Love Goes to Buildings on Fire

Oct 4, 2024 5:16 PM

Author:Will Hermes

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire by Will Hermes - Five Years in New York that Changed Music Forever

'A must-read for any music fan' (Boston Globe)

Crime was everywhere, the government was broke and the city's infrastructure was collapsing, but between 1974 and 1978 virtually all forms of music were being recreated in New York City: disco and salsa, the loft jazz scene and the Minimalist classical composers, hip hop and punk.

Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith arrived from New Jersey; Grandmaster Flash transformed the turntable into a musical instrument; Steve Reich and Philip Glass shared an apartment as they experimented with composition; the New York Dolls and Talking Heads blew away the grungy clubs; Weather Report and Herbie Hancock created jazz-rock; and Bob Dylan returned with Blood on the Tracks.

Recommended by Nick Hornby, this fascinating and hugely inspiring book will be loved by readers of Just Kids by Patti Smith, Chronicles by Bob Dylan, How Music Works by David Byrne and The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross.

'Can literature change your life? Yes ... along came Will Hermes, who cost me several hundred pounds on iTunes and ruptured my relationship with guitars' Nick Hornby, Believer magazine

Will Hermes was born in Queens, in the city of which he writes. He is a senior critic for Rolling Stone, and also writes for the New York Times and the Village Voice. He was co-editor of SPIN: 20 Years of Alternative Music.

Reviews

Can literature change your life? Yes ... along came Will Hermes, who cost me several hundred pounds on iTunes and ruptured my relationship with guitars

—— Nick Hornby , Believer magazine

It was the best of times, it was the best of places: Will Hermes captures the creative incandescence of New York in those five years that changed music

—— Richard Williams

Brings depth and discernment and an eye for odd detail, making his book an essential work of cultural history

—— Luc Sante

A very, very important [book] ... I can’t think of a work that has so brilliantly expressed how a person disabled from birth sees herself

—— Dominic Lawson , The Sunday Times

As entertaining as it is moving ... this book is a wonderful, funny, warm coming-of-age memoir about finding your own path in life. Long may she wobble. Five stars.

—— Viv Groskop, The Telegraph

A comedian brilliantly captures how a person disabled from birth sees herself

—— The Sunday Times , Culture

It is honest and refreshing but most of all it is bloody funny. What the **** is normal anyway?

—— Telegraph

Morrissey's Autobiography is brilliant and relentless. Genius, really

—— Douglas Coupland

Well, so far Morrissey's book is an absolute masterpiece; no doubt the whole stinking country will hate it.

—— Frankie Boyle

This is the best book ever. Like ever

—— Wonderland

Carried along on quite extraordinary prose

—— Time Out

The Best Music Biog Ever ... In the world of rock autobiographies, Morrissey's is nigh-on perfect

—— Ben Hewitt , NME

Practically every paragraph has a line or two that demands to be read aloud to the mirror, tattooed on foreheads, carved on tombstones

—— Rolling Stone

Morrissey is a pop star of unusual writing talent

—— The New York Times

Autobiography is a rich and substantial work, the figure emerging at its centre both compelling and complex. Those who know his music will be unsurprised by the qualities of Morrissey's prose, which is ornate, windswept, elusive yet never tricksy, and full of unexpected twists and thrusts. He writes with understanding (albeit often with a tout comprendre c'est rien pardonner caveat) and is most of all straightforwardly moving; never more so than when writing about his childhood

—— Gwendoline Riley , Times Literary Supplement

Autobiography doesn't disappoint. In its pages Morrissey manages to perform the neat trick of deconstructing his own myth while at the same time adding to it. Old scores are settled and anyone who ever crossed the singer is neatly decapitated herein by withering, barbed prose. Things could have gone very differently for Morrissey. He could have ended up cleaning canal banks or delivering the post for a living. Both of these outcomes would have left the world a far duller place. Autobiography is the man in his own words and, Morrissey being Morrissey, this means that we are presented with an account that is real and fantastic, unapologetically romantic and brutally honest. The die-hard fans have read the book already but for anyone with even a passing interest in what makes one of the most individual and unflinching voices in British pop music tick, Autobiography is essential

—— Loud and Quiet magazine

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