured on BBC Radio Four 'Book of the Week' recently, read by Tracey Thorn herself. It was great listening, while trucking down the highway driving with the shaven insane. I wasn't aware of any published autobiography from the Thorn bird and just made a mental note. A week later in the town library, there it is, waiting for me on the shelf. Although I've been three days reading this, spare time has been scant and in actual fact, I more or less devoured this one in a single helping. A 2013 publication, it could very well be my Goodreads 'Poptastic Book of the Year' award winner!
Tracey Thorn is not just a distinctive writer of song lyrics, as is evident by this memoir. Her narrative flows with much ironic humour and intelligence. I think I can recommend this, no matter what era or genre of popular music is preferred, this one is sure to entertain.
'Bedsit Disco Queen' was featured on BBC Radio Four 'Book of the Week' recently, read by Tracey Thorn herself. It was great listening, while trucking down the highway driving with the shaven insane. I wasn't aware of any published autobiography from the Thorn bird and just made a mental note. A week later in the town library, there it is, waiting for me on the shelf. Although I've been three days reading this, spare time has been scant and in actual fact, I more or less devoured this one in a single helping. A 2013 publication, it could very well be my Goodreads 'Poptastic Book of the Year' award winner!
Tracey Thorn is not just a distinctive writer of song lyrics, as is evident by this memoir. Her narrative flows with much ironic humour and intelligence. I think I can recommend this, no matter what era or genre of popular music is preferred, this one is sure to entertain.
July 15, 2013
Oh, how I've always loved Everything But The Girl since I bought their first album my freshman year of college, 1985. They seemed to tell my life story through their music and Tracey's lyrics - I felt like they were my friends. I even wrote a fan letter to them AND BEN WATT WROTE ME BACK! I still have the letter he wrote me. When I heard that Tracey had written a memoir, I scoured the internet to get a copy ASAP!
Reading Bedsit Disco Queen is like reading your best friend's story. Tracey's honesty, bravery, humor and wit are on every page. Her writing brings back so many memories of my own - distinctive times in my life when I bought their records, took them home to listened to them over and over again and having profound emotional reactions to what was coming out of the speakers.
This is a wonderful book that evokes as much emotion as hearing her gorgeous voice singing from the speakers. I hope that she will write Part II one day after another 30 years in the business.
Reading Bedsit Disco Queen is like reading your best friend's story. Tracey's honesty, bravery, humor and wit are on every page. Her writing brings back so many memories of my own - distinctive times in my life when I bought their records, took them home to listened to them over and over again and having profound emotional reactions to what was coming out of the speakers.
This is a wonderful book that evokes as much emotion as hearing her gorgeous voice singing from the speakers. I hope that she will write Part II one day after another 30 years in the business.
August 29, 2019
Totally loved this. Yes I am a sucker for all things like singer memoirs, since it is specifically the same thing I do. Music, and life, how to be a creative person, how crazy life and dedicating your life to music can be. I love her thoughts on it, and how she expresses it. Will be reading her other memoir as well.
March 8, 2013
An autobiography that was really finished in 2007, but has dragged along somewhat. Not plotting, just being relevant and to-the-point just like Tracey Thorn's music. No fiddling around, really.
It covers her life in chronological order, being mostly about music. Listening to it, delving into it. Becoming and being a fan of The Smiths and Morrissey - including her and Ben Watt's correspondence with the man - and becoming bigger and bigger, up to getting dropped by WEA just before "Missing" sold 3 million copies, and the life thereafter.
From the start, Thorn covers her punk beginnings in laudable style, basically telling stuff, e.g. what she did after acquiring an electric guitar:
There is a lot of internal thoughts, but none are really ranting nor boring. At times, I wished Thorn had actually delved more into detail, which I rarely think is the case with music autobiographies.
And, upon meeting her love and ETBTG 50%-er:
...and:
And with Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain:
Funny on record sales, gold discs:
On the start of describing Ben Watt's all-consuming illness:
After having children at first:
All in all, highly recommendable.
Violent lifestyle swings from luxury to squalor and back again – sometimes within minutes. If you like those kinds of stories, stories where the lead characters seem to blunder through life, much as you do through your own, then you might like this one. The experience of writing it has sometimes been very like drowning, except that I’ve spent months, instead of seconds, with my past life flashing before my eyes. It’s been strange, and disconcerting; it has made me confront what I’ve done with my life, take a close look at who I once was and how that has a bearing on who I am now. And so often I’ve heard David Byrne singing just over my shoulder, ‘How did I get here?’ Or even, on occasion, ‘My God, what have I done?’
It covers her life in chronological order, being mostly about music. Listening to it, delving into it. Becoming and being a fan of The Smiths and Morrissey - including her and Ben Watt's correspondence with the man - and becoming bigger and bigger, up to getting dropped by WEA just before "Missing" sold 3 million copies, and the life thereafter.
From the start, Thorn covers her punk beginnings in laudable style, basically telling stuff, e.g. what she did after acquiring an electric guitar:
I don’t have an amp, or even a lead, and if I’m going to be really honest, I’m not certain I even realised you needed one. I had never paid any attention to what happened behind and around guitar players in bands, and so I think I imagined that the point of an electric guitar was that you plugged it into the electricity socket in the wall and somehow a loud noise came out. I still have a lot to learn.
