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Book review: Exit Stage Left – A wry look at the second lives of yesterday’s musical idols

Music journalist Nick Duerden tracks down a succession of former pop stars to find out what happened when the hits dried up – and the results are hugely entertaining

Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol: ‘A good part of Lightbody’s charm was that he had never particularly resembled a rock star so much as a mature student who plays computer games all night long’. Picture: Getty

For a period in the 1990s and 2000s, the now-defunct Q magazine ran a regular feature called ’Where are they now?’, in which the British music title unearthed former rock stars and gaily informed us what they were doing with their time.

Some of them had once graced Top of the Pops and were now on stage only at Butlins. Others had become insurance sales people, backroom music executives and farmers. One, a fellow from ...