Book No. 15: Carl Wilson - Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love

Carl Wilson's 33 1/3 book is unusual in many senses. First, Wilson is not enamored of Celine Dion's album, which is very much unlike the relationship most of the 33 1/3 authors have for their subjects. Second, Wilson is primarily interested in fan reactions: why do so many people love Celine Dion's music while so many critics hate it? Third, Wilson's methodology is aesthetic. He is trying to explain his own reactions to Dion's book through the signifiers it carries for him.

It's not just unusual but astonishing, too. Wilson rises to the occasional admirably, breaking out why Western listeners have their aesthetic reactions, delving into a brief history of aesthetics, constantly challenging not just himself, but his readers, too. As a work of music criticism, it's more like Harry Frankfurt's work of popular philosophy On Bullshit than anything else. I loved it and recommend it to anyone interested in pop culture, not just the music and lit geeks who usually enjoy 33 1/3 books.

Music Library: Andrew Bird, Andrew Hill, Andy Kim, Andy Partridge, Animal Collective

Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha. The best one yet. Thoroughly weird and American and beautiful.

Andrew Bird - "Self-Torture" eMusic single. An outtake from Armchair Apocrypha. Sounds like it.

Andrew Hill - Point Of Departure. Hill's work recalls no one quite as much as Charles Mingus. This is augmented in that all of Hill's sidemen are artists typically associated with Mingus. Except Hill's work is different from Mingus's in a way that I don't have a vocabulary for. Mingus started with Ellington, but Hill is coming at his compositions from another angle, just as resonant. There's very few musicians who could even stand to compare with Mingus, and Hill holds his own.

Andrew Hill - Dusk. This is a late entry in Hill's catalog, but it sounds like the answer to the question of what Mingus would have done if he'd lived longer.

Andy Kim - "Rainbow Ride" and "Tricia, Tell Your Daddy". Bubblegum from a schock-meister. The former is actually fairly rockin', and the latter is lyrically interesting, at least, as Kim asks Tricia Nixon to remind her father that he's everybody's father for now. Groo-vay.

Andy Partridge - "It's Snowing Angels". I really don't like Partridge or XTC. I don't know why they rub me the wrong way. Lots of sharp music geeks dig them, but I don't find them clever or funny or even particularly tuneful. It's a dead space in my ear. I don't like this song.

Animal Collective - Spirit They're Gone Spirit They've Vanished. I love Animal Collective for synthesizing avant-garde compositional works with strange and dark folky songs and an unabashed love of pure pop for fractured people. This is Avey Tare and Panda Bear's first album together and it sounds surprisingly cohesive, considering how weird their journey is to be.

Animal Collective - Danse Manatee. Adding in Deacon and Geologist for the full Animal Collective experience, this album is more offputting than Spirit etc. for its weirder effects and skronkier loops and hooks buried much further than before under blank noise.

Animal Collective - Hollinndagain. Somewhat unfocused early live album. There's some real beauty here, but as many misses as hits.

Next time: More Animal Collective!

Music Library: Amy Rigby, Amy Winehouse, And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, Andrew Bird

More music library stuff. I think I'll be doing this off & on until 2011.

Amy Rigby - Middlescence. I mentioned her wit and exuberance when I wrote about her first album. Those still stand. This one isn't as good as the first one, but it has some great songs on it, "The Summer of My Wasted Youth," foremost.

Amy Rigby - The Sugar Tree. Same as above. The standout tracks (for me) are the clever "Cynically Yours" and the sweet "Sleeping With The Moon." I used to like the song "Balls" a lot, but the punchline ("Wish I could grow a pair") has diminished with time, alas.

Amy Rigby - "Keep It To Yourself" - 18 Again: An Anthology. My wife & I liked this song when we heard it live. For a while, it was only available as a free download on Rigby's site, which is what this mp3 actually is, I think. She released it with the anthology of her first three albums, which was, I presume, an attempt at growing her audience.

Amy Winehouse - Back To Black. Retro R&B. Some pretty good songs. Is there anything else one can say about Amy Winehouse?

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - Worlds Apart. 'Sokay, I guess. Too much bombast, really. Sounds like a lot of other bands, too. Maybe it's not so okay.

Andrew Bird's Bowl Of Fire - The Swimming Hour. This is the earliest Andrew Bird recording I have, but it's clearly a work with one foot in the past and one in the future. I knew Bird's name from his work with the retro-swing enthusiasts Squirrel Nut Zippers (in fact, I recall seeing them with a wild violinist back in the late 90s, and now I wonder if that man was Bird). Bird was about to start creating some truly startling indie-rock, and this album sounds equal parts retro-jazz and future-indie.

Andrew Bird - Weather Systems. Bird apparently moved to rural Illinois to work on this album, and it sounds like an intense leap forward in creativity from The Swimming Hour. Using loops, whistles, minimalist arrangement, and songwriting that is both unique and well-informed by the past, Weather Systems sounds like the demo for all of Bird's future music.

Andrew Bird - The Mysterious Production of Eggs. Utterly brilliant. Bird fractured those same blues, jazz, and avant-garde sources that make Tom Waits' music so vital, and rebuilt them all into little indie-rock symphonies. Each album Bird makes is another way of pushing the now into the future.

I have one more Bird album, so next time: the future is now!

