Review: Is this what it was like for the Beatles?
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 23, 2014
Charles Steed‘s account of the rise of a new star strikes the reader as totally believable.Drew Langley has been singing and composing for over a decade, but no one has ever really noticed. All it takes, he finds, is a little publicity, and his star begins to rise.Of course, “a little publicity” involves a YouTube post of his self-circumcision. Okay, that might not be completely believable, but the point is that he attracted attention using something totally related to music, and, once his video goes viral, downloads of his songs go ballistic, agents begin to call, he is booked for Letterman, and the sky is the limit.The fact that the account is (mostly) so believable is really rather distressing, and I think that this is the author’s point. Drew has written seven hundred songs and recorded a little over half of them. He is acknowledged as a wonderful composer, a wonderful singer. But he can’t catch a break until the video – totally irrelevant to him as a singer – hits the net. His appearance on Letterman is a case in point. He is booked to discuss the video. His invitation to sing is just an afterthought.The book is well-written and the characters are real. You will enjoy this book as you consider why talent, alone, is not sufficient to make an artist noticed.David Burnett for The Kindle Book ReviewI received a copy of the book in exchange for a fair and honest review.