Bøger i 33 1/3 serien

This Is Hardcore is Pulp's cry for help. A giant, sprawling, flawed masterpiece of a record, the 1998 album manages to tackle some of the most inappropriately grown-up issues of the day - fame, ageing, mortality, drugs, and pornography - and still come out crying and laughing on the other side. The subject of pornography dominates the record - from its controversial artwork to the images conjured up by songs like "Seductive Barry" and the title track - after Pulp's main man, Jarvis Cocker - who'd spent most of his teenage and adult life chasing celebrity, only to be cruelly disappointed when it finally arrived in spades - hit upon the grand notion of using pornography as a metaphor for fame. The album's commercial failure as a follow-up to the band's Britpop-defining, Different Class, also symbolizes a death knell for Britpop itself. Dark, right? Except just like Pulp themselves, Jane Savidge's book is playful and sometimes very funny indeed. Kicking off with an imaginary conversation between Jarvis Cocker and the people who run the Total Fame Solutions helpline, Savidge expertly guides us through the trials and tribulations of an album that begins with the so-called Michael Jackson Incident, when Cocker got up on stage at the 1996 Brit Awards and waggled his fully-clothed bum at the King of Pop. Pulp's This Is Hardcore may be a sleazy run through porn and mental demise, and an album that chronicles Cocker's continuing disillusionment with his newfound lot in life, but Savidge's book assesses the cultural and historical context of the album with insider knowledge and a sharp modern lens, ultimately making a case for it as one of the most important albums of the 1990s.

The Isley Brothers' 3+3, dissects The Isleys' 50-year-old undisputed masterwork, an album that firmly established their music dynasty on a global scale, as well as heralding the boldest run of genre-defiant albums of their 65-year career. The 1973 watershed was their first multiplatinum release and is significant as a rare, crossover record by a Black act that struck a chord with urban, rock and pop consumers, despite the schisms between audiences due to bias-driven media and industry marketing.The book looks at the album from all angles: From The Isleys' early career to their influence on rock and rollers both Black and White, from the twists and turns of having national hits without national recognition, onto their decision to form T-Neck Records and the group's challenges navigating a music industry that racially codified music and hampered Black artists from universal acclaim and compensations--and finally a summation of the decades following The Isley's run and its ups and downs, with a fast-forward to where the group is now after 65 years.