{"title":"33 1 3","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"dangelos-voodoo-book-faith-a-pennick-9781501336508","title":"D’Angelo’s Voodoo","description":"Voodoo, D'Angelo's much-anticipated 2000 release, set the standard for the musical cycle ordained as \"neo-soul,\" a label the singer and songwriter would reject more than a decade later. The album is a product of heightened emotions and fused sensibilities; an amalgam of soul, rock, jazz, gospel, hip-hop, and Afrobeats. D'Angelo put to music his own pleasures and insecurities as a man-child in the promised land. It was both a tribute to his musical heroes: Prince, Sly Stone, Marvin Gaye, J Dilla...and a deconstruction of rhythm and blues itself.    Despite nearly universal acclaim, the sonic expansiveness of Voodoo proved too nebulous for airplay on many radio stations, seeping outside the accepted lines of commercial R\u0026amp;B music. Voodoo was Black, it was definitely magic, and it was nearly overshadowed by a four-minute music video featuring D'Angelo's sweat-glistened six-pack abs. \"The Video\" created an accentuated moment when the shaman lost control of the spell he cast.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54926740160885,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54926740423029,"sku":"NIN9781501336508","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/1501336509.jpg?v=1736955584"},{"product_id":"black-sabbath-s-master-of-reality-book-john-darnielle-9780826428998","title":"Black Sabbath's Master of Reality","description":"John Darnielle describes Master of Reality through a fictional character, a fifteen-year-old boy being held in an adolescent psychiatric centre in southern California in 1985.John Darnielle describes \"Master of Reality\" in the voice of a fifteen-year-old boy being held in an adolescent psychiatric centre in southern California in 1985. Adolescents in treatment are often required to keep a journal, and they write letters by the dozens: to their parents, to their friends on the outside, to the nurses who confiscate their belongings, to the teachers back at school who've offered them an outlet for their creativity. Our narrator has arrived in treatment with a Walkman and some tapes that are precious to him, only to have them taken away on the ground that their content is part of his greater problem.His various writings, aimed mainly at getting his tapes and Walkman back, will explain how Black Sabbath differs from their Satan-worshipping popular image, and how Master of Reality is an overtly Christian album, which it is. Our narrator will try to explain Black Sabbath like an emissary from an alien race describing his culture to his captors: passionately, patiently, and lovingly. This album has a genuinely remarkable historical status: as a touchstone for the directionless, and as a common coin for young men and women who felt shut out of the broader cultural economy.It'd be hard to overstate Ozzy Osbourne's totemic status among adolescents in the early eighties. His public image, cobbled together by his audience from occasional mainstream press mentions and niche magazine coverage, made him a nearly perfect sponge for the aggressive feelings of frustrated young men around the world. To this audience, who continue to occupy a an enormous if ghostly position on the margins, the early Black Sabbath albums were accepted classics in a genre whose lack of real status only served to indicate its true value.This, for me, is one of the places where the music does its most interesting work: when it becomes a tool in the hands of its listeners, and when the process of explaining it becomes part of its essence. This was never truer than in the mainstream metal subcultures of the eighties, where album titles served as passwords to a more accepting world. \"Master of Reality\", from its Christian heart right down to its ultimately incomprehensible title, is the perfect candidate for illuminating these undersung passageways.\"33 1\/3\" is a series of short books about a wide variety of albums, by artists ranging from James Brown to the Beastie Boys. Launched in September 2003, the series now contains over 50 titles and is acclaimed and loved by fans, musicians and scholars alike.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54978632974709,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54978633302389,"sku":"NIN9780826428998","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826428991.jpg?v=1738841699"},{"product_id":"33-1-3-greatest-hits-volume-1-book-david-barker-9780826419033","title":"33 1\/3 Greatest Hits, Volume 1","description":"The writings in this book are extracted from volumes 1 through 20 of our \"33 1\/3\" series - short books about individual albums. Here, you'll find a wide variety of authors, albums, and approaches to writing about those albums. So sit back, put on your headphones, cue up your favourite songs, and let our writers transport you to a time when: Dusty Springfield headed south to Memphis to record a pop\/soul classic; the Kinks almost fell to pieces, and managed to make their best album while doing so; Joy Division and their mad, brilliant producer created a debut record that still sounds painfully hip today; James Brown mesmerized a sell-out crowd at the Apollo, in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis; the Rolling Stones shacked up in the South of France and emerged with one of the best double-albums ever; and the Ramones distilled punk rock into its purest, most enduring essence.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54978635334005,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54978635628917,"sku":"NIN9780826419033","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826419038.jpg?v=1738841714"},{"product_id":"my-bloody-valentine-s-loveless-book-mike-mcgonigal-9780826415486","title":"My Bloody Valentine's Loveless","description":"This epoch-making record of the late '80s effortlessly combines dense swathes of guitar noise and dance music. This turned out to be their last record, guitarist and studio maestro Kevin Shields having set their standards so high it was impossible to surpass them. Shields is now playing with Primal Scream. Includes the classics Loomer, Soon and To Here Knows When.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54978635366773,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54978635596149,"sku":"NIN9780826415486","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826415482.jpg?v=1738841714"},{"product_id":"joy-division-s-unknown-pleasures-book-chris-ott-9780826415493","title":"Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures","description":"33 1\/3 is a new series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the last 40 years. Focusing on one album rather than an artist's entire output, the books dispense with the standard biographical background that fans know already, and cut to the heart of the music on each album. The authors provide fresh, original perspectives - often through their access to and relationships with the key figures involved in the recording of these albums. By turns obsessive, passionate, creative, and informed, the books in this series demonstrate many different ways of writing about music. (A task which can be, as Elvis Costello famously observed, as tricky as dancing about architecture.) What binds this series together, and what brings it to life, is that all of the authors - musicians, scholars, and writers - are deeply in love with the album they have chosen.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54978638741877,"sku":"NIN9780826415493","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826415490.jpg?v=1738841737"},{"product_id":"nirvana-s-in-utero-book-gillian-g-gaar-9780826417763","title":"Nirvana's In Utero","description":"Though \"Nevermind\" was Nirvana's most commercially successful album, and the record that broke them - and the grunge phenomenon - internationally, \"In Utero\" has increasingly become regarded as the band's best album, both by the critics and the band members themselves. Instead of sticking to the \"grunge pop\" formula that made Nevermind so palatable to the mainstream, Nirvana chose instead to challenge their audience, producing an album that the band's creative force, Kurt Cobain, said truly matched his vision of what he had always wanted his band to sound like. Here, the full story behind the creation of \"In Utero\" is told for the first time.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54978712600949,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54978712797557,"sku":"NIN9780826417763","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826417760.jpg?v=1738842091"},{"product_id":"velvet-underground-s-the-velvet-underground-and-nico-book-joe-harvard-9780826415509","title":"The Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground and Nico","description":"33 1\/3 is a new series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the last 40 years. Focusing on one album rather than an artist's entire output, the books dispense with the standard biographical background that fans know already, and cut to the heart of the music on each album. The authors provide fresh, original perspectives - often through their access to and relationships with the key figures involved in the recording of these albums. By turns obsessive, passionate, creative, and informed, the books in this series demonstrate many different ways of writing about music. (A task which can be, as Elvis Costello famously observed, as tricky as dancing about architecture.) What binds this series together, and what brings it to life, is that all of the authors - musicians, scholars, and writers - are deeply in love with the album they have chosen.