1976-77 (collected 1977) / Audiobook / 313 pages / USA
***
I loved the mysterious premise and the journeys into the unknown, but wasn't so hot on the angsty, horny travel companion we were burdened with, who was determined to make it all about them. Give me a dry astro any day.
1989 / Ebook / 186 pages / UK
**
A fitting title for such an ugly tale. It would have at least got clever points if the author had been able to resist explaining his own symbolism towards the end.
1997 / Ebook / 126 pages / USA
***
It's nice to obsess over a single track, but that does mean he runs out of things to write about before the end, so starts banging on about race. Get your important social history out of my lightweight high-art pocket books and talk about Tom and Jerry.
2005 / Ebook / 151 pages / USA
***
Since he only did the one album, the writer's excused this time for treating the album book as a biography. The subject's untimely death also justifies the emotional fangirling, before the abrupt shift to academic analysis later on. I'm rating the write-ups, not the music, but I still might have rated this one higher if it did anything for me.
2008 / Ebook / 121 pages / USA
****
If ever a book wanted to be a documentary and almost convinced me I actually watched it, it's this chronicle of a random band's moderate rise and fall and humdrum rock 'n' roll lifestyle clarified by interviews with the gentlemen themselves. He only breaks the spell when he has to give a brief, passionate rundown of each track to tick my box.
