33 1/3 book series - Kraftwerk, Aphex Twin, etc

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

I’m currently reading two books from 33 1/3 series: Computer World and Selected Ambient Works Volume II.

I hate to give a bad review, but Computer World is disappointing. The music analysis is garbled and it contains too much hero worshipping. I love the album myself, but I think a book should be factual and subtle in its praise.

Selected Ambient Works Volume II is a good read, and I would recommend it. I was unaware that Richard D James did a bit of commercial work for advertisements, on top of his own original music projects, in the 90s, and generally shunned performing live.

Has anyone else read any of the other books in the 33 1/3 series that they’d recommend reading or avoid reading?

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#2

Geeta Dayal’s Another Green World is good, as is her music journalism in general.

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#3

I found the series quite a mixed bag, and stopped after reading a few (I can no longer remember which ones). Good concept, perhaps flawed execution.

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#4

Learned a few things from the Paul’s Boutique one that I didn’t know before, which is saying a lot considering how obsessed I was with every aspect of that record. Very well done. Just picked up the Afghan Whigs Gentleman one and have Tom Waits and The National in my queue, as well.

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#5

I liked the My Bloody Valentine Loveless one, but yeah, the series is a mixed bag. They look lovely on a shelf though.

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#6

I’m enjoying Music from Big Pink, but that one’s pure fiction which I think it’s different from most of the series? I like John Niven’s writing though.

I bought several others that I haven’t read yet because Rough Trade East had them on 3 for the price of 2 or something like that

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#7

Masters of Reality is also fiction. I quite liked it, and John Darnielle clearly knows the band and album well

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#8

Up here in Quebec, Karl Wilson’s Let’s Talk About Love is a classic.

I think the whole point of the series is that it will be highly variable. I always wanted to write something for it but never quite got around to proposing anything.

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#9

I don’t mind variability in style and approach. It’s the overall quality of the writing that was my concern.

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#10

I have a bunch of them in my second hand book shop. Mostly Slayer and Metallica though as I live in Finland. Listening to heavy metal is an obligatory part of growing up in Finland.

Maybe I should borrow them and read them through.

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#11

I’ve read a couple - Pet Sounds and In the Aeroplane - and found this to be true.

I’ve also heard this. I’ve been wanting to read it forever (Donuts is supposed to be good too)

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#12

I’m an academic in my day job, so I may have become less sensitive to variability in the quality of writing. Hahahahahaha.

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#13

I’ve read a bunch of them. The good ones are about the making of the album, the bad ones are about the author’s life with the album as background music, self-involved in the worst way. You can quickly tell by glancing at the samples on Amazon which books fall into which category.

The 33 1/3 that stayed with me on a human level was DJ SHADOW’S ENDTRODUCING—pretty much a book-length interview with the artist, tracing his experience getting to the point of making that album, then seeing it through. AEROPLANE OVER THE SEA was good that way too, watching this loose network of musicians arrange and rearrange themselves around the central guy in the band. Oddly, I don’t happen to know either album very well—but the narratives are good anyway.

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#14

Same. I’d recommend that one as well.

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#15

Second that one, a really terrific book about music and taste.

I got a handful for doing an academic peer review, and while I liked them, the authors took the seriesmandate wildly differently. Kevin Dettmar’s ENTERTAINMENT by Gang of Four is about interpreting the album’s brilliant lyrics, Bryan Waterman’s MARQUEE MOON is largely about CBGB’s and New York …Emily Lordi’s DONNY HATHAWAY LIVE is largely biographical … such a wide range of kinds of books, they’re bound to be uneven, and to disappoint expectations more often than not.

The short book format (33 1/3 is supposed to be around 30,000 words in the original pitch I heard) has been a big trend in the last decade in academic publishing, and especially as something that travels a little more widely than other academic books, I’m glad they’re out there regardless, a kind of cool experiment.

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#16

I stopped reading the Portishead one because the hero-worship was too much.

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#17

Ive read The one on Love’s album Forever Changes and it is pretty great. I love that album, and always felt it really stood out and was way ahead of its time, and reading the book explained why i was correct, which is always nice.

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#18

So am I!

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