Black Vinyl White Powder: The Real Story of the British Music Industry

Record producer Napier-Bell (The Business: A History of Popular Music from Sheet Music to Streaming) has been associated with the English popular music scene since 1956. He’s managed rock stars from The Yardbirds through Wham! He spent 14 months successfully negotiating to get Wham! into China for the country’s first mega-group concert, which is detailed in his book I’m Coming To Take You to Lunch. Arguably, no one understands the UK pop music scene better than Napier-Bell; he’s long been a player, and he’s an exceptionally keen observer. This interesting, ofttimes scabrous account of the evolution of British rock/dance music was originally published in the UK in 2001 and is making its U.S. debut with this paperback edition. The pages are rife with accounts of bad guy rock stars acting out, but the book is much more about what drove the industry than its stars’ antics. The book indicates that different drugs fueled different music: LSD, slow and laid back; ecstasy, pulsing but unaggressive; amphetamines, perfect for punk and shock rock with total aggression.