Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Elvis Costello

2. R.E.M.

3. Jeff Buckley

4. DJ Shadow

5. The MC5

6. Bruce Springsteen

7. David Bowie

8. The Band

9. Neutral Milk Hotel

10. Sly and the Family Stone

11. The Pixies

12. Beastie Boys

13. Stone Roses

14. Nirvana

15. Bob Dylan

16. My Bloody Valentine

17. The Who

18. Guided By Voices

19. Sonic Youth

20. Joni Mitchell

Promotional Information

The second compendium of extracts from Continuum's acclaimed and successful 33 1/3 series.

Reviews

This odd, beautiful collection was spawned from an odd and beautiful idea. Come up with a list of 50 classic albums for the last four decades, email it out to a diverse group of writers, musicians, industry wonks, and some people who defy description, and ask them to write a brief book about why they love it. David Barker did just that with his 33 1/3 series. He found the response from writers impressive and popular. The series of books, which can only be described as cute (measuring slightly bigger than a deck of cards and about half as thick), are a mixed bag that run the gamut from eye-opening looks at the essence of an album to pieces that leap the bounds of appreciation and are positively obsessive. This anthology brings together selections from the first 20 volumes of the series. On the whole, 33 1/3 Greatest Hits is an awesome romp. Think of it as a party filled with your smartest and most literate music friends. We all have at least one album we love, for whatever reason—it got you through a bad period of your life, reminds you of the best summer of your life, first time you made love—and when you hear it there comes a flood of feelings with each song. This anthology, these stories, capture that rush of emotions and brilliantly crystallizes the thoughts. Certainly worth a read.
*Playback St. Louis*

You've probably seen the 33 1/3 series at your local bookstore or record shop. They're those great little titles devoted to classic albums like Let It Be, Paul's Boutique and even Trout Mask Replica. This collects some of the best writing within those books. You'll find commentary about R.E.M.'s Murmur, the Pixies' Doolittle, Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation, Nirvana's In Utero, Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea...After you read it, you'll be a hit at the next hipster social gathering.
*POP Candy*

When a musician releases enough albums, it makes perfect sense to put out a Greatest Hits/Best Of career retrospective for those looking to have that output condensed to just the highlights. Although that concept doesn't really lend itself to books, it does make a certain amount of sense for the 33 1/3 series since each book is dedicated to an album, and a sampler could be useful for someone new to the series, which is now more than 50 books deep. The second volume of "hits" collects twenty brief passages on albums as seemingly different as Kick Out The Jams, Paul's Boutique, Loveless and Born In The USA, to name but a few, with the common thread being that each one is widely hailed as a classic. Although the effect of jumping from one story fragment to another every 10-25 pages is jarring, it does give you just enough to help you decide if you want to seek out individual volumes to get the full story on certain albums - and isn't that exactly what any good sampler should do? -
*Losingtoday.com*

Everybody has their own little best-of lists in their heads -- sometimes a jarring mix of records beloved for the most intimate and inexplicable reasons. Each miniature book in the 33 1/3 series devotes itself to unraveling the allure of an album, from Jimi Hendrix's "Electric Ladyland" to Belle & Sebastian's "If You're Feeling Sinister" to Celine Dion's "Let's Talk About Love." The excerpts crammed into 33 1/3 Greatest Hits Vol. 2 , $15.95 (which follows 33 1/3 Greatest Hits Vol. 1 , $14.95), present a dizzying array of passions that should send music lovers poring through their own music collections. -
*Salon.com*

For all of us that were buying records way before back-catalogue compilations and the mp3 came to dominate the music scene, the 33 1/3 series of short books, each dealing with a different LP, make for perfect stocking fillers. Then comes the obligatory Greatest Hits, a digest of some of the best writing from the series. With the release of Volume 2 there is the usual mix of insightful personal experiences and professional encounters with the various artists. From pop to hip-hop, this book is guaranteed to shift Christmas Day away from the turkey and the inevitable re-run of It's a Wondeful Life to a raiding of the record collection at hand. Conversations thus soundtracked and fuelled by the various chapters will try to resolve such affirmations as The Stone Roses "possessing an almost preternatural mastery of the pop paradigm" or how and why (and, indeed, if) the Pixies became "gods in abstentia". A book for all tomorrow's parties—oh, and the album you're now thinking about is number 11 in the series.
*Popmatters.com*

This collection of 20 meditations on single albums (from the Pixies to David Bowie) satisfies the biggest music nerd.
*Metro New York*

Like the first, this second compilation pulls together the best chapters from 20 of the titles and exposes the writers' often radically different approaches, from the near-scientific to the decidedly impressionistic...Despite a strict on-album-per-band rule being observed, it's also refreshing that an artist's most popular record isn't automatically the one placed under scrutiny. Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark is covered, rather than Blue; Nirvana's In Utero rather than Nevermind. It's by occasionally turning the blind eye to cynical commercial instinct, allied to the untrammeled freedom granted to each writer, that's made 33 1/3 such an eccentric and absorbing series.
*Word Magazine*

The 331/3 Series has now dissected more than 50 critically acclaimed albums, each lovingly rendered by detailed journalism, academic critique or Fever Pitch style memoir... it's also refreshing that an artist's most popular record isn't automatically the one placed under scrutiny... It's by turning this occasional blind eye to cynical commercial instinct, allied to the untrammeled freedom granted to each writer, that's made 33 1/3 such an eccentric and absorbing series.
*Word Magazine*

The 33 1/3 of pocket books ... are superb little volumes devoted to classic albums. What unites them is not so much their subject as the standard of the writing and imagination that the authors have brought to their task ... every one I've read has been well worth the attention..
*The Herald (Glasgow)*

