Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • Perfect Sound Whatever

  • By: James Acaster
  • Narrated by: James Acaster
  • Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (1,500 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Perfect Sound Whatever cover art

Perfect Sound Whatever

By: James Acaster
Narrated by: James Acaster
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £13.00

Buy Now for £13.00

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

James Acaster's Guide to Quitting Social Media cover art
Glutton cover art
James Acaster's Classic Scrapes cover art
Alan Partridge: Big Beacon cover art
From the Oasthouse: The Alan Partridge Podcast (Series 1) cover art
James Acaster’s Findings cover art
Parsnips, Buttered cover art
Watching Neighbours Twice a Day... cover art
Endless Endless cover art
Straight Outta Crawley cover art
Ayoade on Top cover art
Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse cover art
As Good as It Gets cover art
No Beethoven cover art
My Effin' Life cover art
Have a Little Faith cover art

Summary

The brand-new memoir from James Acaster: cult comedian, best-selling author of Classic Scrapes, undercover cop, receiver of cabbages.

Perfect Sound Whatever is a love letter to the healing power of music and how one man's obsessive quest saw him defeat the bullshit of one year with the beauty of another. Because that one man is James Acaster, it also includes tales of befouling himself in a Los Angeles steakhouse, stealing a cookie from Clint Eastwood and giving drunk, unsolicited pep talks to urinating strangers. 

January 2017

James Acaster wakes up heartbroken and alone in New York, his relationship over, a day of disastrous meetings leading him to wonder if comedy is really what he wants to be doing anymore. 

A constant comfort in James' life has been music, but he's not listened to anything new for a very long time. Idly browsing 'best of the year' lists, it dawns on him that 2016 may have been a grim year for a lot of reasons, but that it seemed to be an iconic year for music. And so begins a life-changing musical odyssey, as James finds himself desperately seeking solace in the music of 2016, setting himself the task of listening only to music released that year, ending up with 500 albums in his collection. 

Looking back on this yearlong obsession, parallels begin to grow between the music and James' own life: his relationship history, the highs and lows of human connection, residual Christian guilt, and mental health issues that have been bubbling under the surface for years. Some albums are life-changing masterpieces, others are 'Howdilly Doodilly' by Okilly Dokilly, a metalcore album devoted to The Simpsons' character Ned Flanders, but all of them play a part the year that helped James Acaster get his life back on track.

©2019 James Acaster (P)2019 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

Audible Sessions with James Acaster

0:00

What listeners say about Perfect Sound Whatever

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,045
  • 4 Stars
    298
  • 3 Stars
    103
  • 2 Stars
    25
  • 1 Stars
    29
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,137
  • 4 Stars
    131
  • 3 Stars
    37
  • 2 Stars
    14
  • 1 Stars
    10
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    878
  • 4 Stars
    257
  • 3 Stars
    130
  • 2 Stars
    31
  • 1 Stars
    27

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

The clues were there

I love James Acaster. Have seen him live several times, watch anything he's on, on TV, and Classic Scrapes is by far the funniest book I've read and/or listened to. This audiobook, I pre-ordered, but each interview given about the book after that, increased the dread. It is, literally, about the CD's released in 2016. To be fair, I was warned. I expected humour. I really thought it would be, somehow, amusingly done. Unfortunately, I should have picked up on the warnings. Not just extremely tedious, but interspersed with frequent clanging, tinkling sounds to denote, "between chapters". I regret and resent buying this audiobook.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

20 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Loved it!

Ahh, I listened to this book so quickly and now I’m sad it’s over! I would consider myself a casual music fan, I’ll find a few songs I really like and listening to them over and over until I get sick of them. But I’m happy to say that this book made me to find a new found excitement for music. You can hear James Acaster’s passion for every song he writes about and although my taste in music is slightly different to his, this book made me share this passion. As for the storyline, he managed to make it reasonably light and got a few good laughs out of me, despite talking about a very difficult period of time for him. The openness he approached every story with was great as I felt like it made it easier to relate to the problems he was dealing with. For some weird reason I also really enjoyed when things were changed slightly to make the book more audio book listener friendly.

James Acaster truly held nothing back in this awesome book which I think everyone should give a try.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

I LOVE JAMES ACASTER! A GREAT LISTEN

Now I have loadw of albums to listen to! a really good, enthralling yet easy listen/binge listen over the August bank holiday weekend. it's always great to learn more about James' life. Truly one of the most unique and hands down my favourite comedian! 😍😍😍

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant

Loved it. Loads I could say about it but I don't have time as I am off to listen to some music from 2016

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Good listen

An interesting listen and worth it just for the band Okily Dokily.
James is very funny and there are some good tales in there as well as a serious overall theme. I not a big music person but that doesn’t matter. Don’t let it put you off.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Half biography, half musical review, wholly great

It is splendidly well-written and being narrated by its author is certainly a bonus. He delivers a heartfelt performance and certainly helps land his own material exactly the way you'd expect. It actually saved me reading this book while hearing his voice.
The book itself is just wonderful to listen. He weaves in and out of the thread of his own story to create a parallel or link to the music he then goes on to describe. The very personal nature of his relevelation mirroring the intimacy of the each of the artist's work.
I wasn't sure I'd like this book, I'm not into music theory and can't under in depth analysis so this felt like a Gamble. Perhaps it was the fact this is an audio book, but you fell that much closer to the author as he goes over some of his most painful thoughts and emotions. I hope opening up about this all was as cathartic for him as it was for me to listen to so so many testimonies on feelings and experiences I can absolutely relate to (excluding shitting my pants in a public place.)

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

love James

to be honest, I'm not that interested in music and literally I had heard of only 1 of the artists he mentioned...but I had to keep listening cos I didn't want to upset James by stopping early ....you never know if he knows....and after the year he had in 2017, I just couldnt handle the responsibility of adding to that...anyway, he kept teasing the end of chapters with updates on his life and that was enough to keep me hooked.
Having said all that, if he does a second version "2019 was the greatest year in music", I would be the first to buy the audio version!! love James, he's a good man and a funny man.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Wasn’t for me

Loved his last book. This wasn’t for me.
Sent it back.
Shame. Wanted to like it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Repetitive list

Just a list of songs and albums with stories about the musicians. The first audiobook I haven't finished in a very long time.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating, hilarious, moving

James acaster’s unique project was an absolute joy. Do yourself a favour and download it now.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!