33 1/3 Series of books

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.)

I'm really excited for Another Green World, 20 Jazz Funk Greats and Enter The 36 Chambers.

The last for different reasons than the first two cuz I know a fair amount it and how it was made, but I'm hoping that Fernando's take on the recond will be a interesting one.

I got four of the books for christmas. i could give specific impressions on specific books, but my first reaction after just reading all four was kinda being turned off listening to the albums themselves. Not what i would have expected!

I think one thing to keep in mind is how dangerous biographical scenarios are to the listening experience; when I used to listen to "Exile on Main St" I never really thought about how Mick and Keith might or might not be getting along, but after reading the 33 1/3 book about that album now I kind of "listen for the conflict", or something. It's dangerous ground, but it makes you think about the extent to which art expresses its context and the extent to which to revsises/ignores/compensates/represses that context. I guess the same thing happens to "Loveless" given the disclosures in Mike's book, but it's still up to you as reader/listener to process how the book+album=? equation gets solved.

Hope my book makes people want to listen to TG tho.

I hope so too!

there seems to be more people who want to write these books than read them

state of old-school rockcrit circa 2008

how it came to this pretty pass could be an EMP presentation ;-)

Yes, an EMP presentation. But as with the 33-1/3 series, there would be more people who would want to present on it than listen...maybe the entire audience could walk on stage and perform as some sort of improvisatory jam.

It's like what Charles M. Young said in Musician years ago about the music biz where everyone was releasing an album of their own: We already have a genre for this. It's called Poetry. Everyone writes it. Nobody reads it.

You are crazy. No one writes poetry.

Well, once you turn 20, you stop writing it. Chuck Young was just getting at the idea that it was a genre that had more journals devoted to it than people reading them. Kinda the way I feel when I hit the newsstands and see all these music magazines that seem to be covering the same things.

How many albums does Ryan Adams sell? How many people who buy his albums would then be interested enough to buy a magazine with him on the cover? How many people will buy another issue with him on the cover when he makes another similar album and does a similar interview a year later? Which magazine does the potential reader buy when there are four magazines with this same guy on the cover? Then throw in the fact that most of this info can be found on the internet where you can read it without paying for it and not have to throw it away.

You are crazy. No one writes poetry.

-- Dimension 5ive, Sunday, December 30, 2007 11:29 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

Well, once you turn 20, you stop writing it.

You are crazy. No one writes poetry.

-- Dimension 5ive, Sunday, December 30, 2007 11:29 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

Well, once you turn 20, you stop writing it.

You are crazy. No one writes poetry.

-- Dimension 5ive, Sunday, December 30, 2007 11:29 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

Well, once you turn 20, you stop writing it.

You are crazy. No one writes poetry.

-- Dimension 5ive, Sunday, December 30, 2007 11:29 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

Well, once you turn 20, you stop writing it.

You are crazy. No one writes poetry.

-- Dimension 5ive, Sunday, December 30, 2007 11:29 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

Well, once you turn 20, you stop writing it.

You are crazy. No one writes poetry.

-- Dimension 5ive, Sunday, December 30, 2007 11:29 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

Well, once you turn 20, you stop writing it.

looks like the throbbing gristle book is out now - yay!! and accoring to p-fork, you can get a portion of john darnielle's sabbath book by emailing the publisher or something?

yep, just send an e-mail to sabbathsampler at yahoo dot com. got mine yesterday, maybe an hour after I sent in the request! haven't read it yet, tho.

so did people actually learn anything (like, information, ideas) from the celine dion book, or is it just 100 pages of handwringing over the problem of canons of taste? it's a great idea for a book but i worry that it'll be like one long 'thoughtful' blog entry.

most of these books, even the ones written by authors i enjoy, have been mediocre. it's too bad--it's an interesting concept. i think it shows how undeveloped pop-music criticism is compared to, say, film criticism (cf. the BFI Film Classics series).

if franklin bruno could work his paper on "blonde on blonde" into a monogram, i'd buy it. but he'd have to keep in all the close analysis and retain the basic argument that the album is monument to "pop formalism."

Anyone read the Trout Mask Replica book?

I spotted a couple of 'greatest hits' volumes on Amazon. What are these - six full volumes in one, or are they edited versions?

so did people actually learn anything (like, information, ideas) from the celine dion book, or is it just 100 pages of handwringing over the problem of canons of taste? it's a great idea for a book but i worry that it'll be like one long 'thoughtful' blog entry.