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54978713583989,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54978713747829,"sku":"NIN9780826415509","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826415504.jpg?v=1738842098"},{"product_id":"aphex-twin-s-selected-ambient-works-volume-ii-book-marc-weidenbaum-9781623568900","title":"Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II","description":"Extravagantly opaque, willfully vaporous — Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II, released by the estimable British label Warp Records in 1994, rejuvenated ambient music for the Internet Age that was just dawning. In the United States, it was Richard D. James's first full length on Sire Records (home to Madonna and Depeche Mode) under the moniker Aphex Twin; Sire helped usher him in as a major force in music, electronic or otherwise.  Faithful to Brian Eno’s definition of ambient music, Selected Ambient Works Volume II was intentionally functional: it furnished chill out rooms, the sanctuaries amid intense raves. Choreographers and film directors began to employ it to their own ends, and in the intervening decades this background music came to the fore, adapted by classical composers who reverse-engineered its fragile textures for performance on acoustic instruments. Simultaneously, “ambient” has moved from esoteric sound art to central tenet of online culture. This book contends that despite a reputation for being beatless, the album exudes percussive curiosity, providing a sonic metaphor for our technologically mediated era of countless synchronized nanosecond metronomes.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54980829970805,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54980831117685,"sku":"NIN9781623568900","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/1623568900.jpg?v=1738848161"},{"product_id":"nick-drake-s-pink-moon-book-amanda-petrusich-9780826427908","title":"Nick Drake's Pink Moon","description":"The reverse of Nick Drake's headstone, wedged deep into the earth of an English parish church graveyard, reads: \"Now we rise and we are everywhere.\" The words were penned by Drake in 1974: Thirty years later, they are jarringly prophetic. Like nearly all prematurely buried cult figures, Nick Drake is reinvented each time he is rediscovered. In 2000, the sheepish, astral musings of Pink Moon became synonymous with backing a Volkswagen Cabrio convertible away from a raucous house party, as VW boldly sold American drivers on the notion of eschewing red plastic cups and bro-hugs for moonbeams and tree trunks (and a cute German car - sort of).The Cabrio ad inadvertently sparked an unlikely boost in record sales, propelling the album towards platinum status nearly 28 years after its release. But with each well-intentioned revival of interest, Nick Drake slips further and further out of reach, martyred and codified, superceded and consumed by his own tragic context. Since his controversial death in 1974, Nick Drake has been heralded as a 26-year-old prophet, the diffident enigma, the tortured precursor to Kurt Cobain, the fallen hero, the folksinger-as-folksymbol, the self-sacrificing patron saint of lonely, disaffected teenagers - the One who died for our sins.This book explores how a tiny acoustic record has puttered and purred its way into a new millennium. Amanda Petrusich interviews producer Joe Boyd, string arranger Robert Kirby, and even the marketing team behind the VW commercial.\"Thirty-Three and a Third\" is a series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the past 40 years. By turns obsessive, passionate, creative and informed, the books in this series demonstrate many different ways of writing about music.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999206429045,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999206625653,"sku":"NIN9780826427908","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826427901.jpg?v=1738964402"},{"product_id":"patti-smith-s-horses-book-philip-shaw-9780826427922","title":"Patti Smith's Horses","description":"Described, variously, as the perfect fusion of poetry and garage band rock and roll (the original concept was \"rock and Rimbaud\"), Horses belongs as much to the world of literary and cultural criticism as it does to the realm of musicology. Thus, while due attention will be given to the record's origins in the nascent New York punk scene, the book's core will be a detailed analysis of Patti Smith's lyrics - the book will approach Horses as a work of performance poetry more than anything else.The book's centrepiece will be a track-by-track breakdown of the original album sequence, together with detailed discussion of outtakes and early recordings. There will be sections that focus on a specific lyrical preoccupation: love, sex, gender, death, dreams, God, metamorphosis, intoxication, apocalypse and transcendence. Philip Shaw demonstrates how Horses transformed the possibilities of both poetry and rock music; how it achieved nothing less than a complete and systematic derangement of the senses.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999208526197,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999208722805,"sku":"NIN9780826427922","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826427928.jpg?v=1738964412"},{"product_id":"minutemen-s-double-nickels-on-the-dime-book-michael-t-fournier-9780826427878","title":"The Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime","description":"In recent years, the Minutemen have enjoyed something of a revival, due to both a chapter in Michael Azerrad's book \"Our Band Could Be Your Life\", and a feature length documentary film, \"We Jam Econo\", showcasing the band's legacy. (And having a song serve as the theme for MTV's \"Jackass\" show doesn't hurt, either.) To date, though, the band's actual work hasn't been the subject of much attention - everything has focused on either the interpersonal relationships that made the Minutemen so distinctive or the sudden and tragic death of guitarist\/singer D. Boon. This book shines a light on the band's remarkable music and on this particular album; on their blending of several styles into something that will never be replicated. The Minutemen's body of work is very personal - people who are into this band feel a deep connection with their music and aesthetic. Included are extensive interviews with Mike Watt, the band's bass player, as well as with several artists, musicians, studio owners, and fanzine writers who have been devoted followers of the band for years. The Minutemen redefined what punk rock could be, what punk rock could sound like, and this book will be a fitting tribute to that legacy. (Also, Mike Watt is now working with Kelly Clarkson on her upcoming album, so there should be ongoing interest...)","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999209967989,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999210131829,"sku":"NIN9780826427878","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/B009RKGBGG.jpg?v=1738964424"},{"product_id":"33-1-3-greatest-hits-volume-2-book-david-barker-9780826428769","title":"33 1\/3 Greatest Hits, Volume 2","description":"This second compendium of extracts from Continuum's acclaimed and successful 33 1\/3 series, Volume 2 features twenty sharp, savvy and very different writers' takes on albums by Neutral Milk Hotel, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, David Bowie, the Pixies, the Beastie Boys, Nirvana, REM the Band and many more. It is a perfect gift for the music lover in your life!","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999227269493,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999227531637,"sku":"NIN9780826428769","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826428762.jpg?v=1738964541"},{"product_id":"big-star-s-radio-city-book-bruce-eaton-9780826428981","title":"Big Star's Radio City","description":"This book examines the key ingredients of Radio City's lasting appeal. Virtually anyone who's ever picked up a guitar - whether wood or air - has fantasized about playing onstage alongside his musical hero. Bruce Eaton actually did it. This book is based on the improbable but true story of an ardent fan who got close enough to Alex Chilton, the prime architect of the best power pop album ever made outside of Abbey Road Studios, to see what was on the other side of genius, fame and expectations.Released when ELP and Elton John were plodding from one packed stadium to the next, Radio City was a radical album - influenced by records that were already deemed oldies and yet sounding like a lean electrical jolt from the future. In time, power pop would become an official rock genre and the influence of Radio City would be widely heard through artists like R.E.M., The Replacements, The Bangles and Teenage Fanclub. When they first appeared though, Big Star sounded quite like no other band (including the oft-compared Raspberries and Badfinger).This book examines the unique confluence of circumstances that channeled Alex Chilton's creative energies toward the possibility of commercial success for perhaps the last time. Special attention will be given to the production and sound of the record. Recorded at Ardent Studios on the heels of ZZ Top's mega-hit Tres Hombres, the visceral allure of Radio City has more in common with the Top (and other chart toppers) than many of its devotees would want to admit.