33 1/3 Series of books

I like his writing...I love the album.

Wasn't it Zappa who said this?

i think it's pretty well accepted that (a) both frank and elvis said this, (b) but various others (charles mingus, for example) said it way before they did, and (c) trying to figure out who exactly thought of it first is kind of like, ya know, dancing about architecture.

Hey, when will Douglas Wolk's book be out then?

Right now I'm writing a sequence about a bear that climbed a fence in Duluth right about the time James Brown was singing "I Don't Mind" and thereby came yay-close to starting World War III.

I can't WAIT to read Matos on Prince and Elisabeth Vincentelli on ABBA.

:::drool:::

http://33third.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

I'll probably read the Entroducing book.

I also got the feeling (primarily from the VU book) that the writers were getting their one and only chance to write about a particular passion and as a result I felt like there was this barely constrained urge to branch out beyond the scope of the single album in question. Maybe my personal expectations for this type of book were off base but I think that for example the artist's personal life should barely if at all come into play.

I might be more interested in reading one by a writer who had already done a full biography of the artist in question so that the standard gossipy stuff and most common observations would already be out of the way. Maybe then the author would be forced to focus more deeply on the music in abstract terms and not worry about some of the more mundane details. But these criticisms are all very nitpicky and I'm sure I'll be ordering another batch soon.

The Armed Forces one? That's definitely on the top of my list. I'm optimistic because it's a pretty interesting choice out of the early Costello albums so I'm guessing he'll have something unique to say. A lot of the other picks are very classic-rock-y but maybe once those are out of the way the series will get more interesting.

Just out of curiosity, could you tell me what you think is the difference between turntablism and scratching?

Turntablism is the description of scratching that’s supposed to make people who don’t listen to hip-hop, sit up and go “Hmm, maybe it is real music.” Scratching, to me, is just what it is. Turntablism has this virtuosic aspect to it, and to me, that’s when things start to turn jazzy. And I’m not a huge fan of when things turn jazzy. Because when I think of jazzy, I think of Wynton Marsalis.

i saw Douglas's book in the shop the other day. Looked a bit dauntingly 'conceptual' on a quick flip through, what with all the headings and shit. But I'm sure it's a good read and i'll probably buy it. Anybody else read this?

I should really put together a proposal for "Return to the 36 Chambers".

Songs in the Key of Life, by Dave Hesmondhalgh
Parallel Lines, by Elisabeth Vincentelli
Three Feet High and Rising, by Brian Coleman
Tusk, by Stephin Merritt
Computer Love, by Michael Bracewell
Marquee Moon, by David Keenan
Master of Puppets, by Tom Bissell
The Basement Tapes, by Damon Krukowski

The editor/creator of the series, David Barker runs a blog about the series. Email him directly if you like:

http://33third.blogspot.com/

I finally read one of these. I think I picked a great place to start, Douglas Wolk's Live at the Apollo. It was really really good.

also got the ABBA one, which i devoured in a day. twas OK, wish Ms Vincentelli had spent fewer sentences justifying (or having to justify) the book's very existence. also i'm not sure she cracked the problem of how to order the narrative, though I accept it's a toughie.

These are a few of the projects that - for various and sometimes complicated reasons - never made it to fruition. Some came very close to happening, others less so; but they all would have been fun.

Songs in the Key of Life, by Dave Hesmondhalgh

Why not?

Matos' Sign O'The Times book's prince has been slashed (on Amazon at least) to $4.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0826415474/qid=1122928710/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-2999298-5726417?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

This has been a difficult process: we received dozens of very strong proposals from dozens of very good writers and it's a shame to have to turn down so many of you.

If you're interested, the 33 1/3 books we eventually decided to sign up are:

"If You're Feeling Sinister" by Scott Plagenhoef

"Aja" by Don Breithaupt

"Shoot Out the Lights" by Hayden Childs

"Pretty Hate Machine" by Daphne Carr

"Use Your Illusion" by Eric Weisbard

"Horses" by Phil Shaw

"Double Nickels on the Dime" by Mike Fournier

"Pink Moon" by Amanda Petrusich

"People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm" by Shawn Taylor

"Achtung Baby" by Stephen Catanzarite

"20 Jazz Funk Greats" by Drew Daniel

"The Dreaming" by Ann Powers

"Rid of Me" by Kate Schatz

"Another Green World" by Geeta Dayal

"Songs in the Key of Life" by Zeth Lundy

"Trout Mask Replica" by Kevin Courrier

"Let's Talk About Love" by Carl Wilson

"Lucinda Williams" by Anders Smith Lindall

"69 Love Songs" by LD Beghtol

“Marquee Moon” by Peter Blauner

“Swordfishtrombones” by David Smay

So then I guess he didn't read the 100-odd pages in which Matos discussed Prince.

DeRo is a FUCKING MORON.

Yeah, it's all info, no prose. A lot of the 33 1/3 books seem to forget how much people like that.

Someone should do Tom T. Hall's greatest hits.

seriously though, i realize the books have to sell, hence the more mainstream angle. i'm sure there are a ton of albums the writers would love to write about that aren't commercially viable for the publisher.

actually do you think they would let somebody self-33 1/3? if it was some famous musician?

Morrissey is not attracted to Morrissey.

Carl Wilson is writing one about Celine Dion's "Let's Talk About Love".

This is more or less happening with LD Beghtol writing about 69 Love Songs. No idea how it's coming along; I haven't talked to him since the EMP Pop Conference.

The Stone Roses one was okay, not much in the way of new info and insights really (though I did learn that what I previously thought was just a guitar string squeak in "Elizabeth My Dear" was really supposed to be a silenced gunshot.)

The Riot one was excellent. I especially liked his first chapters talking from the point of view of someone who was there.

