Where's the Life in Music Memoirs?

While bracing myself for the onslaught of year-end lists I’ll be reading or writing in the coming weeks, I realized something: Over the past 12 months, I’ve read 12 new music memoirs. That doesn’t include biographies; I’m talking autobiographies only. Sounds like a lot, but it barely puts a dent in the glut of music memoirs that have come out this year. From Neil Young’s bestselling Waging Heavy Peace to outliers like Satan Is Real by the late country legend Charlie Louvin, the preponderance of these books has gotten me thinking: Although I’ve been voraciously reading and loving music memoirs all my adult life (and then some), I now find myself wondering if the format has reached a breaking point.