\"33 1\/3\" is a series of short books about a wide variety of albums, by artists ranging from James Brown to the Beastie Boys. Launched in September 2003, the series now contains over 50 titles and is acclaimed and loved by fans, musicians and scholars alike.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999234249077,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999234478453,"sku":"NIN9780826428981","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826428983.jpg?v=1738964580"},{"product_id":"elliott-smith-s-xo-book-matthew-lemay-9780826429001","title":"Elliott Smith's XO","description":"This book focuses on the genius of Smith's 1998 debut that remains his defining album. Many albums could be cited to support the claim that great suffering yields great art. Elliott Smith's \"XO\" should not be one of them. Smith's 1998 major label debut defies the 'tortured singer-songwriter' stereotype and takes up this defiance as a central theme. At a time when Smith was being groomed for a particular (and particularly condescending) brand of stardom, he produced a record that eviscerated one of the central assumptions of singer-songwriters: that pain is beautiful. Indeed, \"XO\" insists that romanticizing personal tragedy can only leave you 'deaf and dumb and done'. It backs up this claim with some of the most artful and intelligent music of its day. While these themes permeate \"XO\", the record hardly registers like a thesis statement. The album's title cleverly reflects one of its central concerns - the difference between how we present ourselves and the damage we do through such self-denial. It's simple lyrical phrasing and characteristically hesitant vocal delivery have led many to overlook how mean, witty and incisive XO is. It is the product of an artist who could never quite shake off the stigma of his early work. Matthew LeMay writes an original take on a widely beloved album, steering clear of the sensationalist suicide angles that have dogged most analysis of Elliott Smith's extraordinary work. \"33 1\/3\" is a series of short books about a wide variety of albums, by artists ranging from James Brown to the Beastie Boys. Launched in September 2003, the series now contains over 50 titles and is acclaimed and loved by fans, musicians and scholars alike.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999237853557,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999238148469,"sku":"NIN9780826429001","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826429009.jpg?v=1738964599"},{"product_id":"fleetwood-mac-s-tusk-book-rob-trucks-9780826429025","title":"Fleetwood Mac's Tusk","description":"\"Tusk\", the first record in history to cross the million dollar threshold in production costs, was the Fleetwood Mac's critically acclaimed, commercially disappointing 1979 double album. This book is an in-depth and 'official' look at one of the most unusual albums ever released by a major rock band. After \"Rumours\" became the best-selling single album of all-time, Fleetwood Mac asked Warner Brothers Records to buy them a studio (the label refused, costing both Warner Brothers and the band significant cash in the long run) and then handed the reins to their guitarist and resident perfectionist Lindsey Buckingham, a fusion of factors that led \"Tusk\" to become the first record in history to cross the million dollar threshold in production costs. Blame (or credit) Buckingham's public perception as a punctilious performer and producer on this, the Mac's critically acclaimed, commercially disappointing 1979 double album (it's said that Warner Brothers executives could see their Christmas bonuses flying out the window upon finally hearing \"Tusk's\" first rough cuts). But the 1975 addition of Buckingham and Stevie Nicks undeniably transformed Fleetwood Mac from a barely viable blues-based group into a radio powerhouse. \"Rumours\", the second LP by the Mac reconfiguration of Buckingham, one-time paramour Nicks, drummer Mick Fleetwood, bassist John McVie and his wife and keyboardist Christine, sold more than 20 million copies. But during its creation, relationships within the band broke down - Buckingham split from Nicks, McVie from McVie - leaving the follow-up \"Tusk\" as a bizarre and fractious assemblage held together only by Buckingham's much-documented, Brian Wilson - like obsession. What remains is Fleetwood Mac's \"Apocalypse Now\", their \"White Album\", the epic beginning of their ongoing end, a shotgun blast of musical spray. And, without question, the ballsiest venture in rock history. 'A growing Alexandria of rock criticism' - \"Los Angeles Times, 2008\". 'Ideal for the rock geek who thinks liner notes just aren't enough' - \"Rolling Stone\". For more information on the series and on individual titles in the series, check out our blog.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999238967669,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999239590261,"sku":"NIN9780826429025","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":56491970986357,"sku":"NGR9780826429025","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826429025.jpg?v=1738964606"},{"product_id":"nas-s-illmatic-book-matthew-gasteier-9780826429070","title":"Nas's Illmatic","description":"This title explores a key hip hop album marking the cross over point where the streets and the charts collided. Contradiction the simultaneous existence of two competing realities and larger than life persona are at the core of \"Nas' Illmatic\". Yet Nas' identity - as an inner-city youth, a child of hip hop and a Black American - predicts those philosophical quandaries as much as it does its brazen ambition. The artistic impact of Illmatic was massive. The record finds its place in the greatest transition in hip hop up to that point. Along with the Wu Tang Clan's debut from the previous year, Illmatic put New York back on the map after a long period of West coast, G-funk dominance. Nas also mapped out the laid-back lyrical style that would usher in the modern era of hip hop. \"33 1\/3\" is a series of short books about a wide variety of albums, by artists ranging from James Brown to the Beastie Boys. Launched in September 2003, the series now contains over 50 titles and is acclaimed and loved by fans, musicians and scholars alike.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999244046709,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999244308853,"sku":"NIN9780826429070","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826429076.jpg?v=1738964626"},{"product_id":"slayer-s-reign-in-blood-book-dx-ferris-9780826429094","title":"Slayer's Reign in Blood","description":"D.X. Ferris explores the creation of the most universally respected metal album.Slayer's controversial \"Reign in Blood\" remains the gold standard for extreme heavy metal: a seamless procession of ten blindingly fast songs in just twenty-eight minutes, delivered in furious bursts of instrumental precision, with lyrics so striking that Tori Amos was moved to record a cover. Reign in Blood saw the emerging underground standouts from Huntington Beach team with Rick Rubin - 2007's Grammy-Award winner for producer of the year, then known strictly for creating hip-hop albums with groups such as Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys - to permanently fuse classic rock's technical proficiency, hardcore punk's speed and metal's brute power. Working in a much-maligned genre, guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King emerged as the Lennon and McCartney of speed metal, penning a collection of apocalyptic scenes comparable to the dark work of novelists like Cormac McCarthy and Herman Melville.The album came together though the efforts of a team that would go on to be some of the biggest names in the current music business. Issued on America's premier rap label at the pinnacle of the thrash movement, Reign in Blood sparked a new genre called death metal and continues to serve as a touchstone for metal musicians. The disc marked Slayer's coronation as the kings of thrash and their ongoing twenty-five year streak of vitality places them in the small fraternity of rock's greatest groups. Through interviews with the entire band, Rubin, engineer Andy Wallace, and a who's who of headbangers from three decades, D.X. Ferris explores the creation of the most universally respected metal album.\"33 1\/3\" is a series of short books about a wide variety of albums, by artists ranging from James Brown to the Beastie Boys. Launched in September 2003, the series now contains over 50 titles and is acclaimed and loved by fans, musicians and scholars alike.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999245816181,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999246078325,"sku":"NIN9780826429094","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826429092.jpg?v=1738964634"},{"product_id":"wire-s-pink-flag-book-wilson-neate-9780826429148","title":"Wire's Pink Flag","description":"In this book, Wilson Neate gets beneath the surface of a punk band with a difference. In contrast with many of their punk peers, Wire were enigmatic and cerebral, always keeping a distance from the crowd. Although Pink Flag appeared before the end of 1977, it was already a meta-commentary on the punk scene and was far more revolutionary musically than the rest of the competition. Few punk bands moved beyond pared-down rock 'n' roll and garage rock, football-terrace sing-alongs or shambolic pub rock and, if we're honest, only a handful of punk records hold up today as anything other than increasingly quaint period pieces.While the majority of their peers flogged one idea to death and paid only lip service to punk's Year Zero credo, Wire took a genuinely radical approach, deconstructing song conventions, exploring new possibilities and consistently reinventing their sound. This is a chord. This is another. This is a third. Now form a band, proclaimed the caption to the famous diagram in a UK fanzine in 1976 and countless punk acts embodied that do-it-yourself spirit. Wire, however, showed more interesting ways of doing it once you'd formed that band and they found more compelling uses for those three mythical chords.