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.
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.
Throughout her meticulously researched, song-by-song exploration of Abba's most famous moments, Vincentelli examines with insight, wit and unabashed fanaticism everything from "Knowing Me, Knowing You"'s domestic drama to, well, the shoulder pads, tights, and foil shirts worn in the "Voulez-Vous" video. In the process, she not only makes a compelling, sincere case for all things Abba but also for pop music itself.
