Tag: rock

From Elvis in 33 1/3

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Eric Wolfson on why he wrote about From Elvis in Memphis for the 150th book in our series Until now, Elvis Presley was the single most influential figure in modern popular music who did not yet have a volume in the 33 1/3 series. And at the same time, despite countless books about Elvis’s life, music, influence, movies, lovers, religion, favorite recipes, cars, horses, and scores of other topics, no one has ever written a stand-alone book about one Elvis album. So writing this book felt mutually beneficial to both…

Talking Sides

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Matthew Restall on the four glorious sides of Blue Moves. You may be unlikely to listen to a double album today as exactly that—a set of four sides of vinyl. And there is nothing wrong with streaming it as a single sequence of eighteen tracks (re-sequencing or editing the album is a trickier issue, as I discuss in my Blue Moves book). But it is worth considering why an album from the vinyl era was assembled the way it was—in the case of Blue Moves, by its brilliant producer, Gus…

Video Vault: Prince, “Raspberry Beret”

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ANOTHER POST FOR OUR “THROWBACK THURSDAY” SEGMENT, VIDEO VAULT! ON SELECT THURSDAYS, WE DISCUSS OUR FAVORITE MUSIC VIDEOS THROUGH THE AGES.  For this Throwback Thursday, I thought we’d celebrate the 35th anniversary of Prince’s  Around the World in a Day by revisiting the album’s hit single “Raspberry Beret.” A strangely innocent song for the otherwise scandalous and seductive musician, it came right after the implementation of parental advisory warnings, for which Prince’s song “Darling Nikki” was the cause. The lyrics feature a hat-wearing hipster and her lazy teenage love interest, with…

Woman Crush Wednesday: Tori Amos

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This week’s Woman Crush Wednesday goes to one of our favorite feminist warriors, Tori Amos. The list of reasons why Tori Amos deserves all of our awe and respect is infinitely long, but we will mention a few here. A rock ‘n’ roll legend, Amos has been a musical virtuoso since the age of three, when she taught herself how to play the piano. She was later admitted to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five—the youngest person to ever be admitted. To make her…

It’s Global Beatles Day!

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Steve Matteo, author of The Beatles’ Let It Be, is taking over the blog today to talk about the everlasting influence and wisdom of the band, this album, and the people that he met through writing his 33 1/3… The musical, cultural and historical phenomenon of the Beatles seems to know no bounds. When I began working on my 33 1/3 book on the Let It Be album back in 2002, I didn’t imagine the book would still be so relevant today. The Let It Be album was the last…

The 33 1/3 B-sides Sneak Peek!

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Have you ever wondered, if given another chance to write for 33 1/3, which albums past authors would focus on the second time around? This anthology is the answer. Featuring 55 (yes, 55!) compact essays by past 33 1/3 authors, each chapter is about an album they just can’t seem get out of their heads.  The 33 1/3 B-sides is publishing on September 5th, and we’re so excited! Take a sneak peek at the table of contents below, and let us know what you think. Preface Introduction: Superfluous, Redundant, Enduring…

Tom Petty Week: Day 4 – Petty’s death and what happened next

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In his final blog post of the week, Michael talks about the plans he had to interview Tom Petty, and how his book changed after Petty’s sudden death. I signed the contract to write Southern Accents in November of 2016. In early 2017 I reached out to Petty’s camp to see if he would be willing to meet with me. I waited those couple of months because I wanted to be sure of what I thought about the record. I didn’t want Petty to have an outsize influence on my…

Tom Petty Week: Day 3 – My perfect version of Southern Accents

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Today, in honor of Tom Petty’s Southern Accents‘s publication date, Michael drafts up what he thinks Southern Accents should have looked like… It’s a bit of a parlor game amongst hardcore Heartbreakers fans to talk about the Southern Accents that could have been. Although I think that there would still be some significant problems with the record even if the most potent and powerful sequence of songs had been included, it’s fun to speculate, to try to make one’s own Southern Accents. Which is what I’m going to do here,…

Tom Petty Week: Day 2 – “The Image of Me” and what could have been

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Day 2 of Michael Washburn’s blog takeover! Today, he talks about how the Southern Accents recording sessions “were a bit of a quagmire,” and unravels the riddle of why “The Image of Me” was never included in this album. I mentioned yesterday that Southern Accents is broken backed—it’s almost a couple of different records slammed together. This so puzzling if you look at some of the songs that were cut for the album but then sat aside. For my money many of those songs are better written—and sound better—than many…

Tom Petty Week: Day 1 – Why Southern Accents?

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From today until Friday, Michael Washburn will be taking over our blog. Michael’s new 33 1/3 on Tom Petty’s Southern Accents, will be out on Thursday, April 4th, mark your calendars! In his first blog post of the week, Michael dives into why he chose Southern Accents to write about, and how this bizarre, contentious album came to be such a pivotal turning point in Tom Petty’s musical history. Southern Accents? Really? Not Damn the Torpedoes? Not Wildflowers? That was the typical response when I’d tell people which record I…