Exit Stage Left: The curious afterlife of pop stars

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We know the stories of appearing on Top of the Pops, or the thousands of hours (and even more money) that goes into making an album. Others, such as Leo Sayer didn't fully realise what they'd gotten into and like Donny Tourette it was the record label's last swing at keeping a band alive. At some point, all of the people interviewed in the book meant something, however small to other people, and all of them in any number of ways changed the world of pop and rock to a certain degree. I remember walking past a magazine rack lined with front-page stories about my divorce as I boarded. Recommended for music fans and for all artists who don't want to think about life on the other side of fame, but being prepared for might not hurt.

Whereas we do hear how Dennis Seaton from Musical Youth still performs live sometimes (and, perhaps having learned from that Big Train sketch, is happy to repeatedly play the hit) alongside a day job as Chair of the Ladder Association Training Committee ("When it's right to use a ladder, use the ladder, and get trained to use it safely. Nor has the English been checked any more thoroughly than the facts; among others I noted a complement/compliment mix-up, and a pallet for palette (which I supposed was at least more novel than the usual palette/palate, but no, that was waiting for me further in). For many, the answer appears to be a reliance on illegal substances and for the most part everyone who has ever chased the dream of being a popular musician has found themselves ravaged by emotional scars and serious questions about their self worth.

A small sampling of the many musicians covered were Stewart Copeland (drummer for the Police), Natalie Merchant (10,000 Maniacs), Dexys Midnight Runners (think "Come on Eileen"), Suzanne Vega, Adam Ant, Snow Patrol, Leo Sayer, Joan Armatrading and Terence Trent D'Arby. Finance is provided by PayPal Credit (a trading name of PayPal UK Ltd, Whittaker House, Whittaker Avenue, Richmond-Upon-Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom, TW9 1EH). After she had a child she prioritized being a Mom and has since donated her personal time and money in school programs to promote art and music. The pop star’s bittersweet lot – the mass adoration that comes with pop stardom, followed by the bathetic comedown of what inevitably follows – is represented with flair and empathy. Exit Stage Left is doing what a lot of music autobiographies do not do - which is tell the story of musicians after the spotlight has passed and fallen onto someone else and the brief illumination of fame is no more.

These include Wendy James, Robbie Williams, Bob Geldof, Shaun Ryder, Robbie Williams, Roisin Murphy, Stewart Copeland, Billy Bragg, Alex Kapranos, Joan Armatrading, Leo Sayer, Gary Lightbody, Lisa Maffia, Tim Booth, Bill Drummond, Rufus Wainwright, David Gray, Lloyd Cole and Justin Hawkins. In the ‘70s, music journalists got to go on tour with bands for six weeks, so of course, they came back with a fascinating story to tell in Rolling Stone magazine,” he explains. It’s a question that almost every performer faces in an industry that fetishises youth: is it better to burn out or just fade away? But what’s it like to actually achieve it, and what happens when fame abruptly passes, and shifts, as it does, onto someone else?The interviewees who just wanted fame, riches beyond avarice, and continued critical and commercial acclaim are the ones who seemed to want the fame more.

Maybe it was a natural reaction in those competitive, cut-throat pop years of the early 1980s, but little did he know that that song would probably come in very handy over the years and pay for kids’ school fees, parents’ homes, tax bills, etc etc. I found that I knew or at least had heard of 80% of the musicians in the book, and the book introduced me to a few new acts (hello Tenpole Tudor!We live in a culture obsessed by the notion of fame - the heedless pursuit of it; the almost obligatory subsequent fallout.