I had high hopes for the Endtroducing one since it's one of the few (only?) hip-hop books but it was really just one long interview with Shadow. Very boring, gross hyperbole at the beginning (the author says something along the lines of Endtroducing not sounding like anything before or since type crap) and Davis himself is not the most interesting of interviewees.

The VU and Nico had some informative info but Joe Harvard's writing style and attitude just rubbed me the wrong way.

For this series, I've really enjoyed both the personal takes and insights gained from repeated close listenings that the authors bring to their books and the Endtroducing one was more like "here's an oral history of DJ Shadow" and it didn't focus enough on Endtroducing.

I think the format that was used for the Paul's Boutique book would have served Endtroducing a lot more, ie. context, process, funny stories behind the samples...

I'd like to read more though. I'd most like to read ones that either give a lot of details about the making of the record or do close critical analysis rather than ones that are more off-the-wall in their theorizing. Which ones would suit me?

I pitched it and got rejected.

I don't see why this is so hard to believe.

And yes, Dominique Leone posts on ILX.

Jesus, ILM these days is a chore.

concerning joy div books there is the highly recommended ian curtis biography by mick middles. personal, insightful and touching. with lots of typos but that makes it even more loveable.

So Velvet Underground & Nico is your Big Mac and any semirevered afterworks like Unknown Pleasure or Loveless are just kid's meals. the new ones with milk and carrots.

But I'm wondering if that's what all the books give you, a THIS IS IT AND ALL THERE IS LEFT of anything credible.
i.e. I'll read Loveless and it'll convince me of the untimeliness of so-called 60s rock purveyors.
or something.

I think I just want to get another one because I like the size. It's nice and tiny for metro rides.
I might like to read ABBA one, if that's any good. I have no interest in NMH, though I'm wondering if I'm mistaken. I think Borders has Live at the Apollo so maybe that one.

Hey, I pitched Violator and got the same answer! (Well, presumably the same form letter.)

Or are you referring to those evil, corporate new-fangled bookstores where you can sit there all day and just read anything they have without buying it blount?

And, what, that's dumb, VCN would be awesome to read about. It's dumb because it would probably sell just as well if not better than the rest of them. Like, all these books, their market have probably already read a ton of stuff on whoever they want to read about anyway. Who IS reading them? The people on this thread? So, not popular enough would be a plus. Books are not even in stores.
anyway. Whatever. In theory they're cool little companion pieces the music collection.

All that said Vision Creation Newsun is an album I would definitely be interested in reading more about.

in a lot of ways, it wouldn't matter if i liked the record or not.

http://www.amazon.com/Miles-Beyond-Electric-Explorations-1967-1991/dp/0823083608/sr=1-14/qid=1158360979/ref=sr_1_14/104-1248919-2000735?ie=UTF8&s=books

You're telling me!

I'd like to figure out how much Dominique would've expected to get paid for a project such as this, so that I may just save up or get on a payment plan or something and he can just write it for me.

Yes, the rationale behind the rejection of "Violator" (not popular enough) makes no sense ... it's sold more copies than probably 90% of the other albums featured in the series. I guess "not popular enough" is code for "the way we see it, faggy synth pop fans don't read rock-crit".

I felt sure there was one about Tago Mago. No?

Not to say that Continuum decided to pick either NIN *or* DM, but I can certainly see the rationale for choosing PHM over Violator. There's a lot of mileage to be had from arguing that NIN came out of nowhere and sold a couple million records and "took the mainstream by surprise" or whatever, all of it happening before grunge got credit for doing the exact same thing (and with 100000X more press and airplay). I'm not sure you can argue that with DM, since they were a well-established band at that point. Plus, the same people who would buy a DM book are also likely to be interested in an NIN book.

It's never had an obvious one but it's had a sometimes-grudging one. But even Rolling Stone did a positive main (but not cover) story on the band when that came out, a couple of years after they reviewed 101 in a way that could be described as 'cavemen meet aliens and try to tell fellow cavemen about the sparkly lights in the sky.'

LIKE ABBA GOLD

Big Difference.

Anyway, this may be crazy talk, but maybe many books got turned down because of reasons other than the albums' popularities and seminal statuses.

Maybe they were't impressed the writers' work?

Maybe they felt too uncomfortable because they didn't know someone who knew someone who knew that writer?

Maybe someone in the committee had "this bands is the sucks" veto power?

These decisions were not made by science. I'm not claiming they're just arbitrary, reactionary, or dumb opinions either. But they boil down to opinions.

Unless 33 1/3rd has a patent on album review books (which I don't think they do, although surely they have it on the name), if there's such a demand for more album review books, and the series is selling well, is there not a possibility of an alternative publishing source?

"Slacker aesthetic"--huh?

John COUGAR mellencamp

xposts - I've seen a few in stores and again reiterating: not meant as a reflection on anyone's work in particular. just about the idea for the series in general.

I guarantee 100% hyperballed-to-the-wall reading akshun.

for about the fourth time, talking about the general impression of what the idea for the series was. haven't been inspired to read any of 'em yet but i'll be sure to let you guys know.

here you are, a guy who talks about music all day long on the internet, sneering at a series of books that do the same as "dull and unambitious." kinda pot-meets-kettle, isn't it?

no actually spent four years recently working just about every single night while in grad school then working taking care of young child etc. on m.a. thesis on the aesthetics of late '60s psych - about a year and a half of just listening and taking notes, seven months of organizing 400+ pages of notes producing roughly 180 page document actually discussing content of about 400 songs from the period all organized around central theme (psychedelic music as late manifestation of aesthetics associated with surrealism) but whatevs, dude.

this is absurd, too. any criticism or questioning when it's from the other side is obviously sneering isn't it, michaelangelo?

An anthology like Stranded ismore about the writers and their choices where the 33 1/3 series just by looking at the format is nominally about the albums. Maybe the pay is so low for 33 1/3 and you don't get royalities so you basically can write whatever you want ;-) But I like listening to albums way more than reading about em so take this with an extra shaker of salt.

why so strange!? there are so many ways to approach a subject.

