A semi-cross forum topic

Bio's, scientific stuff, fiction etc. Name it.

Mine's limited to:
Rob Sheffield - Love is a Mix Tape
Lemmy's bio - White Line Fever
Gorillaz - Rise of the Ogre
Daniel Levitin - This is Your Brain on Music

I know there's more, but I can't think of them at the moment.

Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Save My Life
by Peter Sellers

Wonderfully funny and chuck full of indie in-jokes.

Just picked up Motley Crue's "The Dirt" yesterday. Completely debauched but highly entertaining.

Also:

Rip it up and Start Again (Post Punk Scene) - Simon Reynolds

Revolution in the Head (The Beatles) - Ian Macdonald

The Smiths: Songs that Saved Your Life - Simon Goddard

If you are a jazz fan, I would definitely recommend Ashley Kahn's A Love Supreme: The Making of John Coltrane's Signature Album.

Chuck Klosterman's pretty entertaining.

"Killing Yourself To Live" was pretty good, but had some tangents.

I'm about to start reading "Fargo Rock City."

quote:

Originally posted by cuneyt81:
Chuck Klosterman's pretty entertaining.

"Killing Yourself To Live" was pretty good, but had some tangents.

I'm about to start reading "Fargo Rock City."

Check out the book that is a collection of his best/favorite articles, interviews, etc that he has written as a journalist. I believe it's titled Chuck Klosterman X. I very much enjoy Klosterman's writing, and he can be rather insightful.

Does anybody here read those 33 1/3 books, where a writer spends an entire book talking about an album? There are some pretty good ones - I much more enjoy ones that have an arguable (see also: scholarly) thesis to them. The Ok Computer and Born in the USA ones are pretty damn good, seeing as they don't simply spend 100 pages talking about how much the author loves the album (the one for In The Aeroplane Over The Sea really was too much beating off for me to handle). but (and this is not a joke) Carl Wilson's book on Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the Edge of Taste is incredible and an absolute must read for anybody who takes listening to music seriously in any manner. HIGHLY recommended.

Also extremely great to read is Susan McClary's Feminine Endings, where the esteemed musicologist simply opens up the complete discussion on feminism, gender, and sexuality in music from Bach to Madonna. For any budding musicologists out there or people who are interested in hearing music and discussing it in an entirely new way, this is a great read.

quote:

Originally posted by orion70:
A semi-cross forum topic

Bio's, scientific stuff, fiction etc. Name it.

Mine's limited to:
Rob Sheffield - Love is a Mix Tape
Lemmy's bio - White Line Fever
Gorillaz - Rise of the Ogre
Daniel Levitin - This is Your Brain on Music

I know there's more, but I can't think of them at the moment.

Great topic, btw.

I must admit I've read my fair share of artist biographies (Beatles, Springsteen, Zeppelin, amongst others), and I too LOVED Rob Sheffield's book. I hear he is working on a new one tentatively titled Talking With Girls About Duran Duran, which ought to be a hoot as well. He is an extremely humorous writer, and I love his writing style.

And the Levitin book is amazing. Science and music are two passions of mine, and it's great to see the art of science and the science of art melded into one amazing read. I'd also recommend the book Musicophelia by Oliver Sacks.

quote:

Originally posted by crob3888:

quote:

Originally posted by orion70:
A semi-cross forum topic

Bio's, scientific stuff, fiction etc. Name it.

Mine's limited to:
Rob Sheffield - Love is a Mix Tape
Lemmy's bio - White Line Fever
Gorillaz - Rise of the Ogre
Daniel Levitin - This is Your Brain on Music

I know there's more, but I can't think of them at the moment.

Great topic, btw.

I must admit I've read my fair share of artist biographies (Beatles, Springsteen, Zeppelin, amongst others), and I too LOVED Rob Sheffield's book. I hear he is working on a new one tentatively titled Talking With Girls About Duran Duran, which ought to be a hoot as well. He is an extremely humorous writer, and I love his writing style.

And the Levitin book is amazing. Science and music are two passions of mine, and it's great to see the art of science and the science of art melded into one amazing read. I'd also recommend the book Musicophelia by Oliver Sacks.

