Sweet Dreams

Praise for David Bowie: A Life by Dylan Jones: Jones' Bowie opus serves as the ultimate oral history of the artist's life and musical journey. --Billboard Beguiling... the fabulosity of Bowie's life and times lends itself extraordinarily well to the oral history form. --San Francisco Chronicle Drawn from over 180 interviews with friends, rivals, lovers and collaborators, some of whom have never before spoken about their relationship with Bowie, this oral history weaves a hypnotic spell as it unfolds the story of a remarkable rise to stardom and an unparalleled artistic path. --Parade Superb ... Suits the shape-shifting, beguiling, enigmatic complexities of its subject perfectly. It's hard to imagine anything that will do Bowie better justice. --William Boyd, Guardian Revelatory and surprising -- perfect for the Ziggy completist. --New York Magazine Praise for Wichita Lineman by Dylan Jones The author's account satisfies, without a wasted word or the usual cliches of pop-culture writing and with plenty of quotations from the principals involved in making the song an enduring hit. An affectionate homage to an indisputably great song, one that readers will listen to with new ears. --Kirkus Reviews Jones' style - part testimony, part documentary - sheds light on one of the most unanticipated and misunderstood shifts in popular music and street fashion, that sudden lurch towards the swank and ostentation of New Romanticism, a style that seemed arrogant and contrary in its origins but would define the nature and direction of music for at least a decade. Compelling reading for those who lived and breathed the indulgence of the era without realising its significance or contemplating its legacy. -- Simon Armitage The marvellously suave Mr. Jones rehabilitates the scenesters' scene a time and place once dismissed by rain-coated puritans like me, only to be brought gloriously to life years later - like a peacock's fanning tail - in this definitive oral history. It's all here: the swishing, the androgynous preening, the sweetly-dreamt synth-pop splendour of early '80s Britain. Something was happening, and Mr. Jones knew what it was. -- Barney Hoskyns Dylan Jones's Sweet Dreams is a vast and fascinating collection of interviews that showcase a decade of British music and culture--the New Romantic period, from 1975-1985. Mid-seventies England was full of chaos and creativity as art school students found belonging in Bowie-themed nightclubs. Through interviews with designers, performers, and influencers, the evolution of this English outsiders' scene is documented from an insider perspective, while a recommended discography provides a soundtrack for the decade. Though England's punk scene burned out, its DIY philosophies and disruptive appearance imprinted itself upon the creatives of an era. Club goers describe hand-making their outfits for places like the Blitz, defined by its beautiful and experimental crowd. The style magazine was born, kickstarting celebrity culture, and the first paparazzi competed for photographs and gossip. Creators of magazines like i-D explain their visions, while hairdressers and designers invented a new profession to fit the times--that of the stylist. For the New Romantics, style was also a reclamation of self: musicians like Annie Lennox and Boy George discuss how their androgyny and sexuality subverted gender roles and was liberating for gay fans. Interviews impart the pain of the AIDs epidemic, which killed many people and impeded society's burgeoning acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community. History and technology merge as musicians recall synthesizers becoming affordable, describing them as the sound of the future. The relationship between music and visual media was strengthened by television; bands like Duran Duran talk about how music videos linked their music with a lifestyle. The Live Aid concert, popularized by global coverage, began the rise of stadium tours, taking London's street culture around the world. Sweet Dreams contextualizes the fashion, politics, sex, and technology involved in the music of The New Romantics, allowing the story of the movement to be told by those who created it. -- Foreword Reviews