Bedsit disco queen

I've put down a novel (by an acclaimed writer) that I just could not get stuck into - not even at the airport last week - and instead picked up a paperback I got well over a year ago - BEDSIT DISCO QUEEN by Tracey Thorn. Who? you may ask .... 

Tracey is half of the 1980s/90s English musical duo Everything But The Girl, most famous for that mesmerising track (and video) "Missing" (with that catchy refrain "and I miss you, like the deserts miss the rain", there are lots of remixes,including by Todd Terry).  Tracey proves a great writer as she looks back on it all with affection and she writes perceptively about the music business and her contribution to it - as she says, she has been called everything from "an indie darling, a middle-of-the-road nobody and a disco diva". In a word, Fab. Its a very readable account of 30 years in the music biz and being in love with music. Its about how she grew up and formed a band in Hull (with Ben Watt, her husband) and became a pop star. The group ran from 1982 to 2000, Tracey then semi-retired to bring up her family, she has three children. Writing the book made her confront what she has done with her life, and take a close look at what she was and how that affected who she is now - I think anyone who writes can relate to that.

I am enjoying reading this and want to make it last. If only one could get similar memoirs from Jimmy Somerville or Marc Almond, Eddi Reader or Roisin Murphy on the group Moloko, or that blissed-out group A Man Called Adam, or The Pet Shop Boys. Its as good as Holly Johnson's "A Bone In My Flute". 

For Rory, Stan, Jeff, Nick and all those disco queens ...