It's ILM: The Book!

which would be highly entertaining, but a 'hard' read.

gear OTM, and if Ned isn't writing on Loveless I will, um, be very surprised.

Heheheh. Actually I'm writing on Rage Against the Machine's debut.

Anyway, yes, Loveless. I realized that I've talked very little about the album over time. My 136 list entry is about how I *can't* find the words to talk about it to my satisfaction. So this will be a challenge to see if and how I can.

xpost -- Roxy is evil, and that is why we love her so.

17. Dave Queen
18. Ned Raggett
19. Simon Reynolds

Damn, that's good company to be with. :-)

yes, ken, internet stalkers are HILARIOUS. keep it up.

Um.

I mean, you DID read the rest of my post, yeah?

anyway, good luck on the book. don't think it's my cup o' coffee but whatevs.

I didn't want to have to call you out from stage during my set at next year's Summer Jam, Ned, but you've forced my hand.

what a desert island disc that would be. there needs to be a companion book - what album do you love, but would absolutely not bring?

xpost with slutty nabisco

tell me it was on a deserted island.

Crap, reading's TONIGHT? Considering it starts right when I'll be leaving work, I'm guessing I'll be a little late.

Wow. Fantastic article, Ned! And now I don't need to buy the book. =p

Well I -- hey! (Besides, there's all the metal pieces in there you haven't read yet, so hop to. And thanks!)

YOU WRITERS NEED TO PAY MORE ATTENTION TO THE REAL WORLD AND NOT THE WORLD BETWEEN YOUR EARS!

(sorry for the all caps, but I found that quote funny in one of the reviews)

how do u argue a list w more passion?

The way Greil did with his list in Stranded, maybe?

I'm guessing he thought it was literally a list with no commentary.

And oh yeah, his list there is my also my favorite thing he ever wrote, anywhere, and one of my favorite pieces of music criticism of all time.

I have never understood this and I'm not just in Greil gripe mode here (again, I DO love lots of his writing). I don't think "Treasure Island" is bad by any stretch. But those are strong words above. Are there any particular entries you think are especially noteworthy?

One thing that's always bugged me about it is that most of the singles are just listed. So we get yet another comment (genius or not) about The Rolling Stones or Bob Dylan but nothing on, oh, The Kalin Twins or The Poppy Family. Which we need!

Most of the reviews of the book I've read either think Scott's Divine Styler essay was brilliant or incomprehensible.

I can understand someone finding Dave Queen's essay incomprehensible (me, I bought 365 copies of the book so I can burn Dave's essay every day in an invocation of the gods...don't know which gods yet, though...). But not Scott's (which is unquestionably brilliant). What reviewers found it incomprehensible?

If it wasn't for the and one of my favorite pieces of music criticism of all time I would have assumed Chuck was being nice by leaving out the words "by default."

I enjoy Treasure Island, but god a lot of it is just ridiculous hyperbole.

12x5. English robber barons laying tracks across the U.S.A., they seized huge chunks of right-of-way, foreclosing on modern soul with "Time Is On My Side," careening to apocalyptic heights with "It's All Over Now," and terrifying all opposition as the guitar that opened "Empty Heart" reached out and grabbed your very soul. 1964.

Granted its the kind of hyperbole a critic would be wise to be good at - gets young music nerds salivating and gets educated folks to assume the shit's "relevant" as long as they never get the chance to hear it at face value.

It's also fucking hilarious (intentionally)!

Singles Collection: The London Years. A three-hour sexual tour, a three-hour sexual tour (Abkco). 1963-1971.

Reading the stuff on Fleetwood Mac was inspiring in the early nineties when they were fashion victims at Clinton's inaugural.

Entry on Bryan Ferry's The Bride Stripped Bare also inspiring, but wtf.

just wanted to say: so great to meet everyone last nite! laurel, jon, ian, bb, sang froid, mrs. sang froid, nabisco, jon lewis, and filthy phil. we had a great time. and we are paying for it now. bunnybrains show was a blast.

LOVE the first sentence of this L.A. Times review(!!!):

http://www.calendarlive.com/books/cl-et-book25aug25,0,4289402.story?coll=cl-books-util

Also, I posted the text of what I read at the Housing Works Reading (minus my intro remarks):

http://skotrok.blogspot.com/

Again, had such a great time in NYC! Thanks, Phil, and everyone.

Aha, you have a blog, Scott. Into the bookmarks you go.

Are there any particular entries you think are especially noteworthy?

