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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Alexis Petridis

Shake, rattle and write: why the music memoir is booming

SonicBoom web
Illustration by La Boca Illustration: La Boca

By her own admission, Miki Berenyi was not a woman itching to write a memoir. Even if she had been, she says, why would anyone have been interested? Her band, Lush, were “never that big”. They enjoyed cult alt-rock success in the early 90s, scored three Top 30 singles in the Britpop era, and broke up in 1996. They briefly reformed in 2015, but broke up again after less than a year, keen “to return to our families and homes”. When a publisher approached her with the idea of an autobiography, she says, “I literally laughed in his fucking face – I was like: ‘Why would I want to do that? That sounds ridiculous.’”

But then Berenyi lost her job as a subeditor when the magazine she worked for folded. “Lockdown was looming, and I thought, ‘Oh shit, actually this isn’t a great time to be looking for a job’, so I kind of … It was a bit more pragmatic than a burning ambition.”

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