\"33 1\/3\" is a series of short books about a wide variety of albums, by artists ranging from James Brown to the Beastie Boys. Launched in September 2003, the series now contains over 50 titles and is acclaimed and loved by fans, musicians and scholars alike.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999249256821,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999249584501,"sku":"NIN9780826429148","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":56491829821813,"sku":"NGR9780826429148","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826429149.jpg?v=1738964654"},{"product_id":"pavement-s-wowee-zowee-book-bryan-charles-9780826429575","title":"Pavement's Wowee Zowee","description":"This title presents a compelling examination of the classic \"Pavement\" album, including interviews with all band members and record label staff. Upon its release in 1995, Wowee Zowee confounded a lot of \"Pavement\"'s fans. And yet, over the subsequent years, it's an album that has come to be acclaimed by many as an alternative rock masterpiece. Bryan Charles talks to the people who made the record and those close to them at the time, letting them tell the story of how the record came to be, how they felt about it then and how they feel about it now. Charles pays close attention to Malkmus' growth as a musician and songwriter, both of which are evident everywhere on Wowee Zowee. He demonstrates how Malkmus essentially throws words together on the spot, often while tape is rolling or he's standing on stage, and argues that this shows an extraordinary verbal gift rare enough in the field of literature, to say nothing of rock and roll. 'A growing Alexandria of rock criticism' - \"Los Angeles Times\", 2008. 'This title is ideal for the rock geek who thinks liner notes just aren't enough' - \"Rolling Stone\". 'One of the coolest publishing imprints on the planet' - \"Bookslut\". For more information on the series and on individual titles in the series, check out our blog.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999263019381,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999263215989,"sku":"NIN9780826429575","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826429572.jpg?v=1738964731"},{"product_id":"ween-s-chocolate-and-cheese-book-hank-shteamer-9780826431172","title":"Ween's Chocolate and Cheese","description":"This is an in-depth study of a pivotal moment in Ween's development, as they became one of the world's most endearing, and enduring, cult bands. In 1993, the scruffy, pointedly silly Pennsylvania duo Ween appeared to be just another alt-rock also-ran enjoying its five minutes of post-Nirvana MTV fame. But currently the band presides over one of pop music's most devoted cult fan bases, complete with feverish bootlegging, copious online message boards, a string of Billboard 200 albums and sold-out three-hour-plus shows nationwide. How did such a seemingly frivolous project evolve into a genuine American institution? The answer might lie in 1994's Chocolate and Cheese. The album marked the first time Ween set aside its low-budget home-recording style in favor of entering a bona fide studio. Sporting a lusher sound though still retaining the insular oddness that had made the band's early work so charming, Chocolate and Cheese reassured die-hard fans and started Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo on their way to becoming posthippie folk heroes. Hank Shteamer speaks to the band, producer Andrew Weiss and many others in an attempt to figure out how Ween turned its grassroots goofiness into something that leftfield-pop enthusiasts everywhere could appreciate. \"33 1\/3\" is a series of short books about a wide variety of albums, by artists ranging from James Brown to the Beastie Boys. Launched in September 2003, the series now contains over 60 titles and is acclaimed and loved by fans, musicians and scholars alike. It was only a matter of time before a clever publisher realized that there is an audience for whom \"Exile on Main Street\" or \"Electric Ladyland\" are as significant and worthy of study as \"The Catcher in the Rye\" or \"Middlemarch...The\" series, which now comprises 29 titles with more in the works, is freewheeling and eclectic, ranging from minute rock-geek analysis to idiosyncratic personal celebration - \"The New York Times Book Review\", 2006. This is a brilliant series...each one a word of real love - NME (UK). For more information on the series and on individual titles in the series, check out our blog.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999291691381,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999291986293,"sku":"NIN9780826431172","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826431178.jpg?v=1738964868"},{"product_id":"dusty-springfield-s-dusty-in-memphis-book-warren-zanes-9780826414922","title":"Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis","description":"Dusty in Memphis, Dusty Springfield's beautiful and bizarre magnum opus, remains as fine a hybrid of pop and rhythm and blues as has ever been made. In this remarkable book, Warren Zanes explores his own love affair with the record. He digs deep into the album's Memphis roots and talks to several of the key characters who were involved in its creation, many of whom were - like Zanes - outsiders drawn to the American South and mesmerized by its hold over the imagination.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999510679925,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999510843765,"sku":"NIN9780826414922","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826414923.jpg?v=1738966069"},{"product_id":"love-s-forever-changes-book-andrew-hultkrans-9780826414939","title":"Love's Forever Changes","description":"This title is one of a series of books which focus on epic albums of our time. Here, Andrew Hultkrans looks at Love's album \"Forever Changes\".","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999512809845,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999513071989,"sku":"NIN9780826414939","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826414931.jpg?v=1738966083"},{"product_id":"smiths-meat-is-murder-book-joe-pernice-9780826414946","title":"The Smiths' Meat is Murder","description":"A Catholic high school near Boston in 1985. A time of suicides, gymnasium humiliations, smoking for beginners, asthma attacks, and incendiary teenage infatuations. Infatuations with a girl (Allison), with a band (The Smiths) and with an album, Meat is Murder, that was so raw, so vivid and so melodic that you could cling to it like a lifeboat in a storm.  In this brilliant novella Joe Pernice tells the story of an asthmatic kid's discovery of Meat is Murder.   Here is a short exceropt:   One morning as I was jogging my way past the bronze plaque commemorating the deaths of one student and one motorcyclist, my necktie flapping like a windsock, Ray floored the brake pedal of his Dodge as he closed in on me. Fifty mile an hour traffic came to a screeching, nearly murderous halt behind him. He leaned over and rolled down the passenger side window in one fluid motion. He dispensed with formalities while I marveled at the audacity of his driving and, tossing something at me, winked and said, \"Here. I'm going to kill myself.\" He pegged the gas, leaving a surprisingly good patch of rubber for such a shitty car. In the gutter, sugared with sand put down during the winter's last snow, I saw written in red felt ink on masking tape stuck to a smoky-clear cassette: \"Smiths: Meat.\"","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999514349941,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999514579317,"sku":"NIN9780826414946","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/B09L785QQ2.jpg?v=1738966094"},{"product_id":"neil-young-s-harvest-book-sam-inglis-9780826414953","title":"Neil Young's Harvest","description":"Neil Young's Harvest is one of those strange albums that has achieved lasting success without ever winning the full approval of rock critics or hardcore fans. Even Young himself has been equivocal, describing it in one breath as his \"finest\" album, dismissing it in the next as an MOR aberration. Here, Sam Inglis explores the circumstances of the album's creation and asks who got it right: the critics, or the millions who have bought Harvest in the 30 years since its release?      Excerpt The White Falcon's split pickup might have been just a gimmick from the early days of stereo, but the way Neil Young uses it on ‘Alabama' is remarkable. His muted picking brings stabbing notes first from one speaker, then the other, as though we were hearing not one but two guitarists, playing with an unnatural empathy. The electric guitar has seldom sounded so menacing, and Young's growling rhythm and piercing lead notes are tracked perfectly by Kenny Buttrey's bare-bones drumming. The build to the chorus is beautifully judged, and when Young and his celebrity backing singers let rip, there's an almost physical sense of release.