I feel bad about saying this ;'-(

I just think there's an inherent trashiness to pop music and it's there regardless of how massive something ends up being. So that's a part of why canonizing in pop music literature (and certainly this book series is hardly the worst offender) feels stodgy to me. Naturally, the conservatism of a lot of canonizing in the literature is the most annoying part.

maybe I'm being too literal-minded here, or just playing armchair editor again. but I sense a big disconnect between the tight editorial focus of the series overall and the apparently discursive and/or digressive approach taken by some writers. and I'm not saying those individual books don't work, hey I haven't read em either, I'm trying to make a bigger point about rock criticism or music writing or whatever you want to call it (saddle up hobby horse). After 25 plus years of reading (and writing) this stuff I've decided the Lester Bangs and Greil Marcus style/tradition of "ambitious" or adventurous music writing is exhausted, a dead end that stops writers from developing and frightens off many smart readers.

maybe this is a product of being a music critic for many years while remaining kinda ignorant about music...not that I ever seriously wanted to be a guitar player more than a good writer...it's more like if I read a book about one of my fave albums I'd want to learn about the songwriting, recording, the musicians' experience etc.

of course Scott's right, there are many ways to address a subject, but I think a lot of pop music writing ignores its subject at times.

can you imagine buying a book about the movie Carrie and then reading not about Brian DePalma but the author's own prom nightmare?

Kinks Village Green - very on-message, a bit of cultural background
Unknown Pleasures - more a potted history of JD than about the album
Murmur - a combination of recording history and interpretation, very highly regarded by some
Marquee Moon - was this ever even published??
Meat is Murder - "fiction", not about the album at all
Aeroplane Over the Sea - focused, apparently inspirational to some!
Velvets and Nico - about the album, writing sometimes clumsy
Let It Be (Beatles) - totally on-message, recording sessions, etc
OK Computer - somewhat dry, musicological, academic, mostly disliked
Forever Changes - perhaps pretentious, mostly lyrical analysis
Piper at the Gates - focused, some interviews, possibly a bit dull
Harvest - a straight telling of the album's creation
Exile on Main St. - good, vivid, a few personal anecdotes from Buffalo Tom singer
Pet Sounds - focused, but a bit too personal/emotion-based for some
Endtroducing - almost all one long interview with Josh Davis
Electric Ladyland - focused, good on guitars, nothing very new
Music from Big Pink - a novella about a drug dealer who hangs out with The Band
Let It Be (Replacements) - a short memoir by the dude from the Decembrists, not about the album at all
Kick Out the Jams - some love this, some find it boring, but it seems like a straight history of the MC5's beginnings
Led Zep IV - pretentious, overanalytical, and awesome!
Low - focused, historical, very strong
Grace - I can't tell! It's either really good or very bad.
Dusty in Memphis - random, tangential, about the South - both loved and hated
Sign Of the Times - partly autobiographical, but mostly about the album itself, and that part of Prince's career
Paul's Boutique - very sharp, very smart, all about the making of the album
Ramones - very good on punk history and the album itself
Doolittle - lots of interviews with Frank Black, journalistic, good on lyrics and surreaslism
Born in the USA - not sure about this one - seems to have been ignored by most people
Armed Forces - an A-Z of entries, very focused but too dry for some
Abba Gold - basically a potted history of Abba themselves - weird
Live at the Apollo - very cool retelling of James Brown's live show, interspersed with some stuff about the Cuban Missle Crisis, etc
Aqualung - written by a British professor; no idea
There's a Riot Goin' On - solid, about the album, and a little creative
The Stone Roses - not sure: pretty straightforward analysis, I think.

Unless it was like that dreadful OK Computer book on 33 1/3.

Nice work, Mike. You did the album proud. Fantastic, and I look forward to reading Ned's take in "Marooned."

The Alan McGee bit is the greatest moment of unintentional (on his part) comedy I've read in a *long* time.

i've gotten very little feedback just yet so this super means a lot. i was worried that maybe it's to self-indulgent/ referential, or that the delays had messed up the thing's "flow," or... you know, just worried and feeling insecure about it!

anyway, i can't wait to read the one on 'who sell out' as it's totally one of my top five favorite albums ever and i can't say that i know much about it, either.

Yes, my friend.

Has anyone read the 69 Love Songs one yet? I picked it up but haven't read it but it looks like a compendium more than anything else.

It also made me want to take a time machine back to the Maxwell's and City Gardens (Trenton, NJ) shows I saw them play. Oh, and one glorious one at The Ritz in NYC where people swarmed out during "You Made Me Realize" . Colm was a wonder to behold during that song. Cheers!

anyway, it's funny but i could stand to wait a few more years to hear it again! hah.

I had already finished Einarson's exhaustive Gene Clark book in the time since I pre-ordered this and I don't imagine it can compare to that. But hey, I loves me some Ric... so I will be devouring this over the next day or two. Will report back or whatev. but I thought some people might want to know that this one is out and this thread was just sitting here all serendipitously and shit so there ya go.

I'm getting a promo copy, so it should be out soon.

"You gotta buy the Loveless 33 1/3, Jimmy. Do it for me....McGonigal!"

I know I stayed because I LOVED them -- hell, putting myself through YMMR all those times was a joy. However, in retrospect I must say, in my best old man voice: Damn. They were loud.

So, when's Geeta's ENO book coming?

Precisely why I loved 'em. Among other things. As I mutter about in Marooned, the version of YMMV at The Final Show was 35 minutes long.

I love the idea of referring to "You Made Me Realise" as YMMV.

I'm all for a Cuban Linx book.

Didn't they just do an insanely detailed feature in XXL last year?

Me too. I remember the endless chord at the end of the MBV show. But what struck me most was the annoyingness of Gary Young.

