For a long time now, I have said “you can take the girl out of the 80s, but you can’t take the 80s out of the girl” and that holds true to this day. A Wham! fan from the very beginning, I remember the whole China experience with staggering clarity even after all this time. I bought the video on the day it was released and played it so many times I almost wore it out. So for me this was a truly fascinating behind the scenes look at one of mv favourite bands in the best decade musically. Overall I found the audiobook really enlightening and the stories were recounted in a warm friendly manner. However, I can’t lie, some of the language and phrasing used made me particularly uncomfortable. I know it’s of its time and is no doubt an honest retelling. but I also think that on the other hand, times and standards change and maybe it should have been recorded with 21st century audiences in mind. When we know better we do better and all that. I don’t want that to detract from what a fun and entertaining memoir this was though. Very enjoyable. #LBTCrew #Bookstagram
2 days agodaisyhollands
Blurb Pop manager extraordinaire Simon Napier-Bell had had enough. He'd had enough of pop groups. He'd had enough of the constant grief at home with his two ex-boyfriends bickering and bleeding him dry; and most of all he'd had enough of the music biz. But then he fell in love with a new passion - the Far East; and a dynamic new duo - George and Andrew - jointly called Wham! Soon, in an audacious attempt to have the best of both worlds, he found himself offering to arrange for Wham! to be the first ever Western pop group to play in communist China - a masterstroke of PR which, in one swift stroke, would make them one of the biggest groups in the world. What follows is an exciting, unpredictable and hilarious romp around the more curious corners of the world as Napier-Bell dives into the unknown, attempting to achieve the unachievable. We soon find ourselves in the company of a wonderful cast of petulant pop stars, shady international 'businessmen', and a hilarious confusion of spies, students and institutionalised officials and ministers as he edges ever closer to inadvertently becoming one of the first Westerners to break down the walls of communist China.
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