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999516348789,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999516643701,"sku":"NIN9780826414953","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":56496696164725,"sku":"NGR9780826414953","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826414958.jpg?v=1738966105"},{"product_id":"prince-s-sign-o-the-times-book-michaelangelo-matos-9780826415479","title":"Prince's Sign 'O' the Times","description":"33 1\/3 is a new series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the last 40 years. Focusing on one album rather than an artist's entire output, the books dispense with the standard biographical background that fans know already, and cut to the heart of the music on each album. The authors provide fresh, original perspectives - often through their access to and relationships with the key figures involved in the recording of these albums. By turns obsessive, passionate, creative, and informed, the books in this series demonstrate many different ways of writing about music. (A task which can be, as Elvis Costello famously observed, as tricky as dancing about architecture.) What binds this series together, and what brings it to life, is that all of the authors - musicians, scholars, and writers - are deeply in love with the album they have chosen.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999526310261,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999526506869,"sku":"NIN9780826415479","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826415474.jpg?v=1738966166"},{"product_id":"jimi-hendrix-s-electric-ladyland-book-john-perry-9780826415714","title":"Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland","description":"33 1\/3 is a new series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the last 40 years. Focusing on one album rather than an artist's entire output, the books dispense with the standard biographical background that fans know already, and cut to the heart of the music on each album. The authors provide fresh, original perspectives - often through their access to and relationships with the key figures involved in the recording of these albums. By turns obsessive, passionate, creative, and informed, the books in this series demonstrate many different ways of writing about music. (A task which can be, as Elvis Costello famously observed, as tricky as dancing about architecture.) What binds this series together, and what brings it to life, is that all of the authors - musicians, scholars, and writers - are deeply in love with the album they have chosen.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999532863861,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999533060469,"sku":"NIN9780826415714","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826415717.jpg?v=1738966204"},{"product_id":"james-brown-s-live-at-the-apollo-book-douglas-wolk-9780826415721","title":"James Brown's Live at the Apollo","description":"In this remarkable book, Douglas Wolk recreates the evening of October 24th 1962, at Harlem's Apollo Theatre, an evening at the epicentre of Cold War tensions. An evening when James Brown took the stage to be faced by 1500 screaming fans - fans who thought they might well be dead within a week. Wolk reconstructs, in great detail, what took place (and was recorded) inside the Apollo that night: one of the tightest, most legendary performances ever put down on tape. 33 1\/3 is a series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the last 40 years. Focusing on one album rather than an artist's entire output, the books dispense with the standard biographical background that fans know already, and cut to the heart of the music on each album. The authors provide fresh, original perspectives, often through their access to and relationships with the key figures involved in the recording of these albums. By turns obsessive, passionate, creative, and informed, the books in this series demonstrate many different ways of writing about music. (A task that can be, as Elvis Costello famously observed, as tricky as dancing about architecture.) What binds this series together, and what brings it to life, is that all of the authors - musicians, scholars, and writers - are deeply in love with the album they have chosen. Previous titles in this now well-established series have beaten sales expectations and received excellent review coverage - the third batch is sure to continue this success. More titles follow in the spring of 2005.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999534895477,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999535092085,"sku":"NIN9780826415721","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826415725.jpg?v=1738966213"},{"product_id":"jethro-tull-s-aqualung-book-allan-moore-9780826416193","title":"Jethro Tull's Aqualung","description":"Formed in 1968, Jethro Tull are one of rock's most enduring bands. Their 1971 album Aqualung, with its provocative lyrical content and continuous musical shifts, is widely considered to be one of the most influential records in the progressive rock canon. It's also an album that can handle many different interpretations. Allan Moore, Professor of Music at the University of Surrey, tackles the album on track-by-track basis, picking apart lan Anderson's lyrics and studying the complex structures and arrangements of these memorable songs. 33 1\/3 is a series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the last 40 years. Focusing on one album rather than an artist's entire output, the books dispense with the standard biographical background that fans know already, and cut to the heart of the music on each album. The authors provide fresh, original perspectives, often through their access to and relationships with the key figures involved in the recording of these albums. By turns obsessive, passionate, creative, and informed, the books in this series demonstrate many different ways of writing about music. (A task that can be, as Elvis Costello famously observed, as tricky as dancing about architecture.) What binds this series together, and what brings it to life, is that all of the authors - musicians, scholars, and writers - are deeply in love with the album they have chosen. Previous titles in this now well-established series have beaten sales expectations and received excellent review coverage - the third batch is sure to continue this success. More titles follow in the spring of 2005.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999541285237,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999541481845,"sku":"NIN9780826416193","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826416195.jpg?v=1738966244"},{"product_id":"replacements-let-it-be-book-colin-meloy-9780826416339","title":"The Replacements' Let It Be","description":"One of the defining moments of College Rock in the USA, Let It Be (and the Replacments themselves) had an enormous impact on the lives of the fans who fell under its spell. For Colin Meloy, a daydreaming adolescent in the cultural wilderness of Montana, the album was a lifeline and an inspiration. In this disarming memoir, Meloy lovingly recreates those initial years when music grips you, and never lets go. 33 1\/3 is a series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the last 40 years. Focusing on one album rather than an artist's entire output, the books dispense with the standard biographical background that fans know already, and cut to the heart of the music on each album. The authors provide fresh, original perspectives, often through their access to and relationships with the key figures involved in the recording of these albums. By turns obsessive, passionate, creative, and informed, the books in this series demonstrate many different ways of writing about music. (A task that can be, as Elvis Costello famously observed, as tricky as dancing about architecture.) What binds this series together, and what brings it to life, is that all of the authors - musicians, scholars, and writers - are deeply in love with the album they have chosen. Previous titles in this now well-established series have beaten sales expectations and received excellent review coverage - the third batch is sure to continue this success. More titles follow in the spring of 2005.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999544496501,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999544725877,"sku":"NIN9780826416339","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":56496699801973,"sku":"NGR9780826416339","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/B0092G95HC.jpg?v=1738966261"},{"product_id":"beatles-let-it-be-book-steve-matteo-9780826416346","title":"The Beatles' Let It Be","description":"The recording sessions for Let It Be were actually begun as rehearsals for a proposed return to live stage work for the Beatles, to be inaugurated in a concert at a Roman amphitheatre in Tunisia. Here, Steve Matteo delves deep into the complex history of these recording sessions. He talks to many of the people involved in the recording of these songs, and the accompanying documentary. And he also looks at the Spector-less version of the album released in 2003. 