-- UART variations (jon@w

Ditto!

oh shoot! i cant get that here in holland, if somebody has it and wants to scan it? please!?

:(

(We'll see. We have to crunch the numbers and determine if any of that rap or foreign stuff can sell the kind of numbers that Neutral Milk Hotel has. How the heck will we market it--what book review journals can we get them in--what brick and mortar and online sites will take that stuff)

Yeah I understand the rationale and I'm glad the series exists and sells as well as it does. It's just a personal preference.

The worst-selling Spin cover of all time? OutKast.

http://collectorama.murderhorn.com/pictures/promos/13small.jpg

If you market it right, the buyers will come (to paraphrase Field of Dreams), I would like to believe. It might take a little more work though.

Well, the Stevie Wonder book is now out (and it is Black History month, maybe that will help in getting sales)

-- UART variations (jo...), Wednesday 3:17 PM. (ex machina)

you could pay someone $25 to translate that one issue Studio Voice that has the comprehensive Boredoms history. :-D

however he is cool with solo albums by diff't acts, e.g. John Lennon solo. I'd guess New Order would be fine despite Joy Division being covered.

: (

Or simply has listened to I Want You.

^^tautology

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't believe the hype. Just because only 3 of the 60 book topics 33 and 1/3 editor Barker selected for this series have been rap does not mean rap books won't sell.

i am off to download Madonna because my tape copy melted over the summer. should be a lark.

The Daydream Nation book was really disappointing. I mean, I love Daydream Nation and all, and it's a NEAR-perfect album, but this book starts with the premise that it is THE perfect album and then rewrites history around it.

What else would you want, in this series?

I just finished the GNR book and I'm sorry, I gotta call bullshit. The chapters where Weisbard chronicles his own ascent to Critic Valhalla are boring, and the track-by-track is pretty much just him going "haha I never should have written this book because these records mostly suck." I hear he is a top guy -- and he comes around here sometimes too, so probably just shooting myself in the foot here if I ever thought about presenting at the conference or whatever -- but he had an opportunity to do something cool and I think he mailed it in.

Is this bitterness because the fat dead Hawaiian ukulele dude book was greenlighted but my Cheap Trick proposal never had a chance? OF COURSE. But all the stuff about "oh here's what Jon Pareles said" and "I worked for Bob Guccione Jr. and he was nice to me so Axl is a dickbag"...I ain't buyin' it.

That's a shame to hear, because I could totally see a great book being written about the Use Your Illusions (obviously, since I started this thread, and should probably re-do it as a poll).

I came the conclusion a while back that the best possible 33 1/3 book I could write would probably be about Pearl Jam's Vitalogy, although I don't think I could ever bring myself to pitch it and possibly go through with re-living my grunge adolescence like that and be the guy who wrote a book about Pearl Jam. But it would be awesome.

SOMEONE among our generation needs to do this

the grunge book will be a big success when it finally drops

never forget

Seriously. I just hope that when someone does do a Pearl Jam book, it's about one of crazy pretentious albums like Vitalogy or No Code and not boring old Ten, my whole theory being that a band's weirdest or most indulgent album would make a way better book than their biggest or best. (xpost)

Did Geeta's Eno book come out?

I'm pretty sure Perpetua pitched Vitalogy this go-round.

(And suffice it to say didn't get in.)

so, anybody read aja?

I think next time I'll pitch The Weirdness.

oh wait, they already did a stooges book. fuck!

I thought about pitching August and Everything After.

jess you should pitch flipper.

DEAD MILKMEN BIG LIZARD IN MY BACKYARD WOULD SELL 15 COPIES GUARANTEED

I liked the Aja book. It delves very heavily into music theory which I thought was very interesting (how the fuck did they make those crazy chord progressions?) but not enough to turn people off.

My favorite so far is the Low book. Best written also. Stories of Bowie surviving solely on milk, coke and cigarettes == priceless.

haha Perpetua, dammit! actually I'm generally cool with him when he's writing about cheesy 90's alt-rock, so I'd probably read that. same reason I'd probably read a Counting Crows book. in theory, at least, the only 33 1/3 I've actually read so far was SOTT, but I might have to get that Aja one.

im kind of addicted to these things but i'm reaching the diminishing returns point now that i've moved outside of the writers i know already enjoy

ooh when did the AJA book come out? is it available in UK?

wow, I really don't think I can finish the Daydream Nation book.

The guy who is writing the Master of Reality book posts here, and I am really looking forward to that. If he's reading this, could you provide the ETA?

Thanks.

wow, I really don't think I can finish the Daydream Nation book.

It gets a little better after the over-the-top gonzo tongue bath he gives the band/album in the first 30 pages or so, but even then, the most interesting parts come from the interviews he does with Steve and Lee, rather than from his tenuously drawn lyrical exegeses.

I just read Eric's book finally, and I've gotta say he did it about the only way that could interest me at this point. There's been nine million words written about GNR, and few writers are gonna have anything to offer now except rehash. (And honestly, I feel the same way about the Replacements, a band I was a lot deeper into in their moment.) Eric did a great job of bringing new thinking along with the necessary history; also, any ambivalence he has about the music is fully justified. The Illusions were messy, overgrown and sometimes unlistenable from Day One, and those qualities seem amplified a million times given subsequent events.

NB: I haven't read Meloy's book yet, so that above comment is no bust on him.

Also hahaha "events."

Help me then with the "new thinking" part then, please, because I didn't get any of that. Just that the records aren't Appetite for Destruction? I think we all knew that. Is it that he is a well-known music writer? I personally knew that too.

The guy who is writing the Master of Reality book posts here, and I am really looking forward to that. If he's reading this, could you provide the ETA?

