SIDELINED
THE REJECTS An alternative history of popular music
JAMIE COLLINSON 432pp. Constable. £25.
In the early 1990s Jason Everman had some claim to being the most rejected musician in grunge. Once a guitarist for Nirvana, he’d been kicked out for his moody demeanour. He’d then joined another Seattle band, Soundgarden, only to be booted from that group too. But Everman’s life took an unlikely turn: he joined the US Army and became a decorated Green Beret, finding in military life the success that had eluded him in music. Everman’s is one of the happier outcomes in the dozens of tales of musical rejection that make up Jamie Collinson’s book. A band’s peculiar mix of “friendship, creativity and business”, as the author puts it, makes expulsion from one a uniquely devastating experience: betrayal by your friends, panning of your artistry and firing from your job, all in one. Some rejected musicians go on to find a second act in life, either inside or outside music; many do not.
The book’s structure is episodic, with each chapter devoted to a different saga of rejection. The stories range from the 1960s to 2021, from iconic musical rejects such as Brian Jones to less familiar figures like Kim Shattuck, briefly a Pixie until she was fired, allegedly for stage-diving. Some are quick ditties (two paragraphs for Martyn Ware’s sacking by the Human League), others epic ballads – “All the musicians kicked out of Fleetwood Mac”. In interludes sprinkled among these tales are woven autobiographical material about the author’s own relationship to music. Collinson has worked in the industry for twenty years and brings an insider’s view to his diagnoses of musical breakups. He reflects on the telltale signs that a rift has grown hopeless; when two members of Destiny’s Child hire their own manager, Collinson notes that “when things get to this stage, it’s very unlikely they’ll improve”.
While some of his interviewees grasp for upbeat interpretations (“people leaving jobs is more often a good thing than people starting jobs”, one says), the stories themselves invite a darker reading. Many end in death, their subjects succumbing to addiction or other demons. If the book has a main character, it’s heroin. But even more than drugs, the rejects come across as casualties of the quest for success. Artists who succeed have, in a Graham Greene quote that Collinson cites, a “splinter of ice” in their heart. A compelling celebration of uncelebrated figures, The Rejects presents its subjects as “transgressive and exciting” artists who “blaze brightly”, only to be pushed aside by more calculating musicians with the “oceanic drive” to make it to the top.
CHILDCARE
INVENTING THE WORKING PARENT Work, gender, and feminism in neoliberal Britain
SARAH E. STOLLER 304pp. MIT Press. Paperback, £52 (US $55).
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