There is a lot of internal thoughts, but none are really ranting nor boring. At times, I wished Thorn had actually delved more into detail, which I rarely think is the case with music autobiographies.
And, upon meeting her love and ETBTG 50%-er:
‘D’you know who I am?’
‘I think you’re probably Ben Watt.’
‘That’s right. Have you got your guitar with you?’
...and:
After that first evening in Ben’s room, we spent most of our waking hours together. After playing Solid Air to me, he turned up a couple of nights later on my doorstep with a bottle of wine and a Bill Evans record and that was that, really.
And with Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain:
The unlikely nature of this enduring aftershock of ours was brought home to me some fourteen years after our split, when I was appearing on Later … with jools Holland, performing with Massive Attack. Also on the show that night was Courtney Love with her band Hole. Widely regarded at the time as something of a loose cannon, she was the focus of all attention in the studio that day, and when the bands gathered on their respective sets for the filming there was a sense that all eyes were on her, mine included. Just before the cameras started rolling she looked across to our stage, put down her guitar and strode across the empty central area to crouch down next to me where I was sitting. ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘you’re Tracey from the Marine Girls! Kurt and I were both huge fans of your band.’ (Kurt was not long dead at this point.) ‘Y’know, my band, Hole, we do a cover of one of your songs, called “In Love”.’ More or less speechless, I managed to mumble something polite in return, before she strode back and the show began. Fast-forward to May 2010, a full twenty-seven years after the demise of the Marine Girls. I was back on Later … with jools Holland, this time performing as a solo artist. Also appearing on the show were the current incarnation of all things hip and New York, LCD Soundsystem. I was sitting at the side of their stage, watching them set up to do their song, when a member of the band looked up and saw me, made his way over to where I was sitting and said – yeah, you guessed it – ‘I just have to tell you, I have always been such a huge fan of the Marine Girls.’
The whole unlikely story only finally became real for me when Kurt Cobain’s Journals were published in 2002 and I was able to see for myself, in his own handwriting, our appearance in his many lists of favourite bands. There are the Marine Girls on page 128 and page 241, while on page 77, in a list of his all-time favourite songs, are two of mine, ‘Honey’ and ‘In Love’. Most incredibly, on page 271 Beach Party is listed as one of Nirvana’s Top Fifty albums, along with the Sex Pistols, The Clash and Public Enemy.
Funny on record sales, gold discs:
Selling 100,000 records means you get a gold disc, those trophies so beloved of the ageing rock star with acres of Cotswolds wall space to fill. The discs themselves were huge, framed artefacts – a piece of twelve-inch vinyl sprayed either gold or silver according to how many you’d sold – but here’s the hilarious bit: it wouldn’t necessarily be your own actual record that had been sprayed gold – just any old piece of vinyl. You would know, for instance, that your album had five tracks on side one, but there it was, a piece of ‘gold’ vinyl, with seven clearly separated sets of grooves on that side. You might have earned the prize for selling an admirable number of copies of a fairly quirky, uncommercial British pop record, but there on your wall you might well have a framed and gilded copy of The Number of the Beast by Iron Maiden.
On the start of describing Ben Watt's all-consuming illness:
We were at the lowest point of our entire career, the point at which it may have looked as if it was all over. We’d had a reasonable run at it, all told. The band had lasted eight years and made six albums. The last one had been a bit rubbish, and we were running out of steam. Luckily, Ben decided to contract a life-threatening illness, and in doing so, saved us.
After having children at first:
We tried to come up with a compromise: play festivals instead of touring. That way we could reach a large audience in a short space of time, reducing the travelling and the time away from home. So we played at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark, and then the Montreux Jazz Festival, taking the girls with us and staying in a beautiful hotel overlooking the lake. That little trip was actually quite enjoyable. It was only spoiled by the fact that I began to feel sick the morning after the gig. On the way home, at the airport, I felt worse – sick and faint. It passed as the day wore on, but the next morning I woke up and felt sick again. Eight months later, our son Blake was born, and that gig at Montreux in July 2000 became the last gig I did.
All in all, highly recommendable.
October 18, 2024
Ich dachte immer, warum Biografien lesen, dieses Buch hat mir gezeigt, warum. Hat mich abends zwar nicht wirklich müde gemacht (weiblich Traceys Gedanken zu inspirierend zum schlafen fand I guess), aber es war mindestens so spannend wie so mancher Roman.
June 10, 2020
Like (I assume) most kids who came of age during the 90’s, Everything but the Girl cropped up on my radar in 1995 with Todd Terry’s Missing remix. Incidentally that year Massive Attack’s Tracey Thorn sung Protection single was released, which did very well on MTV. I saw Tracey Thorn in the Missing video and connections were made (don’t forget there’s wasn’t Wikipedia, you had to do the sleuthing yourself) . Jump to 1996 and the Walking Wounded and Wrong singles dominated my life that summer.
Then in 2003 when I was going through my Beat Happening phase ( well it hasn’t left) I read Calvin Johnson say that The Marine Girls were one of the groups to prompt him to start his K Records label. I did some research and sure enough Tracey Thorn’s name crops up. Oh and I thought the Lazy Ways/ Beach party album was awesome.
