Marooned: The Next Generation of Desert Island Discs (Paperback)

~ Phil Freeman (Editor)
Key Phrases: solid air, tone burst, yellow brick road, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Warner Bros, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Marcus's 1979 cult classic Stranded gets an update in this anthology from editor and author Freeman (Running the Voodoo Down). Following Marcus's lead, Freeman gives 20 of today's young, high-profile music critics creative latitude to tackle a title in any genre they'd choose as their one and only. The result is a collection of essays extolling the virtues of Sonny Rollins' A Night at the Village Vanguard, Dio's Anthology, Dionne Warwick's Legends and History of Our World Part 1: Breakbeat and Jungle Ultramix by DJ DB, among others. While some authors are guilty of over-indulgent rock critic cleverness--Seattle Weekly scribe Dave Queen, for one, writing about Scorpions' Virgin Killer-others offer intriguingly off-beat interpretations of the desert-island concept. Freelancer Lainia Dawes creates a narrative while clinging to Skunk Anansie's Stoosh, heavy-metal historian Ian Christe builds a survival tale around Iron Maiden's Killers and Village Voice music editor Rob Harvilla focuses almost exclusively on the first 60 seconds of "Just What I Needed" from The Cars' self-titled debut. Summing up this fine collection of very personal opinions, All Music Guide writer Ned Raggett (picking My Bloody Valentine's Loveless) reminds readers and artists that "all that matters about a song or a group or anything artistic is how you yourself react to it."
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From Booklist

Updating Stranded (1979), in which Olympian rock critics like Dave Marsh, Lester Bangs, and Robert Christgau touted the records they'd want with them on a desert isle, Freeman asked younger evaluators their choices. The consequent recommendations include old stuff (Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, Steven Stills' Manassas); hard stuff (Motorhead's No Remorse); soft stuff (Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road); the scintillating oddment (Sonny Rollins' A Night at the Village Vanguard); and much more. John Darneille celebrates Dionne Warwick's 52-track Legends, saying "There are many roads to the grave, and this one is mine," and Simon Reynolds puffs John Martyn's delightful Solid Air, despite the fact that it doesn't include Martyn's legendary collaboration with reggae legend Lee Scratch Perry (that's on Big Muff). "Martyn moves through the music like a shark," Reynolds raps, his "musky rasp" contributing to an "oceanic arcadia" reminiscent of vintage Jimi Hendrix. Phew! Other choices? The Scorpions' Virgin Killer. Alice Coltrane's Journey in Satchidananda. The Cars' The Cars. Hey! They can't all be obscure and forgotten chefs d'ouevre. Tribby, Mike

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (July 9, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306814854
• ISBN-13: 978-0306814853
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #845,714 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Than a Worthy Follow-Up to a Great Book, September 1, 2007

By	Phil Nugent "Phil Nugent" (New York, New York) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The original "Stranded" was a big thing in my life when it first came out, right around the time I was starting to get interested in pop music and was looking for a map. It was a great read that also played a key role in establishing a rock music canon for hungry, benighted listeners to navigate by. The new book, also a great read, isn't just a worthy follow-up. It blows the doors off the joint, challenging your preconceptions of what's great about pop and what it's good for. Smart, funny, wide-ranging, provocative, and occasionally demented, it'll remind you of just how much rediscovery and fresh thinking can be. And the discography is a blast.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We all have our list..., November 19, 2007

By	David M. Madden "nonnon/dj_webern" (salt lake, utah United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

You are no doubt familiar with the idea of Desert Island Discs, something essayist Simon Reynolds points out as not necessarily your favorite music, just records you, for sentimental or random reasons, can't live without; writer Anthony Miccio furthers this notion with something you are "familiar with that's inspiring without being too connected to (the) human life" you're missing. We all have our list, narrowing it down, if we must, to one single fantastic collection (mine is Bauhaus' The Sky's Gone Out, the Canadian import...or Headset's Spacesettings, if you care). However, as editor Phil Freeman notes in the forward, more important to this text than the definition is whether or not you care to read 21 (plus Freeman's forward) disparate, intentionally-pedantic contributors carry on about music, a portion of which you've actually heard (if you're lucky); that kid who wore his Holy Diver shirt every Fall day in 8th grade failed to get you into Dio, so how can someone do so now?

Matt Ashare waxes sentimental over the "tricky ninth chords" and his emotional experiences at age ten with Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road ("'Bennie and the Jets" - my first-ever air-piano song/the cartoon cover image of Elton stepping out onto a yellow brick road...was going to make this a relatively easy sell for my protective parents, in spite of the trademark platforms Elton's pictured wearing."); Douglas Wolk defines his first encounter with Stereolab's "Jenny Ondioline" (from Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements) as a "liquid rainbow" ("I stood there, pointing my head straight into (the speaker), barely moving, breathing only when I remembered to, for eighteen minutes. That was the greatest sound-moment I've ever experienced."); while dissecting The Cars' The Cars, Rob Harvilla proclaims that, "The first sixty seconds of `Just What I Needed'/that's all I'll be needin'. Seeing as how I possess the forty-four seconds preceding the greatest drumroll ever recorded." As with the 33 1/3rd book series, each writer is allowed his or her journalistic slant, some creating fictional scenarios of plane wrecks and slowly draining iPod batteries (Laina Dawes' Stoosh by Skunk Anansie), stereo systems made from "coconuts and palm oil" (Ned Raggett's Loveless by My Bloody Valentine) and abductions that involve literal forced-at-gunpoint selection processes (John Darnielle's Legends by Dionne Warwick).

Surprisingly, all but a few of these quirky journalists - writers from The Wire to Nerve.com to Ohio's Other Paper - convince; they do a brilliant job expressing love for and laying claim to something they will rely on for aural comfort for the next day, week, or years until rescue from some uncharted piece of land, persuading you - yes, you the jaded listener with a 4000 CD collection - to check out this music. Okay! I'll revisit Dio, already!

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great moments in pop-music critic idiocy, May 8, 2008

By	A. Crandall (California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Quote from page xix:
"I don't personally know a single person who listens to a lot of the "Stranded" artists [i.e. those covered in the original 1978 book] with any kind of regularity. Sure, The Ramones and The Velvet Underground still have an audience, but Van Morrison and The Ronettes and yes, even the --- New York Dolls are more frequently mentioned in passing than played for pleasure."

Dear Phil Freeman: perhaps you should broaden your circle of acquaintances.

Contemptible.

Oh - some of the essays are amusing. But I personally don't know a single person who listens to Skunk Anansie, My Bloody Valentine, or Divine Styler. And the "Treasure Island" redux is too slanted towards heavy metal and punk. But at least you got X and The Blasters and Nirvana in the right perspective.