Musicalíssimo: Biblioteca Pop

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Me Elton John (2019)

Barbra Streisand (C. Mirambeau, 2007)

Barbra Streisand é uma das últimas estrelas que brilhou na comédia musical (na Broadway e em Hollywood) e na canção popular com igual brilho, na linha de Judy Garland. Hoje já não há lugar para essas estrelas completas. Tenho uma admiração muito relativa por Barbra (prefiro sem dúvida Judy) mas interessava-me muito conhecer a sua biografia. É sempre fascinante conhecer os pormenores da ascensão de uma estrela no mundo competitivo das artes do espetáculo. Barbra, que nasceu no início da segunda guerra, de pais judeus, ficou órfã de pai ainda criança. Teve uma infância e uma adolescência difíceis, rodeada de pobreza e de falta de amor e de compreensão. A mãe negou-lhe qualquer incentivo aos seus desejos artísticos. E no colégio o seu talento não era reconhecido (foi rejeitada ou ignorada pelos grupos de teatro e de canto). Foi a sua persistência que a levou ao estrelato. Este consolidou-se rapidamente em várias frentes: nos concertos de pequenas salas, nos palcos da Broadway, na indústria discográfica, nos especiais para a televisão e, por fim, em Hollywood. Muitas vezes, desde o início, teve o controlo artístico dos projetos em que se meteu e tudo fazia para não permitir que ninguém brilhasse ao seu lado. Por isso ganhou o desprezo de quase todos os seus colegas. Na década de 70 foi recordista de vendas de discos, aproximando-se da música pop. O seu álbum de maior sucesso dividiu-o com o Bee Gee Barry Gib. Evitou participar em filmes musicais, depois de se ter tornado uma estrela com o filme de estreia, Funny Girl, logo seguido por Hello Dolly! e Melinda. E em 1983 produziu, escreveu, realizou e protagonizou Yentl, um musical com canções compostas por Michel Legrand e escritas pelos Bergman. Esta primeira biografia francesa de Barbra é baseada em material previamente publicado e aborda com ligeireza os principais acontecimentos da vida da cantora. Paris 2, 5/5

Songs That Saved Your Life (Simon Goddard, 2002)

Reynolds & Hearn softcover 2009

BIBLIOTECA

Songs That Saved Your Life (Simon Goddard, 2002)

Reynolds & Hearn 2009

BIBLIOTECA

Songs That Saved Your Life (Simon Goddard, 2002)

The Art of The Smiths 1982-87

Revised Edition, Titan Books 2013

BIBLIOTECA F

Pop Model (2004)

Pop Model (2004

Lio et Gilles Verlant

Flammarion 2004

BIBLIOTECA F

Leituras 2026

Truth & Beauty: The Story of Pulp (2003)

Truth & Beauty (2003)

Truth & Beauty: The Story of Pulp

Mark Sturdy, 2003

Uma biografia de referência (a única?) do grupo Pulp e até certo ponto, do seu líder Jarvis Cocker. O livro privilegia quase exclusivamente a dimensão profissional dos biografados. A vida pessoal quase não é abordada. De alguns membros da banda apenas sabemos o nome. O livro é sobretudo dirigido aos fãs do grupo, pois entra em pormenores da produção dos discos, dos contratos cheios de ratoeiras com as editoras e com pormenores de composição, letras e de estilo fascinantes mas por vezes extenuante. Excelente. Caxinas 2021 4,5/5

Groupes pop à mèches 1979-1984 (2015)

Ensaio de Pierre Robin

BIBLIOTECA

Este livro parece que foi escrito para mim. Trata-se de um ensaio francês sobre um fenómeno musical britânico: os neo-românticos do início dos anos 1980. Como eu tinha entre 12 e 14 anos quando os grupos deste ramo da new-wave atingiram elevados picos de popularidade entre os jovens, a sua influência sobre mim foi notável. Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Ultravox, Visage: este é o núcleo duro dos neo-românticos, mas muitos outros artistas tiveram o seu momento neo-romântico enquanto a moda persistia. Todos os artistas associados a este movimento admiravam e inspiravam-se no glam: Bowie, Boland, Roxy Music, e também nos Kraftwerk. Faziam pop a partir dos sintetizadores, mas, curiosamente, multiplicavam as referências ao passado, nas letras e no look, na indumentária que para eles era muito importante. Os neo-românticos distinguiram-se aliás pela forma como se apresentavam, pelo cuidado extremo com a sua imagem (herança do glam) que foi explorada pelos primeiros video-clips que então circulavam. O único representante do movimento em Portugal, destacado por Pierre Robin, são os Heróis do Mar, que de facto usavam a História do país nas suas letras e na sua imagem. Eu vivi esta moda e aderi quase completamente a ela (nem maquilhagem nem o cuidado com a roupa me tocaram). Mas os meus preferidos, dentro do movimento mais vasto da new wave da altura, eram The Human League, OMD, Imagination e Soft Cell. Mas havia muitos outros que eu seguia, a lista é enorme. Este livro foi uma achado. Paris 2017: 4,5/5

Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache: How Music Came Out (2016)

Ensaio de Martin Aston

Constable 2016

Leituras 2017 Paris 5/5

BIBLIOTECA

O subtítulo desta obra ajuda mais (do que o título) a entender o seu conteúdo: How Music Came Out. Esse processo aconteceu lentamente, timidamente mas irreversivelmente. O autor, atravês de um fabuloso trabalho de paciência e de investigação, escrutina as mínimas alusões às sexualidades que fogem à norma heterossexual que os músicos foram se permitindo através da sua arte. A investigação diz respeito ao século XX, à música popular (com algumas referências à música clássica), sobretudo aos EUA e Inglaterra, muito menos a alguns países europeus, ao Canadá e ao Brasil. A dificuldade de leitura que a obra apresenta (levei alguns meses para lê-la) é a enorme quantidade de informação revelada, que inclui nomes de artistas, discos, canções, citações de letras, contextos e tradições musicais, a maioria dos quais completamente desconhecidos para mim. Na verdade, só comecei a sentir-me em terreno familiar nos anos 60, com Dusty Springfield e David Bowie, tendo sido este um dos grandes responsáveis pela música pop de massas ter saído do armário. Sugere-se a leitura do livro com o youtube aberto em frente do olhos para procurar os inúmeros artistas obscuros de que se fala nesta obra. Fiz isso esporadicamente, senão ainda estaria a ler a obra. Uma das melhores leituras de 2017. Paris 5/5

Biblioteca THE SMITHS

January 2026

BIBLIOTECA F

THE SMITHS (2022)

Revista Mojo 2022

BIBLIOTECA

The Smiths

Mojo, April 2011

BIBLIOTECA P

Revista Mojo - THE SMITHS 50 Great Songs…

Mojo, August 2016

BIBLIOTECA P

Mojo - The Smiths

October 2022

DISCOTECA P

Mojo THE SMITHS Issue 89

April 2001

Mojo Special Limited Edition

THE SMITHS, The Sone Roses 50 Great Songs…

Mojo 2011??

BIBLIOTECA P

Uncut - The Smiths

Uncut 118 March 2007

BIBLIOTECA P

The Complete Guide to the Music o The Smiths & Morrissey/Marr (1995)

Omnibus Press, 1995

BIBLIOTECA

BIBLIOTECA P

The Drums (2025)

The Ultimate Music Guide

The Smiths

Uncut august 2016

BIBLIOTECA P

Mojo THE SMITHS

October 2023

Uncut Ultimate Music Guide Issue 51

Definitive Edition

Mojo THE SMITHS

April 2001

NME Icons magazine - The Smiths

November 2015 98 page special - Morrissey

BIBLIOTECA P

The Smiths e Banda do Casaco na Blitz: como fechar melhor o ano?

BIBLIOTECA??

The Smiths (2012)

Ensaio de Tony Fletcher

Traduçção brasileira

ed. Best Seller 2014

ORIGINAL

A Light that Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of the Smiths,

by Tony Fletcher (2012)

John Harris finds out why a magical band broke up

THE GUARDIAN, Thu 6 Sep 2012

"From the beginning," writes Tony Fletcher, "the Smiths sensed greatness, and to realise that greatness meant a refusal to accept confinement to the margins."

The point is undeniably true, in so many ways. When the Mancunian guitar player Johnny Marr called at the home of Steven Morrissey in May 1982 and began writing songs with him, their sights were fixed on reference points altogether loftier than those of the alternative-rock milieu they quickly transcended. Marr's view of the world was shaped by the Rolling Stones, Phil Spector, and the classic songwriting duo Lieber & Stoller. Morrissey added such literary touchstones as Oscar Wilde, and the playwright and screenwriter Shelagh Delaney – as well as an array of opinions and lifestyle choices that embodied a radical break with the go-for-it, consumerist attitudes of the 1980s: vegetarianism, a biting hatred of the Thatcher government and a sense that the singer – who spent the band's career and beyond claiming to be celibate – was somehow proud to be always in the grip of some malady or other.

They soon realised how good they were: indeed, at 25 years' distance, the richness of their songs and their breathtaking consistency suggests a place just down from the Beatles. But their career prospects were always held in check by a problem that grew worse as their success increased: Morrissey's refusal to employ a manager or submit to the standard promotional grind, both of which were at odds with his almost pathological griping about chart positions, radio play and the esteem in which they were or were not held by their record company, Rough Trade.

As he seemed to see it, if the Smiths were commercial underachievers, it was always someone else's fault – but if you refuse to make videos, blow out TV appearances at a moment's notice and cancel European tours in the airport departure lounge, then "the margins" are something you will never quite escape. Moreover, without a big figure to oversee the business side of their lives, any comparable group would have probably buckled, something beautifully captured in one Marr quote: "I've never met anyone who thinks that the 23-year-old guitar player of a really big band should be the manager."