Fast forward to 2020 and I’m reading Tracey Thorn’s autobiography.
That was a long intro
Bedsit Disco Queen is about Tracey Thorn’s love for post punk, her first stint as the founder member of the Marine Girls, meeting her husband Ben Watt, , Everything but the Girl and motherhood.
For me, a great autobiography does not only focus on the life of that person but digs up other themes. In some cases it’s about a scene developing. In the case of Bedsit Disco Queen it’s about juggling the roles of being a musician, wife, mother and well, being a woman. While the book itself is not about female oppression it does talk about standing for one’s rights and knowing when to make a decision.
The book is a good mixture of anecdotes and more serious moments, However the book is never light or melodramatic. Thorn’s writing style is flowing and is a joy to read. She is quite critical of herself at times, something which I like. In the past I have read autobiographies where the subject wants to be some almighty being and it’s draining.
Does one have to be a Marine Girls or EBTG fan to read Bedsit Disco Queen? absolutely not. Thankfully the themes in this book elevate it from being a rock bio, obviously the more you know will help with a couple of post punk era groups that are mentioned. Personally this book falls into the category of music bios one MUST read.
Then in 2003 when I was going through my Beat Happening phase ( well it hasn’t left) I read Calvin Johnson say that The Marine Girls were one of the groups to prompt him to start his K Records label. I did some research and sure enough Tracey Thorn’s name crops up. Oh and I thought the Lazy Ways/ Beach party album was awesome.
Fast forward to 2020 and I’m reading Tracey Thorn’s autobiography.
That was a long intro
Bedsit Disco Queen is about Tracey Thorn’s love for post punk, her first stint as the founder member of the Marine Girls, meeting her husband Ben Watt, , Everything but the Girl and motherhood.
For me, a great autobiography does not only focus on the life of that person but digs up other themes. In some cases it’s about a scene developing. In the case of Bedsit Disco Queen it’s about juggling the roles of being a musician, wife, mother and well, being a woman. While the book itself is not about female oppression it does talk about standing for one’s rights and knowing when to make a decision.
The book is a good mixture of anecdotes and more serious moments, However the book is never light or melodramatic. Thorn’s writing style is flowing and is a joy to read. She is quite critical of herself at times, something which I like. In the past I have read autobiographies where the subject wants to be some almighty being and it’s draining.
Does one have to be a Marine Girls or EBTG fan to read Bedsit Disco Queen? absolutely not. Thankfully the themes in this book elevate it from being a rock bio, obviously the more you know will help with a couple of post punk era groups that are mentioned. Personally this book falls into the category of music bios one MUST read.
January 2, 2016
I loved this book.
Tracey Thorn, half of the band, Everything But The Girl, tells a really interesting and engaging tale of what it was like being part of the music scene from the late 1970’s to the present. Loving lots of the independent bands and “alternative” music from this era, I was hooked from the very start, and I think anyone else who has either an interest in music, or a well written biography, would be too.
The stories about life on the road, the silent Japanese audiences, gigs in venues as diverse as the Royal Albert Hall to the local pub/dive, the obsessed fans and incidents involving other musician (Paul Weller, Morrissey, Liam Gallagher, Jeff Buckley to name a few) just add to the pleasure of reading this book.
Tracey is a great at not taking herself, or the music industry too serious, and this is all part of the charm of this book.
A great read, and one that I would recommend to anyone interested in either biographies or music.
Tracey Thorn, half of the band, Everything But The Girl, tells a really interesting and engaging tale of what it was like being part of the music scene from the late 1970’s to the present. Loving lots of the independent bands and “alternative” music from this era, I was hooked from the very start, and I think anyone else who has either an interest in music, or a well written biography, would be too.
The stories about life on the road, the silent Japanese audiences, gigs in venues as diverse as the Royal Albert Hall to the local pub/dive, the obsessed fans and incidents involving other musician (Paul Weller, Morrissey, Liam Gallagher, Jeff Buckley to name a few) just add to the pleasure of reading this book.
Tracey is a great at not taking herself, or the music industry too serious, and this is all part of the charm of this book.
A great read, and one that I would recommend to anyone interested in either biographies or music.
April 3, 2023
I don't usually like celebrity memoirs, however, I do like books about music, especially when musicians dissect how they became musicians. This book does that quite well. I am only a few years younger than Thorn, so her journey was particularly fascinating to me. This book is simply written in an honest, unsentimental voice. Thorn does a great job of including some of her lyrics between chapters that echo what she had been talking about in the previous pages. I loved how that showed me where the song itself came from, especially since I am a fan of Everything But The Girl and know most of their catalog.
If you like music from the punk era through the 80s and into the electronica revolution of the 90s, then I think you will like this book. If you are a fan of EBTG, you will definitely like this book.
Recommended.
If you like music from the punk era through the 80s and into the electronica revolution of the 90s, then I think you will like this book. If you are a fan of EBTG, you will definitely like this book.
Recommended.
September 26, 2024
I want to be a Bedsit Disco Queen!
