Books about music that are worth reading

BarcelonaMusic that can be read continues to find a place in bookstores. Throughout 2025, interesting essays, both controversial and necessary, have been published, along with well-documented and moving biographies, and more or less unexpected memoirs.

This "graphic anthology of Catalan discography" does justice to the fruitful relationship between music, design, photography, and art, evident in album covers, but not only there. Texts by Òscar Dalmau, M. Àngels Fortea, Òscar Guayabero, Òscar Nin, and Jordi Llansamà, among others, contextualize a generous display of graphic material, complemented by profiles of a hundred creators. The list, a vademecum of design and art from the Catalan Countries, includes names such as Andreu Alfaro, Miquel Barceló, Txarly Brown, Cesc, Anna Cornudella, Salvador Dalí, Cristina Dora, Jordi Duró, Enric Jardí, Mariscal, Antoni Miró, Roger Peláez, Perejaume, América S, and others. It has the same square format as this one. Art & MusicEnderrock Llibres has also published 150 years in a woman's voice, with illustrations by Maria Picassó and texts by Jordi Novell.

Before delving into The Blues Brothers with the tools of cultural studies, the American journalist Daniel de Visé wrote a detailed and enriching biography of BB King, the great blues guitarist born in 1925, in 2021. Coinciding with the centenary, Libros del Kultrum is based on a huge amount of fieldwork (many interviews) and by comparing data and opinions before taking anything for granted (the footnotes are very illustrative).

Before Sant Jordi's Day, La Segunda Periferia compiled all of Quimi Portet's Catalan lyrics into a single volume. The regional star also contributes reviews of each of his released albums. Manolo García, his collaborator in the band El Último de la Fila (with whom he will tour in 2026), wrote the epilogue. And Quim Monzó is responsible for the "magnificent introductory study." Beyond the wit and humor, the book reveals the poetic evolution of a musician devoted to magical realism who, while escaping reality, portrays it with remarkable precision.

Journalist Donat Putx was just a kid when the first editions of Canet Rock took place in the 1970s. He was nearing fifty when Gemma Recoder launched the 21st-century Canet Rock. This generational gap works in Putx's favor when it comes to explaining, with insight, respect, and just the right amount of irony, what that festival was like and what it is like now. It was born with a countercultural spirit when Franco was still alive (but only briefly), had its international swan song in 1978, and now brings together 25,000 young pop fans who exchange Catalan. The 32 pages of photographs by Francesc Fàbregas, Pere Riera, Ferran Sendra, and Xavier Mercader, among others, are well worth reading.

Writing about the Madrid-born artist C. Tangana is very tempting. For example, because his career describes a unique dramatic arc: trap hero, ambitious adventurer, reinventor of traditions, creator of the album The man from Madrid And the corresponding monumental tour... and suddenly the renunciation of music, at least as the main focus, to be reborn as a filmmaker. Two journalists, Joan S. Luna from Barcelona and José de Monfort from Castellón, edit (and also write) this portrait that approaches the art of C. Tangana from different perspectives and culminates with a chapter in which Alizzz, Raül Refree, and Niño de Elche speak.

The book's subtitle refers to a tribute from the magazine Disco Pogo, the publication that inherited that legacy Jockey Slut which was founded by John Burgess and Paul Benney in 1993. Benney was one of the first journalists to interview the French duo Daft Punk, in 1994. That text is one of those that brings together Daft Punk. We Were the RobotsA book constructed from archival material (articles and interviews published in various media outlets) and new analysis. As the Belgians David and Stephen Dewaele (2manydjs) write, it is "the testament" to Daft Punk's influence.

The Andalusian guitarist Diego de Morón (1947-2025), one of the most important figures in flamenco, died a few days after the publication of this biography, an intimate and well-documented portrait by Juan Toro Barea. Both were born in Morón de la Frontera and had known each other since 1978. There is a sense of camaraderie and rigor in the praise and also in the account of the series of injustices suffered by the guitarist. "For anyone with even a modicum of sensitivity, Diego [de Morón]'s human and artistic journey is as captivating as it is moving," writes Toro Barea, recalling "a colossal talent." Highly recommended.

The Girona-based publishing house Ficta is paying a double tribute. On the one hand, in Domènec Terradellas (1713-1751)The great Catalan Baroque composer. Furthermore, the musicologist Josep Dolcet (1961-2020), author of this study on "a Catalan composer on the European stage," written with methodological and intellectual rigor. The book also includes a prologue by Bernat Cabré that details the origin of Dolcet's interest in Terradellas and, above all, in constructing a much-needed biography.

Patti Smith has explained her life and work in different ways: in memoirs of specific moments or certain quirks, such as The Year of the Monkey and Some kidsBut she still hadn't woven together her complete (or almost complete) memory. This is The bread of angels, an autobiography full of passion and loss, childhood adventures and youthful accelerations, rock and poetry, life away from the stage and various rebellions.

The graphic novel story of the Arnau family, a lineage dedicated to making people dance since 1870: from the founding of the Josepet café in Fraga to the techno parties at the Elrow club, including the Florida 135 nightclub and the Monegros Desert Festival. All of this is based on the memories of the Arnau family, with a script by Xavier Morató and illustrations by Josep Giró.

An essential book for Catalan culture, because it documents, explains and censuses a reality that remains outside the focus of conventional narrative: metal in Catalan. The authors' work It is yet another pillar in the vindication of a musical landscape resistant to clichés and lazy interpretations, and which has reached peaks such as the Catalonia Triumphant festival, whose first edition was held last year.

The Barcelonan Oriol Rosell He knows how to detect the gaps in understanding that separate adults who were once young from young people who will become adults. With analytical rigor and humorous provocation, Kill daddy He uses the rigor of cultural studies to answer the key question: why can parents' self-defense against the reggaeton their children dance to and experience be so reactionary? The same author's essay on noise and music is also recommended. A great short circuit.

First, he exposed the shortcomings of mega-festivals, and now Barcelona-based journalist Nando Cruz is turning that perspective on its head to champion another possible relationship with live music. In fact, he's exploring how humans have always connected with it, before the rise of the mega-event culture with its screens. Cruz does so through a dozen initiatives conceived and executed "on a human scale": from the Aplec dels Ports festival to the La Benéfica project, Llobregat Block Party (Catalonia Freestyle), and Bellota Rock Fest, among others.

Acantilado Publishers continues to build a remarkable catalog of music in Spanish. For example, with the translation of this essay by British tenor Ian Bostridge, which brings together various texts originally conceived as lectures. In this fascinating book, Bostridge delves into the heart of interpretation and thought regarding Monteverdi, Schumann, Ravel, and Britten.

Like a diary without god or master. That's what it is. Minstrelsy is invoked, a logbook for the existence of Xavier Baró, the minstrel of Almacelles. One can read it linearly, connecting the biographical points that explain a life, but one can also read it by ambushing it, randomly penetrating the inimitable poetics of the author of Songs of the time of axes and And a fairy transforms.

Before he died in July 2025, Ozzy Osbourne He was able to finish this memoir (published in Spanish on January 8th). It is exactly that: a metal legend confronting memory, his own and that of all those who have followed him since he formed Black Sabbath. The narrative begins almost at the end, in 2018, when he had already been sober for five years, and physical and mental health serves as a backdrop against which Ozzy Osbourne projects artistic and family confessions, in an unusual account far removed from self-indulgence.

With an open heart. That's how Miqui Puig has written this autobiography. Just like Albert Om explained in the introduction to an interview with Puig in the ARAIt is "a profound book about fame, music, love and a whole catalog of fears and addictions that have accompanied him."