Savage Rose. Hackamore Brick. The Stooges. Put Your Cat Clothes On. Moldy Goldies: Colonel Jubilation B. Johnston and His Mystic Knights Band And Street Singers Attack The Hits. The Zurvans. (Not necessarily my favorites -- just the ones that come to mind off the top of my head.)

a lot of it is just ridiculous hyperbole.

So? I never said I agreed with it all! I said it's entertaining to read. There's a big difference. (For all I know, a bunch of the records aren't even real.)

had such a great time in NYC!

Scott, you were in New York?????? How come nobody told me??

haha that LA Times review still has me as a "Village Voice contributor." I guess I did write that sentence about Hinder in Pazz'n'Jop last year.

I can understand someone finding Dave Queen's essay incomprehensible...But not Scott's. What reviewers found it incomprehensible?

Blocked them from my memory as soon as I decided not to read those reviews all the way through, but I'm pretty sure the guy in Paste did, at least.

Savage Rose. Hackamore Brick. The Stooges. Put Your Cat Clothes On. Moldy Goldies: Colonel Jubilation B. Johnston and His Mystic Knights Band And Street Singers Attack The Hits. The Zurvans

None of which, by the way, are "boomer-centric faves," whatever the heck that's supposed to mean (beyond the obvious cliche it's been for almost as long as 'boomers' have been around to whine about).

I mean, I like and/or love essays about all kinds of records in Marooned, and there definitely are some great records in there (and great essays about some music I don't care for, too), but I'm still pretty stumped by the apparent need to identify with a "generation" in the first place, much less pat said generation on the back for choosing, say, My Bloody Valentine or Iron Maiden (both of which have also been canonized into tedium by devotees of their particular niches forever) over, say, the New York Dolls or the Eagles. Just really seems like splitting hairs to me (and not just because I prefer the Dolls and Eagles -- there's plenty of music in Marooned I like more than music in Stranded.) But maybe I missed the point of that part of the book. (Though maybe I'm misreading it? Not sure.)

A good thread about Stranded, btw:

The Greil Marcus Stranded Book

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to figure out is why people think the eternal strawman "boomers" is still something interesting to complain about. Seems like it might have been interesting 25 or 30 years ago, but not so much now. (I may actually be referring more to the reviews than the book itself, actually. Here's what Kevin writes in his: everything truly meaningful happened when they were young. This particularly nasty facet of the boomer outlook has colored the music press, especially Rolling Stone, for decades. But, first off, how exactly does that make boomers different than any other so-called generation? And second, the most recent copy of Rolling Stone I saw had Maroon 5 on the cover, and reviews of all sorts of current music inside that were talking about how good it is. I'm never been much of a fan of the magazine -- obviously they miss a whole lot [though who doesn't?], and Wenner seems like a creep, and months will go by without me even looking at an issue -- but week to week, they do pretty much keep up on what's new, as far as I can tell. And if you're going to talk "the music press" in general, boomers haven't dominated the Pazz & Jop poll results for what, 20 years? That obviously doesn't mean I agree with the results. But it just strikes me as kind of lame target to aim at in 2007.

strawman arguments are always lame, right chuck?

I guess you guys aren't reading Bob Lefsetz or listening to "classic" rock radio stations. They echo the boomer strawman outlook, although yea maybe they do not justify the whole strawman argument above.

If anyone's interested, I'm going through the Treasure Island Section of Stranded and putting downloads of things I was interested in hearing in a folder called Greil Marcus Stranded (on soulseek)...some great fities stuff I didn't know about

I guess what I'm trying to figure out is why people think the eternal strawman "boomers" is still something interesting to complain about.

I doubt I'll be able to convince you that the argument is interesting. But how exactly is it a strawman argument when boomers eternally complain about the death of the pop music lingua franca? And how interesting do you find Marcus' argument in his Marooned foreword, an argument he repeats almost verbatim from that 1992 piece ("Notes of the Death of Rock-n-Roll" or something like that)? You can even hear it in "Corrupting the Absolute" from 1985 (I think). It's enough to make you love Julian Lennon.

how exactly does that make boomers different than any other so-called generation?

Well, nothing, assuming Erik Himmelsbach is not a Boomer. But I can't stand when ANYONE makes the lingua franca argument which apparently is up to 1984 now with Purple Rain. Just wait - soon we're going to hear someone tell us how, oh, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill or Stankonia or The College Dropout or whatever brought the people together and all else after is fragmentation.

