I am delighted to be joining the blog tour for Dear Mr Pop Star by Derek and Dave Philpott today. This book is completely different to anything else I have read. Here is what it is about followed by my thoughts.

The Blurb

For more than a decade, Derek Philpott and his son, Dave, have been writing to pop stars from the 1960s to the 90s to take issue with the lyrics of some of their best-known songs.
But then, to their great surprise, the pop stars started writing back…
Dear Mr Pop Star contains 100 of Derek and Dave’s greatest hits, including correspondence with Katrina and the Waves, Tears for Fears, Squeeze, The Housemartins, Suzi Quatro, Devo, Deep Purple, Nik Kershaw, T Pau, Human League, Eurythmics, Wang Chung, EMF, Mott the Hoople, Heaven 17, Jesus Jones, Johnny Hates Jazz, Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, Chesney Hawkes and many, many more.

My Thoughts

Every now and again we need a total change from the types of books we normally read. Dear Mr Pop Star by Derek and Dave Philpott certainly offered that change. A series of letters by Derek Philpott to various bands and pop stars querying certain aspects of their lyrics is an interesting concept and even more so when those he writes to writes back.

This book is like nothing I have read before and I suspect it is highly unlikely that I will again. Dear Mr Pop Star is set out as the letters Philpott has written to the various stars. The majority are followed by responses from the stars and others are like postcards that have not been responded to. The letters are hilarious and Derek Philpott’s observations are dry, witty and have you shaking your head in agreement while laughing out loud. Being a proofreader, I really appreciated his observations on the grammar of some band names and lyrics. The letter he wrote to Doctor and the Medics is brilliant. I’m not going to go into detail, you will have to read it yourself, and it is worth getting the book for that one alone. Other gems include his observations on Nik Kershaw’s ‘The Riddle’, Bananarama’s ‘Really Saying Something’ and Cutting Crew’s ‘I Just Died in your Arms Tonight’. They are undoubtedly funny but they also demonstrate a real intelligence and quick wit.

What really surprised me was the amount of responses he had received back. They are not brief responses either. The various stars have really taken their time over their responses and I was delighted to see how they took Philpott’s observations in good humour.

Being of a certain age *cough, cough* I really appreciated the letters to the above and other stars of the 80s and 90s such as T’Pau, EMF, Carter USM and others. I have to confess that there were a few bands that I didn’t know and I tended to skip over these letters as I didn’t really get what was being referred to. This did not, however, impact on my enjoyment of Dear Mr Pop Star.

Incredibly quirky, Dear Mr Pop Star is a work of real ingenuity and the letters are very well written. This is a book I will dip into time and time again when I need a good laugh. A completely unique concept that I hope the Philpott’s will continue and bring out more volumes of. Highly recommended.

Published on 20 September 2018 by Unbound, you can get a copy HERE.

A huge thank you to Derek and Dave Philpott for my advance copy of Dear Mr Pop Star and for inviting me to take part in the blog tour.