Musician autobiography

In the big literary world of (auto)biography, the best music memoirs stand out as some of the juiciest books. We have an inexhaustible appetite for dispatches from the front line of rock, pop and other genres, and who better to provide them than the musicians who were on stage and in the studio when history was made?

Some of the best music memoirs are compelling excavations of the subject’s own psyche. Some focus on explaining the music itself. Some are a parade of celebrity anecdotes. Some are a riot of sex, drugs and other hedonistic pursuits. The best music memoirs blend together a heady cocktail of them all. So here’s our pick of the highlights, which should hopefully help bulk up your playlists as well as your reading list.

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys by Viv Albertine

In her memoir, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys, The Slits’ guitarist Viv Albertine traces her life from its music-obsessed north Londo

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The 50 Greatest Rock Memoirs of All Time

So many CBGB-era punk memoirs out there, but Richard Hell’s is unique — poetic yet never pompous, bemused without corny punch lines. As a year-old Kentucky kid, he runs off to NYC to be a poet, but ends up a rock & roller. “‘Sacred monster’ is definitely the job description,” Hell writes. “Being a pop star, a front person, takes indestructible certainty of one’s own irresistibility. That’s the monster part.” He depicts his music comrades — Tom Verlaine, Robert Quine, Patti Smith, Lester Bangs — and all the girls he’s loved before. (Hell was the punk Leonard Cohen in that department.) He quips about his popularity with critics, “because they were predisposed to favor noise, intellect, and failure.” In the final scene, he runs into his old nemesis Verlaine for the first time in years — flipping through the dollar bins outside the Strand Bookstor

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The 10 Best Memoirs bygd Musicians

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Number 1 New York Times Bestseller

Andy Cohen Books 'The Meaning of Mariah Carey' bygd Mariah Carey with Michaela Angela Davis

Most of us are well acquainted with Mariah Carey's music career, but in her revealing memoir, the "Fantasy" singer takes fans behind the scenes of her private life. From her difficult childhood growing up in Long Island, New York, to her allegedly abusive marriage to music executive Tommy Mottola, Carey's book is a frank konto of her incredible rise to fame.

Carey also offers readers a glimpse of her songwriting process while exploring her identity as a biracial woman in the music industry. Not to be missed.

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Most-Anticipated Memoir of

Gallery Books 'The Woman in Me' bygd Britney Spears

Following the end of Britney Spears' year conservatorship, fans have been waiting to hear the superstar's story in her own words. With The Woman in Me, due October 24 from galleri Books, Spears explor