Music books
Posted: Apr 29, 2026 4:39 am
Mark Kermonde's Surround Sound
Mark Kermode and Jenny Nelson
This is (another) book on the history of film music. However it has a rather different take and feel - rather than a strict chronology and history lesson, it takes chunks here and there from history and intersperses them with looks at individual soundtracks to pull them apart. Also - crucially - this is very much a book that is 50% film, 50% music, with quite deep analysis of the film itself.
IMO this is the right approach. Film music is not music for its own sake, it is in service to the film itself and if you don't understand the film, how can you score it? It proved to be catnip in my case, the idiosyncratic choice of scores was inspired, from It's A Wonderful Life to Brazil, from Blade Runner to Never Let Me Go via Under The Skin. It doesn't spend oceans of time on Korngold or John Williams (whilst acknowledging their greatness), but tips gently towards the less well-travelled, for example there's a focus on electronica and female composers.
Very engaging, designed for those who obsess about film and music in equal measure.
Uncool
Cameron Crowe
I've long been a fan of Cameron Crowe's films - Singles, Almost Famous and Jerry Maguire all firm favourites. I knew that he started life as a Rolling Stones journalist at a very young age, but frankly I had no idea about just how remarkable that story was. Uncool walks through how on earth a 14 year old San Diego kid with no connections and an overbearing mother had a ringside seat to some of the most seminal bands of the 1970s, writing cover articles by the time he was 16.
Now, early 70s music and I are not friends. I don't much care for almost all of the artists here - The Eagles, the Allman Brothers Band, Led Zeppelin and yes even David Bowie. In some cases he LIVED with these people for years. And seeing it through this kid's eyes, the sheer implausibility of how he earned the deep trust and respect of the biggest bands in the world, is absolutely fascinating. It absolutely could not happen now.
And as an uncool kid myself, there is something particularly joyous in his unhipness, his love for music so pure, deep-felt and infectious. But my favourite moment so far is when he was given his first non-music writing assignment by Rolling Stone - "How I learned about sex". Always years below everyone around him, male or female, he agonised for weeks before pouring out in prose his total unmitigated disasters in the whole area. The editors punched the air and he said he accidentally discovered his favourite form of writing, the honest confessional - something you can see in his movies imo.
Mark Kermode and Jenny Nelson
This is (another) book on the history of film music. However it has a rather different take and feel - rather than a strict chronology and history lesson, it takes chunks here and there from history and intersperses them with looks at individual soundtracks to pull them apart. Also - crucially - this is very much a book that is 50% film, 50% music, with quite deep analysis of the film itself.
IMO this is the right approach. Film music is not music for its own sake, it is in service to the film itself and if you don't understand the film, how can you score it? It proved to be catnip in my case, the idiosyncratic choice of scores was inspired, from It's A Wonderful Life to Brazil, from Blade Runner to Never Let Me Go via Under The Skin. It doesn't spend oceans of time on Korngold or John Williams (whilst acknowledging their greatness), but tips gently towards the less well-travelled, for example there's a focus on electronica and female composers.
Very engaging, designed for those who obsess about film and music in equal measure.
Uncool
Cameron Crowe
I've long been a fan of Cameron Crowe's films - Singles, Almost Famous and Jerry Maguire all firm favourites. I knew that he started life as a Rolling Stones journalist at a very young age, but frankly I had no idea about just how remarkable that story was. Uncool walks through how on earth a 14 year old San Diego kid with no connections and an overbearing mother had a ringside seat to some of the most seminal bands of the 1970s, writing cover articles by the time he was 16.
Now, early 70s music and I are not friends. I don't much care for almost all of the artists here - The Eagles, the Allman Brothers Band, Led Zeppelin and yes even David Bowie. In some cases he LIVED with these people for years. And seeing it through this kid's eyes, the sheer implausibility of how he earned the deep trust and respect of the biggest bands in the world, is absolutely fascinating. It absolutely could not happen now.
And as an uncool kid myself, there is something particularly joyous in his unhipness, his love for music so pure, deep-felt and infectious. But my favourite moment so far is when he was given his first non-music writing assignment by Rolling Stone - "How I learned about sex". Always years below everyone around him, male or female, he agonised for weeks before pouring out in prose his total unmitigated disasters in the whole area. The editors punched the air and he said he accidentally discovered his favourite form of writing, the honest confessional - something you can see in his movies imo.