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Cult Musicians: 50 Progressive Performers You Need to Know (Cult Figures) Kindle Edition

by Robert Dimery (Author), Kristelle Rodeia (Illustrator) Format: Kindle Edition
3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 34 ratings
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“Even the most avid music fan will make some new discoveries in these pages.” —The Current

What makes a cult musician? Whether pioneering in their craft, fiercely and undeniably unique, or critically divisive, cult musicians come in all shapes and guises. Some gain instant fame, others instant notoriety, and more still remain anonymous, with small, devout followings, until a chance change in fashion sees their work propelled into the limelight.

Cult Musicians introduces fifty beyond-the-mainstream musicians deserving of a cult status in genres from afrobeat and art pop to glam rock and proto punk. Weird and wonderful, innovators and boundary breakers, they include Alex Chilton and Aphex Twin, Bobbie Gentry and Brian Eno, Kat Bjelland and Kool Keith, Nick Drake and Nick Cave—and dozens more with a special ability to inspire, antagonize, and delight. Included are insightful profiles, discographies, and striking illustrations by Kristelle Rodeia.
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  1. Part of series
    Cult Figures
  2. Print length
    144 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publisher
    Frances Lincoln
  6. Publication date
    June 9, 2020
  7. File size
    7998 KB
  8. Page Flip
    Enabled
  9. Word Wise
    Enabled
  10. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  11. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Robert Dimery is a writer, editor and music expert who has worked on Tony Wilson's 24 Hour Party People and Breaking Into Heaven: The Rise and Fall of the Stone Roses, plus countless other popular music publications. He was general editor of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die and 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die and has worked for a variety of magazines, including Time Out London and Vogue.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08CJGJQ5J
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Frances Lincoln; Illustrated edition (June 9, 2020)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 9, 2020
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 7998 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 144 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 34 ratings

Customer reviews

3.7 out of 5 stars
3.7 out of 5
34 global ratings
Great Art, Cute Book, Interesting Info!
5 Stars
Great Art, Cute Book, Interesting Info!
First of all, I'm not going to comment on their choice of which musicians to include in this book. I think that's a very subjective thing. So honestly, it didn't bother me who made the cut, and I just enjoyed reading about the musicians that they did include. With that said, there's a lot that I really like about this book!The art is beautiful, and I feel like it was a good balance of art and text throughout the book. Overall, the book is very aesthetically pleasing, and would make for a great coffee table book/conversation piece (while also having significant substance inside). (see photos)There's also more information in here than I thought there would be! It's an interesting and relaxing read, and you'll learn a lot about the various featured artists. Overall, I really enjoy this book, and would definitely recommend!
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Top reviews from the United States

Miss Barbara
5.0 out of 5 stars Expand your horizon
Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2020
Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )
This is a fun and informative little book that can be opened to any page and you’re sure to find data about a musician you may love, hate or never heard of. I know that sound like the same thing you could do with an internet search but this is more fun. The author, Robert Dimery, has chose 50 musicians who have an enthusiastic audience but maybe not top Billboard success.

Each selection has a two page spread with a generalized overview of the musician and their body of work. Then there’s an artist rendering that have captured the mood of the subject. Artist Kristelle Rodeia deserves a round of applause for these illustrations.

I had a method of reading this book. I turned to each subject and then asked Alexa to play their music while I read the text. With some I was glad to have the music end while with others I closed the book and let the music play for an hour or so. I feel my knowledge of some of the marginal music has been expanded. Some of this music and style I would have had no knowledge of without this book. You see, I’m well into my 70’s. I’m giving a big attaboy to the author.
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Joseph
4.0 out of 5 stars Those clique singers that you really love
Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2020
Cult Musicians: 50 Progressive Performers You Need to Know by Robert Dimery is a wide-ranging look at musicians who are or were a bit outside the mainstream in their time. Dimery is a freelance writer and editor who specializes in popular music and has worked for a variety of magazines, including London Time Out and Vogue.

I guess we all lock into a certain range of music in our youth and despite promises of not stagnating in one era like our parents, we do just that. High school was the era of Van Halen, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin for my clique of friends. I still listen to Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd on occasion but lost most interest in Van Halen (and for the record, never liked Van Hagar). It is not so much what you listened to with your friends but what you listened to when your friends weren't around. Artists like Patti Smith played a role in something contrary to the mainstream. A type of music that was very different but intriguing and still years later I still see her in concert when she comes to town. Seeing the Plasmatics on Tom Snyder's Late Show or hearing the overnight DJ playing Lydia Lunch was a major musical event in my youth. Dimery gives the reader fifty artists, Smith and Lunch included, from a wide range of musical backgrounds from rock to spiritual and funk to country that show we all follow some version of cult music.

I certainly will admit that Frank Zappa was a cult musician, but PJ Harvey and Iggy Pop seem like a bit of a stretch to me until I considered what they broke away from and created as a new normal. Although a fairly short book, Cult Musicians will no doubt have a favorite musician, a few you heard of or liked in passing, and many that are new to you. For some it's a nice trip back into the age of radio before MTV and YouTube for others it is MTV, YouTube, and your favorite streaming service. These are the artist that changed music or at least gave it their best try; some successful and others not. And for some it was just making art:

If You're doing it for the money, you're not doing art. You're doing commerce.

Lydia Lunch
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David Keymer
3.0 out of 5 stars NOT ENOUGH STRETCH
Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2020
Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )
This is the third of these cult books that I have read, and the second for review. I find it timid compared to the book on cult writers, less willing to stretch the bounds of music, which is a house with countless rooms. It's easy to play the Substitution Game --Nena Hagen for some other rock figure, or, really stretching it, the decidedly cult figure of roughneck Hasil Adkins. There is less of a sense in this book of what constitutes a cult figure. Edith Piaf? I suppose so but everyone who plays French popular music knows her primacy in the field. It's like saying that Beethoven is a cult figure in classical music.

Modern composed music is represented by three figures: Lili Boulanger, John Cage, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, with, I suppose you could argue, Moondog near the edge. (Listen to the Kronos Quartet's beautiful recording of Cage, Moondog and Harry Partch pieces on their album, Ancient Music.) But Gyorgi Ligeti, for all his influence on modern music, is still under-listened to and ardently championed by those who follow him --isn't that the definition of a cult?
Irritating too is the absence of important stretches of music in our increasingly globalized music culture. Klezmer? Why not Don Byron, clarinetist and saxophonist, who has melded jazz and klezmer in admirably idiosyncratic albums? Or Eastern Europenn music, especially from groups like Yvo Papasov and Taraf de Haidouks. Africa is certainly more than Fela Kuti (who clearly does belong in a book like this). I'd nominate the blazingly visceral Ethiopian saxophone great, Getatchew Mekuria, famous in his country in the 60s and early 70s but revived for a transcendent tour of Europe in the early 2000s, backed by the equally cultist Dutch anarchy-punk-rock-jazz band, The Ex, which has defied audience expectations for more than forty years. Given that jazz has become a cult music al too frequently, why only two jazz artists? Sun Ra? Absolutely. Alice Coltrane? A sometimes good musician but there are so many others who could fill this slot better-- Charles Gayle. Carla Bley. Peter Brotzmann.

There's no real blues musician on the list. No strong Latin American or Cuban presence. Except for Bbobbie Gentry and Nico, I have no strong objections to the artists on the list. But the list just isn't bold enough. Neither are the write-ups, which are flat.

The illustrations, as in the other books in this series, are first-rate. Rodeia is a compelling illustrator.
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