Thanks for the recommends, i'll check those out. I've heard of the Musicophelia book through others. Because of Levitin, and a prior interrupted history of music study, i'm looking into returning to university for a music minor, just for fun. Have already got the Psych. degree, and wished i'd thought of this at the time.

re: Sheffield's book, I agree, I loved that one so much. I love the whole mixtape thing anyway, but this little book was SO good. I had simply happened upon it one day at the bookstore, it had been left on the wrong shelf by someone. Their loss !!!

quote:

Originally posted by crob3888:
Does anybody here read those 33 1/3 books, where a writer spends an entire book talking about an album?

I picked up a copy of the Achtung Baby
book earlier this year... sometimes it's a little heavy-handed in its interpretation of the album, but still a really enjoyable read. i want to pick up a few more of them, but i've only been able to find volumes that feature albums i haven't listened to yet - i think Pink Flag and 20 Jazz Funk Greats are the ones i've seen at the campus bookstore. a bloody great idea though, i definitely plan on getting some more.

quote:

Originally posted by golden flea:

quote:

Originally posted by crob3888:
Does anybody here read those 33 1/3 books, where a writer spends an entire book talking about an album?

I picked up a copy of the Achtung Baby
book earlier this year... sometimes it's a little heavy-handed in its interpretation of the album, but still a really enjoyable read. i want to pick up a few more of them, but i've only been able to find volumes that feature albums i haven't listened to yet - i think Pink Flag and 20 Jazz Funk Greats are the ones i've seen at the campus bookstore. a bloody great idea though, i definitely plan on getting some more.

When I went to Coachella, they had an entire box full of them. It was how I got introduced to the series.

Since then, I just head to Barnes & Noble or Borders and order the book I want through them, since they are so rare. You can probably order them online and have them delivered, as well. They serve as a good introduction to new albums (I never listened to Loveless until I read the 33 1/3 that accompanied it) and they also serve as a good book for longtime/hardcore fans to dive back in to their favorite album and hopefully grapple with important questions about how the art is actually functioning.

quote:

Originally posted by crob3888:

And the Levitin book (Your Brain On Music) is amazing. Science and music are two passions of mine, and it's great to see the art of science and the science of art melded into one amazing read.

I totally agree. This is a must read for anyone that wants to take their musical education deeper than just musical theory, and musical history. Revealing the science of music and how complicated it is is awesome.

quote:

Originally posted by Shadrach:

quote:

Originally posted by crob3888:

And the Levitin book (Your Brain On Music) is amazing. Science and music are two passions of mine, and it's great to see the art of science and the science of art melded into one amazing read.

I totally agree. This is a must read for anyone that wants to take their musical education deeper than just musical theory, and musical history. Revealing the science of music and how complicated it is is awesome.

Absolutely - it's always been known that theory was always an "after-the-fact" sort of thing anyways; if a theory can't explain something then it's a problem with the theory and not the music. The science of the mind seems to be far more enlightening in understanding why music has the effects on us that it does. In a way, I've felt that this book was always a great way of enlightening oneself to understanding just how important the LISTENER is when listening to music; that is, that subjectivity always wins out.

Picked up a book today that may interest some of the Radiohead fanatics and philosopher's/intellects amongst us here. It came out sometime this year and was written post-In Rainbows, so it's certainly relevant and references their entire musical discography.

The book is Radiohead and Philosophy, which I'm hoping will be a good read.

If anybody has read it, I'd love to hear your thoughts and go through some sort of discussion about it; I'm sure there's plenty to talk about and discuss in extreme depth.

For anybody interested, here's a link.

quote:

Originally posted by crob3888:
The book is Radiohead and Philosophy, which I'm hoping will be a good read.

This sounds like a really interesting book! I teach a couple of Introduction to Philosophy classes at a local university and I would love to include an essay from this for my students. The only problem is that most of my students listen to country or classic rock, and I'm guessing most of them don't even know who Radiohead is.

I tried doing an activity with Bob Dylan lyrics last semester, but only one student had ever listened to him before, and he didn't like him! So depressing.

I think I'll pick up the book soon, though.

Been reading (and liking) It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music by Pitchfork writer/Paste editor (I wonder which one elicits more groans?) Amanda Petrusich.

Reading Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad.

quote:

Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Save My Life
by Peter Sellers

This was a good read, though a little too much GBV fanboy love (still, it was cool that he got to hang with his hero, Robert Pollard).

I own....
The Smiths: Songs that Saved Your Life

The Making Of Pet Sounds

The story of SMiLE

The Last Party: Britpop, Blair and the Demise of English Rock

Anthology-The Beatles

Morrissey:Scandal and Passion

Queen: As it began

Radiohead: The definitive guide