33 1/3 Series of books

Armed Forces -Elvis Costello 1979 Franklin Bruno
huh, i have a friend who highly recommended this one -- not good?

Let It Be and Dusty in Memphis were my least favorites of the fifteen or so I've read.

Court and Spark is top five.

i liked the jerry wexler bits of dusty in memphis, but yeah, wasn't crazy about the memoir-y stuff.

The Who Sell Out is great, as is Amazing Grace (probably the best book on Aretha out there at the moment). Kick Out The Jams isn't bad, but is less about the album and more of a condensed history of the MC5. Kinks Village Green is useful, if spotty and borderline-annoying in places.

Agreed re: Amazing Grace. Just started Lethem's Fear of Music, which I think might be best understood less as a standalone book and more as a complement to Fortress of Solitude.

yeah, probably! i just bought that one today as a matter of fact.

Fear of Music is really good. I would also recommend Lethem's recent book on John Carpenter's They Live which is even better.

tyler fwiw armed forces is probably my favorite (not counting master of reality here because it feels like a totally separate thing)

Armed Forces has a unique format, one that just wasn't for me. ymmv.

i didn't know there was an aja one, gotta check that out.

I've only read 4, an they were all good to great - still, i did some "research" beforehand (reviews, ILM, etc), so it wasn't like I bought them unknowingly.

20 jazz funk greats - absolutely stunning
let's talk about love
use your illusion I & II
sign o'the times

I was interested in reading the 'aja' one, but I've read some people complaining that it's too focused on the technical side, so...dunno. also, is the 'tusk' one really that bad?

Aja has more technical stuff than most of these books (as it should, tbh) but i don't feel it gets bogged down by that if you're not interested in it, there's also a lot of passion and personality in it.

Armed Forces one is very good but the author probably should've just let the alphabetical organization thing behind in an earlier draft.

Of the ones I've read, 20 Jazz Funk Greats sets the standard. But I haven't gotten to the celebrated Celine Dion yet.

I've had the Celine on a shelf for a couple of years too.

Some I can remember reading from Scik's list:

13 Live at the Apollo -James Brown 1963 Douglas Wolk

This one is just magnificent, great writing and wildly ambitious for the economical space – cramming analysis of the highly-edited album, Brown’s career, development of the songs, actual full-length live takes and wide, wide cultural allusions.

24 Endtroducing..... -DJ Shadow 1996 Eliot Wilder

This is simply one long interview with Shadow, basically a good, uncut Uncut feature rather than either a book or detailed sample-nerdery text.

30 Paul's Boutique -Beastie Boys 1989 Dan Le Roy

REALLY good magazine style piece that leans heavily on interviews with people around the band at the time (aiming to do this more than quote other contemporary journalism), but no contact with the band.

56 Master of Reality -Black Sabbath 1971 John Darnielle

This is an epistolary novella, and is absolutely fantastic. Combines the author’s own life and employment experience with love of the genre to make a short sharp blast of writing about how the record speaks to an important element of its audience.

59 Gentlemen -The Afghan Whigs 1993 Bob Gendron

Way too skimpy – tries to cram a potted biography of the band in, then cover this rich album in too few pages. Not bad as such though – I would totally have read two sequels on Black Love and 1965.

66 One Step Beyond... - Madness 1979 Terry Edwards

Session trumpeter writing from a fan perspective, with a hefty page count. If you have to choose between reading this and watching Take It Or Leave It, the latter probably has more insight.

69 69 Love Songs -The Magnetic Fields 1999 LD Beghtol

Aims to be as arch and genre-playful as the album itself, being largely a glossary of terms, semi-largely a rundown on each song with members and friends of the band, small-ly an interview with Merritt, and minorly a crossword, iirc. Also includes frequent instructions to consult a detailed website for further information, which has been broken for about five of the six years the book has been out.

71 It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back -Public Enemy 1988 Christopher R. Weingarten

Really slapdash – has no or almost no contact with any personnel, AFAIR, and so feels more like a 1980s-style cuttings-bio with ambitions. Hey, it’s sampling, maan! The ambitions are largely sampled from other sources, too, though – there’ll be occasional attempts at scraping in wider cultural references like Wolk did (say a several page digression into Wattstax, or something), peripatetic outbursts of cod-Dave-Tompkins, and such. A real letdown coming after that amazing, rich, and so much briefer piece in Wax Poetics.

Can someone give me a thumbnail of why Led Zeppelin IV and Use Your Illusion are so good? I'm not much of a Zeppelin fan and I've never even heard the G'n'R record but I'm assuming from all the recommendations that there's something more to these books.

Most of the ones I've read have been good but I'd pick these as my absolute favourites:

10 Sign “☮” the Times - Prince 1987 Michaelangelo Matos
29 In the Aeroplane over the Sea- Neutral Milk Hotel 1998 Kim Cooper
30 Paul's Boutique -Beastie Boys 1989 Dan Le Roy
32 There's a Riot Goin' On -Sly and the Family Stone 1971 Miles Marshall Lewis
36 Loveless -My Bloody Valentine 1991 Mike McGonigal
38 Bee Thousand - Guided by Voices 1994 Marc Woodworth
56 Master of Reality -Black Sabbath 1971 John Darnielle

Anyone read the Beefheart one?

