Connection is a Song

Coming Up and Coming Out Through the Music of the '90s

Anna Doble

$24.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

Nine Eight Books
26 August 2025

Music reviews & criticism; Music: styles & genres; Fiction: special features; Gay & Lesbian studies

Longlisted for the Penderyn Music Book Prize

'Unique, dreamlike and poetic. I loved it.' DEBSEY WYKES, SAINT ETIENNE AND DOLLY MIXTURE

It is 1994. In a loft bedroom in North Yorkshire, fifteen-year-old Anna sits on the carpet immersed in the pages of Smash Hits, listening to cassette tapes that she keeps in a shoebox. She is dreaming of living inside the songs. The very same year, British music is about to be transformed and will leap from pop to rave to Britpop. This new universe will change Anna's life.

Connection is a Song is a journey through the sounds of the 1990s; the story of a life-defining love of music and the tracks that shaped this girl's journey through the decade. It travels from the impossibly mournful 'Nothing Compares 2 U' by Sinead O'Connor to the delirium of the KLF's '3 a.m. Eternal' via the cartoon swagger of EMF's 'Unbelievable', Madonna's terrifyingly sexy 'Vogue' and the guitar indie heart of the '90s where Elastica's 'Connection' beats Blur and Oasis in Anna's own Battle of Britpop.

This is a powerful, universal coming of age story - and also a coming out story - about growing up in an English provincial town, with its suspiciously sticky nightclub floors, the lingering smell of Impulse deodorant, kisses that taste of cider and songs that give Anna feelings that she has never felt before. It is the tale of an outsider who, through connections made at gigs, mysterious black feathers and conversations in smoke-filled cars, finds the people and the places that will take her to her life.

By: Anna Doble
Imprint: Nine Eight Books
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 21mm
Weight: 216g
ISBN: 9781788709514
ISBN 10: 1788709519
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 26 August 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Anna Doble is a journalist. She is the digital editor at BBC World Service and presents weekly radio show Pick of the World. Anna previously worked at Radio 1 and Channel 4 News. During the pandemic she wrote a 40,000-word blog while listening to 300 vinyl LPs in chronological order. This led to a BBC article that was read by nearly a million people around the world. Anna has successfully brainwashed her teenage daughter into loving Belle and Sebastian and Blur. She lives in London with her partner.

Reviews for Connection is a Song: Coming Up and Coming Out Through the Music of the '90s

'Anna's fan's eye book on pop is ace.' -- Bob Stanley 'I love this book! Anna managed to transport me back in time to a fast-moving and exciting time in the '90s, all of it was so new for Saint Etienne. It was properly bonkers! Travelling to exotic locations, meeting new people with similar goals and interests, glamour, a little bit of hedonism and feather boas (for me and Nicky Wire). I treasure all of those experiences and Anna was a big part of it.' -- Sarah Cracknell, Saint Etienne 'A gentle, tender journey through the flotsam and jetsam of the 1990s, by a writer who touchingly shows us how music has the power to change everything.' -- Jude Rogers 'A poignant and wonderfully warm coming-of-age story about the life-changing power of music. Anna has deftly put into words what it was - and is - to be a teenager. Connection is a Song smells like teen spirit.' -- Cathy Newman, journalist and presenter, Channel 4 News 'Unique, dreamlike and poetic. I loved it.' -- Debsey Wykes, Saint Etienne and Dolly Mixture