Exit Stage Left: The curious afterlife of pop stars

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In writing a book about how they have to turn back into humans Nick Duerden has done both us and them a service. I would recommend this to readers who like to read about the artists that didn't have the lifelong pop careers that so few do but that didn't all crash and burn (though there are plenty of crashes). No doubt he was constrained by those who volunteered to speak to him and those who denied him access. It’s a question that almost every performer faces in an industry that fetishises youth: is it better to burn out or just fade away?

If you’re a musician whose career is on the slide, the advice “Exit Stage Left” provides on how to survive such a downward trajectory could probably be summarised as: keep away from heroin, employ an accountant who isn’t going to screw you over and run off with your career earnings, and have the foresight to have got on the property ladder in the South-East of England by the mid-1990s.Exit Stage Left by Nick Duerden is an intriguing look at what happens after that peak of popularity for most pop stars. By covering their successful histories and the artist filling in how their lives have gone since, it certainly made a worthwhile read. The reasons for there inclusion differ, some were one-hit wonders, some music changed, or the audience changed, either age or novelty making them not as relevant.

This book is unflinching in how the record industry moves on with what was then little to no emotional or substance abuse support or even less in the way of media training. Exit Stage Left is a funny and poignant book, drawing on Duerden’s considerable experience as a journalist and interviewer . I'm not sure if was the excitement in reliving the old days, or just the idea that someone cared to talked to them again, but the level of truth was something that is not in most music biographies or stories.

As Hardwick begins to unravel the mystery, he quickly comes to realise that Charlie Sparks’s death throws up more peculiar questions than answers. At the time of this interview, music fans watched Kate Bush’s 1985 single “Running Up That Hill” go viral following its inclusion in the latest season of Netflix’s hit series, “Stranger Things. The obsession with the new obviously leaves so many on dust heaps of various shapes and sizes, and this is their story. There are many cautionary tales here, from survivors of the pop machine to bands that were put together by a group of mates who wanted to escape from school, and the narrow confines from what was expected of them in adult life. Some sustain themselves on the nostalgia circuit, others continue to beaver away in the studio, no longer Abbey Road, perhaps, so much as the garden shed.

Read more about the condition New: A new, unread, unused book in perfect condition with no missing or damaged pages. All of which makes EXIT STAGE LEFT a fascinating, laugh-out-loud funny and often shocking look at what happens when the brightest of stars fall down to earth.But “artists really aren’t the best people to operate the heavy machinery of adulthood” and a regrettable incident in a car park in California while supporting the Who (them again) had them thrown off the tour and sent back to England, where he spent the next couple of decades struggling with substance dependency.

Fame is the brightest candle, but in this brilliant collection of interviews, Nick Duerden answers the question: what does a candle do after it's burned out? We especially recommend "Exit Stage Left" to anyone pursuing a career in music and anyone who made it out alive. We hear the various motivations to create, how one mentally adjusts or fails to adjust to fame and how music is consumed. This is a light, enjoyable read which gets a little samey as the author carefully avoids anything too dark or tragic. In many ways, this is when these former idols are at their most heroic, too, because they reveal themselves not only to be humane and sensitive, but also still driven to create, to fulfil their lingering dreams, to refuse to live quietly.

It's a great read for anybody middle-aged, frankly: anyone who has had a crack at something; succeeded; then lost; then found another way to succeed. In other words, I appreciate Duerden helping each artist form a more cohesive whole to their narrative. But what's it like to actually achieve it, and what happens when fame abruptly passes, and shifts, as it does, onto someone else?