With thanks to the author, publishers W.F. Howes Ltd., and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

Really enjoyed this behind-the-scenes view of what it took to run Creation, one of the most successful British record labels of the 80s and 90s. I didn’t know much about Alan McGee before reading this, apart from his involvement with Oasis which I heard the Gallaghers brothers speak about in a few interviews. One story stands out, where Noel talked about Oasis getting deported from the Netherlands quite early in their time with the label for getting drunk and generally causing mayhem on the ferry ride travelling to do a gig over there. Noel called McGee to tell him what had happened and said his respect for McGee was cemented by his one-word response, “Brilliant”!

This tallies completely with the impression given of McGee’s relationships with his bands in this book, where he connected with them on an artistic level rather than a business level and gave them the freedom to express themselves without limits to get the best out of them. The book captures the no-holds-barred party culture of the time, with McGee in the centre of it all, and taking it as far as any of his artists ever did.

The flow of the story felt a little disjointed at times, with the narrative jumping between timelines quite frequently, and sometimes sounding a little repetitive. This is a small criticism though and overall, with a nod to the narrator Russ Bain, this was a fantastic listen.

For the most part I really enjoyed this. The narrator was excellent and the listening process was very immersive. It helped that McGee talks about bands from key periods of my own life and listening to the inside take on things was highly enjoyable. The narrative became a bit fractured in places because he does hop around the time scales rather. For a while I was confused because he talked about going to rehab in 1994 and then talked about being permanently drunk in the late Nineties and it wasn't until nearly the end when he briefly addressed this. Some sections, because of the way that the chapters were organised, were a little repetitive, but otherwise this was cracking, and listening to it as Oasis announced their comeback was timely and entertaining.