33 1/3 Series of books

I'm guessing they'll announce the final 18 on Monday morning. Curious.

I am not in the writing business. What are the advantages of being a part of this series over self-publishing?

distribution. a brand that people recognize. and the fact that nobody reads self-published books unless they are about teen werewolves.

OTM Scott.

Getting three rejections from Continuum has definitely made me re-evaluate how important it is to have a contract in advance though. I personally believe that if I just write a good book, it will get published. Time to quit putting the cart before the horse.

Latest batch to get commissioned:

Andrew WK: I Get Wet, by Phillip Crandall
Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works Vol II, by Marc Weidenbaum
Beach Boys: Smile, by Luis Sanchez
Bjork: Biophilia, by Nicola Dibben
Bobbie Gentry: Ode to Billie Joe, by Tara Murtha
Danger Mouse: The Grey Album, by Charles Fairchild
Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, by Mike Foley
Devo: Freedom of Choice, by Evie Nagy
Gang of Four: Entertainment! by Kevin Dettmar
Hole: Live Through This, by Anwyn Crawford
J Dilla: Donuts, by Jordan Ferguson
Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, by Kirk Walker Graves
Michael Jackson: Dangerous, by Susan Fast
Oasis: Definitely Maybe, by Alex Niven
Richard Hell and the Voidoids: Blank Generation, by Pete Astor
Serge Gainsbourg: Histoire de Melody Nelson, by Darran Anderson
Sigur Ros: ( ), by Ethan Hayden
They Might Be Giants: Flood, by Alex Reed and Philip Sandifer

http://www.33third.blogspot.com/2012/08/18-new-titles.html

nice interesting variety, gotta say

Richard Hell and the Voidoids: Blank Generation, by Pete Astor

The Weather Prophets/Wisdom of Harry dude?

(Not saying that in a surprised way, I could totally see that being an album he locked into as punk started happening.)

Any ilxors in there?

just Nicola "deeznuts" Dibben

Intrigued by at least 5 of those.

who's the guy doing the dilla?

five women total.

(represented in 3 books. 3 out of 18.)

evie nagy i know her!

evie rulz

got totally fucking excited at dude love writing a dead kennedys book. and... oh, MIKE foley.

donuts should be great. and live through this. kanye will suck because you can't be all 'lol cocaine' yet. grey album has potential.

lol the bjork choice.

I recently read the one on the use your illusion albums and it was quite terrible. Looking forward to the AWK one though.

Most interesting one here is TMBG, at least in theory.

yeah i have high hopes for that one

Professor Dettmar splits his research and teaching between British & Irish modernism, esp. James Joyce, and contemporary popular music

Oh, that's who is writing the Gang of Four one.

Could be good

I love Selected Ambient Works Vol II but cannot imagine how a book on that will work. Because RDJ is obviously not going to be involved.

That's the one that intrigues me the most. Must have been a hell of a pitch.

You can read the pitch for Selected Ambient Works II on Marc Weidenbaum's ambient music blog:
http://disquiet.com/2012/08/31/saw2for33third/

Always thought of WK as a novelty act and hen he goes and gets a 33 1/3 volume and a Best New Reissue from P4k on the same day.

Most interesting one here is TMBG, at least in theory.

Especially by Sandifer, I'm rly excited for that one and wld like to buy and read it today

that's the 'brony bump,' you're going to be seeing a lot of that in the next few years (xpost)

Bjork: Biophilia, by Nicola Dibben

This is gonna be a "fascinating critique of a great artist's shortcomings" type of defense, right?

probably more of a "lots of non-musical/technical stuff surrounding the project to delve into" type of book

would definitely feel better about them doing books about such recently released albums if there had already been 33 1/3s about earlier Bjork and Kanye records

Genuinely excited about Bobbie Gentry book

Not sure how that Bjork album got in the list? Assuming the writer already was involved in writing about said contemporary album and was able to successfully roll it into a book.

Don't know who Mike Foley is but that DKs album (and the band's whole history) definitely deserves analysis.

Not sure how that Bjork album got in the list? Assuming the writer already was involved in writing about said contemporary album and was able to successfully roll it into a book.

― your native bacon (mh), Friday, August 31, 2012 10:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

well people submit pretty extensive proposals, and they apparently liked that proposal

i mean, given the fact that there have been some fairly lousy books about great canonical albums in the series in the past, i think offbeat picks like that are actually kind of a good sign that they're looking out for really convincing proposals that would make engaging books rather than greenlighting things because they're about canonical albums everyone loves and wants to read about

I'm willing to bet the Bjork book is going to focus a ton on technology and interaction and a good deal of it will be abt the iOS app and maybe her live setup

yeah it makes sense to write about in the same way Zaireeka did

offbeat picks like that are actually kind of a good sign that they're looking out for really convincing proposals that would make engaging books

It seemed like the Use Your Illusion book was only chosen because it was the non-obvious pick. It had very little of value to say about the albums, and actually talked more about Appetite for Destruction than UYI. Regardless, all these offbeat picks makes you wonder how this functions as an actual business model.

i disagree and think UYI was one of the best books in the series so hey

really? it hardly talked about the albums at all, seeking instead to talk at length about the band, their history, their fans, their disastrous concerts, their influence, and everything else except the actual albums at hand-- all which conveyed quite clearly that the author was no fan of GNR. In fact, the author states upfront that he hadn't heard the albums in 15 years, and still hadn't before writing the majority of the book. This was presented as a positive thing. When it finally got to the songs, it was presented as a fairly half-assed song-by-song analysis at the end, totaling about 10-15 pages or so.

it hardly talked about the albums at all, seeking instead to talk at length about the band, their history, their fans, their disastrous concerts, their influence, and everything else except the actual albums at hand-- all which conveyed quite clearly that the author was no fan of GNR.

yeah this is not accurate imo

Marc who is writing the Aphex one is a brilliant sound-thinker, I bet this will kick ass.

yeah this is not accurate imo

oh yeah, i left out the huge personal bloglike sides that litter the book, which also have little to do with the albums. how are you gonna write a good book about an album you haven't listened to in 15 years?

xp Use Your Illusion made sense in this series IMO because the story of their implosion is more compelling than the story of their rise and the success of Appetite.. I thought it was great.

sometimes the records that are most heralded or most popular don't always generate the best discussion... I don't think any of the album choices are "offbeat" as long as there's something worth saying about them.

Glad to see Entertainment! but what I'd really like to see - Hex Enduction Hour. Why no Fall yet?

Poliopolice, did you miss the part where Weisb@rd goes song by song?

man I really feel that Rocks or Toys in the Attic (but to me Rocks is the one) ought to get one of these. Does anybody even pitch Aerosmith albums? I mean actual Aerosmith albums. We were an awesome band for about six years and we made some classic records!!

I wonder if those are albums that would hold up to sustained analysis, though. Sure, there'd be plenty of lurid drug stories and I-hate-your-wife-so-I-wrote-this-song-about-how-much-I-hate-your-wife psychodrama, but as far as actual detailed musical analysis, I don't know what there would be to say. The songs are killer, but they're also not particularly formally or technically innovative - they're just really good songs, played by a perfect combination of complementary musicians. Which is on the one hand all you need, but on the other hand really fucking hard to write about in a compelling way.