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Access all areas
First as a journalist and then a publicist at Warner Brothers Records for nearly twenty years, Barbara Charone has experienced, first-hand, the changes in the cultural landscape. Access All Areas is a personal, insightful and humorous memoir packed with stories of being on the cultural frontline, from first writing press releases on a typewriter driven by Tip Ex, then as a press officer for heavy metal bands taking the bus up to Donnington Festival with coffee, croissants and the much more popular sulfate. To taking on Madonna, an unknown girl from Detroit, and telling Smash Hits 'you don't have to run the piece if the single doesn't chart', and becoming a true pioneer in music, Charone continues to work with the biggest names in music, including Depeche Mode, Robert Plant, Foo Fighters and Mark Ronson at her agency MBCPR.
The story of how a music-loving, budding journalist from a Chicago suburb became the defining music publicist of her generation, Access All Areas is a time capsule of the last fifty years, told through the lens of music.
The story of how a music-loving, budding journalist from a Chicago suburb became the defining music publicist of her generation, Access All Areas is a time capsule of the last fifty years, told through the lens of music.
211 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 23, 2022
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62 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 9, 2024
Interesting book about Barbara Charone’s life in the music industry. Definitely worth a read, I really enjoyed it. Apparently she’s on the board of Chelsea FC but I had never heard of her until I started reading this book.
June 1, 2023
Very flippant in the "woe is me, music journalism is no longer the great source of cocaine," attitude which seems to think this was the heyday for writing. If it is, then Barbara Charone manages to remove all opportunities to glimpse into it, instead recalling how pally she is with Keith Richards and name-dropping bands and artists she covered. All well and good, it is good to showcase who and where a journalist has been, but with no detail for the experience itself other than the obvious which were included on headlines across the country at the time and onward, Access All Areas is out of bounds to anyone hoping to learn even a crumb more about the period which defined so many lives.
November 13, 2022
REVIEW OF HARDBACK EDITION! (We have two Kindle editions uploaded, but no HB?...and GR no longer allows most people to add new editions)
The subtitle reads "A backstage pass to 50 years of music and culture!" Jesus! if that was really the case then going by this it would be one seriously dull and depressing reflection of said music and culture. But this level of ludicrous overstatement, sums up the tone of the author's voice in here all too well.
Charone, or should that be BC?...Is not a name I have come across before, but according to this memoir she is er very good at self-promotion. I am not a fan of this particular brand of unrestrained fangirldom which on worn repetition eventually dilutes and skewes the narrative, so you feel like you are stuck with some irritating teenager babbling on about the most trivial and bland details to do with someone who happens to be in a band.
Now I’m sure Charone (BC?) is lovely in person, but in here she came across as an arrogant, superficial, self-satisfied bore forever telling us how good she was at everything and how many famous people she had met and at what elite restaurant they dined in or which ridiculously expensive store they shopped in.
Her first cocaine/drunken story wasn’t particularly interesting, so maybe you won’t be surprised to learn that by the time we hit double figures they haven’t improved, just one bland or forgettable recollection after another. I found her almost impossible to warm to. Too often when this wasn’t a cringefest of crass namedropping, shallow clichés and painfully boring waffle, she seems to be under the impression that crowbarring as many “celebrity” names into 190 odd pages is enough to get away with calling this a passable memoir.
We are told ad nauseum about how good a writer she thinks she is and yet the writing in here is mediocre at best and totally without anything engaging, and as a result this was just another below average run of the mill memoir with vague and largely bland recollections of people, restaurants, shops and bands which have been detailed with far more fun and liveliness elsewhere.
The subtitle reads "A backstage pass to 50 years of music and culture!" Jesus! if that was really the case then going by this it would be one seriously dull and depressing reflection of said music and culture. But this level of ludicrous overstatement, sums up the tone of the author's voice in here all too well.
Charone, or should that be BC?...Is not a name I have come across before, but according to this memoir she is er very good at self-promotion. I am not a fan of this particular brand of unrestrained fangirldom which on worn repetition eventually dilutes and skewes the narrative, so you feel like you are stuck with some irritating teenager babbling on about the most trivial and bland details to do with someone who happens to be in a band.
Now I’m sure Charone (BC?) is lovely in person, but in here she came across as an arrogant, superficial, self-satisfied bore forever telling us how good she was at everything and how many famous people she had met and at what elite restaurant they dined in or which ridiculously expensive store they shopped in.
Her first cocaine/drunken story wasn’t particularly interesting, so maybe you won’t be surprised to learn that by the time we hit double figures they haven’t improved, just one bland or forgettable recollection after another. I found her almost impossible to warm to. Too often when this wasn’t a cringefest of crass namedropping, shallow clichés and painfully boring waffle, she seems to be under the impression that crowbarring as many “celebrity” names into 190 odd pages is enough to get away with calling this a passable memoir.
We are told ad nauseum about how good a writer she thinks she is and yet the writing in here is mediocre at best and totally without anything engaging, and as a result this was just another below average run of the mill memoir with vague and largely bland recollections of people, restaurants, shops and bands which have been detailed with far more fun and liveliness elsewhere.
September 3, 2022
It’s mystifying how such an exciting life could make for such a boring book.
November 9, 2023
It's hard to believe Charone made her reputation as a writer. Still I guess it takes a special talent to make such a full, star-studded life appear so dull on the page. It's soul-less list, just page after page of Charone writing "then I did this, then I did that, then I met whoever". Understandably, there is a lot of PR but sadly - and disappointingly - very little style or substance x
October 23, 2023
A brilliant book, the author is incredibly gustsy in that she goes from getting lucky with a spare ticket to see The Who at The Royal Albert Hall to writing a biography of Keith Richards (of The Rolling Stones). She left the comfort of her parent's home in Chicago to moving to London in the 1970's aged just 22. She writes beautifully about the highs and lows of the music industry and how fickle it is when it comes to artists just leaving their PR agent on a whim. She has met so many GREAT people in the entertainment industry including David Williams, Russell Brand among others. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and WILL recommend it to anyone who I know likes reading true stories. Well done Barbara Charone. I loved your book
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews