33 1/3 Series of books

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I loooove the Katamari music (also Jet Grind Radio)

aaliyah papi (Stevie D(eux)), Thursday, 22 May 2014 19:15 (nine years ago) link

If there is other shit that sounds like Katamari 1 & 2 OSTs I would like to know about it. I am ill informed on VG music in general and Asian hyper pop as well.

Khamma chameleon (Jon Lewis), Thursday, 22 May 2014 19:34 (nine years ago) link

love the whole 'pushing primitive tech and creating music that sounds a little off' angle. glad they picked something pre-cd for that reason but earthbound would be my personal #1 pick.

original bgm, Thursday, 22 May 2014 19:36 (nine years ago) link

Well for hyper Asian pop, I often recommend Plus-Tech Squeeze Box's Cartooom!

MarkoP, Thursday, 22 May 2014 19:37 (nine years ago) link

yeah a lot of Shibuya-kei stuff is kind of similar (and the two PTSB albums are excellent) but it doesn't quite have that degree of surrealness. I do think the Haruomi Hosono + Miharu Koshi album Swing Slow hits the spot. As does a lot of the stuff by De De Mouse.

Maggie killed Quagmire (collest baby ever) (frogbs), Thursday, 22 May 2014 19:45 (nine years ago) link

maybe serani poji one-room survival?

original bgm, Thursday, 22 May 2014 19:47 (nine years ago) link

I guess that's not really too 'surreal' but some of it sounds similar to katamari otherwise

original bgm, Thursday, 22 May 2014 19:50 (nine years ago) link

omg this is rly good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7JcWeq9yTo

aaliyah papi (Stevie D(eux)), Thursday, 22 May 2014 20:30 (nine years ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7JcWeq9yTo

aaliyah papi (Stevie D(eux)), Thursday, 22 May 2014 20:30 (nine years ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SNredsfyBI

Best video game rhythm section ever! Would you call this prog rock?

▴▲ ▴TH3CR()$BY$H()W▴▲ ▴ (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 22 May 2014 22:11 (nine years ago) link

Psychocandy!

piscesx, Tuesday, 27 May 2014 17:59 (nine years ago) link

Fucking Phish A Live One lol wtf.

how's life, Tuesday, 27 May 2014 18:07 (nine years ago) link

no "13" ;_; I cry

aaliyah papi (Stevie D(eux)), Saturday, 7 June 2014 06:01 (nine years ago) link

three months pass...

Slate: I Read 93 Books About Pop Albums. Here’s what I learned.

ArchCarrier, Wednesday, 10 September 2014 09:53 (nine years ago) link

ha ha it's so epic (and very Steve) that he read ALL of them, wow

(won't lie, I'm sad that I didn't get a shoutout- I thought we were friends! ouch)

the tune was space, Wednesday, 10 September 2014 19:31 (nine years ago) link

Are you Hugo? If so, amazing book--best monograph on DB

Iago Galdston, Wednesday, 10 September 2014 20:44 (nine years ago) link

i'm curious about the Shoot Out The Lights book. anyone read that one and got any thoughts?

charlie h, Thursday, 11 September 2014 04:46 (nine years ago) link

five months pass...

i have now read the Shoot Out the Lights book. it's kinda on the opposite end of the spectrum to the Zoso book in terms of analysis & detai. Zoso was extremely well written & engaging, but ultimately a little dense & verbose, at least for me; SOTL was way too thin & tenuous with sections of really weak writing.

charlie h, Saturday, 28 February 2015 01:04 (nine years ago) link

aerosmith, I'll admit that I was skeptical about reading Master of Reality (I haven't read any of the other fictional entries, mostly because the fictional conceit doesn't seem to jibe with what I'm looking to get out of the series), but I'm really glad that I did because it was excellent. It worked really well as an epistolary novella, but it was also more effective at parsing the album (a process which sometimes benefits from a hyper-subjective, inarticulate-yet-passionate perspective) than some of the more straightforward entries have been.