I don't know, really! I don't like to talk about work-in-progress, kinda weirdly superstitious about that

I just picked up the Notorious Byrd Bros one and am about a third of the way through. To be honest the writing seems average at best -- and his personal bio bits weren't as engaging as Matos's -- but I am unfamiliar enough with certain parts of the Byrds backstory that it is holding interest. I'm still very much looking forward to the discussion of the record in the next section; i'll withhold judgement til I finish.

shame about the Use Yr Illusions -- I was interested in checking that one as well, although I'm no fan of his writing. I liked that he chose to explore those two albs over Appetite. but if he is less than enthusiastic about them then fuck it.

"I don't like to talk about work-in-progress, kinda weirdly superstitious about that"

Cool, totally understood.

As I posted a few months ago, Eric's book was the most sheerly entertaining of the lot. I'm not a fan of the track-by-track analysis, but how else could you have analyzed those "messy, overgrown and sometimes unlistenable" albums?

Maybe by doing more than just saying "Oh this one sucks, I NEVER would have included it on my personal mixtape of the best songs from these albums"? Maybe? Or by making the album the focus of the book? A little bit?

Wow, maybe my reading comp skills are just bad, or maybe I'm a big jerk, but I failed to be entertained or enlightened by anything in that book. I guess we are now seeing why my music writing "career" has been euthanized.

Haha "maybe"

How was the album NOT the focus? I don't get it. As for the mixtape, he tells you why the songs suck! "Don't Cry" -- More paddlin' Stradlin. That pounding on a cowbell to start a song cliche of theirs makes it sfirst apperance. Piano couplets in just the right Stonesy spot. Exile in GN'Rville? That blurb, incidentally, attacks lots of the orthodoxy I remember from the time: Stradlin being the "good" Rose because he was the Stonesiest.

(It's all good if you didn't like it, btw)

DEAD MILKMEN BIG LIZARD IN MY BACKYARD WOULD SELL 15 COPIES GUARANTEED

One right here please...

The lyrical stuff in the Daydream Nation one is, yeah, pretty problematic -- the worst boner is when he picks up that one verse of a Kim song is "inspired" by Harry Crews, while missing that the other verse is lifted directly from Denis Johnson.

The sadder part is how Lee and especially Steve are being really helpful with their interviews, where Thurston and Kim seem to basically be fucking with the guy over email.

Alf: I returned it to the library, so I can't quote all the early sections that are more about music writing/criticism and its Crucial Importance than about these records. More time is given to "The Spaghetti Incident?" and "Appetite for Destruction" than to either one of these records, which indicates to me that he thought about the pitch more than about the book.

The fact that these blurbs -- and let's face it that's all they are -- are confined to the ass-end of the book told me all I needed to know about how important the actual music is to him, as opposed to positioning records (and himself) in the perceived Canon. I think the book reads like he choked and then decided he didn't want to give back the advance. Witness his statements in that section like "I really shouldn't be writing about these albums."

For what it's worth, I actually agreed with his main premise. I just don't think he backs it up with any evidence, and that he ignores counter-arguments, and that ultimately it isn't a very relevant argument after all.

God what a whiny bitch I have become.

Going back to some of the older books that I've read:

Radiohead: No one ever says anything nice about this one, but I found it a good read, but then I'm a musicology fanboy who knows nothing about musicology. Unfortunately, his entire premise--that OK Computer is the first true CD album--doesn't hold up at all once you start to think about other records that came out before (Afghan Whigs' Gentlemen for one).

MC5: Very good. Not a making of, but a historical analysis of the record's place in time.

Pixies: Good retrospective with participation of the artists (save Kim). Good and readable track by track analysis.

Smiths: The only fiction I've read in years.

James Brown: Awesome.

Others on my shelf I haven't read yet (any suggestions on which to start with???):
Joy Division
Velvet Underground
Ramones

the only ones i really want to read are erik davis's zep book and matos's prince book (i would have read this already but i don't buy books on-line and they don't sell them where i live) and john's sab book when it comes out. i think.

"i think", meaning there may be some i forgot.

is geeta's book still on? there's no mention on the continuum page.

where Thurston and Kim seem to basically be fucking with the guy over email.

Hmmm, I'll have to go back and check, but I don't actually remember any input from them at all.

my fave so far was the abba one.

predicatbly, i'd love to see one of "giant steps" by the boo radleys, but that would never see the light of day.

Please let whoever pitches Madonna be an Erotica fan.

the Erik Davis Zep book is fucking amazing.

Please let whoever pitches Madonna be an Erotica fan.

Tim Finney on that would be pretty stellar...

So is there an S/D thread for these someplace?

Surely this is it!

I thought about pitching August and Everything After.

-- fukasaku tollbooth, Wednesday, 27 June 2007 16:36 (Yesterday) Link

On that other 33 1/3 thread, I mentioned this...I have a really strange relationship with CC (several years ago I thought they were the best band ever)...Though I would rather write about This Desert Life.

Speaking of...What album would you propose to write about for the 33 1/3 book series?

Whiney G's gonna write about It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back (sorry if that was already posted)

latest sales rankings for the series

1. Neutral Milk Hotel
2. The Kinks
3. The Smiths
4. The Rolling Stones
5. The Velvet Underground
6. Pink Floyd
7. Joy Division
8. Radiohead
9. The Beatles
10. Love
11. The Beach Boys
12. DJ Shadow
13. Led Zeppelin
14. Neil Young
15. Beastie Boys
16. David Bowie
17. Dusty Springfield
18. Jimi Hendrix
19. The Replacements
20. Bob Dylan
21. Jeff Buckley
22. The Pixies
23. My Bloody Valentine
24. The Band
25. Prince
26. The Ramones
27. R.E.M.
28. Bruce Springsteen
29. The Byrds
30. James Brown
31. Elvis Costello
32. The Who
33. Jethro Tull
34. Abba
35. Sly and the Family Stone
36. Nirvana
37. Sonic Youth
38. Guided by Voices
39. Stone Roses
40. The MC5
41. Captain Beefheart
42. Stevie Wonder
43. The Minutemen
44. Magnetic Fields
45. Steely Dan
46. Guns N Roses
47. PJ Harvey
48. Joni Mitchell
49. A Tribe Called Quest

Here's an excerpt from Carl Wilson's book on Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love. The subtitle is "A Journey to the End of Taste."

