Steve Matteo

A very disappointing introduction to the 33 1/3 series. Much of this book read like a pre-first draft — as if the roughly chronological notes had to be turned into sentences and rushed to the printer, without anyone having tried to impose any narrative structure, or stylistic polish. Far too many straight lists of songs rehearsed on a particular day; speculation that may have been informed, but giving no indication that it was; weird, disorienting skips in time of just a few days; no new insight, nor, really, any particular reason for this book to exist. It's almost impressive to have turned a tumultuous period of the most important band in popular music into something so dull. At some point I realised I was only reading in order that these notes on the book could at least be informed (that and it is mercifully short). To be totally fair, it did get slightly more interesting in the 2nd half, but that praise is faint indeed.
… (mais)

Yeah, it's the Beatles, so of course I'm likely to enjoy it. But this one was interesting for me, as I realized as I went through this book, that much of the lore that has sprung up around the Get Back sessions that ultimately resulted in the Let It Be album was unknown to me. So this book filled in a fair amount of that information.

The author was a touch obsessive with the equipment lists, but overall, a much, MUCH better book than my first foray into this series (Jethro Tull's Aqualung album). I learned new stuff from this, which is always a good thing.… (mais)