Win Colossal Youth Penned By Michael Blair Paper Copy

excited that after all these years I can still be introduced to great records that i missed in my youth, This was one i missed out on, and someone mentioned it to me only a month or so ago, And i was hooked. I loved it from the first note,

This book told me everything i needed to know, Can't help but feel that many of the books in theand/series are far less necessary than the incredible records they're subject to, The series is a fine idea, the pocket editions are seductively designed, but the contents feel pseudish and rehashed, The idea is to sit down with the record and read along fine in theory, annoying in practice as you find your feelings about a longloved classic LP completely at odds with the contents of the books.
In this case, I found myself turning back to the sleevenotes of the CD reissue, which stick to the fundamentals facts and quotes and dispense with the speculative analyses.
I havent read an incredible amount of the/series, but this one is by far the best Ive gotten to, Stays focused on the music, its context amp its impact without going off on an annoying side trip about the writers life amp how the album affected it, A little of that is fine amp important even, but too often the writers nostalgia takes over,
This is really well written amp contains a lot of insight into the psychology of the songs amp their historical context,
When people ask me about my top five fave albums I usually give the following answer:

Beat Happening Jamboree
Young Marble Giants Colossal Youth
Daniel Johnston Yip Jump Music
blur
Belle and Sebastian The Boy with the Arab Strap

The reason why I like Young Marble Giant's Colossal Youth so much is that it is quiet, quirky, minimal, unpretentious record and yet within thetracks the band have created a grand musical statement.
There's nothing like it.

Also YMG are never given any print space, bar a few pages here and there, Michael Blair and Joe Bucciero have finally written an official document on the band, For the first time I was able to get some detailed information on this group, Although most/volumes focus on an album, in this case Colossal Youth is intimately a part of the group's history, mainly because it is the only full length release by the band.
It also is a history of independent music during the late's and a tiny document of the post punk movement although Simon Reynolds did go into this era in his must read Rip it up and Start again

The book begins with the roots of the core members of YMG, then developing into an early history of the band, leading to their signing to Rough Trade Records and eventual recording of their debut.
Here the authors go behind the crafting of lyrics and Alison Statton's role in the album, Then the album's success it sold,copies in it's first year which is excellent for an indie/experimental record and the band's eventual break up and solo projects no mention of band members Stuart and Philip Moxham producing Beat Happening's final album, you turn me on but ah well

This is a wonderfully researched book, stuffed with new information about the band and some surprising facts about the their debut.
I urge you to read it, If anything, this book will keep the band's legacy going for quite a while, I really wanted to like this one, and it did have a few crumbs that were new to me, but why must so much "academic" writing about pop music be so pretentious Please PLEASE do not reference John Cage's'" when writing about pop music EVER.
I was so pleased to see this album had been tackled in the/series, and even more so when I read the book which is a covertocover delight, I find the/series a bit hit and miss, but this is one of the best I have read, More than just a historical retelling although that is also done very well the author includes connections to the wider musical and literary world which is fascinating to read.
The reader is treated to the brief history of Young Marble Giants, but also subjected to some shaky analysis on what the record is not more than what it actually is.
Welsh postpunk band Young Marble Giants released one LP and then, like their vanishing portraits on the album's cover, disappeared, Even though the album, Colossal Youth, received positive reviews and sold surprisingly well, Young Marble Giants quickly slid into the margins of rock amp roll historyrelegated to “cult” status among postpunk and indie rock fans.
Their lasting appeal, however overlooked, owes itself to the band's singular approach to punk rock, Instead of using overt political ideologies, abrasive sounds, and antiestablishment appearances to rebel against the social and musical status quo, Young Marble Giants used restraint, ambiguity, and silence, In rejecting punk's loudness and opening it up to a host of new sounds and approaches, Young Marble Giants redefined the genre's sense of rebellion,

