Bodies: Life and Death in Music

Product Information

A band with a singer who was a predator hiding in plain sight (very plain sight as there were forum posts warning fans about him years before his arrest) and the remaining members who have had their life's work flushed away in a manner only members of the Glitter Band have experienced. There’s a look at the damage Ian Watkins wreaked not just upon children but, in a wider sense, on his bandmates. This is an excellent music book from an author who is very well placed to comment on the music world given his years of journalistic experience. Whether it's because of drug abuse in the rock community, or mental health woes allowed to go unchecked by an uncaring industry, self-destruction isn't cool in 2022.

I really liked this book written by the talented music journalist Ian Winwood, noted for his contributions to Kerrang magazine among other musical writings and books. I didn't realise that this book would also be about Ian's descent into addiction (and recovery); if at least one person reads it and it resonates with them and they seek help (be they a musican or not), great (not doing it justice but I hope you get what I mean. The author recounts, in suitably harrowing detail, his own drug-fueled misadventures in music journalism and self-destructive nihilism. With classics such as Ted Hughes's The Iron Man and award-winners including Emma Carroll's Letters from the Lighthouse, Faber Children's Books brings you the best in picture books, young reads and classics. The author is clearly great friends with Frank Turner and he show horns the singer into so many pages it’s hilarious.

There is a significant amount of personal history in here, which is interesting on its own - but it’s not really what it has been billed as.

Winwood makes a compelling argument and overturns some long-held notions about “rock and roll excess” by deftly tying together a vast amount of information . The question of what the music industry does next is one it’s started to answer incrementally, concludes a three-years sober Ian, though it’s happened all too slowly. Much more than a touchline reporter, Winwood also tells the story of his own mental health collapse, following the shocking death of his father, in which extinction-level behaviour was given perfect cover by a reckless industry. Publication dates are subject to change (although this is an extremely uncommon occurrence overall).The size of the venues they played began to shrink, America turned its attentions elsewhere, relations between the singer and the rest of the band soured into violent altercations backstage. But beneath the surface lies a frightening truth: for years the music industry has tolerated death, addiction and exploitation in the name of entertainment.