Limited Edition of One: How to Succeed in the Music Industry Without Being Part of the Mainstream

The more I reflected, the more I understood just how unusual my career has been. How did I manage to do seemingly everything wrong yet still end up on magazine covers, headlining world tours, and achieving Top 5 albums? How did I attract such obsessive and fanatical fans, many of whom take everything I do or say very personally – a phenomenon that is simultaneously flattering yet can also be tremendously frustrating? Even this, I somehow cultivated without ever intending to. My accidental career.

Limited Edition of One is unlike any other music book you will ever have read. It is partly the long-awaited memoir of Steven Wilson, whose celebrated band Porcupine Tree began as teenage fiction before unintentionally evolving into a reality that encompassed Grammy-nominated records and sold-out shows worldwide, before he embarked on an even more successful solo career. It is also partly the story of a twenty-first-century artist who achieved chart-topping mainstream success without ever truly becoming part of the mainstream.

From ABBA to Stockhausen, the book navigates a collection of conversations and thought pieces on the art of listening, the rules of collaboration, lists of lists, personal stories, and professional adventurism (including food, film, TV, and modern art). It delves into old-school rock stardom, how to negotiate an obsessive fanbase and survive on social media, all interwoven with dream-fever storytelling.