33 1\/3 is a series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the last 40 years. Focusing on one album rather than an artist's entire output, the books dispense with the standard biographical background that fans know already, and cut to the heart of the music on each album. The authors provide fresh, original perspectives, often through their access to and relationships with the key figures involved in the recording of these albums. By turns obsessive, passionate, creative, and informed, the books in this series demonstrate many different ways of writing about music. (A task that can be, as Elvis Costello famously observed, as tricky as dancing about architecture.) What binds this series together, and what brings it to life, is that all of the authors - musicians, scholars, and writers - are deeply in love with the album they have chosen. Previous titles in this now well-established series have beaten sales expectations and received excellent review coverage - the third batch is sure to continue this success. More titles follow in the spring of 2005.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999545741685,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999546003829,"sku":"NIN9780826416346","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0753820978.jpg?v=1738966268"},{"product_id":"jeff-buckley-s-grace-book-daphne-a-brooks-9780826416353","title":"Jeff Buckley's Grace","description":"The power and influence of Grace increases with each passing year. Here, Daphne Brooks traces Jeff Buckley's fascinating musical development through the earliest stages of his career, up to the release of the album. With access to rare archival material, Brooks illustrates Buckley's passion for life and hunger for musical knowledge, and shows just why he was such a crucial figure in the American music scene of the 1990s.  EXCERPT: Jeff Buckley was piecing together a contemporary popular music history for himself that was steeped in the magic of singing.  He was busy hearing how Dylan channeled Billie Holiday in Blonde On Blonde and how Robert Plant was doing his best to sound like Janis Joplin on early Led Zeppelin recordings.  He was thinking about doo-wop and opera and Elton John and working at developing a way to harness the power of the voice...In the process, he was re-defining punk and grunge \"attitude\" itself by rejecting the ambivalent sexual undercurrents of those movements, as well as Led Zeppelin's canonical \"cock rock\" kingdom that he'd grown up adoring.  He was forging a one-man revolution set to the rhythms of New York City and beyond.  And he was on the brink of recording his elegant battle in song for the world to hear.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999546724725,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999546921333,"sku":"NIN9780826416353","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826416357.jpg?v=1738966275"},{"product_id":"radiohead-s-ok-computer-book-dai-griffiths-9780826416636","title":"Radiohead's OK Computer","description":"Seemingly granted 'classic album' status within days of its release in 1997, OK Computer transformed Radiohead from a highly promising rock act into The Most Important Band in the World - a label the band has been burdened by (and has fooled around with) ever since. Through close analysis of each song, Dai Griffiths explores the themes and ideas that have made this album resonate so deeply with its audience - and he argues that OK Computer is one of the most successfully realised CD albums - as opposed to vinyl albums - so far created. 33 1\/3 is a series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the last 40 years. Focusing on one album rather than an artist's entire output, the books dispense with the standard biographical background that fans know already, and cut to the heart of the music on each album. The authors provide fresh, original perspectives, often through their access to and relationships with the key figures involved in the recording of these albums. By turns obsessive, passionate, creative, and informed, the books in this series demonstrate many different ways of writing about music. (A task that can be, as Elvis Costello famously observed, as tricky as dancing about architecture.) What binds this series together, and what brings it to life, is that all of the authors - musicians, scholars, and writers - are deeply in love with the album they have chosen. Previous titles in this now well-established series have beaten sales expectations and received excellent review coverage - the third batch is sure to continue this success. More titles follow in the spring of 2005.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999553376629,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999553573237,"sku":"NIN9780826416636","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":56491796332917,"sku":"NGR9780826416636","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826416632.jpg?v=1738966307"},{"product_id":"r-e-m-s-murmur-book-j-niimi-9780826416728","title":"R.E.M.'s Murmur","description":"R.E.M.'s debut album, released in 1983, was so far removed from the prevailing trends of American popular music that it still sounds miraculous and out of time today. J. Niimi tells the story of the album's genesis - with fascinating input from Don Dixon and Mitch Easter. He also investigates Michael Stipe's hypnotic, mysterious lyrics, and makes the case for Murmur as a work of Southern Gothic art.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999555047797,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999555768693,"sku":"NIN9780826416728","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826416721.jpg?v=1738966317"},{"product_id":"beach-boys-pet-sounds-book-jim-fusilli-9780826416704","title":"The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds","description":"The album that Brian Wilson created in an attempt to outdo the Beatles' Rubber Soul album. Worshipped by music lovers for its harmonies it is also regarded as an early demonstration of how to use the recording studio as an instrument. Brian Wilson has recently been touring the album again, playing it to thousands of devoted fans. It includes classic tracks such as Wouldn't it Be Nice, Don't Talk and God Only Knows.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999557898613,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999558127989,"sku":"NIN9780826416704","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/B09L789DP7.jpg?v=1738966333"},{"product_id":"rolling-stones-exile-on-main-street-book-bill-janovitz-9780826416735","title":"The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street","description":"Tracing the creation of Exile on Main Street from the original songwriting done while touring America through the final editing in Los Angeles, Bill Janovitz explains how an album recorded by a British band in a villa on the French Riviera is pure American rock \u0026amp; roll. Looking at each song individually, Janovitz unveils the innovative recording techniques, personal struggles, and rock \u0026amp; roll mythmaking that culminated in this pivotal album.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999560552821,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999560880501,"sku":"NIN9780826416735","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/082641673X.jpg?v=1738966340"},{"product_id":"led-zeppelin-s-led-zeppelin-iv-book-erik-davis-9780826416582","title":"Led Zeppelin's Led Zeppelin IV","description":"In this wickedly entertaining and thoroughly informed homage to one of rock music's towering pinnacles, Erik Davis investigates the magic—black or otherwise—that surrounds this album. Carefully peeling the layers from each song, Davis reveals their dark and often mystical roots—and leaves the reader to decide whether [FOUR SYMBOLS] is some form of occult induction or just an inspired, brilliantly played rock album.   Excerpt: Stripping Led Zeppelin's famous name off the fourth record was an almost petulant attempt to let their Great Work symbolically stand on its own two feet. But the wordless jacket also lent the album charisma. Fans hunted for hidden meanings, or, in failing to find them, sensed a strange reflection of their own mute refusal to communicate with the outside world. This helped to create one of the supreme paradoxes of rock history: an esoteric megahit, a blockbuster arcanum. Stripped of words and numbers, the album no longer referred to anything but itself: a concrete talisman that drew you into its world, into the frame. All the stopgap titles we throw at the thing are lame: Led Zeppelin IV, [Untitled], Runes, Zoso, Four Symbols.  In an almost Lovecraftian sense, the album was nameless, a thing from beyond, charged with manna. And yet this uncanny fetish was about as easy to buy as a jockstrap.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999561077109,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999561372021,"sku":"NIN9780826416582","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826416586.jpg?v=1738966343"},{"product_id":"david-bowie-s-low-book-hugo-wilcken-9780826416841","title":"David Bowie's Low","description":"\"One day I blew my nose and half my brains came out.\" Los Angeles, 1976. David Bowie is holed up in his Bel-Air mansion, drifting into drug-induced paranoia and confusion. Obsessed with black magic and the Holy Grail, he's built an altar in the living room and keeps his fingernail clippings in the fridge. There are occasional trips out to visit his friend Iggy Pop in a mental institution. His latest album is the cocaine-fuelled \"Station To Station\" (Bowie: \"I know it was recorded in LA because I read it was\"), which welds R\u0026amp;B rhythms to lyrics that mix the occult with a yearning for Europe, after three mad years in the New World. Bowie has long been haunted by the angst-ridden, emotional work of the Die Brucke movement and the Expressionists. Berlin is their spiritual home, and after a chaotic world tour, Bowie adopts this city as his new sanctuary. Immediately he sets to work on \"Low\", his own expressionist mood-piece.