I am so fucking jazzed about this one.

no kraftwerk one, not even planned. they should sort that out and do computer world and man machine.

11100100 11100101 11100100 10011001 01100001 00010000 01110111 11101111
00110111 10011011 00010111 11110100 10101111 01000110 11010101 00000111
10101000 01111011 10111101 00101111 10100011 11011001 00110001 11011000
00000110 10111010 01000111 01000111 00110100 10001010 10101111 11101101
10010011 11001011 01111111 11010100 01101000 11011100 10010111 11001010
00011110 11100101 01010110 10011111 00000111 01101001 01000110 00010110
11000000 11010010 01100110 01010111 11101101 01111100 10101000 00111111
11111000 11101110 11110110 11100001 01101001 11101011 01111111 01101111
01111000 00001001 00000000 11111000 11111110 10001001 01101101 00010001
11101010 01111001 11111010 11100101 00100011 00110011 11000000 11111001
11010100 00000011 11000000 10111110 10101001 10100101 10000100 11000000
01010000 10000000 10011010 10010010 11010110 11111110 00100100 11011101
11110000 00101011 00010100 11110000 10111010 11001100 11100010 00000100
11111100 00100101 01101000 11010000 11000111 01111111 11101011 01101011
10001111 01001011 10010101 10001110 01111110 01111110 10000100 00011101
00110011 01000110 10001100 01110111 00010111 10000100 10001101 10110100
01000100 10111001 11011100 10001110 10101010 01111010 01011010 11111011
10111011 10110101 10000100 01101001 10101001 00110111 01101111 10010111
00001010 11110111 01101110 10000000 11110100 11100111 10001100 10001100
00100001 11110101 11111011 00010100 01110100 00010000 00101010 01110011
10001110 10100100 11110011 00010011 10110011 00001001 01111100 00010000
00101000 10100001 10100110 10010101 01000101 10100001 01010011 01010101
10101000 10010001 11001010 01000100 10111111 00000110 00101110 10001000
11100011 00000011 10101100 10010100 01101001 10110010 01111111 10100011
10010001 01000000 01000111 00101110 00110101 01011100 10100101 01110010
10101001 01011110 10110101 11011111 11001110 10000110 10011110 01101110
00001101 00001010 10100101 10010111 10011001 10010001 11101110 00001011
00011011 11110011 11110101 11000001 01111010 11111111 01011010 11000100
10011010 01110110 11101001 10000011 00010100 01110000 01011110 11100110
10110001 00101100 00111100 11001000 10111111 11100100 00000001 00000100
01111011 01011110 11010001 10001111 10000100 01011101 01000001 10110010
00111010 01010011 10000001 00101010 00000110 01101001 01011000 01100111
01010001 11000100 00000011 01101011 01001101 00111001 00111101 11100101
10010010 11001010 11110111 11010110 10110010 00100100 00101011 01111100
01111011 10011100 01011000 11110000 00111101 10111000 11011010 01100000
11010111 01011011 11001110 10001110 01100001 10110100 11011001 01101001
00100110 00101100 10111110 10000101 00000101 11010000 11000010 10000010
10000011 10111001 01100111 10000000 11001101 00001101 10101100 01001000
01111111 01000100 00110001 11110011 00110001 11001101 10001011 00010011
01100111 10100000 10110010 10010111 10111101 01111001 00100111 11010010
11110111 01010010 11000111 10101111 00100000 11000110 11000101 11000000
10111100 01111001 11000001 11101011 00110100 10001100 10110000 10010011
00110000 10001111 11111101 11000111 01010000 10100100 01010110 00100011
10011010 11110111 00000100 01100110 01000010 01101001 01110101 01000111
00001111 01000011 01010101 00001100 01011100 00100010 01000110 11001010
11000100 11100101 11010100 11111000 10101110 00010000 11010111 10001010
11101111 00110011 10010110 11000110 01110101 00011110 01001000 11011001
10000010 10010111 11010101 11010100 11111010 10001000 11000000 00011101
10100000 11100101 00010111 01001101 01111011 00001110 11001011 10100111
11010000 01111100 00100111 11010010 01100010 11110111 01101110 11111001

There. Just wrote it for ya.

Wow, I didn't even know about that Celine Dion/Larry King interview.

I can't believe how much I want to read a book about Celine Dion now.

i'm more interested in pleasant plains' kraftwerk entry

i'm not too keen when people are all "lol, robots" in regard to kraftwerk.

Why not?

http://blog.apocalypse.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/picture-4-4-tm.jpg

No one was more "lol, robots" than Kraftwerk themselves. That was kind of the point of their records.

^^ first line of the kraftwerk book?

no, it was in the olden days, before everything was a joke.

I heard Carl Wilson give a talk at the EMP that overlapped with some of his Celine Dion book; it was very funny but also very, very sharp and seemed to model a best case scenario for a music criticism that doesn't just narrowly advocate for aprivate pleasure but makes you think about broader aesthetic questions in a juicy, immediate way. I'm so stoked to read his book.

^^^OTM.

im stoked for it too as it's about, you know, quebec and stuff and cultural things i think about a lot.

I wasn't excited at all for Wilson's book and I'm still skeptical of it. But reading that clip reminds me that his writing might actually be able to transcend the patronizing approach to the album.

A little bird from Continuum has told me that if you mail this address:

letstalkaboutcel✧✧✧@ya✧✧✧.c✧✧

...you'll be able to receive a PDF of the first two chapters of said Celine book, gratis.

