Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Unknown Pleasures



If you've not already fell in love with them I'd recommend, to anyone with a love of reading about music that goes beyond the latest record company purchased articles that make up the mjority of the music press, Continuum Books' 33 1/3 series. These pocket-sized books which have been published since 2003, and now number 26 in the series, each focus in on a particular album that is the author concerned desert island disc if you like. Featuring a mixture of obvious (Velvet Underground & Nice, OK Computer) and not so obvious (Abba Gold, Jethro Tull Agualung) the series and the quality of writing are so good you'll enjoy the books about albums you would never consider even listening to (Jethro Tull) and want to dig out your copies of albums you have (the majority of the rest).
The books go from in depth studies of the albums concerned to how it played a huge part in their life (Colin Meloy of The Decemberists take on The Replacements 'Let It Be) to a work of fiction linked to the album (Joe Pernice's take on The Smiths 'Meat Is Murder'). Four new titles have just been released including the book on DJ Shadow's 'Entroducing' that I'm looking forward to, and best of all the book on My Bloody Valentine's 'Loveless' is being continually pushed back on the release schedule just like the album itself was. David Barker the editor of the series even has his own blog devoted to the books which you can find the link to below.

The downloads today feature The Aluminum Group covering 'Caroline, No' from the Brian Wilson tribute album 'Caroline Now' to tie in with the book on 'Pet Sounds' and Colin Meloy covering 'Everyday Is Like Sunday' from his big bucks on ebay tour EP of Morrissey covers.



The 33 1/3 blog can be found here and the books themselves should be tucked in amongst the Beatles/Dylan tomes of your local book emporium.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey there, im sorry to bother you, but i noticed you had an mp3 here at one point of colin meloy doing everyday is like sunday, and it doesnt seem to be here now, and id LOVE to hear/have that....is there anyway that you could possible send it to my gmail account? or repost it, or something? i dont mean to be a pain, but that is something i would really love to hear....thank you for your time....

redrosesforme said...

email me at steve@redrosesforme.com and we'll see what we can do