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999562125685,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999562813813,"sku":"NIN9780826416841","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826416845.jpg?v=1738966350"},{"product_id":"bruce-springsteen-s-born-in-the-usa-book-geoffrey-himes-9780826416612","title":"Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA","description":"When Bruce Springsteen went back on the road in 1984, he opened every show by shouting out, \"one, two, one, two, three, four,\" followed by the droning synth chords of \"Born in the USA\". Max Weinberg hit his drums with a two-fisted physicality that cut through the swelling chords. With a rolled-up red kerchief around his head and heavy black boots under his faded jeans, Springsteen looked like the character of the song, and from the very first line (\"Born down in a dead man's town\") he sang with the throat-scraping desperation of a man with his back against the wall. When he reached the crucial lines, though, the guitars and bass dropped out and Weinberg switched to just the hi-hat. Springsteen's voice grew a bit more private and reluctant as he sang, \"Nowhere to run. Nowhere to go\". It was as if he weren't sure if this were an admission of defeat or the drawing of a line in the sand. But when the band came crashing back at full strength - building a crescendo that fell apart in the cacophony of Springsteen's and Weinberg's wild soloing, paused and then came together again in the determined, marching riff - it was clear that the singer was ready to make a stand.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999564190069,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999564484981,"sku":"NIN9780826416612","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826416616.jpg?v=1738966360"},{"product_id":"sonic-youth-s-daydream-nation-book-matthew-stearns-9780826417404","title":"Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation","description":"\"Daydream Nation\" is the kind of gorgeous monstrosity (born of extremes, rife with difficulties, and mythic in proportion) that can crush the will of the most resilient, well-intentioned listener if the necessary preparations haven't been made. In this book, Matthew Stearns explores the album from a range of angles, with input from the band members themselves.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999580836213,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999581000053,"sku":"NIN9780826417404","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/082641740X.jpg?v=1738966439"},{"product_id":"beastie-boys-paul-s-boutique-book-dan-leroy-9780826417411","title":"The Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique","description":"Derided as one-hit wonders, estranged from their original producer and record label, and in self-imposed exile in Los Angeles, the Beastie Boys were written off by most observers before even beginning to record their second album - an embarrassing commercial flop that should have ruined the group's career. But not only did \"Paul's Boutique\" eventually transformed the Beasties from a fratboy novelty to hiphop giants, its sample-happy, retro aesthetic changed popular culture forever.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999581819253,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999582048629,"sku":"NIN9780826417411","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826417418.jpg?v=1738966445"},{"product_id":"guided-by-voices-bee-thousand-book-marc-woodworth-9780826417480","title":"Guided By Voices' Bee Thousand","description":"Marc Woodworth's book covers the album's long and unorthodox period of writing, recording, sequencing, and editing. It includes interviews with members of the band, manager Pete Jamison, web-master and GBV historian Rich Turiel and Robert Griffin of Scat Records. At least sixty-five songs were recorded and considered for the album and five distinct concepts were rejected before the band hit upon the records final form. One late version, very nearly released, contained only a few of Bee Thousand's definitive songs. The rest were left out and nearly ended up in the boxes of cassette out-takes cluttering up Robert Pollard's basement. The story of Guided By Voices transformation from an occasional and revolving group of complete unknowns to indie-rock heroes is very much part of the story behind the making of \"Bee Thousand\". In addition to providing a central account of how the record was made, Woodworth devotes another substantial chapter to the album's lyrics. Robert Pollard's lyrics are described by critics, when they're described at all, as a brand of tossed-off surrealism, as if his verbal sensibility is somehow incidental to the songs themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. I want to offer a sustained discussion of Pollard's work as a writer of often sublime, beautiful, and very human lyrics. I won't miss the chance to consider the pleasures of the absurd in this context and, of course, the contributions to \"Bee Thousand\" of Tobin Sprout. The third key section of the book covers aesthetics. Woodworth considers the great appeal of the do-it-yourself nature of \"Bee Thousand\" and reflects on the larger importance of the strain of alternative rock for which this record is a touchstone. The focus is on \"Bee Thousand\", of course, but also includes discussion on the rise of a lo-fi aesthetic and its continuing influence. This chapter would also provide the context for an account of rock that exists because of passion, love, and compulsive need rather than formula, money, and marketing.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999587258741,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999587455349,"sku":"NIN9780826417480","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":56491875795317,"sku":"NGR9780826417480","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826417485.jpg?v=1738966473"},{"product_id":"band-s-music-from-big-pink-book-john-niven-9780826417718","title":"The Band's Music from Big Pink","description":"\"Music From Big Pink\" is a factional novella: a place where fictional characters rub shoulders with real people, and where actual documented events thread their way through the text alongside imagined scenarios. Through the eyes of twenty-three-year-old Greg Keltner, drug dealer, wannabe musician, and hanger-on, we witness the gestation and birth of an album that will go on to cast its spell across forty years. John Niven brings these characters to life with remarkable skill, and the result is an exhilarating, vivid, and powerfully moving book about the highs - and lows - of creating musical history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999592436085,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999592698229,"sku":"NIN9780826417718","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/082641771X.jpg?v=1738966495"},{"product_id":"pixies-doolittle-book-ben-sisario-9780826417749","title":"The Pixies' Doolittle","description":"The Pixies have had a career unlike any other in alternative rock, disappearing as not-quite-the-next-big-things only to become gods in absentia. \"Doolittle\" is their knotty masterpiece, the embodiment of the Pixies' abrasive, exuberant, enigmatic pop. Informed by exclusive interviews with the band, Sisario looks at the making of the album and its place in rock history, and studies its continued influence in light of the Pixies triumphant reunion.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999596564853,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999596892533,"sku":"NIN9780826417749","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/B0092G99TG.jpg?v=1738966512"},{"product_id":"magnetic-fields-69-love-songs-book-ld-beghtol-9780826419255","title":"The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs","description":"This is a fully illustrated oral history of the Magnetic Fields' 1999 triple album, \"69 Love Songs\" - an album that was afforded \"classic\" status by many almost as soon as it was released. LD Beghtol's book is chatty, incestuous, funny, dark, digressive, sexy, maddening, and delightful in equal measures. It documents a vital and influential scene from the inside, involving ukuleles and tears, citations and footnotes, analogue drum machines, floods of cognac, and a family tree, and, oh, a crossword puzzle too. The centre of the book is the secret history of these tuneful, acerbic, and sometimes heartbreaking songs of old love, new love, lost love, punk rock love, gay love, straight love, experimental music love, true love, blue love, and the utter lack of love that fill the album - as told by participants, fans, imitators, naysayers, and others. It also includes studio anecdotes, a glossary, performance notes from the full album shows in New York and London, rare and unpublished images, personal memorabilia, and much much more.