Short books about albums. Published by Bloomsbury
Read posts related to rock music and the best-loved artists in the genre.
Next month we’re adding two new books to our Genre series: ’70s Teen Pop and Krautrock. If you’re not yet familiar with this series, think of Genre as your guide through musical sub-genres that have intrigued, perplexed, or provoked listeners. Much like the original 33 1/3 series, each book offers new perspectives, song recommendations, little-known tidbits, personal stories, and above all, ways of thinking about music.
Welcome to our latest author Q&A, where we chat to the writers behind new and upcoming 33 1/3 books! Today we’re taking a look back at one of our early releases, John Dougan’s The Who’s The Who Sell Out. John talks to us about the ‘neglected masterpiece’ that is The Who Sell Out and the interesting stories behind how the record was made.
Glastonbury has finally returned to Worthy Farm! To get you in the mood for the one of the most iconic music festivals in the world, we’ve put together a list of books inspired by legendary Glasto performances.
Got a favorite Glastonbury performances? Let us know in the comments!
Eric Wolfson on the contested history of “The Memphis Boys” Elvis Presley recorded From Elvis in Memphis at one of the most unheralded sites in rock and roll history, American Sound Studio. The studio was founded by a maverick guitarist/songwriter/producer named Lincoln “Chips” Moman (his nickname came from a love for gambling), who helped launch Stax Records, scouted its now-famous location, and produced its first hit (Carla Thomas’s “Gee Whiz” in 1960), before splitting because he felt like getting ripped off by the studio’s founders. Chips formed his own studio,…
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…
Ray Padgett, a leading expert on cover songs, on his 33 1/3 about Leonard Cohen and the power of the tribute album Bob Dylan got me into cover songs. But it wasn’t one of the million covers of his own songs that did it, nor was it a cover he performed himself. It was a cover he DJ’d. For a few years in the 2000s, Dylan hosted an XM Radio show called Theme Time Radio Hour. In one of the first episodes, he played a version of the George Gershwin…
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…
Matthew Restall, author of Elton John’s Blue Moves, on the many contradictions of Elton John. Contradictions are at the heart of rock and pop music. Its genres and its culture are laced with paradoxes. The personality, career, and music of Elton John are no exception. Here are a trio of such contradictions that particularly fascinate me and are reflected in my Blue Moves book. 1. Name changing is an experiment in alchemy. The intention is for the new persona to replace, even erase, the old. For Reginald Kenneth Dwight, it…
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…
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…