The Soundtrack of My Life by Clive Davis

(Simon & Schuster, $30)

Clive Davis’s new memoir is “studded with pretty good moments,” said Dwight Garner in The New York Times. No man who’s enjoyed five decades of blockbuster success in the record industry could fail to have stored up countless can’t-miss celebrity anecdotes. Here’s Janis Joplin suggesting that they go to bed to seal his offer of a record contract. There’s Lou Reed declining a weekend beach invitation because a tan would ruin his street-ghoul image. And over and over appear misguided artists who fail, at least temporarily, to heed Davis’s counsel and transform themselves into supernovas on the power of the former lawyer’s song choices. Usually, the musicians wished to follow their muses; at Columbia Records and several stops since, Davis proved again and again that he had a better handle on how to convert their talents into riches.

“Indeed, you could have a pretty soused solo drinking game taking a swig every time the mogul traces an artist’s commercial downfall to not following his advice,” said Chris Willman in The Hollywood Reporter. There’s a reason, Davis says, that you’re more likely to have heard of Carlos Santana and Whitney Houston than Jeff Healey or Loudon Wainwright III. The tips that we hear Davis dole out here are “almost unfailingly commercially brilliant—and also a little depressing,” since he often favored schlock when he believed it would sell. For every Sly Stone or Bruce Springsteen whom he let be, we’re reminded of a Davis-picked Barry Manilow or Air Supply single that many music lovers would rather forget.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Davis’s book could have been far more revealing, said Randall Roberts in the Los Angeles Times. He waits until the very last chapter to reveal that he’s been a practicing bisexual for years—a detail that clashes with his general air of lawyerly detachment. We also learn very little about industry finances or his thoughts on the huge changes wrought by digital technology. Though The Soundtrack of My Life is “filled with fantastic scenes,” unless Davis graces us with a sequel, “the extent of his impact on the music world” will remain far from fully known.