But there is a difference. I just don't hear (m)any Gen Xers or Gen YNoters or whoever making the kinds of arguments Marcus and Himmelsbach are making. Plus Boomers have been around longer and have thus been making these arguments over a longer period of time (and hence more annoying). Plus Marcus has a much bigger soap box than Himmelsbach (and most any other critic, really).

the most recent copy of Rolling Stone I saw had Maroon 5 on the cover, and reviews of all sorts of current music inside that were talking about how good it is.

It wasn't until Stone hired Rob Sheffield that I got a sense that the magazine was willing to admit times had changed and wrestle with current music honestly. But even at that, look at their star rating system. They're much quicker to give a new album by a boomer fave five stars than a new album by anyone else. Neil Young's Freedom got five stars but Daydream Nation got three (or so - don't remember exactly). It doesn't matter if anyone reading this thinks Freedom is a better album than Daydream Nation. The point is that there were plenty of good critics in 1988 who could've given the latter its props. Instead, the magazine has to keep telling this story of boomer genius over and over again.

And you see it in all their lists, e.g. "500 Greatest Albums of All-Time" which mirrored their "100 Greatest Albums" list in 1987, both with Sgt. Pepper at the top. Christ, didn't Sgt. Pepper make the number one spot in a Stone "Best Album Covers" list too? What's next? "Best Record Spine?" Cuz we all know what would win that one (Go-Go's Vacation).

And if you're going to talk "the music press" in general

Ok fine, that was hyperbole.

If anyone's interested, I'm going through the Treasure Island Section of Stranded and putting downloads of things I was interested in hearing in a folder called Greil Marcus Stranded (on soulseek)...some great fities stuff I didn't know about

I actually did that in the Napster days and wound up with a 7 or 8 CD set I called Stranded No More.

Some ilx folk got the whole thing on three dvd-rs.

I have an op-ed on "the death of the album" (don't believe in it) in today's L.A. Times. Here's the link.

Q: Between Stranded and Marooned with its new writers answering the same question, do you get a sense that people listen to music differently now?

A: I don't know, but what struck me, aside from reading it and feeling that doors were opening in buildings I didn't know existed, was that these people are more confessional. The new essays are rooted more in the personal, in traumas. I don't know if that's a cultural snapshot of a moment, but in 1978 it was 'I'm going to write this because my reply matters,' and now it's the way the art on the cover transformed a life, not necessarily a song or a lyric. The social is missing, though it's not a bad thing. Newer writers will use a new experience to convey their sense of personal jeopardy.

Is this true? What say you, Marooners?

Oh, that's from a Q&A with Greil Marcus linked on Phil's Marooned blog.

I'd agree. Let's put it this way -- I'm under no illusions my piece 'matters' in some overarching sense.

Marooned : the next generation of desert island discs
Philadelphia, PA : DaCapo Press, c2007.

Sorry, the Library does not currently own a copy of this title.

I read the book, and mostly liked it. I think that the personal angle is what made the best reviews so good (to me these are Seward, Carr, Darnielle, and Wolk's). There were several reviews that I just didn't get, but I don't think that's because of their personal angle.

Not to get too abstract, but I don't see why taking a personal angle means giving up on the view that the review "matters". If you think that the personal is the political, these approaches are basically the same.

The social is missing, though it's not a bad thing. Newer writers will use a new experience to convey their sense of personal jeopardy.

I think that part is key to what Greil was getting at, i.e. it doesn't really matter--or maybe just doesn't need to matter--to anyone other than yourself.

PopMatters review:

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/books/reviews/48844/marooned-the-next-generation/

It's weird to read ilxors in a non-internet font. All fancy and shit.

At least seven onetime/sometime ILxors featured in this:

http://www.amazon.com/Time-1000-Songs-Change-Guides/dp/1846700825/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213201091&sr=1-1

which is out now, I think.

LBZC Annual 2009 is gonna be in the stores early October as well.

One for the kiddies, pop it in their Christmas stockings

^ someone hound this sick pa3do off the thread

revive

Was just looking at my copy while moving some books around to make room for new ones.

https://www.amazon.com/Marooned-Generation-Desert-Island-Discs-ebook/dp/B06XGJZD4P

shop!

Guess they didn’t want an essay about Poison. I am genuinely upset. I was probably chatting rubbish on ILE.

Funniest thing about this book was how some contributors dramatize the psychological and physical ordeal of their "desert island" exile while others just blithely start describing their favourite album.

Oh, sounds good - I mean yeah, if someone says you are on a desert island and now talk about your favourite album - the situation will dictate. ‘Day 27: No fresh water to drink, ate a limpet. Don’t feel like listening to ‘Unskinny Bop’ today’

I mean I just start by describing living there in comfort. I am simple.

Pretty happy with how this turned out.