Book No. 14: David Maine - The Book of Samson

David Maine is one of my favorite contemporary authors. I loved The Preservationist, liked Fallen, and really like this one. Samson tells his story in the first person. He doesn't realize (could not realize, even) that to modern ears he comes across as a psychopath and an arrogant lout. To his mind, he is a simple champion for the LORD. Maine's book never directly asks what sort of evil god would have given Samson so much power, but he strongly hints at the question, especially when Meneth, the priest of the Philistine god Dagon, tells him towards the end of his life that no, the Philistines do not plan to celebrate his death by destroying the Israelites. They will simply go back to their farms, glad to be rid of him, a mass murderer free of conscience. But, as you probably remember, the LORD allows Samson to commit mass-murder one last time, despite his foolishness and stated weakness for wine and women. That's an Old Testament champion for you: killer of men, women, children, babies, and animals, filled with the bloodlust of an Old Testament god.

The Book of Samson is not as funny as either The Preservationist or Fallen. It's funny, yes, but it's also angrier. And that's ok. It works with the material.

Maine has another book just out called Monster, 1959 that appears to leave the Bible behind in favor of B-movies. I intend to get around to it as soon as I clear my reading backlog.

Book No. 13: Amanda Petrusich - Nick Drake's Pink Moon

Some of the commenters on Amazon's page have been unkind to this book because Petrusich spends a good chunk of space talking about the VW commercial that spurred Nick Drake's current popularity. I think that's a stupid attitude.

I hadn't been a Nick Drake fan for long when I heard that commercial. Maybe a year, but less, I think. I was in a different room while my wife was watching TV. I heard the opening strains of the song "Pink Moon," and yelled to my wife, "You're playing Nick Drake?" She sounded surprised herself, and said no, it was on a commercial.

I felt a little put-out at first. Drake seemed like such a private pleasure that I felt conflicted about sharing his music with the world via a commercial. But I liked the commercial. I made peace with it.

Drake's story is pretty cut-and-dried at this point. Too young and sensitive for this world. Petrusich found a way to tell it again by gathering stories from Drake's sister and Joe Boyd, who knew him best. She asked a number of fans to submit a few paragraphs about their relationship to Drake's music. And she talked about the commercial, how it opened him up to a brand new audience. Good stuff.

On a personal note, I want to mention that the musicians on Drake's first record are many of the same ones from the album I wrote about, Shoot Out The Lights. Richard Thompson on guitar, Dave Pegg on bass, and David Mattacks on drums. Not always, but sometimes. I also wrote a short section that dealt with September 11, 2001, which Petrusich talks about as a time that she turned to Pink Moon for comfort. And yet our books are quite different. Cool, huh?

Book No. 12: Gilbert Hernandez - Chance In Hell

Reviewing comic books now, apparently. I loved Gilbert Hernandez's dreamy Sloth, another non-Love & Rockets book from last year, and so looked forward to this one quite a bit. But I didn't much care for it. It was about an abandoned child in an uncaring country who grows up to a more stable life, even as she fears being pulled under by her own demons. Sounds promising, yes, especially in the hands of the master who gave us the rich Palomar stories and Love & Rockets X. And yet I never found much to connect to in the story. The main character is so alienating and her circumstances so horrifying that I never wanted to bridge my distance from her. Maybe she had only one chance in hell, as suggested by the title, or maybe, on the other hand, she has no chance at all in life. I'm not sure. And I don't really want to figure it out. Great art, great eye. But cold, cold, cold.

Book No. 11: Mike McGonigal - My Bloody Valentine's Loveless

McGonigal's take on the 33 1/3 form is semi-journalistic, although McGonigal inserts himself in the role of enthusiastic guide. I love this album, but it's by design a mystery of sorts. It's a loud, distorted rock album that is almost ethereal. There's few lyrics on it that seem to make sense, but the songs seem perfect as they are. But I'm afraid I'm running out of new ways to say things about 33 1/3 books. The facts in the book are fascinating, the interviews enlightening, and McGonigal's personal touches are loads of fun. If you're a MBV fan, you should read it. If you're not, you probably won't dig it. If you've never heard MBV, go get the album and the book at the same time and read it while you listen.

Music Library: American Music Club, Amerie, Amon Düül II, Amy Rigby

American Music Club - California. Aw, I love Mark Eitzel's thing. The standout tracks are still, clearly, "Firefly" and "Western Sky," but the whole album is a beautiful slice of sadness pie.

American Music Club - "Western Sky (Live)" from Live At Slim's. This is the only track I have from said album, which was a promo, I think. But yes, I still love that song.

American Music Club - Mercury. Lots more beautiful weird sadness. Not many dynamics.

Amerie - "1 Thing" - From Said The Gramophone. Downloaded from the music blog. I'm not as blown away a they were, but I like it enough to hold on to it.

Amon Düül II - Phallus Dei. Heavy psychedelic krautrock.

Amon Düül II - Yeti. Heavier and more psychedelic krautrock. I have a burning desire to cover "Eye-Shaking King" at some point in my life.

Amy Rigby - Diary of a Mod Housewife. I never listen to this album these days, but if a song pops up on shuffle, it's always a delight. Rigby is a clever songwriter spinning a feminist slant on folky pop music. There's a little too much reliance on Nashville-style bar-bluesy guitar for my tastes, but her wit and exuberance always shine through.

I have two more Amy Rigby albums, so that's where I'll pick up next time.