Whoops, meant to include this one too:

71 It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back -Public Enemy 1988 Christopher R. Weingarten

I've ordered Low, Paul's Boutique, and Loveless as a birthday present to myself.

I've read 50 of the books. Some of my favorites have been mentioned already (Master of Reality, Sign O the Times, Low, Live at the Apollo, In the Aeroplane..., 69 Love Songs). Two others that I really enjoyed, that I don't think have been mentioned - Pretty Hate Machine (great focus on fan culture and understanding fandom) and Exile on Main Street (nothing super revelatory in it, but he does a great job describing the music itself, what it sounds like).

I'm not generally a fan of the straight-ahead 'making of the album' ones, or most of the fiction ones (I did kind of like the Rid of Me one). And often the ones I like the least are about the albums I like the most - Bee Thousand and Swordfishtrombones, especially.

I will rep for the Tribe book, re-read it recently after seeing the film documentary and enjoyed it better second time around.

20 Jazz Funk Greats is my favourite book on music after Giles Smith's Lost in Music. Otherwise I've only read the Master of Reality one (superb) and the Abba Gold one (not worth more than the 50p it cost me tbh).

Can someone give me a thumbnail of why Led Zeppelin IV and Use Your Illusion are so good? I'm not much of a Zeppelin fan and I've never even heard the G'n'R record but I'm assuming from all the recommendations that there's something more to these books.

Not sure how familiar you are with Erik Davis' work, but he writes a lot about pop mysticism. His book on Zep IV isn't really about the band at all (thankfully), but about how the album has become a talisman of low-brow occult symbology. It's also howlingly funny.

The book on Piper At The Gates Of Dawn is great because it side-steps the obligatory "Syd was crazy you know" stories for a pretty detailed analysis of how the album was put together.

Least favorite book of all is the Murmur one. Frustratingly so too... Just could not get engaged with the writing at all.

yeah i liked the piper one -- some good interviews w/ people around the periphery of the floyd scene of that time.

The latest list has been narrowed down to 94 potential titles:

http://33third.blogspot.com/2012/06/94.html

Diamanda Galas Malediction and Prayer

haaa, unless they've got a ringer for this one, we've got a new contender for lowest selling 33 1/3.

Either it's a typo, or 2112 simply cannot be contained in a single volume. I'm betting the latter.

Fingers crossed for Replicas, Wee Tam and Beauty & The Beat!

There were multiple proposals for 2112. Maybe they haven't decided which way to go.

Diamanda Galas Malediction and Prayer

haaa, unless they've got a ringer for this one, we've got a new contender for lowest selling 33 1/3.

and this one : Nocturnal Emissions Spiritflesh

i like that nocturnal emissions album. its a good one.

Nocturnal Emissions: Spiritflesh by Stephen King

jesus, arular already?

I looove that Nocturnal Emissions record, one of my favorites of theirs.

Can anyone rep for the Master of Reality tome?

oh, god yes. excellent sort of fiction. one of the best ones in the series, imo

Yeah, don't delay on Master Of Reality. It shreds.

I read the Loveless one this morning. It was pretty good.

mine didn't make the cut. :(

i enjoyed 'master of reality' a lot, but drew daniel's '20 jazz funk greats' is my favorite book from the series that i've read so far. i think someone said this already, but the 'village green' book is like a really good, long article in mojo -- not gonna blow your mind or anything, but strong research and lots of good quotes from most of the band members (except ray, IIRC).

I'd be curious enough to read Bat out of Hell and 2112, stepping stones to the gargantuan Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness volume I'm waiting for.

I really hope they do a Fugazi one someday.

There was a whole load of these in a local charity shop... one of those upmarket charity shops which are actually more expensive than most non-charity shops. Bought the "Village Green" one.

Would read the heck out of Donuts, 2112 and Back In The DHSS. Meantime tho? zzzzzzzz

I'd really like to know who wrote the other 2112 proposal. Ultimately seems a good sign that both made it.

Fear of Music reviewed in tomorrow's NYT; the critic incorrectly says Lethem saw Stop Making Sense in 1982.

Finished Fear Of Music a few weeks back. i guess I'm not a Lethem fan because I was annoyed with the writing about halfway through.

Fear of Music reviewed in tomorrow's NYT; the critic incorrectly says Lethem saw Stop Making Sense in 1982.

― go down on you in a thyatrr (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, June 2, 2012 1:04 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

the writer stopped making sense in 2012 then, har har har

keep looking at the 94 potential titles and trying to find something, anything to get excited about and it's kinda hard. look at how fucking corny the selection of hip hop albums is:

The Pharcyde Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde
J Dilla Donuts
Outkast Stankonia
Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Eminem The Slim Shady LP
Danger Mouse The Grey Album
Jay-Z The Blueprint
The Game The Documentary
Insane Clown Posse The Great Milenko
Drake Thank Me Later
Lauryn Hill The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Jay-Z The Blueprint

Anyone have a shelf of these and want to share a pic? I read ebooks these days but this is one series that I would love to collect paperbacks of.

Well, outside of the Danger Mouse, The Game, Drake, and Kanye selections I would probably read about all the rest of those. I think, a solid author provided, a good story could be pulled from the rest of them - particularly Slim Shady LP, Donuts, and Pharcyde.