Book Review: Coal Black Mornings by Brett Anderson
image generated by Craiyon This review first appeared on Goodreads ~ Brett Anderson mentions very early on in his selective autobiography that the last thing he wanted to write was “the usual 'coke and gold discs' memoir.” In keeping with his decision, this account of his formative years cuts off deliberately at the point where his band, Suede, sign their record deal with Saul Galpern's Nude label. His chronicle of a rock star in waiting stakes out unpromising territory in what is frequently the most turgid part of any musician's biography – the bit at the beginning where you get to learn something of their family background, prior to the arrival of the drugs and groupies. Fortunately, Anderson is good enough of a writer to breathe life into his early childhood and adolescence, lightly sketching the influences that would mould him into the frontman of Suede: A band that rose to prominence during the early 1990s, whose shop-soiled grandeur wobbled precariously between th...