Reading Diary: 33 1/3 Edition
I was a little surprised when Freedom of Choice was chosen as the subject of a 33 1/3, since a book about Devo's debut album and early years would probably be the more expected move. But Evie Nagy did a great job of capturing the context of how Freedom of Choice became Devo's only platinum album, how they were at that make-or-break third album point with their label and thought "Girl U Want" was going to be their shot at a hit when "Whip It" sort of took off on its own. I also like getting some close analysis of "Snowball," I think that song's amazing.
I already referenced this book in my Roger Taylor interview for Spin, but it's a great read. I'm sometimes disappointed when a 33 1/3 is about a big hit album but doesn't really delve into all the promotional stuff around the album, so I loved that Annie Zaleski got really detailed about the filming of Duran Duran's music videos and their 12" mixes and how their relationships with MTV and DJs helped break Rio.
Blondie has some undeniably great songs but I think like a lot of people I always found them a little less interesting than the other major bands who launched their careers at CBGB. So this book gave me a new appreciation for Parallel Lines and Blondie as a whole, and made a case for Debbie Harry and Chris Stein's larger artistic ambitions and revealed how far back they both went with the NY scene around the Velvet Underground a decade before Blondie. Sometimes it felt like the book drifted a little far from tying it all back to Parallel Lines, but still some very interesting stuff in there.
I realized that the last three 33 1/3 books I'd read were all kind of about new wave era commercial breakthroughs, so I went looking for something a little different. And since the biggest Bowie head I know, my brother-in-law/bandmate John, is a big champion of Diamond Dogs, I decided to dive into this and try to understand that album better. And I loved how Glenn Hendler sorted out all the literary influences on Diamond Dogs and got into Bowie's obscure TV special The 1980 Floor Show and some really detailed dissections of the performances on the album, it totally opened up some of the songs for me.
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