April 7, 2015
I liked EBTG even during their dinner party jazz-lite phase (which, pace Thorn, was actually the anti-rockist avant-garde) and I was impressed with Tracey Thorn's '90s reinvention as an electro-goddess. I love the Marine Girls, and her early solo songs (Too Happy, Pigeons In The Attic Room) hit me in the gut every time. In her memoir, Tracey is witty, self-deprecating and self-aggrandising in turn, and she is blessed with amazing powers of recall. Pertinent lyrics are printed between chapters, and I turned to youtube to hear the songs that I hadn't encountered before. Even the gig where she duets on Fever with Paul Weller is available on the internet.
I laughed (“It seemed impossible to carry on being civil to your parents while claiming to like the Stranglers”), I cried (at the lyrics to Plain Sailing), I cheered (“God, I HATE the Beatles”), I booed (“I have lost patience with bands who write songs called The Day She Lost Her Pastels Badge”) – especially as I assume the woman who wrote The Day She Lost Her Pastels Badge was much influenced by Ms Thorn.
However, I had a few issues with the book. The first is Thorn writing about past events in the present tense, which I always find irritating: it doesn't bring a sense of immediacy, it just jars. Secondly in the section on how she became a punk rocker, she writes about how punk caused a greater generation gap than any time before or since. But every person following a musical movement thinks this. It would certainly not have gone down well to become a rock 'n' roll greaser in the conservative '50s. I bet the olds were scandalisd by the young folk dancing to “negro music” in the '20s and '30s. Let's not forget that Frank Sinatra, so unhip that Thorn's parents liked them, was the ruin of '40s America, allegedly. It was the war that caused punk – cities were bombed to pieces and the survivors moved out to the suburbs for a better life, which their offspring rejected – especially after the '60s had rejuvenated and regenerated London. From Crawley to Woking to Hemel Hempstead: punk was the sound of the suburbanites.
Thirdly, the oft-repeated phrases: “What people forget about the 70s...”, “What you have to remember is that...”, “Before the internet we...” Maybe a 23 year old will pick up this book and want to find out about life in the 20th century, but in reality, the readership is going to be people my age and older, who (vaguely) remember the '70s and '80s.
These are niggles. Recently, there have been a few books by Women In Rock – Herstory, if you will – and here is my favourite part of Bedsit Disco Queen that explains why they need to keep being written: “I was utterly pissed off at being made to feel that it was inappropriate and unfeminine to be spiky and opinionated, an attitude I struggled with particularly at home, but I then also encountered in many of the boys I met, who I realised could be as reactionary as my parents when it came to their opinions about girls. It drove me mad to discover that the kind of docility which I'd hoped had died out in about 1958 could still be appealing to boys who seemed otherwise to be the same generation to me. I was probably a bit slow on the uptake but I had assumed that the qualities I found attractive in boys – being clever and spirited and having a good record collection and being in a band – would work in reverse. But I was starting to wake up to the fact that of course many boys found those things threatening and unattractive in a girl.”
I laughed (“It seemed impossible to carry on being civil to your parents while claiming to like the Stranglers”), I cried (at the lyrics to Plain Sailing), I cheered (“God, I HATE the Beatles”), I booed (“I have lost patience with bands who write songs called The Day She Lost Her Pastels Badge”) – especially as I assume the woman who wrote The Day She Lost Her Pastels Badge was much influenced by Ms Thorn.
However, I had a few issues with the book. The first is Thorn writing about past events in the present tense, which I always find irritating: it doesn't bring a sense of immediacy, it just jars. Secondly in the section on how she became a punk rocker, she writes about how punk caused a greater generation gap than any time before or since. But every person following a musical movement thinks this. It would certainly not have gone down well to become a rock 'n' roll greaser in the conservative '50s. I bet the olds were scandalisd by the young folk dancing to “negro music” in the '20s and '30s. Let's not forget that Frank Sinatra, so unhip that Thorn's parents liked them, was the ruin of '40s America, allegedly. It was the war that caused punk – cities were bombed to pieces and the survivors moved out to the suburbs for a better life, which their offspring rejected – especially after the '60s had rejuvenated and regenerated London. From Crawley to Woking to Hemel Hempstead: punk was the sound of the suburbanites.
Thirdly, the oft-repeated phrases: “What people forget about the 70s...”, “What you have to remember is that...”, “Before the internet we...” Maybe a 23 year old will pick up this book and want to find out about life in the 20th century, but in reality, the readership is going to be people my age and older, who (vaguely) remember the '70s and '80s.
These are niggles. Recently, there have been a few books by Women In Rock – Herstory, if you will – and here is my favourite part of Bedsit Disco Queen that explains why they need to keep being written: “I was utterly pissed off at being made to feel that it was inappropriate and unfeminine to be spiky and opinionated, an attitude I struggled with particularly at home, but I then also encountered in many of the boys I met, who I realised could be as reactionary as my parents when it came to their opinions about girls. It drove me mad to discover that the kind of docility which I'd hoped had died out in about 1958 could still be appealing to boys who seemed otherwise to be the same generation to me. I was probably a bit slow on the uptake but I had assumed that the qualities I found attractive in boys – being clever and spirited and having a good record collection and being in a band – would work in reverse. But I was starting to wake up to the fact that of course many boys found those things threatening and unattractive in a girl.”