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999627694453,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999627923829,"sku":"NIN9780826419255","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":56491873075573,"sku":"NGR9780826419255","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826419259.jpg?v=1738966643"},{"product_id":"tribe-called-quest-s-people-s-instinctive-travels-and-the-paths-of-rhythm-book-shawn-taylor-9780826419231","title":"A Tribe Called Quest's People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm","description":"One of the finest hip-hop albums ever made, A Tribe Called Quest's debut record (featuring stone-cold classics like \"Can I Kick It?\" and \"Bonita Applebum\") took the idea of the boasting hip-hop male and turned it on its head. For many listeners, when this non-traditional, surprisingly feminine album was released, it was like hearing an entirely new form of music. In this book, Shawn Taylor explores the creation of the album as well as the impact it had on him at the time - a 17-year-old high-school geek who was equally into hip-hop, punk, new wave, skateboarding, and Dungeons \u0026amp; Dragons. All of a sudden, with this one album, the world made more sense. He has spent many years investigating this album, from the packaging to the song placement to each and every sample - Shawn Taylor knows this record like he knows his tattoos, and he's finally been able to write a fascinating and highly entertaining book about it.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999629169013,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999629398389,"sku":"NIN9780826419231","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/B09L77P9V2.jpg?v=1738966653"},{"product_id":"guns-n-roses-use-your-illusion-i-and-ii-book-eric-weisbard-9780826419248","title":"Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion I and II","description":"It was the season of the blockbuster. Between August 12 and November 26 1991, a whole slew of acts released albums that were supposed to sell millions of copies in the run-up to Christmas. Metallica, Michael Jackson, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Garth Brooks, MC Hammer, and U2 - all were competing for the attention of the record-buying public at the same time. But perhaps the most attention-seeking act of all was Guns N' Roses. Their albums \"Use Your Illusion I \u0026amp; II\", released on the same day, were both 75-minute sprawlers with practically the same cover design - an act of colossal arrogance. On one level, it worked. The albums claimed the top two chart positions and ultimately sold 7 million copies each in the US alone. On another level, it was a disaster. This was an album that Axl Rose has been unable to follow-up in fifteen years. It signalled the end of \"Guns N' Roses\", of heavy metal on the Sunset Strip and the entire 1980s model of blockbuster pop\/rock promotion. \"Use Your Illusion\" marked the end of rock as mass culture. In this book, Eric Weisbard shows how the album has matured into a work whose baroque excesses now have something to teach us about pop and the platforms it raises and lowers, about a man who suddenly found himself praised to the firmament for every character trait that had hitherto marked him as an irredeemable loser.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999664787829,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999664984437,"sku":"NIN9780826419248","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826419240.jpg?v=1738966807"},{"product_id":"radiohead-s-kid-a-book-marvin-lin-9780826423436","title":"Radiohead's Kid A","description":"This is a brilliant exploration of Radiohead's game-changing album, looking at its place in the career of \"The World's Best Band\" with ten years of hindsight. Radiohead's Kid A never had a chance on paper. Not only did the band have the unenviable task of following up the near-universally lauded \"OK Computer\", but Kid A didn't even have an official single or video. Neither did it help that the band largely abandoned rock-pop conventions for a sound that traversed glitch, free-jazz, modern composition, and krautrock. Rather than simply reinforcing Kid A's canonical status, Marvin Lin situates the album in the temporal, examining it from various philosophical and cultural interpretations of time in order to arrive at its political and social stakes. Why should we care how time is expressed through its aesthetic components like repetition, sampling, and hybridization? Where does the album subvert our sense of time with songs like \"Treefingers\"? In which ways does it attempt to transcend time and with what implications? Time is perhaps art's biggest enemy - all human creations will be erased eventually - but it's through these various articulations that we are able to uncover some of the most interesting insights about Kid A. For more information on the series and on individual titles in the series, check out our blog.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999670423925,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999670653301,"sku":"NIN9780826423436","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826423434.jpg?v=1738966827"},{"product_id":"stevie-wonder-s-songs-in-the-key-of-life-book-zeth-lundy-9780826419262","title":"Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life","description":"Like all double albums, \"Songs in the Key of Life\" is imperfect but audacious. If its titular concern - life - doesn't exactly allow for rigid focus, it's still a fiercely inspired collection of songs and one of the definitive soul records of the 1970s. Stevie Wonder was unable to control the springs of his creativity during that decade. Upon turning 21 in 1971, he freed himself from the Motown contract he'd been saddled with as a child performer, renegotiated the terms, and unleashed hundreds of songs to tape. Over the next five years, Wonder would amass countless recordings and release his five greatest albums - as prolific a golden period as there has ever been in contemporary music. But \"Songs in the Key of Life\" is different from the four albums that preceded it; it's an overstuffed, overjoyed, maddeningly ambitious encapsulation of all the progress Stevie Wonder had made in that short space of time. Zeth Lundy's book, in keeping with the album's themes, is structured as a life cycle. It's divided into the following sections: Birth; Innocence\/Adolescence; Experience\/Adulthood; Death; Rebirth. Within this framework, Zeth Lundy covers Stevie Wonder's excessive work habits and recording methodology, his reliance on synthesizers, the album's place in the gospel-inspired progression of 1970s R'n'B, and many other subjects.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999682711925,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999682941301,"sku":"NIN9780826419262","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826419267.jpg?v=1738966881"},{"product_id":"captain-beefheart-s-trout-mask-replica-book-kevin-courrier-9780826427816","title":"Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica","description":"In the spring of 1969, the inauspicious release of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band's \"Trout Mask Replica\", a double-album featuring 28 stream-of-consciousness songs filled with abstract rhythms and guttural bellows, dramatically altered the pop landscape. Yet, even if the album did cast its radical vision over the future of music, much of the record's artistic strength is actually drawn from the past. This book examines how Beefheart's incomparable opus is informed by a variety of diverse sources. \"Trout Mask Replica\" is a hybrid of the poetic declarations of Walt Whitman and the beat writer Gregory Corso, the field hollers of the Delta Blues legend Charley Patton, the urban blues of Howlin' Wolf, the free jazz of Ornette Coleman and the early Southern Californian R\u0026amp;B sound of Richard Berry and the Coasters. This book illustrates how \"Trout Mask Replica\", far from being an arcane specimen of the avant-garde, was instead a defiantly original declaration of the American imagination.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999705944437,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999706108277,"sku":"NIN9780826427816","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826427812.jpg?v=1738966988"},{"product_id":"steely-dan-s-aja-book-don-breithaupt-9780826427830","title":"Steely Dan's Aja","description":"\"Aja\" was the album that made Steely Dan a commercial force on the order of contemporaries like Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles and Chicago. A double-platinum, Grammy-winning bestseller, it lingered on the Billboard charts for more than a year and spawned three hit singles. Odd, then, that its creators saw it as an \"ambitious, extended\" work, the antithesis of their anti-rock, anti-band, anti-glamour aesthetic. Populated by thirty-five mostly jazz session players, \"Aja\" served up pre-war song forms, mixed meters and extended solos to a generation whose idea of pop daring was Paul letting Linda sing lead once in a while. And, impossibly, it sold. Including an in-depth interview with Donald Fagen, this book paints a detailed picture of the making of a masterpiece.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":54999707550069,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":54999707746677,"sku":"NIN9780826427830","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0810\/6996\/5613\/files\/0826427839.jpg?v=1738966998"}],"url":"https:\/\/stage.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/33-1-3-book-series.oembed?page=6","provider":"World of Books Staging","version":"1.0","type":"link"}