33 1/3 Series of books

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.