I really enjoyed reading it. Wilson is really engaging and his writing is too good to dismiss as 'handwringing', but the book just doesn't really go anywhere or, I guess, just ends up exactly where you'd expect. Which is maybe what you mean by "thoughtful blog entry".

I agree with everyone who said the Quebec sections were the most interesting.

I found the chapter on the history of schmaltz pretty enlightening, too.

I enjoyed the Trout Mask book, but there are some errors in it that are pretty unforgiveable. It was written by a Zappa "scholar" (for lack of a better or more appropriate term) and there's almost a hint of defensiveness.

How do you get the Master of Reality book?

yep, just send an e-mail to sabbathsampler at yahoo dot com. got mine yesterday, maybe an hour after I sent in the request! haven't read it yet, tho.

-- Ioannis, Saturday, January 12, 2008 5:50 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

as someone mentioned a couple of days ago, apparently if you email sabbathsampler at yahoo dot com they'll send you some of that book; not sure if the offer's still valid, but probably is! I loved Carl Wilson's book so much, but I guess maybe the nature of the project itself determined that there could be no obvious or easy conclusion: he almost writes/thinks himself into a corner. But it's still a good corner to be in! I'm still waiting for my copy of DrewDaniel's book on TG.

Cool, I emailed there. Thanks. That's probably my favorite album of all time

If Carl's book had come out in 1999, I think I would've been ecstatic, since I spent so much of my last two years of college thinking about exactly the kind of stuff he talks about. Probably would've merited a couple of citations in my senior project, too, especially the parts at the end where he seems to call for a more personal, contextualized criticism that doesn't pretend toward objectivity. As it is, I found it to be a pretty intelligent summary of various issues in aesthetics with the bonus of centering on the career of a woman whom I've spent very little time thinking about.

Great start JohnD on the excerpt I got of the Master of Reality book. I like the concept. And I agree with your protagonist, the lyrics of Sweet Leaf never fit the heavier themes of the rest of the album (which are really out there), but the sound and feel of it totally do. I look forward to reading the whole thing.

the best chapter of carl's book is that fucking AMAZING chapter 7, i think, ending with the buddy holly/love-scene bit. devastating. the book's quebec bits were for me, by far, among the least-interesting sections - but that's why i'm not really the 33 1/3 market demo anyway. loved the intersection of the very PERSONAL with ideas of aesthetic philosophy and the problems-with-music-crit. can i say again it's fantastic?

xp

Yeah, I just finished reading the excerpt myself (finally!). Really great shit, John; can't wait to read the rest. Now where the heck is my copy of Master of Reality?

For some bizarre reason, I have like 10 versions of Master... in all sorts of different formats.

Agree with Sean about that Buddy Holly bit in Carl Wilson's book - I've read that out loud to friends a couple of times, and on both ocassions I haven't managed to get to the end, because of the tears. Is there supposed to be a book on Brian Eno coming out in this series? can't find anything relisable about it anywhere...

God I love Master of Reality.

No shit, it's about as fucking mind-blowing as you can get. I think I played Into the Void like 40 times in a row one time.

Still waiting for the Master Of Reality book..

..but I'm really loving the 20 Jazz Funk Greats book. (And the "Daniel Drew" thing has been fixed) Drew wondered if people would start to dig on TG after reading this book... I haven't finished the book yet, but I do see a POV of extreme curiosity at the very least. I don't think Throbbing Gristle are a band that anyone can write a good book about and people will just starting going "yeah yeah yeah sounds so raaaad", much less evoke excitement. Drew's discovery story (specifically the discovery of the "place", sorry can't spoil it here) is a perfect setup for that curiosity, which I can't imagine being done better by someone else offhand.

Of course, if you're a TG fan, you will LOVE LOVE LOVE this book, or even a fan of the related groups (Chris and Cosey, Coil, Psychic TV, etc.) You will get plenty of quote/interview & story love from Chris, Cosey, Sleazy, and Gen.

Sorry, I posted too soon. I thought people above already bought the Master Of Reality book, instead of talking about the album.)

Notes:

- I am 100% behind the Wilson
- a surprisingly large part of that is just based on marveling at his skill with organizing thought patterns and evidence
- not to mention the few smack-on-the-head moments where he makes some kind of incredibly astute / mature aside about human relationships

I really enjoyed the GnR UYI book because it was written completely from memory. He hadn't listened to the record in like ten years, then finally revisits the album in the final chapter. Pretty great approach to criticism IMO.

:)

This approach is lifted from Nicholson Baker's U and I, a critical study of John Updike's novels written from memory. Or at least that's what I think it was; I haven't read it in years.