― Deric W. Haircare, Tuesday, 6 May 2008 16:47 (6 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

way late to this, but I was in Strand bookstore the other day and finally saw a copy of this (cos my local store doesn't have it) and picked it up, and wow I wish I had read this sooner. Strangely, I had an idea for a 10-minute short play years ago that was similar to this (although switch out mental patience for criminal in jail), but this was pulled off way better than I could have.

as Deric said (almost 7 years ago), I liked that the fictional component of the story wasn't merely an excuse to gush over the album in a new format, but could stand on its own and be compelling even if that particular album wasn't one you enjoyed. obviously for someone like me who loves Masters and also considers it probably his favorite Sab, it makes it that much better. Although Sabbath doesn't serve the same purpose for me that it does for the narrator, there are definitely other bands/albums that do serve that function.

great stuff.

Hammer Smashed Bagels, Monday, 2 March 2015 20:00 (nine years ago) link

I like to think that my early encouragement helped spur a young unknown towards literary greatness.

U SNOOZE U LOOZE BRAH (Old Lunch), Monday, 2 March 2015 20:16 (nine years ago) link

one month passes...

speaking of young unknowns

http://333sound.com/2015/04/16/open-call-2015-22-and-under/

katherine, Tuesday, 21 April 2015 17:49 (eight years ago) link

rats. 7 months too old

flappy bird, Wednesday, 22 April 2015 00:55 (eight years ago) link

same

flopson, Wednesday, 22 April 2015 02:03 (eight years ago) link

nvm i misread, 22 before may 2016! i'm way old man

flopson, Wednesday, 22 April 2015 02:05 (eight years ago) link

Well I was under 22 before May 2016.

pplains, Wednesday, 22 April 2015 02:10 (eight years ago) link

Someone got me the Super Mario Bros. soundtrack one, it is so good! I have been waiting my entire life to read this book!

©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Saturday, 2 May 2015 19:53 (eight years ago) link

The thing I've been wondering regarding that one is how different it is from the the previous book he wrote on the subject, Maestro Mario.

MarkoP, Sunday, 3 May 2015 00:17 (eight years ago) link

two weeks pass...

Just read the brand-new Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables one. I'm kinda blown away by how this is essentially "Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables: The Early Years" by Alex Ogg (which was just published LAST YEAR ferchristsakes) with an added sheen of (non-musical) historical colour. It's quite shameless. Unless there is something connecting the two works which I don't know about. It's just a complete rip-off! Plus Ogg's book has tons of artwork, labels, Winston Smith art etc. Don't get this 33 1/3 book - get the Ogg.

everything, Thursday, 21 May 2015 21:18 (eight years ago) link

iirc when you pitch something you have to say how your work will differentiate from any other books/documentaries on the subject. so obv bloomsbury knew about the similarity and it didn't bother them.

T-Boz Scaggs (get bent), Monday, 25 May 2015 21:06 (eight years ago) link

i have something i might be interested in pitching this time out, but little-to-no-advance and a percentage of royalties on a smallish run with a limited audience, for all the effort that would go in? not that appealing tbh.

T-Boz Scaggs (get bent), Monday, 25 May 2015 21:09 (eight years ago) link

Finished another one that just hit the stands: Freedom of Choice by Evie Nagy. Nice to get some background on Devo without the usual faux-corporate trappings. The only criticism I have is that the book operates on the principle that this was Devo's creative peak and that what came before and after was lacking. The portrayal of Duty Now For The Future as their nadir is baffling.

everything, Tuesday, 26 May 2015 17:47 (eight years ago) link

i have something i might be interested in pitching this time out, but little-to-no-advance and a percentage of royalties on a smallish run with a limited audience, for all the effort that would go in? not that appealing tbh.

same here, unfortunately i have an idea i really believe in

i really love duty now. that album has a ton of punk cachet, maybe even more so than the debut. and new traditionalists and oh no! are no slouches either. i know the band doesn't rate duty now -- the songs were leftovers, they were all fighting, they hated the producer. but bands can be wrong about their best work.

