Reading Diary (33 1/3 Edition)
a) Let It Be, by Colin Meloy
Last year, I said "I do want to read a book on Let It Be by the Replacements, but I don’t know if I can bring myself to buy one written by the guy from the fucking Decemberists." But eventually I did, and I have to say I should've gone with my first instinct. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a crime against humanity, but it definitely fell victim to exactly what you'd fear from a semi-famous non-professional writer taking on this series, a lot of indulgent autobiography without the writing chops to make it work and keep steering it back to the album. However, this is one of those albums that I think bonds together everyone who loves it, and to some degree I did feel affection for the guy's stories about his relationship with the 'Mats, but this is still probably the weakest entry in the series that I've read to date.
b) Armed Forces, by Franklin Bruno
I was pretty excited about this one, since I'd heard good things about the book and there are few records I've pored over more in my life than those '70s Elvis Costello albums. And while this does have a ton of great research and insight, musical and otherwise (the number of time signature changes and half measures and odd rhythmic hiccups in this album that never occurred to me before Bruno pointed them out is mindblowing and reaffirms what an amazing band the Attractions are), it can be kind of tough to read at times. That's mainly because there's no chapters, and the organization is choppy and hard to get into a groove with (an Amazon commenter pointed out that there's an unstated A-to-Z thing going on with the order things appear in, but somehow that knowledge just makes the net result more annoying, that he sacrificed readability for a cheap trick like that).
c) Illmatic, by Matthew Gasteier
I didn't realize this until I searched Amazon for the author's name, but this is by the same guy who did the "F U, Penguin" blog-turned-book. What a bizarre pair of books for one person to publish in the same year. Anyway I mainly bought this out of a general enthusiasm for the rare occasion that a 33 1/3 about a hip hop album gets released, but generally Illmatic is such a great and universally loved album that it's kind of hard to imagine anyone saying anything new or insightful about it at this point, and this book doesn't really knock down that impression (although I'm sure this other recent Illmatic book is a way bigger drag). To give you an idea of just how much Gasteier eventually overthinks everything into total nonsense, here's a sentence about what Nas says on the album intro: "It's conceivable that when he says he doesn't know how to start this shit, the shit he could have been talking about is a revolution, musically and politically."
Last year, I said "I do want to read a book on Let It Be by the Replacements, but I don’t know if I can bring myself to buy one written by the guy from the fucking Decemberists." But eventually I did, and I have to say I should've gone with my first instinct. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a crime against humanity, but it definitely fell victim to exactly what you'd fear from a semi-famous non-professional writer taking on this series, a lot of indulgent autobiography without the writing chops to make it work and keep steering it back to the album. However, this is one of those albums that I think bonds together everyone who loves it, and to some degree I did feel affection for the guy's stories about his relationship with the 'Mats, but this is still probably the weakest entry in the series that I've read to date.
b) Armed Forces, by Franklin Bruno
I was pretty excited about this one, since I'd heard good things about the book and there are few records I've pored over more in my life than those '70s Elvis Costello albums. And while this does have a ton of great research and insight, musical and otherwise (the number of time signature changes and half measures and odd rhythmic hiccups in this album that never occurred to me before Bruno pointed them out is mindblowing and reaffirms what an amazing band the Attractions are), it can be kind of tough to read at times. That's mainly because there's no chapters, and the organization is choppy and hard to get into a groove with (an Amazon commenter pointed out that there's an unstated A-to-Z thing going on with the order things appear in, but somehow that knowledge just makes the net result more annoying, that he sacrificed readability for a cheap trick like that).
c) Illmatic, by Matthew Gasteier
I didn't realize this until I searched Amazon for the author's name, but this is by the same guy who did the "F U, Penguin" blog-turned-book. What a bizarre pair of books for one person to publish in the same year. Anyway I mainly bought this out of a general enthusiasm for the rare occasion that a 33 1/3 about a hip hop album gets released, but generally Illmatic is such a great and universally loved album that it's kind of hard to imagine anyone saying anything new or insightful about it at this point, and this book doesn't really knock down that impression (although I'm sure this other recent Illmatic book is a way bigger drag). To give you an idea of just how much Gasteier eventually overthinks everything into total nonsense, here's a sentence about what Nas says on the album intro: "It's conceivable that when he says he doesn't know how to start this shit, the shit he could have been talking about is a revolution, musically and politically."
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