If you read my review of Tracey Thorn’s first book, Bedsit Disco Queen, you’ll know that I’m an all-around fan of hers. I read this directly after finishing Bedsit, and mostly because I just couldn’t bear for it to be over.
This isn’t a memoir, so it’s not a continuation of her first book. She says that after publishing her first book, she got asked a lot why she doesn’t talk more about singing or being a singer, so she responded by writing an entire book about it.
Now, I can’t sing. I mean, I can hold a tune kind of, and I like belting out the lyrics to my favourite song while cleaning the house or whatever, and I sing to my kid, but no one else really wants to hear that. So I know nothing about what it would be like to have a voice that could be referred to as an instrument. But even so, I found this book fascinating, and I definitely think if you are a singer, you need to read it.
Thorn covers all aspects of singing in this book. She talks about its challenges – learning how to care for your voice, the frustrations of having a quiet voice when you’re trying to sing to an audience of thousands, the stress of not knowing if your voice is going to do what you want it to when you get on stage, and what happens when your voice betrays you altogether. She talks about some of her favourite singers, analyzes what made them so brilliant and even interviews some of them. She looks at some representations of singing in literature, and why those struck her as being particularly accurate. She even discusses and defends her fascination with The X Factor. For such a short book, she really manages to cover a lot of ground.
It only took me a few days to read this book, and I really enjoyed it. I once again chose to go with the audiobook narrated by Tracey Thorn herself, and I love listening to her as much as I love what she has to say. I think it’s fair to say that after reading this I would officially read anything she decided to publish – be it another memoir, a novel, or a packet of crisps. I really don’t care what her topic of choice, I know she’ll make it interesting and teach me something I didn’t know before. It’s safe to say that I loved this book, and that I think you will too, particularly if you have any experience of singing (or, indeed, any musical pursuit).
In her bestselling autobiography Bedsit Disco Queen, Tracey Thorn recalled the highs and lows of a thirty-year career in pop music. But with the touring, recording and extraordinary anecdotes, there wasn’t time for an in-depth look at what she actually did for all those years: sing. She sang with warmth and emotional honesty, sometimes while battling acute stage-fright.
Part memoir, part wide-ranging exploration of the art, mechanics and spellbinding power of singing, NAKED AT THE ALBERT HALL takes in Dusty Springfield, Dennis Potter and George Eliot; Auto-tune, the microphone and stage presence; The Streets and The X Factor. Including interviews with fellow artists such as Alison Moyet, Romy Madley-Croft and Green Gartside of Scritti Politti, and portraits of singers in fiction as well as Tracey’s real-life experiences, it offers a unique, witty and sharply observed insider’s perspective on the exhilarating joy and occasional heartache of singing. – Goodreads
Book Title: Naked at the Albert Hall
Author: Tracey Thorn
Series: No
Edition: Paperback/Audio
Published By: Virago/Audible (narrated by author)
Released: May 3, 2016 (First published April 30, 2015)
Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir, Singing, Music
Pages: 243
Date Read: March 3-9, 2019
Rating: 8/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 3.86/5 (229 ratings)