{"id":21183,"date":"2021-06-22T05:30:43","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T09:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=21183"},"modified":"2021-06-22T08:55:38","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T12:55:38","slug":"book-review-the-white-label-promo-preservation-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/22\/book-review-the-white-label-promo-preservation-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: The White Label Promo Preservation Society"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It\u2019s happened to me, and I\u2019d imagine it has happened to you. You\u2019re out in public somewhere \u2013 a bar, a food court, a record store, outside a music venue waiting for the doors to open \u2013 somewhere you\u2019d encounter strangers. And being a not-unfriendly sort, you find yourself drawn into conversation with one of those strangers. Suddenly, without warning he or she (but c\u2019mon now: most assuredly he<\/i>) launches into some deep-dive dissertation concerning why such-and-such album\/song\/artist\/what-have-you is the Greatest of All Time™. Secrets known only to him, now shared with you, whether you want \u2018em or not. Don\u2019t you plan on getting a word in edgewise.<\/p>\n

It can be tiring, especially when the stranger adopts a superior, know-it-all-tone. \u201cHey,\u201d you are thinking to yourself (because to think it out loud would be rude) \u201cEase back on the knowledge dropping.\u201d The thing is, he\u2019s got something. He\u2019s making an interesting point or three. If only he could have done so in a less overbearing manner.<\/p>\n

If he had done that \u2013 if he had combined knowledge with a welcoming approach that told you what you needed to know, made a case for a particular perspective, did it all succinctly and moved on \u2013 it could have been a sublime, enlightening experience. Fun, even. And you would have come away from the experience inspired to do you own deeper dive into the topic.<\/p>\n

[Adopts carnival barker voice] Well, dear friend, I\u2019m here to tell you that the answer to your prayers has arrived, in handy-dandy book form.<\/p>\n

[Returns to normal speaking voice] Sal Maida and Mitchell Cohen know their stuff. They\u2019re not boring anoraks; they\u2019re authorities on the subject of great music you may have never heard. And the duo \u2013 plus a well-curated roster of friends \u2013 have taken on an intriguing project: a compendium of essays extolling the virtues of obscure albums.<\/p>\n

The Whit<\/i>e<\/i> Label <\/i>Promo <\/i>Preservation Society<\/i> explores 100 albums that were commercial flops. Now, “flop\u201d can have a variety of meanings. But in this case, it\u2019s broadly defined as albums that failed to live up to the anticipated commercial potential. That means that while there are some ultra-obscurities, many of the records are by artists whose names you\u2019ll know.<\/p>\n

That definition means \u2013 as the author-editors explain in their introduction — that they won\u2019t waste your time telling you how great Pet Sounds<\/i> is. The thinking \u2013 rightly \u2013 is that you already know that (unless you\u2019re that one guy who writes for one of the magazines in which my work often appears).<\/p>\n

Instead, this engrossing, page-turner of a book covers music that you might know about, but likely haven\u2019t explored to its fullest. The book steers clear of jazz and other genres, not out of any kind of value judgment but rather as a way of making the project manageable. The albums discussed fall largely into rock, soul, r&b and pop categories, and it\u2019s not all stuff admired only by a buncha old white guys.<\/p>\n

The aforementioned friends include a veritable who\u2019s-who of what Greg Lake once called \u201cthem-what-knows.\u201d Music journalists (Susan Whitall, Jeff Tamarkin, Mike Stax) and musicians (Dennis Diken, Linda Pitmon, Peter Holsapple, Amy Rigby) and others all write in a lively, knowledgeable and user-friendly style about albums you simply must hear.<\/p>\n

I think of myself as a reasonably well-rounded music fanatic. I own something on the order of 4000 LPs and 5000 CDs. Yet as I work my way through this book, I\u2019m delighted to find record after record that I don\u2019t have, and in some cases, albums I\u2019ve never heard of<\/em>. You may find the same thing. Pleasures await the reader of The White Label Promo Preservation Society<\/i>. Highly, highly recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s happened to me, and I\u2019d imagine it has happened to you. You\u2019re out in public somewhere \u2013 a bar, a food court, a record store, outside a music venue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21184,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,49,65],"tags":[4563,4564],"class_list":["post-21183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book","category-new-release","category-review","tag-sal-maida","tag-the-white-label-promo-preservation-society","cat-10-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21183"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21188,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21183\/revisions\/21188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}