Nick Drake's Pink Moon (33 1/3) [Paperback]

Amanda Petrusich (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2007

Pink Moon explores how Nick Drake's third and final album has puttered and purred its way into a new millennium. Features interviews with producer Joe Boyd, string arranger Robert Kirby, and even the marketing team behind the VW Cabrio commercial that launched the album to platinum status more than thirty years after its release.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The latest addition to the evergrowing33 1/3 series (now up to volume 51) is an in-depth look at Nick Drake's finalalbum "Pink Moon". Tackling a 28 minute album of sparse folk by anartist whose life went largely undocumented (there are no known video clips orinterviews with Drake) is a daunting task, but Petrusich handles the job nicelyby telling the story through interviews with the people who knew Drake andworked with him musically, as well as testimonials from current artists whohave felt his influence. She also does a great service to the readers by not paintingDrake as some romantically doomed poetic soul, like so many other writers havedone in the past. In fact, she does an excellent job of dispelling many Drakemyths (ex: he didn't anonymously leave the tapes for Pink Moon at Island's reception desk without saying a word), and evenpoints out flaws in the album (many of the vocals are garbled). The mostinteresting part of the book is the final third which focuses on Pink Moon's21st Century revival thanks to a 2000 Volkswagon commercial featuring the titletrack. While many make the argument that using a song to push a productcheapens the artistry of the song, "Pink Moon" was used to such greateffect that it has simultaneously become synonymous with Volkswagon. Moreimportantly, thanks to commercial exposure, annual sales of the album jumpedfrom 6,000 to 74,000 in the year that it hit the airwaves - exposing Drake'swork to a new generation. Perhaps the best praise I can give the book is thatafter I finished reading it I put it down and listened to Pink Moon." —Losing Today.com

''one of my favourites in Continuum's 33 1/3 series of books on seminal albums.''

Largehearted Boy, August 2008

"is an ambitious project...Petrusich is up to the task, and her travels weave an essential sense of place into her exploration of the evolution of Americana music."

Julian Koster, Largehearted Boy, August 2008

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 "[A] fascinating read and a worthy inclusion in the pantheonof great books about great records." —Skyscraper magazine
(Matthew van DeWitt )

“The latest addition to the evergrowing33 1/3 series (now up to volume 51) is an in-depth look at Nick Drake's finalalbum "Pink Moon". Tackling a 28 minute album of sparse folk by anartist whose life went largely undocumented (there are no known video clips orinterviews with Drake) is a daunting task, but Petrusich handles the job nicelyby telling the story through interviews with the people who knew Drake andworked with him musically, as well as testimonials from current artists whohave felt his influence. She also does a great service to the readers by not paintingDrake as some romantically doomed poetic soul, like so many other writers havedone in the past. In fact, she does an excellent job of dispelling many Drakemyths (ex: he didn't anonymously leave the tapes for Pink Moon at Island's reception desk without saying a word), and evenpoints out flaws in the album (many of the vocals are garbled). The mostinteresting part of the book is the final third which focuses on Pink Moon's21st Century revival thanks to a 2000 Volkswagon commercial featuring the titletrack. While many make the argument that using a song to push a productcheapens the artistry of the song, "Pink Moon" was used to such greateffect that it has simultaneously become synonymous with Volkswagon. Moreimportantly, thanks to commercial exposure, annual sales of the album jumpedfrom 6,000 to 74,000 in the year that it hit the airwaves - exposing Drake'swork to a new generation. Perhaps the best praise I can give the book is thatafter I finished reading it I put it down and listened to Pink Moon.” –Losing Today.com

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 “[A] fascinating read and a worthy inclusion in the pantheonof great books about great records.” –Skyscraper magazine
(, )

About the Author

Amanda Petrusich is a writer for Pitchforkmedia.com and a senior contributing editor at Paste magazine. Her work has appeared in Spin, the Village Voice, the Oxford American, and elsewhere. She is the author of It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music, a travelogue about early Americana music forthcoming from Faber and Faber in 2008. She has an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Continuum; 1 edition (November 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826427901
• ISBN-13: 978-0826427908
• Product Dimensions: 4.8 x 0.3 x 6.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,022,592 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, unusual focus on Drake February 17, 2008

By Phil the Hypothetical

Format:Paperback

This was an enjoyable and suprisingly informative entry in the 33 1/3 series. I agree with the other reviewer on here that the in-between-chapter quotes from musicians and songwriters were a bit superfluous, and over half of them I had never heard of. Those bits of the book seemed like padding to me. The author seems to have opted to devote a good chunk of the book to the story behind the Volkswagon advert from a few years ago, and that's the part of the book that really impressed me. I don't think the author was going to dig up too much new information about Nick or the recording of this great album, so she focused instead on the album's resurrection due to the ad. This came across as very compelling - I have never read such an in-depth account of how TV advertising works, and how people choose the music to go in them. The author talks to the people at the ad agency, and the directors who made the commercial (the people behind Little Miss Sunshine a few years later!) and you get the sense that these people all really care about Nick's music, too. So, in summary, an unusual book but well worth reading in my opinion.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Dull "Moon" May 3, 2008

By Jay Murphy VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

While I'll give credit to Ms. Petrusich for the first two thirds of the book for providing insight into Drake's personality, his addictions and his inability to sell records even though his music frequently went way beyond brilliant. She discusses all of his other albums briefly, which I liked about this book. What I didn't like so much were the celebri-nots' musings on "Pink "Moon" in between chapters and the last third of the book describing every last detail of the VW ad. Just a friendly warning.

18 of 26 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars not a good book January 27, 2008

By Pat Thomas

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

nice try - but overall, not a good book - amongst it's many problems - it mispell's Bert Jansch as BURT Jansch many times. It's filled with hipster indie rock musicians - none of whom actually heard Nick's music before 1990. A third of the book is given over to praise upon praise to the folks who put the song "pink moon" in a Volkswagen TV commerical - which is a important moment in the history of this album - not nearly as important as Nick himself - who seems overshadowed by these TV ad people in importance by the author. Lastly contributer Nic Harcourt claims to have gotten Genesis promo posters from Nick Drake's 1970's record label ISLAND RECORDS as a teenager growing up in the UK - that's impossible, Genesis never recorded for ISLAND RECORDS. It's like saying that Warner Brothers (not EMI) sent out promo posters of the Beatles. Full of semi-misinformation and too much focus on the author and the indie-rock hipsters she interviewed.