(You can guess what the last three letters are in the main part of the address. And yes, it's yahoo.com)

transcend the patronizing approach to the album.

What makes you think the approach to the album is patronizing?

Isn't the whole premise of the book, writing about an artist/album he hates instead of one he likes and has listened to many times, and "teach himself to love her music," kind of inherently patronizing? It might yield some interesting results as a writing exercise, but c'mon, it's not exactly a stretch to call it patronizing.

I still don't see that. Maybe I don't understand the premise, but from reading Carl's blog, I was under the impression that the book was about trying to understand what people see in Celine Dion and to use her as a site of contestation about the nature of taste and aesthetic judgments. I find it to be a remarkably open-minded approach, to go in with the attitude of "maybe I'm wrong about this woman who's loved by millions of people."

Yeah, I don't really know the writer's work much and obviously haven't seen more than the excerpt linked above. I'm just saying, the advance descriptions of the book made his mission sound a little patronizing. I definitely think there's something noble in writing thoughtfully about popular music that critics don't often give a fair shake, but also I feel like there should be at least a shred of unironic affection for it there to begin with. And I somehow doubt that Wilson continued to listen to Celine's music much after he finished the transcript, or that any of the non-Celine fans who read the book will suddenly start buying and enjoying her albums because of it.

Carl Wilson is a big thinker, so I'd be inclined to read whatever he had to say about Celine Dion without pre-judging it on the basis of descriptions or hatred of the artist or whatever. I don't always agree with Carl's opinions but he's always worth reading.

Yes. I just read those first two chapters, courtesy of Ned's secret e-mail address, and he's just so sharp and his writing so lively, I'm really looking forward to reading more.

Alex in Baltimore OTM.

I don't really see Carl Wilson going for big thinking here, or even being particularly open minded. At best I give him credit for honest, intellectual curiosity but at worst it seems a bit cynical. I mean, is it really that hard to understand the appeal of Celine Dion or is the real point of the book going to be savaging the taste of the masses? I'm just a little suspicious, just as I would be a top-tier food critic reviewing McDonald's. The approach may not be patronizing, but it's definitely a little condescending.

But again, what I've read of the book has impressed me thus far and Wilson's a great writer.

Yeah I'd be a lot more inclined to be suspicious if that little excerpt didn't read so well.

As a Canadian writer, Wilson is in a good position to compare and contrast Quebecoise Celine Dion and R&B singers, both the choices in music and production that they make and how critics see them (and, similarly, what can be seen as the "tackiness" of the surface of African-American and Quebecois pop music).

I mean, is it really that hard to understand the appeal of Celine Dion or is the real point of the book going to be savaging the taste of the masses?

I don't get this from the excerpt at all! Is attempting to understand something foreign inherently condescending?

Sounds like an interesting and novel approach to me.

Is attempting to understand something foreign inherently condescending?

DON'T YOU KNOW THAT EVERY ATTEMPT TO DO THIS IS AUTOMATICALLY AN EXERCISE IN OBJECTIFYING AND EXOTICIZING STUFF??????

(cough)

Maybe.

I mean, I'd rather read Carl Wilson grappling with aesthetics than read some of the slobberfests that pass as entries in this series, even when they're about albums I love.

I don't get that from the excerpt either Alfred. I'm referring to the concept in general. And in that regard, this series of books pretty much deals exclusively with albums that are or were critically adored. They're cool, they have a degree of hipness or seem to be part of some sort of accepted canon. This album was picked because it is in many ways, the antithesis of all that. And that context is critical for reminding us of the disconnect between critics and the masses; does Wilson wonder what he's missing as a critic or is his critical assessment ultimately right and therefore, the people who blow money on Celine are stupid? I don't trust (or am not interested in) too many people to write about that subject without sounding like a prick.

As for the question of that disconnect, it's something that's been asked since, like, forever. But clearly Wilson's one of the writers who can probably glean some good insight and hopefully this book is going to be a great one. jaymc OTM.

yeah y'all are following some wonky-ass map where "not initially understanding something's appeal" automatically leads "to appreciating it in some ironic/patronizing way."

Mr. Weiner already said it, but again, the "patronizing" thing was based more on the overall concept than the writer/excerpt. Obviously, Wilson has found a way to approach Celine in a thoughtful and personally resonant way. But if I was at 33 1/3 and got a pitch for someone sayins "I want to write a book about Creed [or some other obvious popular but widely reviled artist] because I hate them," it'd probably have to be a pretty great pitch for me to say yes. But then, like jaymc says, it's still automatically more interesting than another sloppy blow job for an album that everyone who might possibly like it already owns and thinks is great.

And I somehow doubt that Wilson continued to listen to Celine's music much after he finished the transcript, or that any of the non-Celine fans who read the book will suddenly start buying and enjoying her albums because of it.

-- Alex in Baltimore, Thursday, October 4, 2007 4:13 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

so unless he's helping move albums it's a condescending project? wtf??

sorry massive xpost.

and i know i was deliberating misconstruing you a bit here.

i mean, deliberately.

you don't say.

Just as FYI to everyone Powells in PDX is running a buy-two-get-one-free sale on the series. (I picked up a lot of them)

I've stopped buying these altogether, the bad ones are too depressing to wade through to get to the one or two good ones...

I'm about to read the MBV one. Pixies, GBV, Smiths, Magnetic Fields and Neutral Milk Hotel ones were all good.

I was very disappointed by the Radiohead and Tribe books, and I was 50/50 on the Magnetic Fields one. But I'm psyched for the three that are allegedly coming out in December - Celine, Tom Waits, and Throbbing Gristle.

I haven't seen anything about the Another Green World book. Is that still in the works?

This series will only get really good (as it is starting to) once all the obvious ones have been covered.