February 23, 2013
Really enjoyed this book. When I was at school the cool girls were into Everything But The Girl (both of them). They never seemed to do the publicity thing, there were often rumours about them being a couple/ splitting up that I remember, and I think that it was because they were a bit mysterious that I started buying their stuff. That and the voice of Tracey Thorn. The serendipitous story of Tracey's career and the machinations of the pop industry make an interesting story, moreso because it is also well written. She comes over as very honest, personable and recreates the era perfectly. I had plenty of chuckles, recognising things I'd forgotten all about (Do-Dos cough tablets).
The bit that I was delighted to see had a chapter of its own was their trip to Moscow in 1985. I was there as a delegate at the World Festival of Youth and Students, as a 14 year old boy away from my parents and had a great time. There as performers, and a few years older and wiser, they saw the whole experience with different eyes from me, but many of her recollections I could relate to, such as the parties at night in the foyer of Hotel Cosmos. I did get some mileage out of nonchalantly telling the cool girls at school that Ben and Tracey were a few doors up the corridor from me (although I was a bit too starstruck to have ventured a "Hello" to them).
I also liked the insertion of the song lyrics between chapters, which illustrate how personal her songwriting is. It was nice to get the chance to read through them and understand the context.
Good stuff all round.
The bit that I was delighted to see had a chapter of its own was their trip to Moscow in 1985. I was there as a delegate at the World Festival of Youth and Students, as a 14 year old boy away from my parents and had a great time. There as performers, and a few years older and wiser, they saw the whole experience with different eyes from me, but many of her recollections I could relate to, such as the parties at night in the foyer of Hotel Cosmos. I did get some mileage out of nonchalantly telling the cool girls at school that Ben and Tracey were a few doors up the corridor from me (although I was a bit too starstruck to have ventured a "Hello" to them).
I also liked the insertion of the song lyrics between chapters, which illustrate how personal her songwriting is. It was nice to get the chance to read through them and understand the context.
Good stuff all round.
May 22, 2013
Bedsit Disco Queen is the memoir of the female half of the eighties and nineties pop duo Everything but the Girl.
The book is not just about Everything but the Girl though, it is also about music in general and being a pop star in those halcyon days.
It begins in the late nineteen seventies when Tracey first becomes interested in music. Even if you only know Everything but the Girl from the song Missing there will be lots to enjoy in this book and that is mainly because it is well written and is set in a very interesting time for music and also for British society as a whole.
I do find that I now have an appreciation of the music of Everything but the Girl that I really didn't have before, which may be a by-product of reading this book, or maybe that it just me.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in music of nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties, and not just people who are fans of Everything but the Girl, because there is much more to this book than just a biography of that band, though it could also be read as such if you really wanted to.
For me it is a memoir of a person who lived through that time told with warmth and heart and a great deal of humour thrown in for good measure.
The book is not just about Everything but the Girl though, it is also about music in general and being a pop star in those halcyon days.
It begins in the late nineteen seventies when Tracey first becomes interested in music. Even if you only know Everything but the Girl from the song Missing there will be lots to enjoy in this book and that is mainly because it is well written and is set in a very interesting time for music and also for British society as a whole.
I do find that I now have an appreciation of the music of Everything but the Girl that I really didn't have before, which may be a by-product of reading this book, or maybe that it just me.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in music of nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties, and not just people who are fans of Everything but the Girl, because there is much more to this book than just a biography of that band, though it could also be read as such if you really wanted to.
For me it is a memoir of a person who lived through that time told with warmth and heart and a great deal of humour thrown in for good measure.
June 13, 2018
An absolutely stellar pop music memoir and journey to full adulthood, self-discovery, and self-acceptance. My five-star rating should be considered against the fact that, other than her 2018 album RECORD and "Protection," I had not a clue who she was. I am now a huge fan and have much catching up to do. Her style is smart, clear, focused, and wry, and the lyrics she selects from her songbook fit like a glove.
January 9, 2020
Full disclosure: I was born in 1992. I did not know who the author was before I started reading her book. I just wanted to read more celebrity/music memoirs, and hers looked good. To that end, it's a testament to her writing - probably helped a lot by those degrees in literature, huh? - that I still found this whole thing pretty engaging despite never having followed her career before now. The first part dragged a bit but that's probably just because it took place well before I was born and was referencing people and concepts she may as well have completely made up and there's no way I would know the difference. I only know who Paul Weller is (was? Is he still alive?) because he was referenced in a novel about a fictional pop star!
June 13, 2019
Former girl group member from The Marine Girls, then later vocalist and songwriter for Everything But The Girl, Tracey Thorn, writes a very literate and interesting memoir of her somewhat reluctant career as a pop star. For one thing, she's probably the only pop star to go back to university to get her Masters degree in English Literature during a lull in her career before making a comeback. Should be compulsory reading for anyone wanting to go into the music business. - BH.
November 9, 2019
One of, if not, the best memoirs about music that I’ve read.
Honest, in depth and thought provoking.
Please read this book and enjoy, her music,
(a few of my fav.)
Marine Girls: Lazy Ways,
Tracy Thorn: Plain Sailing
Everything But the Girl: Eden
Honest, in depth and thought provoking.
Please read this book and enjoy, her music,
(a few of my fav.)
Marine Girls: Lazy Ways,
Tracy Thorn: Plain Sailing
Everything But the Girl: Eden
February 19, 2013
Every triumph, every fight, under disco light...
