Cotton Mather/Oasis

'Good point, Alex--please accept my apologies. This place can often get pretty careful in spirit, and you frequently make it more entertaining.'

Thank you, Patrick, I appreciate you as a member of this blog and, also, as a person. I'm guessing I miss-read your comment, anyway! Next topic of discussion: How many Nazis do we all know? Haha, I'm kidding! So, when's the next poll, eh, eh, eh?!

Ryan,

I’ve read the recent call for proposals for the 33 1/3 series, as well as the previous one from 2010, and the most important thing you need to realize is that the publisher and the editorial policy have clearly changed dramatically. Reading old titles in the series will probably not help you.

Whereas the previous editorship was looking for a variety of personal and creative voices for the series, the new publisher is announcing itself clearly as an academic publisher looking for academic titles. The new call for proposal reads “[we are looking for] perspectives that will broaden and develop the discipline of writing about music, as read by a global readership of music scholars and fans.” “Discipline” and “scholars” are the key words; “fans” is clearly an afterthought. They believe their primary market is academic libraries, professors, and classroom use texts. The series has previously published books about Neutral Milk Hotel and Magnetic Fields and PJ Harvey that are clearly addressed to fans as cult members. The new call for proposals, unfortunately, doesn’t lead me to believe that the new editors will be open to books like that.

This doesn’t mean lower selling albums aren’t going to get a hearing at all. It probably does mean that you can only position a Meadowlands book by emphasizing it as a text in the sociology of North Jersey and of the present generation of underemployed and/or employed but not necessarily at jobs that provide careers, security, or fulfillment individuals. This could be highly marketable for local area courses or courses related to the current job market and the experience of people 25-40 in the current US. Meadowlands does clearly lend itself to this kind of book. I’m basically suggesting that the kind of book where you interview the band and emphasize the personal-creative aspect of the work would definitely have interested the old regime but doesn’t appear to be what the new regime is looking for.

One thing you have on your side is the imminent destruction of the stadium. The words “Bruce Springsteen’s Wrecking Ball” should probably appear in your proposal, because you can count on your readers having heard of him. They like what they call “context.”

I have published an academic book – indeed once upon a time got tenure, though I quit because I hated the job. If you want to run a draft proposal by me, I could perhaps help you position your proposal for academic readers.

Kick Out the Jams wasn't really a flop - the album did hit the top 40 and did much better than the MC5's next 2 albums would

I've heard that the chart position was the highest Elektra could buy and that outside of Detroit things were grim in the sales department, though stores were super-generously supplied. It's interesting in that there seemed to be oceans of cut-out Kick Out the Jams circulating (every used section seemed to have at least one copy), which really helped when the band's legend revived as punk took hold.

I still have never come across a copy with the "Motherf***ers" printed inside the jacket.