3 posts tagged “33 1/3”
33 1/3. Again. Thought I was done with these, didn't you?
Recently I hit something of a dry patch with the 33 1/3 books. I read several in a row that, to varying degrees, did not work for me. After thoroughly enjoying volume 20 on The Ramones, I meandered through books on People's Instinctive Travels..., Doolittle, and Unknown Pleasures, finding fault with each, though they all had something to offer (1). This dissatisfying selection culminated with one book in the series that I would not recommend other people read: Pernice's novella based on The Smiths Meat is Murder.
Exercising the full extent of the freedoms allowed the authors in this series, Pernice writes not a non-fiction book about the album itself, but a story -- likely much of it autobiographical, in setting and mood if possibly not as much in historical fact -- of a Boston teen falling in love and coming of age to a soundtrack of the Mozzer and Co. The narrative begins with a completely unnecessary latter-day sequence which gives way to the flashback that comprises the rest of the book. The rest of the book, the actual story being told, does little for me. As a member of what is likely the last generation of pre-internet kids that had to discover new music through friends and trading tapes, I can sympathize with that condition of Pernice's characters, but otherwise the personalities and situations generally just fall flat. Joe Meno's Hairstyles of the Damned is more effective on every level, including when it comes to music. Overall, I found Meat is Murder very disappointing, not least because I feel the Smiths entry in the series has been squandered. I can only hope they'll change their one-book-per-band rule and we'll get another shot at this band in the future.
After all of these let-downs, I was beginning to fret. Could I find another volume in the series to reignite my passion? My answer arrived via UPS the day I finished Meat is Murder. As I've mentioned before, I've eagerly awaited Carl Wilson's exploration of taste and art as examined through the lens of Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love. After reading the first two chapters during the promotional period, my expectations ran very high. I'm pleased to say that Wilson delivered on every front, vaulting neatly over even my highest of bars. Wilson is a skilled writer. His volume in this series shines a harsh light on many of the less polished entries, and future authors would do well to compare the quality of their prose to Wilson's.
The book itself is well-researched, nicely balanced, and very well organized, flowing from topic to topic in a way that makes sense and draws the reader further along the author's journey into aesthetics. The more academic aspects, discussions of the cultural traditions that produced Celine or historical analyses of the origins and meaning of taste, are tempered with Wilson's own experiences of seeing Celine in concert, meeting a variety of her fans, and, eventually, learning how to listen to her music. Never dry or stuffy, Wilson also manages to not become too conversational. Whereas some books in the series read like blog postings, this reads like what it is: a finely crafter work of non-fiction. I'm gushing, but I'm blown away by this book. I can't recommend it highly enough.
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footnote
1) NB: Only one of the dozen or so entries I've read has been a waste of time; at the risk of repeating myself for the thousandth time, this series is really a must-read for people who love music.
current music: Bohren & der Club of Gore "Black Earth"
33 1/3
. Again. Yeah, I know. I'll have something else to write about soon.
One of the most interesting things about the 33 1/3 series is the complete freedom, or at least the appearance of such, the authors are given on how to approach the album in question. Some of the volumes, like Bill Janovitz's exhaustive examination of Exile on Main St., focus quite a bit on the songs themselves or the recording techniques. Others, like Franklin Bruno's dictionary-style look at Armed Forces, focus more on the mis-en-scene, giving us a picture of the world in which the album was created and its subsequent effect on that world. Some are arguments in defense of the album, some explorations of the album's place within or embodiment of a particular culture, and some, like the book I most recently discussed, are simply personal reflections. This makes the series diverse, and frankly, more interesting.
The downside to this, though, is that often the books are unfocused. The volumes that work best are the ones that have a specific purpose. J. Niimi delves into Southern Gothic culture and looks at REM's Murmur in that context, and it works. It works even in the problematic final third of the book, mostly because it is consistent in theme. Niimi looks at REM's history, their song structures, recording techniques for the album, and lyrical reflection, but he does all of that through the Souther Gothic lense. The result is a cohesive, satisfying read. Unfortunately, many of the books fall victim to a lack of purpose. In place of a historical document or a critical examination or an in-depth personal response, we get a sort of shapeless mix of information, and that with no theme to tie it all together. These entries in the series simply don't work as well as the others, even when the writing itself is well crafted.
