33 1/3 Let it Be (33&1/3)

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly fresh
Review: I ordered this book because I am taking a class in Pop Music. Our instructor asked us to read one book from the 33 1/3 series and to prepare a short presentation on the book. I chose this book on The Replacements "Let It Be" album.

I expected the book to be a schematic on each of the album's tracks. I was happy that the book was small (just slightly over 100 pages), because I didn't feel ready to read a huge tome deconstructing one Replacements record. I was surprised to find that this book is written by Colin Meloy, lead singer of the Decemberists, a band that I had decided I liked around the same time that I had discovered the Replacements.

This book does not deconstruct each lyric of the album and explain any kind of broad sociological or musicological meaning. This book is more a short autobiography of Meloy himself, but he never strays from explaining the soundtrack of his life as he ages from middle school to high school. And the Replacements were always a big part of his adolescence to early adulthood. Meloy explains how the album affected his own life: how he came to discover the Replacements, how he took the album with him on bus trips with his basketball team, how he shut out the world during play practices and listened to "Androgynous" while others rehearsed, how he cried while feeling rejected by his classmates and listening to "Unsatisfied."

Meloy writes the book from the perspective of a listener, not a musician, journalist or amateur musicologist. His style makes this book appropriate for any reader, because all readers are also listeners.

I highly recommend this book to any music lover, whatever your tastes may be. Listeners from every niche of the music matrix can glean something from this. All listeners understand the power that music, or even one record, can have on a person's life. The point is not how many albums were sold, or how many singles went gold or platinum but rather what the music means to the listener. And Meloy understands this.

Rating:
Summary: ...those feverish first years when rock music grips you..."
Review: Yesterday, a box of (expected) goodies from Amazon.com came in the mail for me. I ripped it open with glee and my eyes fell upon Colin Meloy's book (above). About an hour later I had finished reading it and was off to The Decemberists message board (where I heard about it) to post my delight.
I don't know if you guys have heard of the 33 1/3 series... I had, but only vaguely. Basically its a series of short books written by artists about the most important album in their life- or something to that effect. Colin wrote about The Replacements' album "Let It Be."
It reminded me a bit of the Aerosmith autobiography "Walk This Way" in its narration and stylings... although MUCH shorter. It is a great, fun little read.
I'm sure many of you would also see the similarities between yourselves and Colin's touching and freshly honest account of childhood and music appreciation. From his discovery of bands, to first record purchases, its a story any true music fan can identify with. Like Colin, I too have a box of old cassette tapes under my bed... I used to make mix tapes religiously. I remember seeing the skater kids and wanting to be hardcore like that, but I just wasn't and couldn't swallow that fakeness of pretending to be.

Anyhow, if you're a real music fan or have an interest in getting to better know any of the specific people who wrote books for 33 1/3, its a GREAT series and I can't wait to read some more of them. If you're a Decemberists fan, you have to read Let It Be.