All this defines the essential plotline of A Light Never Goes Out, the story of the Smiths told over nearly 700 pages by a former biographer of REM and of the Who drummer Keith Moon, on the basis of interviews with just about every surviving participant in the Smiths' story – apart from drummer Mike Joyce and, somewhat inevitably, Morrissey himself. The singer's autobiography is published later this year, and it will be interesting to see how his telling of these tales differs from what Fletcher has amassed: as the story winds on, a chain of no-shows, fits of pique and self-sabotage that reaches its denouement with an episode from April 1987, just prior to the band's formal break-up.

A video was due to be filmed in London's Battersea, which would boost the Smiths' fast-rising profile in the US. Three of the Smiths turned up, but Morrissey hid away in his flat in Knightsbridge. Fletcher is the first writer to have got the full story, thanks to the American video director Tamra Davis, who was part of the three-person deputation sent to try and convince him to change his mind. She gives Fletcher a simple anecdote that captures the moment at which the band began to break up: "I remember very distinctly that I had no idea if Morrissey was standing behind that door laughing at the three of us pleading with him, or crying … Johnny was like, 'That's it. The band is over' … And he walks away." The crucial moment came later, at a meal Marr organised for the Smiths in a Notting Hill fish and chip restaurant. As the Smiths' bassist Andy Rourke later acknowledged, there was something grimly fitting in the fact that a group so synonymous with northern grit effectively "broke up in a chippy".

Such material highlights the extent to which Fletcher has done his research, though it also underlines a tension familiar to anyone who owns more than a handful of rock books. Very few musicians have stories the content of which matches the drama and excitement of the best pop music, and in the Smiths' case, behind truly amazing songs lay lives often defined by ordinary things. Their happiness on tour depended on a dependable supply of egg and chips. By way of a nod to rock excess, Rourke had a heroin problem, but when he was temporarily sacked from the group, he claimed that Morrissey did the deed via a note left on the windscreen of his car, parked in a side-street in Altrincham.

The main onus on anyone writing about the Smiths, then, is the necessity of evoking the magical singularity of their music, but Fletcher's book doesn't manage the trick. He's too fond of the rock-hack vernacular, so that records are rated by "fans and critics alike", and music leans towards "the jazz arena" rather than jazz itself. A group so steeped in literature has long deserved the attention of someone with at least the ambition to be a prose stylist; in the same sense, there is something maddening about music so lithe and lyrical being described in prose that often falls flat. And on at least two occasions, Fletcher belly flops: there's a very clunky evocation of the moors murders, and one borderline unforgivable occasion when he describes the Smiths' native Manchester as the "Lancashire capital".

If Fletcher's writing can be disappointingly tepid, the same applies to the book that has until now been the only serious Smiths biography on the market – Morrissey and Marr: The Severed Alliance by the prolific music biographer Johnny Rogan (Omnibus, £14.95), first published in 1992. It has now been updated – chiefly with revelations gleaned from the mid-1990s court case focused on one of the most remarkable aspects of the Smiths' affairs: that while Morrissey and Marr received 40% each of the proceeds from performing and recording, Rourke and Joyce were paid a mere 10% apiece (Rourke settled out of court for £83,000; Joyce went all the way, and was awarded around £1m). Like Fletcher's book only more so, Rogan's is a (qualified) victory of research rather than literary panache, built on a great mountain of facts and testimony, and slowed by the rock-book convention of writing about every Smiths album by using a pedestrian track-by-track breakdown. That said, there is a lot to feast on, particularly Rogan's fond recounting of Morrissey and Marr's family roots in Ireland and their upbringing in the Mancunian-Irish community, a background they shared with Rourke and Joyce. If their music always fizzed with a vivid sense of Englishness, it was perhaps because they at least partly saw their home country through the eyes of their immigrant parents.

The best Smiths book remains the comparatively brief The Smiths: Songs that Saved Your Life, by the music writer Simon Goddard, the definitive version of which was published in 2004. Inspired by Ian Macdonald's Beatles book Revolution in the Head, it was built around a simple idea: taking all of the Smiths' songs and telling their story. In his Mozipedia: The Encyclopedia of Morrissey and The Smiths (Ebury Press, £14.99), now published in paperback, Goddard widens his previous book's mixture of detail and passionate celebration to Morrissey's entire aesthetic universe, arranged in alphabetical order. There are entries for Alan Bennett, the New York Dolls, the Kray twins – and Dirk Bogarde, on whom Morrissey apparently dwelled in 1994, imagining being able to "live in a mansion flat in Chelsea and see nobody, which would be a perfect life".

Reading that sentence, I imagine an irate knock at the door, another engagement cancelled, and I think of those uncharacteristically inelegant lines from "What Difference Does It Make?", a top 20 hit in 1984: "Oh, I'm too tired / I'm so sick and tired / And I'm feeling very sick and ill today."