Such is the case with Chris Ott's book on Joy Division's debut album, Unknown Pleasures. The book seeks to dispel some of the mythology surrounding the legendary band's early days, and in that purpose it succeeds. We're treated to a concise and informative history of the band up to and including the recording and release of Unknown Pleasures. Mixed into that is some exploration of Hannet's production of the album and of how he helped transform the band's sound. This part is most intriguing, but it's a fairly small segment of the whole. I would have liked more on this topic. Where this book fails, though, is that it settles into the inevitable retelling of Ian Curtis's downward spiral and eventual death. This topic is pretty much unavoidable when discussing Joy Division, but the world really doesn't need another recapitulation of this story. With this divergence, the book ceases to be about Unknown Pleasures and becomes just another Joy Division book. While it's well-written and informative, Unknown Pleasures just doesn't deliver enough of a focus on the album itself.
That's it for the 33 1/3 books at least until after Christmas. I am hoping beyong hope that Wilson's book on Celine Dion will be under the tree, but if not, it will be my first post-holiday purchase.
current music: Miles Davis "Sketches of Spain" || current mood: belly hurts
33 1/3. Let me just get this out of the way quickly, because I'll rehash it every time I respond to one of these books. I love this series, even if many of the books are flawed. I really cannot get enough. I gush every time they come up in conversation. Sometimes they are brilliant, and sometimes they're a mess, but any lover of music should at least check them out.
I don't know if my Google-fu skills are lacking tonight or what, but I can't seem to find much information on Shawn Taylor, the author of the 33 1/3 book on A Tribe Called Quest's debut, People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. I've found a blog to which he contributes, but little else. I had hoped to learn a little bit more about him, because where this book fails at examining the album in any satisfying way, it succeeds in generating a small amount of interest about the autho himself. How did he transform from the hyperliterate, straightedge punk trouble maker growing up in New York into the author and social worker currently living in Oakland? That would certainly make for a more interesting read than this tepid, unfocused book that reads like a rough draft.
Taylor starts well enough, giving us some of his background, setting the stage for when he first heard Tribe, and then giving us some general history on Native Tongues. It's not particularly engaging, the writing style being more akin to an informal blog than a normal book, but it gets us headed in the right direction for the next part of the book. Taylor approaches the bulk of the book with the premise that he'll compare how the music affected him in his youth to how it affects him now. To do this, he employs a method he devised when he was a teen, which he calls the three trials.
The three trials is actually a nice concept and is a more defined approach to examining music than anything I've come up with so far. In the first trial, Taylor listens to the album as a whole and discusses it from that broad perspective. In the second, he listens again, exploring each song on its own. Finally, the third trial, a little more out of left field, involves listening to the album in public and seeing how it affects his moods and reactions. The concept is good enough, but the execution here leaves much to be desired.
The first and biggest problem is that Taylor reprints his journal entries from when he conducted the trials on this album when he was seventeen. Like one would imagine, it reads like a seventeen-year-old's journal, it's meandering punctuated by moments of grandiosity. The book would have been much better served by the author using this source material to give us a picture of his reactions at the time, rather than just letting us read it directly. It's curious that the editor didn't see a problem with this. Taylor follows the three teenage trials with three trials from the current day. This would probably be the most interesting part of the book, but the author makes the poor choice to discuss remixes of this album nearly as much as he discusses the songs themselve. The examination of how his feelings on this music have evolved over the years is unsatisfactory, and by the end of this part of the book, I really felt like I had simply read an early draft.
There's certainly potential here, but it is not realized. The unfinished feeling is reinforced by the short, 20 question interview with engineer Bob Power that wraps the book up. Power is a fine interviewee, especially considering the producer and artists refused to speak with the author for the book, but the interview is completely out of place. The book had already established that the point was to discuss Taylor's relationship with this music, which is fine; not every 33 1/3 book needs to be super-technical or historically informative. Though I did learn some things, the bottom line is that it does not deliver on an information level, and it certainly does not deliver on a cathartic level. Luckily, it was a short, quick read.
Next up: Joy Division "Unknown Pleasures"
Current music: Danzig "II" // Current mood: back in the day when I was a teenager...
