100 Greatest Music Books of All Time

The music event of the season isn’t a surprise-release hip-hop album or a pop diva’s Max Martin-produced single. It isn’t even music. It’s a book – specifically, Born to Run, the $10 million memoir from that tireless torchbearer of rock, Bruce Springsteen. Like “farewell” tours and covers albums, autobiographies have always proved reliable earners in sunset-years musicians’ product lines, but nowadays they’re more than just dependably tawdry airport purchases. Turns out: Rock stars can write! (Fans weren’t necessarily sure they could even read.) The Boss follows in the motorcycle-boot-clad footsteps of such celebrated belle-lettrists as Keith Richards, Patti Smith and Bob Dylan, whose Chronicles, Volume One kicked off the high-advance, high-reward boomer lit-ra-ture boom and tops Billboard’s ranking of our favorite music books of all time. Of course, there’s more to building the ultimate library than tony tell-alls: Read on for the very best business tomes, historical surveys and critical reckonings, plus enough sex, drugs and financial profligacy to shock even Motley Crue (see No. 16). Contributing writers: Frank DiGiacomo, Gavin Edwards, Jim Farber, Lizzy Goodman, David Hinckley, Maura Johnson, Dorian Lynskey, Rebecca Milzoff, Jody Rosen, Gene Santoro, Rob Tannenbaum. Guest writers noted. A version of this article originally appeared in the Sept. 24 issue of Billboard.