POPTIMIST/SUKRAT book-larnin shout-out

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

which 33/13s are good to fry read? if poss say why

Comments

[dickmalone.livejournal.com]

Definitely Douglas Wolk's book on James Brown Live at the Apollo. It's got tons of great chart stuff and puts Brown in the context of a pop artist rather than an influence like he usually is these days. It also puts the concert in its historical moment, i.e. during the Cuban Missle Crisis. (Carmodism!)

[pot80.livejournal.com]

Search:

Eric Weisbard "Use Your Illusion"
Douglas Wolk "Live at the Apollo"
Franklin Bruno "Armed Forces"

Destroy:

OK Computer. Everyone pretty much agrees that the OK Computer book is a painful travesty.

[damnspynovels.livejournal.com]

is that Loveless one out yet?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

haha i am v.inclined to give OK Comp a try if only bcz 99% of the protest = "oh noes an musicologist what cd he possibly understand about our NOBLE UNSULLIED ART?"

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The only one I own and have read is ABBA "Gold". It was a bit disappointing, I think because it spent most of its time selling the idea of ABBA to a presumed sceptical rockwrite audience, work which obviously had already been done in the perspective I was approaching it from. I wanted interesting new perspectives on ABBA, and though nothing in the book was stupid, nothing in it was amazingly clever either. I also wanted - since this was the only book in the whole series about a compilation - some thinking on how compilations work vis a vis 'proper' albums, and/or how this particular comp has been constructed (which in turn cd shed light on how 'canons' are constructed I guess). Instead the book goes through the songs in chronological order, rather than in the order they're presented on "Gold", which seriously weakens the idea of the book as being about an artefact. What you have instead is a perfectly OK "ABBA For Dummies".

[pot80.livejournal.com]

Mike's description of the Wolk book is on target.

I love the Weisbard book because it's more about understanding the blockbuster era of pop albums in the late 80s/early 90s, and trying to understand why Axl Rose flamed out so badly. There's a lot of interesting tangents, but one of the best is the notion that since the "blockbuster" era is behind us, Axl Rose is an artist without a venue.

Bruno's Armed Forces book is just wonderfully written and well-researched, and gets into both the context of Costello's early career and his process, but also the politics of the album and the era.

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

Amazon says yes!

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

(ha you have my desktop as an LJ icon!)

[pot80.livejournal.com]

Oh, the musicology elements aren't quite the problem -- his prose is dreadfully dull, and he really just has nothing to say besides trying to get his head around the concept of cds and spending a thousand pages to let us know that "Karma Police" is mid-tempo. It's just a really empty, tedious book.

[pot80.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think it's a matter of perspective -- I thought it did a good job of defending Abba, but if you're already a fan there's not a lot there. The book is defensive from start to finish, and so it always seems like an apology or something.

[pot80.livejournal.com]

Loveless is a weird one. It's pretty interesting throughout, and then the quality of the last three chapters fall off sharply, and he's talking about how David Barker was unhappy with the ending, and he doesn't know what to do, and he's apologizing for the book being rather short even for a 33 1/3, and it's just sort of embarrassing and goes off the rails. It was actually one of the weirder reading experiences I've had recently, this generally journalistic thing suddenly mutating into a highly defensive personal blog.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes, defensive is exactly the word I'm after - which is pointless, as surely the worth of the record should be a given in this series. I think the reason I was so disappointed with the content is that there really ISN'T a lot of critical writing about the band - the longer books they do get are all OMG FRIDA'S DAD WAS AN NAZI.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I agree with all of the above.

I also thought the author didn't do a terribly great job of telling the ABBA story through Gold. She half respected the running order of the CD to do this (which is non-chronological, and ends with "Waterloo", as you know), and half invented her own chronology.

I'm not sure how I would have done this either, it is a tough problem, but I don't think the author cracked it.

[pot80.livejournal.com]

I do kinda like the ABBA book in spite of all this. Elisabeth's writing is charming, and she has interesting things to say -- keep in mind I am a very casual ABBA fan.

Sign 'o' The Times

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

...by our ILX/Jackin' Pop friend M. Matos is the only one I've read other than the JB and ABBA books. I think it's good. There is a LOT of autobiographical stuff in it - basically M tells the entire story of Prince and his own relationship to the man and his music while growing up in Minneapolis, and considers SOTT in the context of Prince's entire discography. And only then does he get into a track-by-track analysis of the LP itself, making several more detours as he does so.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's well written and engaging, and disappointing only because it's the token pop act getting the shaft.

It pretty much put me off pitching anything, which has saved me future disappointments no doubt.