Continuum took two things that I love- music writing and books that fit in my back pocket- and put them together to make a series that is my favorite thing ever. I plan to get through all eighty-three books, each of which contains a critical discussion of one classic album.
*Paris Review- 'Staff Picks' Section*

This odd, beautiful collection was spawned from an odd and beautiful idea. Come up with a list of 50 classic albums for the last four decades, email it out to a diverse group of writers, musicians, industry wonks, and some people who defy description, and ask them to write a brief book about why they love it. David Barker did just that with his 33 1/3 series. He found the response from writers impressive and popular. The series of books, which can only be described as cute (measuring slightly bigger than a deck of cards and about half as thick), are a mixed bag that run the gamut from eye-opening looks at the essence of an album to pieces that leap the bounds of appreciation and are positively obsessive. This anthology brings together selections from the first 20 volumes of the series. On the whole, 33 1/3 Greatest Hits is an awesome romp. Think of it as a party filled with your smartest and most literate music friends. We all have at least one album we love, for whatever reason-it got you through a bad period of your life, reminds you of the best summer of your life, first time you made love-and when you hear it there comes a flood of feelings with each song. This anthology, these stories, capture that rush of emotions and brilliantly crystallizes the thoughts. Certainly worth a read. -- Jim Dunn * Playback St. Louis *
You've probably seen the 33 1/3 series at your local bookstore or record shop. They're those great little titles devoted to classic albums like Let It Be, Paul's Boutique and even Trout Mask Replica. This collects some of the best writing within those books. You'll find commentary about R.E.M.'s Murmur, the Pixies' Doolittle, Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation, Nirvana's In Utero, Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea...After you read it, you'll be a hit at the next hipster social gathering. -- Whitney Matheson * POP Candy *
When a musician releases enough albums, it makes perfect sense to put out a Greatest Hits/Best Of career retrospective for those looking to have that output condensed to just the highlights. Although that concept doesn't really lend itself to books, it does make a certain amount of sense for the 33 1/3 series since each book is dedicated to an album, and a sampler could be useful for someone new to the series, which is now more than 50 books deep. The second volume of "hits" collects twenty brief passages on albums as seemingly different as Kick Out The Jams, Paul's Boutique, Loveless and Born In The USA, to name but a few, with the common thread being that each one is widely hailed as a classic. Although the effect of jumping from one story fragment to another every 10-25 pages is jarring, it does give you just enough to help you decide if you want to seek out individual volumes to get the full story on certain albums - and isn't that exactly what any good sampler should do? - * Losingtoday.com *
Everybody has their own little best-of lists in their heads -- sometimes a jarring mix of records beloved for the most intimate and inexplicable reasons. Each miniature book in the 33 1/3 series devotes itself to unraveling the allure of an album, from Jimi Hendrix's "Electric Ladyland" to Belle & Sebastian's "If You're Feeling Sinister" to Celine Dion's "Let's Talk About Love." The excerpts crammed into 33 1/3 Greatest Hits Vol. 2 , $15.95 (which follows 33 1/3 Greatest Hits Vol. 1 , $14.95), present a dizzying array of passions that should send music lovers poring through their own music collections. - * Salon.com *
For all of us that were buying records way before back-catalogue compilations and the mp3 came to dominate the music scene, the 33 1/3 series of short books, each dealing with a different LP, make for perfect stocking fillers. Then comes the obligatory Greatest Hits, a digest of some of the best writing from the series. With the release of Volume 2 there is the usual mix of insightful personal experiences and professional encounters with the various artists. From pop to hip-hop, this book is guaranteed to shift Christmas Day away from the turkey and the inevitable re-run of It's a Wondeful Life to a raiding of the record collection at hand. Conversations thus soundtracked and fuelled by the various chapters will try to resolve such affirmations as The Stone Roses "possessing an almost preternatural mastery of the pop paradigm" or how and why (and, indeed, if) the Pixies became "gods in abstentia". A book for all tomorrow's parties-oh, and the album you're now thinking about is number 11 in the series. -- Raphael Costambeys-Kempzynski * Popmatters.com *
This collection of 20 meditations on single albums (from the Pixies to David Bowie) satisfies the biggest music nerd. -- Allison Williams * Metro New York *
Like the first, this second compilation pulls together the best chapters from 20 of the titles and exposes the writers' often radically different approaches, from the near-scientific to the decidedly impressionistic...Despite a strict on-album-per-band rule being observed, it's also refreshing that an artist's most popular record isn't automatically the one placed under scrutiny. Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark is covered, rather than Blue; Nirvana's In Utero rather than Nevermind. It's by occasionally turning the blind eye to cynical commercial instinct, allied to the untrammeled freedom granted to each writer, that's made 33 1/3 such an eccentric and absorbing series. -- Nige Tassell * Word Magazine *
The 331/3 Series has now dissected more than 50 critically acclaimed albums, each lovingly rendered by detailed journalism, academic critique or Fever Pitch style memoir... it's also refreshing that an artist's most popular record isn't automatically the one placed under scrutiny... It's by turning this occasional blind eye to cynical commercial instinct, allied to the untrammeled freedom granted to each writer, that's made 33 1/3 such an eccentric and absorbing series. * Word Magazine *
The 33 1/3 of pocket books ... are superb little volumes devoted to classic albums. What unites them is not so much their subject as the standard of the writing and imagination that the authors have brought to their task ... every one I've read has been well worth the attention.. -- Keith Bruce * The Herald (Glasgow) *
Continuum took two things that I love- music writing and books that fit in my back pocket- and put them together to make a series that is my favorite thing ever. I plan to get through all eighty-three books, each of which contains a critical discussion of one classic album. * Paris Review- 'Staff Picks' Section *