(full disclosure: i worked on evie's book, doing the interview transcriptions.)

-entry-level umami (mild bleu cheese vibes) (get bent), Wednesday, 27 May 2015 19:23 (eight years ago) link

also i remembered last night that the day i got my 33 1/3 rejection last year was the day i was having major surgery -- the message hit my inbox as i was lying there in a hospital gown, waiting for the morphine drip to kick in. not my least vulnerable moment!

-entry-level umami (mild bleu cheese vibes) (get bent), Wednesday, 27 May 2015 19:27 (eight years ago) link

Yeah, the book contains interviews with the band where they express disappointment with Duty Now. But they are also on record as being regretful about aspects of the first album too. And the later ones...even the last one which you'd think it would have been created with zero expectations and with full creative control yet they still had a bad experience with Warners. My theory is that they strived more than most to control everything, but their career 78-84 proved to be extremely challenging and uncontrollable. Their critical and commercial fortunes fluctuated wildly. So that the only era they appear to not be regretful about is the brief flash of widespread popularity (Whip It and FoC) and the 74-77 period. No surprises they have specifically focused on revisiting and repackaging those periods more and more to that over the last decade or so.

everything, Wednesday, 27 May 2015 20:10 (eight years ago) link

I had no idea the band didn't like Duty Now; I love it to bits.

Competent Cracker Barrel Manager (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 27 May 2015 20:38 (eight years ago) link

everyone who can be bothered to pitch to these people is independently wealthy, yes? still never encountered any publisher as up itself as them

lex pretend, Tuesday, 2 June 2015 23:00 (eight years ago) link

well i have pitched to them and i am not quite begging on the streets but i have a few bills i'm definitely sweating rn, so "independently wealthy" hahaha no. the proposal does seem like it'd be a big time suck for me this year, though.

music begins where words leave off (get bent), Tuesday, 2 June 2015 23:41 (eight years ago) link

that's big time-suck, not big-time suck.

music begins where words leave off (get bent), Tuesday, 2 June 2015 23:42 (eight years ago) link

a Tom Waits 33.3 about why Big Time sucks

( who ALSO my boss and his sister!) (sic), Tuesday, 2 June 2015 23:55 (eight years ago) link

the world needs a 'celebrity skin' one.

Nourry, Wednesday, 3 June 2015 01:47 (eight years ago) link

oh my god yeah

yeah, i'd have written about that or POTI over live through this.

music begins where words leave off (get bent), Wednesday, 3 June 2015 02:45 (eight years ago) link

Just read the brand-new Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables one. I'm kinda blown away by how this is essentially "Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables: The Early Years" by Alex Ogg (which was just published LAST YEAR ferchristsakes) with an added sheen of (non-musical) historical colour. It's quite shameless. Unless there is something connecting the two works which I don't know about. It's just a complete rip-off! Plus Ogg's book has tons of artwork, labels, Winston Smith art etc. Don't get this 33 1/3 book - get the Ogg.

does it seem like a "derivative work"? that is, does it follow the ogg closely in what it says/structure even if it doesn't directly plagiarize the word choice, etc.? because ogg might have a lawsuit, frankly.

on another note: if i knew more about music i'd love to write a little book on "she's so unusual."

he quipped with heat (amateurist), Wednesday, 3 June 2015 02:53 (eight years ago) link

has someone written about the saturday night fever soundtrack? that'd be a good' un.

he quipped with heat (amateurist), Wednesday, 3 June 2015 02:56 (eight years ago) link

the movie and the bee gees and mainstream disco in general have been written about extensively, but i'd want to know more about the lesser-remembered stuff on that album like ralph macdonald's "calypso breakdown"

music begins where words leave off (get bent), Wednesday, 3 June 2015 03:36 (eight years ago) link

Seriously considering doing an Erotica pitch.

Tim F, Wednesday, 3 June 2015 03:50 (eight years ago) link


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