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Reviewed by:
  • ABBA Gold, and: Electric Ladyland, and: Sign ‘O’ the Times, and: The Velvet Underground and Nico, and: Unknown Pleasures
  • Steve Weiss
ABBA Gold. By Elisabeth Vincentelli. New York: Continuum, 2004. (33 1/3.) [131 p. ISBN 0826415466. $9.95.]
Electric Ladyland. By John Perry. New York: Continuum, 2004. (33 1/3.) [132 p. ISBN 0826415717. $9.95.]
Sign ‘O’ the Times. By Michaelangelo Matos. New York: Continuum, 2004. (33 1/3.) [121 p. ISBN 0826415474. $9.95.]
The Velvet Underground and Nico. By Joe Harvard. New York: Continuum, 2004. (33 1/3.) [152 p. ISBN 0826415504. $9.95.]
Unknown Pleasures. By Chris Ott. New York: Continuum, 2004. (33 1/3.) [xvi, 117 p. ISBN 0826415490. $9.95.]

Continuum's 33 1/3 series is a collection of short books dedicated to rock's essential albums. The canon of rock music is a slowly evolving list perpetuated by magazines like Rolling Stone and MOJO, books like Dave Marsh and Kevin Stein's The Book of Rock Lists (New York: Dell, 1981), classic rock radio station playlists and countdown programs on music channel VH1. Author Nick Hornby humorously captured the personal implications of this musically obsessive pastime in his novel and the movie High Fidelty.

Books in the 33 1/3 series focus on one album each and are 100 to 150 pages in length. Each author has chosen a record they love from the past forty years to write about. The books are highly personalized, but all follow the same basic structure: part 1 is dedicated to the author's personal connection to the record and why the record is significant in the artist's catalog and in the broader context of rock music history; part 2 documents the making of the record; part 3 is a song-by-song analysis of the album. Authors for the series are musicians and/or writers for notable popular music publications.

Wisely, the series avoids records that have multiple or significant books dedicated to their study, like the Beatles's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or Miles Davis's Kind of Blue. Instead Continuum has chosen mostly under-investigated records ranging from mainstream pop to underground classics. Outside of magazine articles, liner notes, fanzines, and artist biographies, these records are rarely discussed at length. Several books in the series cover records from the last two decades of rock. A sampling of five books from the series were available for review: Abba Gold by Elisabeth Vincentelli, Electric Ladyland by John Perry, Sign 'O' the Times by Michaelangelo Matos, The Velvet Underground and Nico by Joe Harvard, and Unknown Pleasures by Chris Ott.

Elisabeth Vincentelli's meditation on Abba Gold is illuminating. The book is a unique volume in the series since it explores a greatest hits compilation rather than an album proper. Her introductory essay addresses the value of best-of records, the importance of singles vs. albums in propelling musicians' careers and how a posthumous record can reintroduce a group fallen out of favor to a new generation of listeners. Vincentelli takes us into Abba's recording sessions as Benny and Bjorn's songs take shape. In the absence of great lyrics, the author shifts our focus to the music and performances. She describes their music videos vividly and speculates on the personal angst of the two women in the group. Although Vincentelli appreciates Abba without irony, she can't help a good-natured dig at their seventies fashion excess.

In Electric Ladyland, John Perry's argument for the significance of Jimi Hendrix's tour de force fails to translate. Perry gives us a strong sense of Hendrix's creativity set free in a multi-track recording studio but the subject never comes alive. Perry outlines the mounting opportunity and pressures Hendrix faced in his life as the album and his career mounted. The book is frustrating where it bogs down in the required description of Hendrix's unique guitar technique. Particularly during a passage on the use of electronic feedback, one wishes the book were an instructional video in order to fully appreciate the visual and aural experience of Hendrix's performance.

Michaelangelo Matos' Sign of the Times painstakingly...

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