Here, Michael Blair and Joe Bucciero expand upon this observation, Yes, Colossal Youth is a quiet album with simple lyrics, stark production, and few compositional flourishes, Yes, recording such an album in the “punk” era might have been a radical statement, But where did these radical ideas come from By tracing Colossal Youth's logistical, geographical, ideological, andthcentury art historical origins, Blair and Bucciero aim to resituate Colossal Youth's legacy.
It's established as a brilliant record, a cult favorite, and a continuing influence on musicians today, More importantly, however, it's a hinge on which punk rock as a whole turns, In theyears or so Ive been aware of Young Marble Giants Ive never known more than a cursory background to the band, first preinternet from a few paragraphs in as indie and new wave encyclopaedia and later the almost identical entry on Wikipedia.
The question that arises from this has to be is there any more to tell Id expected, not least because its written by two young American men, that this book would start with some context on YMG and their considerable influence on the musicians that came after them, particularly in US alternative music.
Many people will come to YMG through their influence on Peter Buck, Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, Calvin Johnson, Stephin Merritt, Dean Wareham etc, and this contextualises the importance of Colossal Youth as a ground breaking and historically important album, This is unfortunately the first weakness in Joe Bucciero and Michael Blairs appraisal of Colossal Youth, they give no sense of why the album is significant or indeed why we should want a deeper understanding of it.


When reading this book I tried constantly to keep my initial question is there any more to tell in the back of my mind, Its undoubtedly difficult to construct a whole book around a band when their entire physical legacy is a couple of hours of recorded music and a smattering ofyear old music press interviews.
That said, it feels a very naïve book, It draws heavily on Simon Reynolds liner notes for thereissue of Colossal Youth,

pulling at threads from his excellent piece, but never quite managing to tie them together.
It also suffers from a lack of structure, from repetition and what comes across as a very crude understanding of social context, A better anchoring of YMG within postpunk would have really helped here, YMG are regularly referred to as being a punk band you could excuse this as semantics, but it makes an awful lot of difference when youre trying to get to grips with where a band are coming from.
To paraphrase Tony Wilsons distinction, punk said fuck you while postpunk said were fucked and this seems quite significant in the context of this particular musical fable,

So is there any more to the Young Marble Giants' story than can be done justice in a Wikipedia entry Of course, and Bucciero and Blair make a gallant attempt to pull various interview sources together into an expanded history, however structural issues mean most of this history has been told by the time one is a third of the way through the book, leaving the last two thirds floundering.
I kind of wish Id stopped reading at this point and would then have avoided the cringeworthy chapter on gender guys, you know we dont ask whats it like to be a girl in a band anymore, right

A flawed book that makes the most of the resources available, but doesnt really go beyond that.


I received a digital copy of this book for review from the publisher via Netgalley, I am definitely a newcomer to Young Marble Giants, In fact, I had never heard of them until I read this book, I am grateful I did though, A combination of the album cover, the description of the book, and the wonderful/format won me over and I enjoyed the read thoroughly,
The book is a quick read but it's also substantive in content, It gives insights into the culture from which the band and album emerged, I have long been a fan of Simon Reynolds's histories of musical subgenres and this book picks up where he leaves off in his excellent history on postpunk, Rip it Up and Start Again.
The authors of this book are clearly inspired by Reynolds in their music journalism and it pays off, Their prose is interesting and their interpretations of the music are enlightening, I particularly enjoyed how they based some of their interpretations of the minimalist songs on the musical experimentations of John Cage and the art of Georges Seurat, It was also great to hear the insights of the band themselves, especially Alison, the singer, YMG's music is very cool and the book definitely does their album justice, It inspired me to get the album for myself as well, If you are a fan of the/book series, post/punk music, minimalism, or are an Anglophile like myself, read the book, One star off because the book started to drag in the final third,
This was an honest review provided in exchange for an advance copy of the book, thanks to NetGalley Love the album, and the firstpages were great, The language was accessible, and it began the coverage the way one would want, providing some background to both album and time period, But, then I felt like maybe it got lost in using other people's work to make commentary, It's clearly wellresearched, and the points are valid, but at times, I would have maybe liked more of the author's voice and opinion on the subject, But, maybe that's just me, Not bad, and good moments, but could have given more, Excellent book A great bio of the band and breakdown of the minimalist masterpiece,

If you know it, you'll love this,

Cheers, Michael Blair is a freelance technical writer/editor living in Montreal, Overexposed is his third mystery, a sequel to If Looks Could Kill, a finalist for theChapters/Robertson Davies Prize and shortlisted for theQuebec Writers Federation First Book Prize.
Series: sitelink Joe Shoe Mystery sitelink Granville Island Mystery Michael Blair is a freelance technical writer/editor living in Montreal, Overexposed is his third mystery, a sequel to If Looks Could Kill, a finalist for theChapters/Robertson Davies Prize and shortlisted for theQuebec Writers Federation First Book Prize.
Series: sitelink Joe Shoe Mystery sitelink Granville Island Mystery sitelink,