The 10 Commandments - The Rockstar’s Guide To Life

I picked this book up at HMV today. The title bought me in, along with the rockstars on the cover. The discount sticker helped too. For those who don’t know the Q magazine is a prestigious music magazine in the UK. I remember it had it‘s own music channel at one point, don’t know if it’s still airing, as I don’t watch much telly nowadays. Editor, Ted calls Q the greatest music magazine in the UK. I have a feeling that he really wanted to write Q is the best music magazine in the world.

I believe this is a compilation of spreads where accomplished musicians share their own 10 rules of life (aka Commandments). I was able to read half of this this morning, and the other half this afternoon. I’ve been trying to prioritise my review requests, but this book got me writing so many notes that I felt like I had enough to write a full review.

It’s worth noting that this book was published in 2018, prior to the pandemic. Some things may feel outdated, but I don’t think the content of this would have changed much if the musicians were asked about the Ten Commandments of their life today. In fact, it was refreshing to escape from the Covid madness by reading this.

The formatting in this book is flawless. It‘s easy to search for an artist and the headlines make it easy to read. I also like the font choices too. As it’s a non-fiction book about music, I think it may serve readers better if in each chapter there was a picture of the musician sharing their commandments. I knew most of them, but not everybody will and I think having pictures of the artists would help other readers who don’t know what they look like, be able to absorbed in.

My favourite chapter is the Dave Gahan chapter. Anyone who knows me, knows I’m a huge Depeche Mode fan, but I also thought this ones consided with me a lot more. Enjoy it while it lasts is excellent advise for anybody.

I enjoyed most of the chapters and found it amusing how some were mirroring what the others were saying, whist others referened other singers and some even contradicted each other. Like I remember one chapter where somebody hates onesies and a later chapter is embacing the idea of a onesie party.

Some of the advise is great such as not mixing politics with alcohol. Don’t start a fight with Noel Gallagher or anyone for that matter. Then there’s also some controversial ones like avoiding sushi. I won’t follow that one since sushi is one of my favourite dishes.

One part of the book which I didn’t like was Azealia Banks’ chapter. I couldn’t relate to her nuggets of wisdom because I hated her tone. I cringed at “I rule the world of vagina.” If a man said that, they’d be hung, drawn, and quartered on social media. Then there’s “a woman should have at least $75 on her.” I really think that sentence is stupid. Yes, it’s a good idea to always have cash on you, but not everyone has $75 cash spare. Not very practical. I also think that calling twitter free therapy is iffy because twitter can’t replace qualified therapists.

Other than that chapter, I thought this was a great book. If the book didn’t have Azealia Bank’s chapter in it, I would have rated this a fI’ve stars easily. I rated it 3.5, because of the one chapter that spoilt it for me. I still enjoyed a lot of the other chapters in this, even if I didn’t agree with all of it. I could go as far as saying this is the best self-help book that I have ever read, but I don’t feel like I’ve read enough of that genre to compare it to other self-help books.