33 1/3 Series of books

i'm right here you motherfucker

read all the ilxor ones. you can't go wrong there. geeta, wolk, d4ew, JD, etc.
--scott seward

i'm RIGHT HERE, you motherfucker

should really get round to pitching mogwai young team one of these days...

because i love rejection obv

This series has basically become a music blog in book form.

we luv you whiney no shade

I am happy that my friend's proposal got picked, and sad for my other friends whose proposals got rejected this round- it's weird because people ask me for advice about their proposal and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't and it's not a linear, predictable thing.

very excited at the prospect of a wendy carlos book too

very sad / tough that the homogenic book is being written in the wake of mark bell's death, ugh

Man, I totally forgot he died last year. What a loss.

stoked on Workbook

fwiw ezra furman is the brother of jonah furman from the late great mass band Krill

The series is doing its own surprise releases now:

We have a surprise for you, our beloved readers, that we’re pretty excited to share with you. This week, we will be publishing a new book in the 33 1/3 series on LCD Soundsystem’s Sound of Silver, written by Ryan Leas.

The book is a new addition to our original spring/summer 2016 lineup; we wanted to publish a book on Sound of Silver alongside LCD Soundsystem’s recent reunion and upcoming new album release. It seemed to us to be the perfect time for a serious, in-depth examination of this important record, and of LCD Soundsystem’s influence on and contributions to the landscape of contemporary popular music.

We hope you’re as delighted about the book as we are. Please do check it out – and enjoy seeing LCD Soundsystem live if you catch them at any of their upcoming festival performances, including their highly anticipated performance at the Glastonbury Festival next week.

anyone picked this LCD book up yet? looks great.

also nice to see the Tori Amos Boys For Pele one is finally coming out next year! 10 years after its original scheduled date.

The Tusk one is seriously one of the worst books I've ever read. It is the ultimate COOL STORY BRO.

I usually tear through these voraciously but I don't think I made it even halfway through that one. I don't know how it got past the proposal stage.

yeah the guy admits as much in the intro

He admits it shouldn't have got past the proposal stage? Wut?

no, that the book is kinda crap

It could've been good if he'd written a book about the Fleetwood Mac album Tusk rather than a travelogue of a journey up his own asshole (with occasional Tusk-related commentary).

Rob Trucks is a freelance music and sports writer based in NYC. He has published four books on baseball

You make it sound quite good! (I've Not read it)

It's not! (Don't waste your time.)

NB: I've liked or loved or LOOOOVED (the Celine and Darnielle's Sabbath book come to mind) every other 33 1/3 I've read.

Tusk, OK Computer, and Wowee Zowee are all shit for those reasons. the Loveless one is sorta in between but I dug it.

best ones i've read are Song Cycle, 20 Jazz Funk Greats, Master of Reality, and There's a Riot Goin' On.

20 jazz funk greats is definitely my favorite

i picked up franklin bruno's armed forces one recently. that one RULES

I liked Armed Forces except for all the stuff about "He goes from a diminished C to a G7" or whatever was in there. Riot Goin on is v good too! Still have to read 20 Jazz Funk Greats

ah i love whenever the author is a musician/talks about the record in musical terms- though i understand how that could be tedious for people who don't care. that's honestly what I'm looking for in every 33 1/3 book i pick up. the Aja one is great for that reason

ah i love whenever the author is a musician/talks about the record in musical terms

That's fascinating given that you don't understand what a musician or a riff is.

don't start that again

It could've been good if he'd written a book about the Fleetwood Mac album Tusk rather than a travelogue of a journey up his own asshole (with occasional Tusk-related commentary).

― Break the meat into the pineapples and pat them (Old Lunch), Friday, April 7, 2017 2:13 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So it's basically a book about the author and how the album relates to the author, rather than a book exploring the creation of the album? Sounds like a right snooze.

yup, way too many 33 1/3 books are like that. a lot of the early ones are like that, newer ones less so

I feel like that approach can work if the writer's personal experience of discovering the album helps contextualize the setting in which the album was created. Lethem's Fear of Music kind of does this; he was a teenager experiencing the weirdness of NYC in the late 70s listening to an album that was, in large part, about the weirdness of NYC in the late 70s. But I agree--too often it just takes the form of "I was working at a college radio station when this weird looking record cover caught my eye and oh by the way here is what I was studying at the time and here's who I had a crush on and here's what I was eating" etc.

the personal approach is fine, as long as the writer is ... a good writer.

"When we reached for the same album at the music store that day, I knew that our friendship was destined to blossom into something much more profound. The name of that album? Take Off Your Pants and Jacket. And that's...the rest of the story. Good day!"

I would actually read Paul Harvey's Take Off Your Pants and Jacket.

the personal approach is fine, as long as the writer is ... a good writer.

― tylerw, Friday, April 7, 2017 6:17 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Or an interesting person.

or both, preferably!

i just read the new modern lovers 33 1/3, it was good! some interesting interweaving of boston history with the band's story.

the one on Super Mario Bros. soundtrack is really good for a musical term for the layperson approach

i just read the new modern lovers 33 1/3, it was good! some interesting interweaving of boston history with the band's story.

― tylerw, Friday, April 7, 2017 11:33 AM (thirty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my friend sean wrote that one! it is indeed good. love how often aerosmith appears

haha yeah, funny to even imagine steven tyler and jonathan richman breathing the same air

AEROSMITH ROCKS NATICK

I recently tried to read Alan Warner's Tago Mago. Warner has a lot of leeway for various reasons but this just a rambling mess, really. Didn't get on with Hugo Wilcken's Low either, despite loving his novel, Colony. Favourite has easily been the Darnielle.

liked Armed Forces except for all the stuff about "He goes from a diminished C to a G7" or whatever was in there.

i'm curious: were you ok with his equally close reading of costello's words and syllables, or did that bother you too?

i loved the book and loved all that stuff. there are so few people writing about pop who can dig under the hood of the music that effectively. alex ross obviously can whenever he approaches pop. i appreciate people who can use actual music to critique music. in the armed forces book, i thought bruno made clear why he was doing it and did a good job of explaining what it meant.

Darnielle, Erik Davis, Matos my big faves

The ATCQ book is from a personal perspective and is well written/enjoyable imho.

The Achtung Baby and OK Computer ones are the worst I've come across.

in the armed forces book, i thought bruno made clear why he was doing it and did a good job of explaining what it meant.

― fact checking cuz, Friday, April 7, 2017 3:55 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I read it a long time ago!

oh! the one on Low by Bowie is fantastic for production/sound nerds

Just read Matos SOTT book and it was marvellous, just a joy (Nick I need to post it back to you!).

The Riot book is good but there's not much in it that's not taken from the In Their Own Words Sly book from the early 90s (which is $$$s and crazy rare now so fair enough)

Anyone read the Bitches Brew one?

I have it here but never finished it. Grella's a good writer, but the territory was too familiar - he wasn't telling me anything I didn't already know from reading a half dozen other books on Miles, album liner notes, etc., etc. If you're not up to your eyeballs in Davisiana, though, it's good.

Honestly, the more interesting Miles 33 1/3 would probably be On the Corner – the impact is just about as significant but the story and how the record was made is a bit less known. But who knows – maybe in a era where we have Phil's book, Tingen's book and the OTC box, even some of that may be well known enough.

I had an idea a gazillion years back to write one on Keith Jarrett's The Sun Bear Concerts—it's just such a 70s era artifact—but realized my submission would likely have a much better chance if I did the better known (and selling) Köln Concert.