Jeez, Geeta's Eno book is still almost a year away according to this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brian-Enos-Another-Green-World/dp/0826427863/ref=sr_1_1/202-6023791-6219064?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193762572&sr=1-1

Can't wait to read it--her chapter in Marooned is one of my very favorites.

She hasn't been blogging much lately. I think she's busy teaching (and maybe working on the book).

From my book-waiting experiences, Amazon.co.uk's pub dates are even more unreliable than the US site's, so who knows?

Hmm, December 15, 2007 according to the US site. That seems fa more reasonable.

like the prince SOTT one. just read the sly - riot one, which wasnt as good. too theoretically/analytically spotty, and prone to a bit too much 'this is my life experience so its the TRUTH' zeal. he seems to be more of a hip hop expert than a soul/funk one, going on what ive read of his before.

anybody read the big pink novella? in principle i'm not against such a thing, but i found it frustrating

I quite enjoyed the Big Pink novella, Billy. Found some of the dialog a bit too obviously "sixties" - the book must have over 200 uses of the word "man" at the end of a phrase or sentence - but I must admit being strangely moved by the end of it, and thought the Richard Manuel character was beautifully drawn.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/417KlX6VBEL._SS500_.jpg

Ha ha!! I never knew he was Nancy's brother.

Does the AJA author write on here? What's it like anyway?

According to the 33 1/3 blog, the Neutral Milk Hotel one is the all-time bestseller. Weird!

The one on Doolittle is terrific -- I learned a lot about a record I thought I already knew a lot about. (e.g. that Ed Stasium was the second choice to produce...) The one on Mu4mu4 is terrible.

I quite enjoyed the Big Pink novella, Billy. Found some of the dialog a bit too obviously "sixties" - the book must have over 200 uses of the word "man" at the end of a phrase or sentence - but I must admit being strangely moved by the end of it, and thought the Richard Manuel character was beautifully drawn.

On its own terms I just about agree with you. It was clear throughout that the author is a musician and a good stylist and equally clear in spots that he didn't live in the sixties and isn't even from the area, but that was fine. Richard Manuel was a great character.

Actually the reason I found it frustrating was pretty specific to my situation. I brought a copy with me up to Woodstock a couple of years ago, and I was hoping to use it as a guide to the whens and wheres of the recording of the album, and the book was very little help with those kinds of specifics.

*a couple of weeks ago*

So is that "Daniel Drew" thing getting fixed?

So I read the Celine Dion book and uh I didn't really like it that much which is too bad because the stuff on the Larry King interview and Celine's mostly on again but sometimes off again appeal for the people of Quebec I found pretty interesting. Sadly, the rest of the book is mostly regurgitated and at this point pretty obvious stuff on the formulation of "taste" with very little insight of note from Wilson himself, a lot of pretty facile biographical stuff on Dion and her global ubiquity and some bits on Dion fans which don't really provide much insight (except proving that unsurprisingly there are some people who like her who are not complete dullards.) There's very little on Let's Talk About Love itself (not that I'm really complaining about this--it's not like I really bought the book to read about the album) which seems to have picked mostly because it a) has the damn Titanic theme on it and b) it allows Wilson to start everything chapter with "Let's Talk About. . ."

the book is fucking awesome. beautiful and insightful and funny and personal. best nonfic i've read in a long, long time. what was "facile" about the biographical stuff? i didn't find it super-interesting but i'm the guy who for similar reasons has no interest in 80% of the 33 1/3 series anyway.

99% of the bio info could have been gleaned from perusing her wikipedia bio.

99% of the bio info could have been gleaned from perusing her wikipedia bio.

well, ok, but there's also the matter of style, which is the main reason I read - if you're reading just to absorb the bio info, then I guess yeah, the wiki's yr spot. The book is beautifully written in my opinion and the bio stuff also ends up working toward the book's thesis - the nature of Dion's music and persona, its identity.

I personally dug this book although as with the GnR one I usually want to hear about the music from somebody who's geeked about it - I like Celine, don't find her unlistenable or sterile or any of that, so I wished he could have gotten inside the songs more, heard where her voice isn't just a technical wonder but an expressive one. But his attempts to get there were worth readin I thought.

after checking amazon, it looks like the drew daniel typo was fixed. xpost.

also: one 33 1/3 author said elsewhere that there seems to be more people who want to write these books than read them. i think that's probably the biggest issue facing this series, unless a title like the weezer book can reverse that trend, real or perceived.

Yeah, I've been lazy about getting it, but I can't wait.

John, you didn't think Eric "geeked" about GNR? Writing blurbs on every track looks like geeking to me.

Has anyone read Geeta's book? It's the one I'm most excited about in the new batch. [This thread is such a precarious collegial minefield.]

John, you didn't think Eric "geeked" about GNR? Writing blurbs on every track looks like geeking to me.

no I said "who is geeked" i.e. loves the artist in question. I like the way Eric writes, rather a lot, but I got the impression he never really cared for Guns 'n' Roses - I enjoyed reading his book, but at the end of the day would rather hear about why the band is awesome. NB I am actually ambivalent about GnR a lot of the time & agree with many of Eric's points, but when I'm reading in depth about an album, my attention is pretty much only held by great enthusiasm.

we can argue about how formalism can convey enthusiasm...but fair enough.

Geeta's book isn't out, I don't think.

I guess I'm going to be in the minority on this one, because I didn't find the book beautifully written (or moving or particularly personal--or at least personal in a way that I found terribly involving), quite the opposite actually I found the whole thing rather jumbled and poorly put together. Maybe independently each of the half-dozen things the book tries to be might have interesting enough to sustain well probably not a 150 page book, but something shorter at least, but that jumbled altogether the whole thing just felt messy (there is definitely a 150+ page book completely independent of Celine Dion that could be written just about "taste" and how it gets constructed, but that wouldn't really be a 33 1/3 book.)