Sinéad O’Connor’s extraordinary memoir, the untold story of 90s Dancehall and a portrait in song from Paul McCartney are among the releases hitting the high notes
RememberingsSinéad O’Connor (Sandycove)The singer-songwriter has a genuinely incredible story to tell – by the time she found fame, she had already experienced harrowing abuse at the hands of her mother, visitations from Jesus, a spell in a home for girls with behavioural problems, the failure of her ambition to become a priest and life as a strippergram. But what’s really striking about Rememberings is how she tells it: O’Connor is a great prose writer, even if she insists she isn’t (the piano in her grandmother’s house sounds “like the ghost bells of a sunken ship”). What could entirely understandably have been a book filled with bitterness and regret turns out to be suffused with humour and forgiveness.
Major Labels: A History of Popular
music in Seven GenresKelefa Sanneh (Canongate)“I’m always a bit puzzled when a musician is praised for transcending genre,” states New Yorker writer Sanneh in the introduction to Major Labels. “What’s so great about that?” The line sums up his exploration of musical tribalism: intriguing, controversial, personal. You don’t have to agree with his view about the importance of genres – rock, r’n’b, country and hip-hop among them – to find the book fascinating: his opinions are provocative. He posits that the Dixie Chicks got worse, not better, when they stopped caring about the conservative country establishment. And the story of his own progress through the US punk scene might have made a book in itself. Whether you view it as a rallying call or a eulogy in a world where everyone seems to like “a bit of everything”, it’s a unique and absorbing read.