Once upon a time in this native land, every student wore a charity store Crombie, winklepickers and a permanent scowl, spiked their hair with Studioline gel and drank Guinness. Once upon a time every student had an Everything But The Girl album in their record collection, and possibly something by the Marine Girls and Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn too. It's all true.
Thorn's story is a little piece of living history, from a time when you could create a buzz - and an almost-hit record - in a bedroom or even a garden shed, for less than £200. The antithesis of the X-Factor/Cowell fame factory where candidates are picked for camera-friendly looks and primped and preened until they're as bland, inoffensive and convenient as sterilised milk, she grew up on a strict diet of indie, punk and feminist attitudes.
This is a warm, witty book full of wisdom worn lightly. Thorn pretty much sums up the divergence of opinion she and her career provoke - if you're only interested in how many records an act has sold, whether their last one got a gold disc and how much the video cost, then you're unlikely to be interested in this tale of downs and ups, frustrations and unexpected victories and a freedom hard won. If, on the other hand, you thought pop could be created by someone whose vocal debut came from inside a wardrobe, and who went from indie celeb to making music for fey bedwetters to one of global trip-hop's superstars to mother of three in Hampstead content with singing to her kids at Gymboree, then you may just enjoy this.
Thorn has a sharp eye and a bat's ear for a wittily turned phrase as followers of her blog will know. And to give you an idea of the scope of this book, its cast of supporting characters includes Jeff Buckley, Morrissey, Weller, Massive Attack, Fairport Convention, George Michael rolling past Tracey in the schoolyard in his Range Rover, and Neil Tennant at a record company party gamely trying to tempt a reluctant Thorn out of retirement. Even old-school Labour Party bigwig Eric Heffer puts in an appearance, falling foul of Thorn's proto-feminism in the Red Wedge days, But it's mainly Tracey - and Ben's - story, as she acknowledges. Her dry, observational style, which will be familar to fans of her lyrics, has occasional laugh out loud moments. A lot of it is devoted to analysis of why someone perpetually shy and uninterested in fame should at the same time seek out a career in the limelight. This makes it sound self-involved and slightly tedious, but not a bit of it. See, for instance, the description of her debut as a stage performer:
'When I was 11 I had appeared in my primary school's production of the musical Hansel And Gretel. Since you ask, I played Hansel, never having been a particularly girly girl. Someone provided me with a pair of genuine lederhosen, which were stiff and scratchy, and the resulting photo of me in the local Hertfordshire paper is a horrifying kind of paedophile fantasy. Despite these setbacks, it was my introduction to the experience of being onstage, and somewhat suprisingly, I loved it.'
Her adult experiences - and setbacks - are recorded in similar, knowing vein and endearingly, she does a Miranda-style fourth wall breaking every so often, addressing the reader directly. I like to think of it as a sort of indie style of writing, relating directly to your audience rather than being a distant, authorial type.
Tracey Thorn is not a conventional popstar, with an unorthodox career, and this is not a conventional rockstar read. It not only recreates a bygone era it'll also make you want to listen to the songs all over again. She and Ben took the band name from a furniture store near their student digs in Hull - Everything But The Girl. It was meant to be ironic but no one ever noticed that. As Smash Hits' Neil Tennant said reviewing their first single, 'Let's hope they decide to stay on sale.'
Once upon a time in this native land, every student wore a charity store Crombie, winklepickers and a permanent scowl, spiked their hair with Studioline gel and drank Guinness. Once upon a time every student had an Everything But The Girl album in their record collection, and possibly something by the Marine Girls and Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn too. It's all true.
Thorn's story is a little piece of living history, from a time when you could create a buzz - and an almost-hit record - in a bedroom or even a garden shed, for less than £200. The antithesis of the X-Factor/Cowell fame factory where candidates are picked for camera-friendly looks and primped and preened until they're as bland, inoffensive and convenient as sterilised milk, she grew up on a strict diet of indie, punk and feminist attitudes.
This is a warm, witty book full of wisdom worn lightly. Thorn pretty much sums up the divergence of opinion she and her career provoke - if you're only interested in how many records an act has sold, whether their last one got a gold disc and how much the video cost, then you're unlikely to be interested in this tale of downs and ups, frustrations and unexpected victories and a freedom hard won. If, on the other hand, you thought pop could be created by someone whose vocal debut came from inside a wardrobe, and who went from indie celeb to making music for fey bedwetters to one of global trip-hop's superstars to mother of three in Hampstead content with singing to her kids at Gymboree, then you may just enjoy this.
Thorn has a sharp eye and a bat's ear for a wittily turned phrase as followers of her blog will know. And to give you an idea of the scope of this book, its cast of supporting characters includes Jeff Buckley, Morrissey, Weller, Massive Attack, Fairport Convention, George Michael rolling past Tracey in the schoolyard in his Range Rover, and Neil Tennant at a record company party gamely trying to tempt a reluctant Thorn out of retirement. Even old-school Labour Party bigwig Eric Heffer puts in an appearance, falling foul of Thorn's proto-feminism in the Red Wedge days, But it's mainly Tracey - and Ben's - story, as she acknowledges. Her dry, observational style, which will be familar to fans of her lyrics, has occasional laugh out loud moments. A lot of it is devoted to analysis of why someone perpetually shy and uninterested in fame should at the same time seek out a career in the limelight. This makes it sound self-involved and slightly tedious, but not a bit of it. See, for instance, the description of her debut as a stage performer:
'When I was 11 I had appeared in my primary school's production of the musical Hansel And Gretel. Since you ask, I played Hansel, never having been a particularly girly girl. Someone provided me with a pair of genuine lederhosen, which were stiff and scratchy, and the resulting photo of me in the local Hertfordshire paper is a horrifying kind of paedophile fantasy. Despite these setbacks, it was my introduction to the experience of being onstage, and somewhat suprisingly, I loved it.'
Her adult experiences - and setbacks - are recorded in similar, knowing vein and endearingly, she does a Miranda-style fourth wall breaking every so often, addressing the reader directly. I like to think of it as a sort of indie style of writing, relating directly to your audience rather than being a distant, authorial type.
Tracey Thorn is not a conventional popstar, with an unorthodox career, and this is not a conventional rockstar read. It not only recreates a bygone era it'll also make you want to listen to the songs all over again. She and Ben took the band name from a furniture store near their student digs in Hull - Everything But The Girl. It was meant to be ironic but no one ever noticed that. As Smash Hits' Neil Tennant said reviewing their first single, 'Let's hope they decide to stay on sale.'
January 11, 2014
Tracey Thorn’s Bedsit Disco Queen is a thoroughly enjoyable memoir. It is funny, ironic and unlike most of the good pop/rock memoirs I’ve read, almost completely void of bitterness. If she has ill feeling towards some of the people she has worked with or met during her long career she doesn’t show it. The only stab Thorn takes is at Duran Duran and even that is not really meant as an insult but rather used to give context to a feeling she is trying to express. However, this doesn’t mean that her writing would be in any way lame as she is very sharp indeed but in a positive way.
This is a very personal memoir but you still get a very good picture of how the music business works. The way pop and politics was mixing in the 1980s comes out nicely. The story of the trip to Moscow in 1985 to play at a ”youth festival” is an honest account of how surreal the Soviet reality appeared to a left wing musician.
For an indie kid who came to age in 1980’s, this book offers some great anecdotes about Morissey, Paul Weller and other heroes. Many of my favourite bands of that time are also on Thorn’s list. However, what really makes this book a treasure is the way in which Thorn so well evokes what it was like to be an indie kid in the 80’s. Even though I was at that time one of those who in Thorn’s words thought that her second band Everything but the Girl ”…were sorry wimps, wallowing in easy-listening blandness, making jazz-tinged soft-rock background music to bed-wetters” I can say that her feelings and attitudes reflect very much those that I recall harbouring.
Thorn is candid about the way she lived through the ups and downs of a career in the music business first in the Marine Girls and then in Everything but the Girl that she formed together with her husband to be Ben Watt. It is particularly interesting when Thorn writes about the way she and Watt had started to be more and more out of touch with the British music life as the 80’s was coming to an end and the acid-house revolution and Madchester scene felt very alien to those who came from the post-punk scene. I laughed aloud when Thorn recalls how an NME journalist turns up for an interview wearing baggy dungarees and a smiley badge and remembers thinking, “Bloody hell, the game’s up if this is how they dress at the NME now.”
I also liked the gripping way Thorn recalls her feelings about the time when Watt suddenly fell ill with a mysterious and near fatal disease. It is difficult not to feel uplifted when reading about the full recovery of Watt and the great success they achieved in the mid-90’s with the decade defining hit Missing.
This is also a great love story. Today, it is so rare to read about an enduring relationship that Thorn and Watt have had. Thorn also writes about her children with great warmth and with the same level headedness that she has approached her life as a pop star. I think that this passage from the very end of the book well describes her personality, “Like all mums I sang to my kids at home, so they knew what my voice sounded like, and once when I walked into a branch of Gap, pushing Blake in a pushchair, “Missing” was playing loudly. He twisted round to look at me, little finger pointing upwards towards the source of the music. ‘Mummy!’ he exclaimed in a tone of pure amazement. ‘You are singing in the shop.’”
However, I didn't give the book five stars because I think it could have had more photos with captions. If given the chance, I think Thorn would have come up with brilliant captions.
This is a very personal memoir but you still get a very good picture of how the music business works. The way pop and politics was mixing in the 1980s comes out nicely. The story of the trip to Moscow in 1985 to play at a ”youth festival” is an honest account of how surreal the Soviet reality appeared to a left wing musician.
For an indie kid who came to age in 1980’s, this book offers some great anecdotes about Morissey, Paul Weller and other heroes. Many of my favourite bands of that time are also on Thorn’s list. However, what really makes this book a treasure is the way in which Thorn so well evokes what it was like to be an indie kid in the 80’s. Even though I was at that time one of those who in Thorn’s words thought that her second band Everything but the Girl ”…were sorry wimps, wallowing in easy-listening blandness, making jazz-tinged soft-rock background music to bed-wetters” I can say that her feelings and attitudes reflect very much those that I recall harbouring.
