Coal Black Mornings

Name: Coal Black Mornings
Brand: Hachette UK
Availability: InStock
Author: Brett Anderson
ISBN: 9781405539203

Author: Brett Anderson

Narrator: Brett Anderson, Matt Thorne

Unabridged: 4 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Published: 03/01/2018

Categories: Nonfiction, Music

Synopsis

Listen to the end for an audiobook exclusive: Brett Anderson in conversation with Matt Thorne, author of Prince.

Brett Anderson came from a world impossibly distant from rock star success, and in Coal Black Mornings he traces the journey that took him from a childhood as 'a snotty, sniffy, slightly maudlin sort of boy raised on Salad Cream and milky tea and cheap meat' to becoming founder and lead singer of Suede.

Anderson grew up in Hayward's Heath on the grubby fringes of the Home Counties. As a teenager he clashed with his eccentric taxi-driving father (who would parade around their council house dressed as Lawrence of Arabia, air-conducting his favourite composers) and adored his beautiful, artistic mother. He brilliantly evokes the seventies, the suffocating discomfort of a very English kind of poverty and the burning need for escape that it breeds. Anderson charts the shabby romance of creativity as he travelled the tube in search of inspiration, fuelled by Marmite and nicotine, and Suede's rise from rehearsals in bedrooms, squats and pubs. And he catalogues the intense relationships that make and break bands as well as the devastating loss of his mother.

Coal Black Mornings is profoundly moving, funny and intense - a book which stands alongside the most emotionally truthful of personal stories.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Sandra

Well written and captivating auto-biography from Suede frontman Brett Anderson. (Suede is one of my favorite British bands so I was curious to read Brett’s story.) The book focusses mainly on Brett’s early years... childhood, school, starting the band, and takes place in the 70’s, 80’s, and the 90’s......more

Goodreads review by Lawrence

There's probably no band that captures the zeitgeist of *my* the 90s more than Suede. I still vividly remember seeing the video for Animal Nitrate on late-night TV and rushing into the city the next day to buy the debut album on tape. That song - and video - sounded so fresh and new, but also instan......more

Goodreads review by Nigeyb

I saw Brett Anderson discuss Coal Black Mornings at the 2018 Brighton Festival, and it was this which convinced me to read it. I'm glad I did, it’s a wonderful read. Coal Black Mornings ends just as Suede get their record deal and finally start gaining their unstoppable momentum - however, prior to......more

Goodreads review by Tim

I always liked Suede more than Oasis, Blur or Pulp. David Bowie was more of a presence in their music, look and lyrics. Suede also looked more like me and came from the same background. The bands we identify with as teenagers are such a powerful force in moving us away from the oppressive fume of ou......more

Quotes

A remarkable feat, utterly true. This decade's Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Coal Black Mornings is a triumph . . . a bracingly honest work raised way above the celeb book fray by Anderson's obvious talent for writing . . . revelatory and delivered with writerly panache Mojo

Fascinating . . . gorgeously written. On more than one occasion it made we well up . . . most certainly not just for the fan club Guardian

A rich, sad and honest tale GQ

Beautifully crafted and brilliantly well-written . . . his memoir is a thought-provoking meditation on how our childhoods form the people we become, as well as a love letter to London . . . The book is perfect as it is, but there's no question that we need a second volume Evening Standard

Coal Black Mornings is excellent: evocative, thoughtful and frank; an instant hit in a minor key. Anderson is particularly good on his unusual upbringing . . . as accomplished a writer of elegant prose as he was of narcotically enhanced lyrics about urban ennui Mail on Sunday

a thrillingly energetic, bracingly entertaining snapshot of a writer hitting his first full flush, leaving you wishing two things. One: that you'd formed a band. Two: that he changes his mind about documenting the coke-blurred mornings to come Record Collector

An ineffably romantic coming-of-age story; a beautiful reminder of the magic that happens round the edges Sunday Times

Generous, funny, poignant Financial Times

Perfect prose, thanks to which Coal Black Mornings does the job of describing the beauty in the banality better than any music memoir since Patti Smith's sublime Just Kids Classic Pop

Awards

Penderyn Music Book Prize