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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
buy it,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Pavement's Wowee Zowee (33 1/3) (Paperback)
This particular 33 1/3 book had no reviews when I ordered it. I decided to take a risk just because I love Pavement so much, and Wowee Zowee in particular.
The book works because Bryan Charles very obviously loves the band and album deeply. There is a fair amount of this book that is autobiographical - something I expected would irritate me. But honestly, I dug it and truly felt that that aspect ended up enriching the entire thing. But anyway, the bulk of the material is comprised of interviews with the band members and other relevant personnel. There's plenty of detail about the recording of the songs and so forth. Plenty to keep you happy even if you don't care about Pavement's impact on the writer's teenage years. I'd say the book is really all about Pavement in general and their effect on the writer. Wowee Zowee is the focus, obviously, but any Pavement fan should still buy this book even if Wowee Zowee isn't their favorite album. Charles even goes over his thought process in choosing which Pavement album to write about, which I thought was pretty cool. Long story short - this is a very good, informative book. It is a loving, well-written, and worthy tribute to a great band and album. These 33 1/3 books (based on reviews here) seem to be very much hit-or-miss, but I think this one can be firmly placed in the "hit" section. The last sentence in the Acknowledgements is "BUYING BOOKS IN BOOKSTORES IS COOL." Woops.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
W.Z. Confidential,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Pavement's Wowee Zowee (33 1/3) (Paperback)
This is a very well-done overview of a mostly unsung album by a great band.
As with a lot of the 33 1/3rd series, autobiography plays a part, but Bryan Charles is a keen, level-headed fan with a rich memory for time and place, and he uses his own background to give his reporting a foundation. Since we know how he feels about the group and exactly why, it amplifies his exploration of "Wowee Zowee" as he encounters and interviews the key figures behind it. Just one thing about Charles' book was distracting, and this is totally my opinion. During a fair amount of the book, his style, phrasing, and sentence structure seem to owe a pretty heavy debt to the "White Jazz"-era prose of crime novelist James Ellroy. Charles doesn't suddenly go ultraviolent, but he does tend toward the short, staccato beats of Ellroy, with some of the hipster vibe. Call me crazy, but if you know the crime author's patter, you might see what I'm talking about in this portion: "I told him I'd heard about a meeting with Matador and two of the Pavement guys. Gerard was pushing Wowee Zowee. You were checked out. You were on the phone or something, not listening. You said the record was s--t and nothing could be done with it." Or this... "I regressed a little, became a gaping fan ... I nudged my friend Jim. He stared too. Our dinner companions were square. They didn't know who Pavement was or get the big deal. Half a beer later I relaxed and quit staring so much. But seeing Mark Ibold still blew my mind...." There are about two dozen more instances I could cite, but that'd probably only make me seem more OCD. And I realize this is an elaborate quibble, to be sure. Plus, if Charles actually is aping Ellroy, there are certainly worse or less appropriate writers he could mimic. Style aside, the overall product is a fine dissection of an excellent album.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable read,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Pavement's Wowee Zowee (33 1/3) (Paperback)
I really enjoyed this book. I agree with a previous review that the style of writing can be a bit hard to follow at times, there were often times that I was not sure who he was quoting or if he was making an observation of his own. However, overall I still really enjoyed it. I felt like a dork wanting to read this at first, but I'm glad I ordered it. I think any diehard Pavement fan will enjoy it too.
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83% buy the item featured on this page: Pavement's Wowee Zowee (33 1/3) $9.16 |
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4% buy The Pixies' Doolittle (33 1/3) $10.36 |
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