Music memoirs arrive every year, but 2025’s line-up is more eclectic than most, covering the stories of seminal artists, the writers who followed them and the careers that grew from those encounters.
The books carry the expected tour and studio anecdotes, yet they also offer clear accounts of how these figures held on to what kept them steady, whether faith, family, close friends or the drive that pushed them to start writing songs as teenagers at home.
In alphabetical order, here are five standout picks of the year.
Cat on the Road to Findout by Yusuf / Cat Stevens
Yusuf begins with his childhood in London and the songs that carried him through the charts in the late 1960s.
He writes about those giddy years, living above his family’s West End restaurant and moving quickly to a level of early fame that drew large audiences and constant attention.
The book follows the illness and near-drowning that halted that rise and forced him to reconsider how he wanted to live. Yusuf records the years after his conversion to Islam in 1977 with the same detail, focusing on children’s education and charity initiatives that shaped his work away from the music industry, before he returned to the studio and stage on his own terms. Drawings accompany the chapters he chooses to revisit.
Fahrenheit-182: A Memoir by Mark Hoppus with Dan Ozzi
Blink-182 mixed heart with toilet humour, and the jokes often carried the edge of the teen alienation the band addressed in interviews and documentaries.
Bassist Mark Hoppus is the latest to place their history in print, and like drummer Travis Barker, whose memoir Can I Say followed his survival of a 2008 plane crash, Hoppus writes after his own brush with mortality following a cancer diagnosis in 2021.
But Fahrenheit-182 is not a book about recovery. It looks back at what brought Hoppus to some of the world’s biggest stages, from an early interest in punk bands and skate culture to what he learnt about the fleeting nature of success as the group moved from small shows to global attention.
The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told by Bill Janovitz
This is mostly a fans-only affair, but so what?
For anyone who loves the jerky sound and cool precision of the new wave band, this is a strong tribute to The Cars and to the surviving members and people who worked with them.
Bill Janovitz traces their beginnings in Boston and the early albums that carried hits such as My Best Friend’s Girl and Let’s Go, which set their chart run into the mid-1980s. The book includes accounts of recording sessions and the ways their different characters supported the work while they were at their peak.
It also covers the later years, the deaths of bassist Ben Orr and chief songwriter and guitarist Ric Ocasek, and the band's influence on musicians who came after them.
The Uncool: A Memoir by Cameron Crowe
For music critics, whether they care to admit it or not, Cameron Crowe had what many considered the dream gig. He recalls travelling with bands as a teenager and filing stories for Rolling Stone when the magazine was in full cultural pomp. What makes the memoir striking is how he holds those years beside his childhood in San Diego and his parents’ unease with what he was doing, all while moving through stories involving Led Zeppelin, David Bowie and Fleetwood Mac without skipping a beat.
Crowe also breaks down parts of the craft of music journalism, with interviews recorded on cassette and long conversations that came from access rarely granted by major artists today. Those looking for his experiences as a heralded screenwriter and director will have to look elsewhere or wait for the sequel that should surely follow.
Truly by Lionel Richie
Lionel Richie’s memoir Truly reads a lot like one of his concerts: fun, colourful and packed with the kind of anecdotes only someone with more than 50 years in the music business can tell.
The book moves from his childhood in Tuskegee in the American South to the long nights gigging with the Commodores and into the 1980s when he became one of the decade’s defining voices. What gives the memoir its pull is Richie’s admission that even at the height of his fame he was still dealing with stage fright, doubt and the uneasy edges of celebrity.
He writes about the break-up of the Commodores, the burnout that followed and the long road back, all with the dry Southern humour fans will recognise from his shows. For a singer whose songs have soundtracked so much of modern pop, this memoir is entertaining, candid and ultimately hopeful.
