Product Description

Profiles twenty-two of the most gifted and self-destructive talents in rock history. This book offers intimate portraits of rock stars, from Brian Wilson to Syd Barrett, the Rolling Stones to Neil Young, Iggy Pop to Lou Reed, and others.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #94631 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Review
"'The Dark Stuff is a mighty tome, containing some of the best music journalism ever written." Spectator

About the Author
In 2002 Nick Kent was presented with the NME 'God Like Genius' award for his 30-year career as a rock writer. He is a contributor to the Guardian, The Times, Liberation, Mojo and GQ.

Customer Reviews

With a huge silver lining!
It is indeed the music that counts here, of the text as well as of the artists. It kicks off with Iggy Pop's fascinating foreword, followed by the equally absorbing preface dealing with Nick Kent's history as a music journalist. The value of each chapter is directly proportional to the communication skills of the interviewee: that is why the Guns 'N'Roses piece is a complete waste of time and paper and shouldn't even have been included in the book, whilst I loved the Roy Orbison interview although I've never really been into his music. I found the Brian Wilson piece too long and do not agree with the author's assessment of the Rolling Stones after the 60s. His view of Kurt Cobain is a bit harsh and the non-interview with Roky Erickson a bit pointless, but I loved Jerry Lee Lewis, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, Miles Davis and I think the book's crowning glory is the chapter titled "Neil Young and the haphazard highway that leads to Unconditional Love." I feel compelled to investigate Neil Young's music now because I feel I understand and appreciate him as a human being, whereas previously I considered him to have been just another good rock 'n roller, but one who didn't especially appeal to me. What amazes me is how some of these artists managed to so consistently produce such sublime music while they were abusing themselves physically and mentally to such a gruesome degree. I suppose that is one of the intertextual messages of this book: no matter how low down you are, you can always pull yourself together again. It once again demonstrates the ability of the soul and the body to restore themselves. This is great rock writing!

interesting insight into the tortured lives, dysfunction and general unpleasantness of many key figures of popular music
This is a collection of journalistic pieces for those like myself (and no doubt many others) with a voyeuristic interest in the self-destructive lives of rock'n'roll. Written by Nick Kent over the decades, it provides an interesting insight into the tortured lives, dysfunction and general unpleasantness of many key figures of popular music.

Such lives tend to be littered with self-destruction and the concept of rock and roll may indeed be defined by variable degrees of self-destruction and "dark stuff". Nick Kent's book title therefore is somewhat misleading, suggesting that he is covering new ground where others have covered the "light stuff". However, although much of this biographical information is in the public domain without the help of Kent's writing, the latter is funny and natural in a way that many other writers' self-conscious lean towards sarcasm and meaningless criticism is not. Kent often provides a fresh and less air-brushed perspective on certain icons that seem to be generally untouchable, in what might be considered rock blasphemy, for example his darker and less forgiving take on Kurt Cobain, and this de-glamourisation of cult heroes might be what he refers to as the dark stuff.

This is not more than a collection of previously published magazine interviews/ articles and so there may be much you've read about before, however this is nevertheless an interesting and well-written collection of rock biography that is well worth a read.