33 1/3 Series of books

i recall reading somewhere recently that eno was giving copies of yr book to any friend who'd accept it, anyone remember where that was?

I guess he only has four friends?

bono, the edge, adam clayton, larry mullen jr

This makes sense as Chris Martin probably only THINKS he's Eno's friend.

loooool xp almost shot gin out my nose

man that story's so good! what a great dude

and geeta i wish i'd seen you speak at the frieze art fair, i only found out abt it when i got to the fair on the saturday (too late)

That is amazing Geeta.

I read the Illmatic one and it gave me a whole new perspective on it; never knew his brother was shot just before it was made and the impact that had on it.

Fabulous Geeta, well done all round!

Geeta's book just arrived from Amazon, along with the Armed Forces and Facing Future ones. I think I've read a dozen of these now and not had a dud yet.

Recently finished the Eno book, Geeta, and absolutely loved it. Learned a lot about his creative process that I found fascinating.

Have Eno book ordered. Just finished 75 and 76 this afternoon... Spiderland and Kid A, in which Continuum neatly book end left field indie rock in the 1990s.

Most fascinating thing: finding out that Will Oldham was briefly a roadie for Glenn Danzig and Samhain and had a Misfits style Devil lock haircut when he was 15.

Looking for a Van Dyke Parks jpeg, I came across this blog entry about sales to date. Interesting that even Carl Wilson's Celine Dion book is outsold by the Neutral Milk Hotel one. It's a shame to see generally that boring books about obvious big rock albums (OK Computer) outsell brilliant ones about more specialist (or, well, black) records (Live at the Apollo, Sign O' the Times, Riot Goin' On) but not that surprising. Geeta's is doing amazingly well.

http://33third.blogspot.com/2010/10/league-table-october-2010.html

the OK Computer one was, I thought, pretty bad, and it would be a shame if people had their minds shaped on the whole series by reading it first.

the celine dion one is the only one of these i've really enjoyed

The NMH book is #29 in the series, Celine is #52 - how many years apart were they published? The fact that Carl's is up to #2 is pretty impressive. He's sold more books in a shorter amount of time.

imo it doesn't really matter which books in the series are selling most as long as they are selling and making the whole enterprise possible

WAIT they actually finally did a Spiderland one?!?

Yup.

It also looks like it is my favorite type of 33 1/3 book where the author does tons of research and documents all this behind-the-scenes stuff about the making of the album (vs. "This album means a lot to me because...")

I hear it's one of the best of the series. I mean, that's what I hear. I have no other insight whatsoever into its quality.

looooool!

looking forward to reading it dude

let' see now: here's a series of books purporting to deal with the predominantly American--or at the very least American influenced--popular music of the past fifty years or so. okay. music that is/has been overwhelmingly based, inspired, influenced, or just outright ripped off from the work of (mostly) black Americans, right? and out of the mere eight of these (from 74 in total!) specifically dealing with actual black artists, only one (Jimi, duh!) rises (somewhat) above the bottom half of the sales list? what is wrong with u/me/us, people?

the James Brown one is the best one I've read

Same here. Beautifully structured. By comparison, the sub-Greil Marcus choppiness of Armed Forces is currently driving me around the bend.

They're not easy to find cheap, which I guess speaks well of the series' sales as a whole. I wish somebody had an "any 20 for $100" sale.

only read the céline dion one. do any of the others have an unusual angle/approach to their subject or are they mostly more straightforward? there are only a tiny handful i can see that i'm interested in.

(are the pj harvey, nas and joni mitchell ones good?)

i see someone pitched one on kid a this year. MMM HOW IMAGINATIVE. if i was pitching one, i'd feel it was incumbent on me to at least go for something not completely entrenched in the canon.

Same here. Beautifully structured. By comparison, the sub-Greil Marcus choppiness of Armed Forces is currently driving me around the bend.

― The baby boomers have defined everything once and for all (Dorianlynskey), Sunday, December 5, 2010 1:11 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it would be one of the best books in the series if the author hadn't committed to the goofy alphabetical organization and had just laid it out in a more natural, intuitive way.

do any of the others have an unusual angle/approach to their subject?
Most of them do. Or at least, the four or five I've read all take completely different approaches.

Court and Spark is one of my favorites in the series: he understands the music even when I disagree with his insights (especially when he dismisses the post-CAS records).

(are the pj harvey, nas and joni mitchell ones good?)

― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Sunday, December 5, 2010 1:17 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the Illmatic one isn't bad per se, but it's the kind of thing that virtually any fan of the album could have written, and a lot of them could have written it better.

Check out Master of Reality and 20 Jazz Funk Greats, even if you don't like the music. Master is basically a novella and Jazz is like the coolest, best written avant-PHD thesis.

i've said it before and i'll say it again, but the 'there's a riot goin on' book is just marvellous, a fantastic read.

i see someone pitched one on kid a this year. MMM HOW IMAGINATIVE.

*cough*

I agree with your 'not completely entrenched' idea, I also think it would have been much harder to pitch and have accepted. Not impossible, by any means.

(are the pj harvey, nas and joni mitchell ones good?)

― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Sunday, December 5, 2010 1:17 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the Illmatic one isn't bad per se, but it's the kind of thing that virtually any fan of the album could have written, and a lot of them could have written it better.

― It's Long Like Donkey Dong (some dude), Sunday, December 5, 2010 12:23 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

This. It told me nothing that I didn't know prior to reading it. Still, it's not bad or anything.

do any of the others have an unusual angle/approach to their subject or are they mostly more straightforward?

as davek says, the Master Of Reality one is excellent, and neither requires nor imparts any especial knowledge of the band or album

raheem morris opts not to go for it on 4th and a foot on the falcons 40 even though blount's been killing it. thanks bro.

shit, wrong thread.

Anyone in LA... I'm having a little celebration at the Mandrake Bar in Culver City tonight for my 33 1/3 book on Spiderland. 7-10 pm. More info here.

is Let It Be the only Beatles album to get the 33 1/3 treatment? odd choice

x-post

Funny stuff re the Spiderland book release:

The best part is there will be a bunch of bloggers there so even if you're not online, you can still argue about whether the mediocre Arcade Fire album or the hit-and-miss Deerhunter album or the consistently good but rarely awesome LCD Soundsystem album are the best of the year. You don't have to live in two worlds!

Lex: the PJ Harvey one is a collection of clit lit short stories based on the song titles. I've got nothing against this in theory but I found this out while desperately looking for books on PJH to read before an interview with her that got dropped in my lap with little warning. If you're the sort of person who just wants the facts or some theorizing about the album, then I guess it will unavoidably make you quite angry.

I would have pitched Metal Machine Music just because I've got a lot of raw interview material that I could use. (If that's what MMM is.)

Lex, interested to hear what you thought of the Celine Dion one...?

clit lit?

is Let It Be the only Beatles album to get the 33 1/3 treatment? odd choice

It and the Replacements album are back-to-back numbers, har har.

Did the Tori one threatened/promised many years ago ever surface?

― piscesx, Monday, 30 August 2010

Anyone?

"clit lit?" That was bored trolling tbh.

But it's a collection of stories that appear to be about female protagonists with eating disorders, sexual dysfunction, mental health problems, self-harm etc. Like I said, I've got nothing against it, just not what I was after. I managed two of the stories. Didn't make much of an impression one way or the other. I'd imagine that Continuum don't have the luxury of commissioning books like this any more.