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

I'm with the consensus re: Sign of the Times and James Brown Live at the Apollo; people in the know have also been raving about Paul's Boutique, Use Your Illusion, Low, and Armed Forces.

I also have it on good authority that Songs in the Key of Life is absolutely craptacular and hands-down the very worst of the series.

69 Love Songs has a crossword puzzle. I think that's all you need to know.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

were i to do one it might possibly include SODUKO

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

But you have to leave room for PUNK ROCK KITTENS!

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

I liked the one on Neutral Milk Hotel. It's true.

[raw-patrick.livejournal.com]

Wolk Live at the Apollo as good as everyone sez, MC5 very very dull and uninsightful history lesson--much worse than an equivalent Mojo article, Paul's Boutique is good on the ramshackle story behind the album (the 1st two-thirds of the book), totally redundant in the final third song 'analysis'.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

Yes, I really liked that one - his research is really impressive too.

[pot80.livejournal.com]

Oh good I just bought Songs In The Key Of Life this afternoon.

I'll keep you all informed.

[koganbot]

I've never even seen let alone read anything in the series (this shows which part of Barnes & Noble I don't frequent). Based on convos I had with Eric at the time of Use Your Illusion, I'd expect it to be as good as everyone says. skyecaptain suggested - a good thirty-six hours before the deadline - that I pitch Autobiography or Raw Power or New York Dolls. I figure that the last two I've already done, in effect (could just as easily have given Real Punks Don't Wear Black the title Raw Power vs. New York Dolls (if you accept the premise that the Sex-O-Lettes and Debbie Deb are as truly the Dolls and the Stooges as the Dolls and Stooges are; and so is Bob Dylan, and my friends Maureen Nolan and Tina LaConte). As for Autobiography, I wouldn't want to concentrate on SNL and the sneering but rather on the whipcrack kid who stepped out and declared "I walked a thousand miles while everyone was asleep," but I don't think I could make a full book on that. OK, that's nonsense. I could write a full book about my toenail, if I envisaged the right readers. Which is the real issue: I'm afraid that my prose will go dead in the face of the "general reader," which is what happened in my first attempt at a book back in 1986 (called Raw Power, by the way). The "justifying Ashlee to the clods" aspect will enter unbidden, to the detriment of the prose. And so will dutifulness, including my not permitting myself the usual "Well, I have no clue who actually wrote these lyrics, but if Ashlee's name is in the credits only as a courtesy, how come the lyrics on her albums are way smarter and more complex and restless and probing than the lyrics on anything else Shanks and DioGuardi and Peiken have had a hand in?" Which means I'd have to get in touch with some of the principals, and I'm basically too shy to, and even if I weren't, I suspect that getting near Ashlee would take a team experienced in international negotiation, and that, while John Shanks and Kara DioGuardi might be happy to have their labor feted at book-length, they're awfully busy, and I doubt that they hang around Denver much, and - as I said - I'm fundamentally too shy. However, a book might do something that no amount of posts and articles will: turn around the critical understanding of Ashlee (and of modern music). So I feel guilty and like I've let her down. Oh well. Maybe UGA Press would be interested in something, but I'd also need a grant from somewhere to pay bills and rent (I need this anyway) while writing the thing.

[koganbot]

Could have subtitled the book Rescuing Dylan From The Shitheads, making the argument that Dylan was the Ashlee Simpson of his day (which isn't really true, but it's a good place to start [I've also compared Eminem and Jay-Z to Ashlee, but the only one people remember is Dylan - what's that about?]).

[koganbot]

By the way, the best track on the new John Waite album is his cover of "Highway 61 Revisited" (way better than his and Alison Krauss's tepid attempt at revisiting "Missing You," though the latter's on the country charts even as I type); it's a full scale Chess blues reimagining of the song, as grimey and forceful and funny as a Muddy Waters track, but of course w/ Dylan's collage-and-paste comic lyrics, sung by Waite with no attempt to sound the least bit Chicago but instead using the same '80s high-pitched hair-rockpop delivery he'd used back in his '80s high-pitched hair-rockpop days. So it's impassioned and ingratiating while having that grinding blues underneath.

[koganbot]

Meant to say "collage-and-paste comic terror words." Should be more careful when I collage and paste my posts.

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

I have just ordered the Magnetic Fields one so we'll see. I nearly bought the one on 'Meat is Murder' for my Morrissey-loving friend, but it turned out to be fiction! Dear oh dear.

[pot80.livejournal.com]

The 69 Love Songs book is very cute and fun, but not super substantial. It's a good one though.