Let’s Do It: the Birth of Pop Bob Stanley (Faber, £25)
MIDWAY THROUGH Ian McEwan’s novel On Chesil Beach there is a scene in which the central couple argue about music. Florence, the violinist in a string quartet, can’t stand the racket made by Edward’s rock group. It’s the drumming that really gets her: “the tunes were so elementary, mostly in simple four-four time, [so] why this relentless thumping and crashing and clattering to keep time?”. At which point he kisses her and tells her she’s “the squarest person in all of Western civilisation”.
Not while Bob Stanley’s alive she ain’t. Though he is himself a member of a beat combo (St Etienne), and though he has already written a history), Stanley’s tastes are as square as an army drill.
