Famous

Entertaining and insightful … Thorne’s prose is a pleasure to read, his footnotes alone more substantial and entertaining than many books * MOJO *
Famous may initially seem like a left turn for a writer who spent seven years writing a very long book about Prince. But that lifelong source of fascination’s simultaneous occupancy of a series of key intersections - between black and white, rock and pop, male and female, jazz and funk - actually made his vast oeuvre the perfect training ground for this project. With five out of Thorne’s seven chosen encounters continuing the conversation between whiteness and blackness which is pop’s defining dialogue, Famous is a rigorously entertaining and fearlessly gossipy theoretical analysis of a septet of celebrity interfaces * BEN THOMPSON *
By focusing on the connections and interactions between some of the biggest stars of music over the last sixty years, Matt Thorne moves us away from the reverent contemplation of “individual genius” and opens up the conversation into a subtle analysis of popular culture itself - how it works, what it means, how it affects us and how it affects its most famous protagonists * WILL ASHON *
Famous is nothing less than a new path through pop cultural history. I found surprises and revelations on every page. The pairings he chooses are sometimes expected (Sinatra and Elvis) but often startling (Paul McCartney and Diana Ross). Throughout, Thorne’s knowledge and love of the music, and his respect for the women and men who produce it, shines through * TOBY LITT *
A juicy account of great rivalries * OBSERVER, Nonfiction books to look out for in 2026 *
This study of influence and animosity in the history of popular music is eccentric, passionate, sometimes confounding and always engrossing’ * THE TIMES *
Famous is breezy in its narrative and nerdy in its apparatus. At its best it illuminates the wider tactics and strategies - and costs - of fame * THE SPECTATOR *
Thorne is so knowledgeable about all these pop and rock musicians … an expert compiler of abstruse trivia * DAILY MAIL *

Matt Thorne is the author of six novels, including Eight Minutes Idle, which won an Encore Award and which he adapted into a 2014 film, and Cherry, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He is also the author of three children’s books and teaches creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. His most recent book was a critical study of the pop star Prince, acclaimed as ‘the definitive work on the man.’

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