In How Music Works, David Byrne discusses his thoughts on music. He comments on a wide variety of topics. Starting with how location influences the music going all the way to the business of music.

All chapters are pretty independent and can be read in isolation. Different people will probably find different chapters more or less interesting.

Personally, I really loved the chapter where he describes how many of the Talking Head songs came to be and how their creative process evolved over time. As a hobby musician myself, I found it really insightful and it has given me some good ideas.

I was a bit disappointed by the business chapter. I felt it was a bit messy and I still don't fully understand what kind of payments a musician will receive (stuff like mechanical rights is mentioned, but it was not described very clearly for me). People with a little more history in selling music will probably learn more from this chapter, but the general idea was clear.

I read the Dutch translation, so I'm not sure if this holds for other versions of the book, but I felt that the layout was not optimal. Some of the images where not very clear and there was just too much text on one page. Although the book is about 300 pages, it really should have been a 500 page book.

Overall, I really enjoyed this look into the mind of David Byrne.