Marooned

It's probably "not the done thing" to mention a "competing" book on here, but whatever - this one sounds very exciting. It's called Marooned, and features the following writers blathering on about an album they love to bits.

1. Matt Ashare 2. Aaron Burgess 3. Jon Caramanica 4. Daphne Carr 5. Ian Christe 6. Kandia Crazy Horse 7. John Darnielle 8. Laina Dawes 9. Geeta Dayal 10. Jon Dolan 11. Sasha Frere-Jones 12. Jess Harvell 13. Jessica Hopper 14. Chuck Klosterman 15. Michaelangelo Matos 16. Amy Phillips 17. Dave Queen 18. Ned Raggett 19. Simon Reynolds 20. Chris Ryan 21. Scott Seward 22. Derek Taylor 23. Douglas Wolk

It's going to be published about 18 months from now by Da Capo Press.

It makes me think, though - is there a whole young generation of British music writers that we're missing out on? The 33 1/3 series is as widely available in Britain as it is in the US, and yet probably only 2% of the queries I receive from interested writers come from the UK. And only 6 of the first 31 books in the series are by British writers. I guess there's just no equivalent back home of papers like the Village Voice, Seattle Weekly, Creative Loafing, etc. Sure, there's Mojo, Uncut, Q, and the NME, but there must be far fewer opportunities for younger writers to get started. The Hereford Times doesn't quite cut it, although they do have a great selection of cheap second-hand cars.

Maybe we should get the best young British writers and go head-t0-head with Da Capo? It'll be like the Ryder Cup all over again. Except with less running on the greens.