Short books about albums. Published by Bloomsbury
benevolence are on display in a special wing of life’s museum. The wing is accessible all the year ‘round, but it attracts the most visitors during the season of Yule. There’s a soundtrack that doesn’t feature at the rest of the year—unless you fire up A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector and The Nutcracker in April, as I do—and everything just feels different. Good different.
Kirk Hammett lives according to, what he calls, “curiosity without boundaries.” The lead guitarist of Metallica provides an impressive, but unpretentious reminder that many observers of the heavy metal and hard rock juggernaut might forget: Despite their unlikely mainstream status, after selling more than 125 million records worldwide, Metallica navigates strictly according to their own cartography. On October 1st, I interviewed Kirk Hammett about the Black Album, his philosophy of creativity, and the often misunderstood identity of Metallica.
Whether you’re going all out in your favorite costume, planning a Halloween bash, or just chilling on the couch with a bowl of candy, you still need some spooky tunes to jam out to. Listen now by following our Halloween playlist on Spotify or listen here on our blog. Afterwards, explore our series to learn more about each artist covered in the playlist! Revel in monsters, thrillers, and ghosts🎃
In 2003, Stones Throw Records flew photographer Brian “B+” Cross out to Detroit to snap some promotional photos of J Dilla, who was then working on the Jaylib project. If you follow this sort of thing, you know these photos: the blue and orange ensemble, a pinwheel cap for the Detroit Stars, the city’s Negro League baseball team, cocked on the side of his head. Classic material. In one of these photos, Dilla’s flipping the bins at Car City Records. Now closed, Car City then was an institution in St Clair Shores on Detroit’s East side, just south of Clinton Township, where Dilla was living at the time.
Guest post by Derek Pardue Sobrevivendo no Inferno was a landmark recording and influenced hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Brazilian youth to speak up, to record music and minimally to be engaged with the world around them. After Sobrevivendo, the group recorded several live performances and a couple of more albums, the most recent in 2014, Cores e Valores (Colors and Values). Musically, the production remains faithful to the minimalist approach of Sobrevivendo but with more contemporary sound qualities, including occasional flutters of trap-influenced deep bass lines and…
Guest post by Derek Pardue In my recent book for the 33 1/3 series on the iconic 1997 recording of the rap group Racionais MCs, I mention several places in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. I include little maps for reference, as I weave together short stories inspired by the album and my experience in the city. Clearly, “hell” for Racionais is located in the precarious urban periphery and that “surviving” requires storytelling and making noise. It is also clear that the survival stories spread out across the city…
Guest post by Henry Johnson The Okinawan soundscape is distinct from other parts of Japan in many ways. Blending the sounds of its cultural heritage and popular culture, and often foregrounded within a touristic gaze, urban centres such as Naha and Koza sound Okinawa through live and mediated performance, as well as through much imagery that helps show the importance of music for the prefecture. Okinawa’s characteristic live houses mix food and music to offer an entertainment setting that produces emblematic Okinawan sounds to an audience eager to consume local…
There are many sounds connected with food in Okinawa, just as there are the world over. Whether the sounds are heard during the food preparation process or during consumption, the soundscape of food in its broadest sense does much to connect cuisine and culture.
My 33 and 1/3 book on Use Your Illusion I and II is the only one of my seven books, as author or editor, to have no acknowledgment section. David Barker, who edited the series back then (2006), read the manuscript, accurately predicted that Guns N’ Roses fans would hate it, but said he liked it and we should go ahead and publish the thing. For a good stretch, it was the worst selling title in the series. The conceit, applying Nicholson Baker’s U and I, a book on John Updike that Baker wrote about his half-remembered take on Updike rather than undertaking new research, but here used to create a UYI and I based on my own blurry impressions, all but guaranteed that.
In 2021, Nenez (using their recent romanized name with a “z” instead of a “s”) celebrated their 30th anniversary with the release of the indies album, Gajumaru. Founded in 1991, the group has seen a number of line-up changes, with three of the current quartet joining in 2019. The ever changing line-ups are comparable with groups such as the American all-women trio, The Three Degrees, which dates from 1963 and is a brand that continues to this day. Indeed,
brand Nenez (or Nēnēzu, to use the transliteration of their Okinawan name) has gone through several phases that have transitioned from a world music act of the 1990s to live-house entertainment in their most recent guise.