Thorn is candid about the way she lived through the ups and downs of a career in the music business first in the Marine Girls and then in Everything but the Girl that she formed together with her husband to be Ben Watt. It is particularly interesting when Thorn writes about the way she and Watt had started to be more and more out of touch with the British music life as the 80’s was coming to an end and the acid-house revolution and Madchester scene felt very alien to those who came from the post-punk scene. I laughed aloud when Thorn recalls how an NME journalist turns up for an interview wearing baggy dungarees and a smiley badge and remembers thinking, “Bloody hell, the game’s up if this is how they dress at the NME now.”
I also liked the gripping way Thorn recalls her feelings about the time when Watt suddenly fell ill with a mysterious and near fatal disease. It is difficult not to feel uplifted when reading about the full recovery of Watt and the great success they achieved in the mid-90’s with the decade defining hit Missing.
This is also a great love story. Today, it is so rare to read about an enduring relationship that Thorn and Watt have had. Thorn also writes about her children with great warmth and with the same level headedness that she has approached her life as a pop star. I think that this passage from the very end of the book well describes her personality, “Like all mums I sang to my kids at home, so they knew what my voice sounded like, and once when I walked into a branch of Gap, pushing Blake in a pushchair, “Missing” was playing loudly. He twisted round to look at me, little finger pointing upwards towards the source of the music. ‘Mummy!’ he exclaimed in a tone of pure amazement. ‘You are singing in the shop.’”
However, I didn't give the book five stars because I think it could have had more photos with captions. If given the chance, I think Thorn would have come up with brilliant captions.
March 24, 2013
I wasn't a huge Everything But the Girl fan, but since reading her partner Ben Watt's book 'Patient' a few years ago I've rather admired Tracey Thorn - she seemed like a real person in a rather artificial profession.
Her autobiography is highly readable, well written and tells the story of her life and career as a shy and private singer/songwriter/performer from very unstarry beginnings - as a suburban teenager who just wants to make music and be in a band, through stardom and domesticity, to her comeback in her late forties.
It isn't an arch tale of celebrity anecdotes, although famous people certainly are mentioned, and her musical ambitions are balanced by the importance she gives to her partner and children.
I'd recommend this to anyone who grew up in the same era, or is just tired of the 'instant stardom without any hard work' that so much of modern culture is obsessed with.
Her autobiography is highly readable, well written and tells the story of her life and career as a shy and private singer/songwriter/performer from very unstarry beginnings - as a suburban teenager who just wants to make music and be in a band, through stardom and domesticity, to her comeback in her late forties.
It isn't an arch tale of celebrity anecdotes, although famous people certainly are mentioned, and her musical ambitions are balanced by the importance she gives to her partner and children.
I'd recommend this to anyone who grew up in the same era, or is just tired of the 'instant stardom without any hard work' that so much of modern culture is obsessed with.
July 5, 2013
This is the story of a suburban schoolgirl who wants to be cool, starts an all-girl band, goes to university, meets her future husband and starts another band, gets somewhat famous, becomes a has-been, gets really famous & hugely in demand, retires at the pinnacle of her career to be a mum and then starts making great music on her own terms.
Her story is engaging and I certainly felt I learnt about her experiences and motivations across her varied career. It was particularly interesting to read lyrics to her songs alongside the stories about the events that inspired them.
I'm not an EBTG fan but have always liked Tracey's voice. If you like a pop biog then you should buy this book.
Her story is engaging and I certainly felt I learnt about her experiences and motivations across her varied career. It was particularly interesting to read lyrics to her songs alongside the stories about the events that inspired them.
I'm not an EBTG fan but have always liked Tracey's voice. If you like a pop biog then you should buy this book.
February 16, 2013
Just spent the morning reading Bedsit Disco Queen. I loved this book and couldn't put it down. I am slightly biased as I am a huge fan of Everything But The Girl and Tracey Thorn. But more so, it is a fascinating and compelling account of an unconventional and alternative pop career. An insightful snapshot of 80s/90s UK Pop culture, which includes Thorn's first girl group the Marine Girls, collaborations with Paul Weller, Massive Attack and their dancefloor hit "Missing". Thorn's voice throughout this book is witty, charming, honest and engaging. Highly recommended.
June 9, 2014
Definitivamente foi uma das leituras mais agradáveis que eu tive esse ano, senão dos últimos. A trajetória musical da Tracey Thorn é contada por ela mesma de um jeito bem pessoal, sem se vangloriar da fama que naturalmente se apossou de sua vida. Talvez essa tenha sido a característica que torna o livro quase um romance: seu ponto de vista totalmente desprendido da própria carreira, tendo se preocupado apenas com suas próprias visões e ideais. Pelo simples fato de se considerar alguém "que canta" e não uma "cantora" já dá uma boa ideia do que vai encontrar em seu livro.
March 17, 2015
I rarely finish an autobiography but I loved this one. As other reviewers have suggested, Tracey Thorn's writing style is as pared back and self-deprecating as her lyrics. She was a pleasure to spend time with: revealing without indulgence; peppered with anecdotes about well-known people without name-dropping. The text is peppered with song lyrics which will have your reaching for your record collection (or in my case for YouTube - too much decluttering in the last 20 years!)
In fact, I would really recommend reading this with YouTube open so you can relive the music as you read.
In fact, I would really recommend reading this with YouTube open so you can relive the music as you read.
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