Books

Compton high school yearbooks have full-page ads for funeral parlours. Brit William Shaw’s South Central travelogue brings you kids with lives shaped by gangs, riots, drive-bys and, above all, hip hop. Demo tapes, rip-off talent shows, scraping a living putting up Alkoholics stickers. Characters and scenery vivid enough for a novel, plus great insight from Cube, Tupac and others who made it.

When he died, a generation (or three) were as bereaved as if he were family, such was his place in our musical lives. So here’s another chance, via 30 years of his articles, to let the great man’s wearily mellow tones and life-affirming sarkiness infuse your evenings. All you need to complete the picture is a can of Tizer, some maths homework and your finger on a cassette-recorder pause button.

It was originally going to be called Warped records, trivia fans. A scrap-packed coffee-table compendium on the Sheffield label, from the bleep era, through the ‘intelligent’ techno rave-backlash, up to cutting edge filmmakers. Despite a section on Sheffield’s electronic prehistory, it’s fairly light on context. Lashings of Designers’ Republic artwork and a solid 1989-2005 discography though.

Written like a New Romantic video, every sentence swirls around in dry ice and contrast lighting, wearing a batwing blouse. Clearly a chart-friendly cash-in but also a solid biog, including interviews with Oakey and the girls, quotes and clippings from the Heaven 17 half of the band, plus a decent discography and the great Martin Rushent telling production stories. Now back to that cocktail bar.

Wagnerian epics to triple quadrophonic concept albums: the LP brought it all home. A smart history of listening, from 33 beating 78, up to the iPod uprising. Great details – his charity shop theory of tastelessness, the scandalous first edit (an operatic high C), even the well-worn pop stories feel fresh. But Elborough don’t dance: DJ-mix albums, a key innovation, get no mention.

Like the Swindon man's recreation of the Taj Mahal made entirely out of breadsticks, The Bootleg Guide is a magnificent folly. Interviews with key disco editors/mixers, plus a definitive list of every bootleg and classic edit you’ve ever heard of and quite a few you haven’t. The disco equivalent of an overrun potting shed, this is a collector’s must-have.

With the march of an obsessive, and some friendly words from the musicians, Cummings traces Philly soul power from its gospel and doo-wop roots, up to Gamble and Huff, Sigma Sound Studios, the O’Jays and MFSB – “a rag-bag assortment of leather-capped soul brothers and near-sighted Jews, renegade jazzmen and moonlighting symphonians.” With some less-than-household names for the spotters.

Back when number one was tops, this tiny book told you exactly how to get there – smash by hit. From those nice KLF boys, it’s a mash-up of scally cynicism, industry wisdom and gleeful Top-of-the-Pops-loving innocence. It was also an uncannily accurate prediction of the sample-based no-experience-necessary future of music-making. I left a million quid on that table, anyone seen it?

With their post-glam, post-punk love of Bowie, Roxy and Berlin, the New Romantics definitely did their bit for the European eyeliner mountain. The Blitz kids also launched eerie synth futurism, scads of proper pop and the self-transformational genius of Leigh Bowery. Rimmer’s clued-up account details the movement’s influences and influence to show the substance behind the foundation.