The art of music journalism isn't dead. This book is exhibit A. Tuck in and enjoy a journey through some of music's most precious - and hidden - gems.

Truly love this series and was overjoyed to see this installment. This is a great little volume and I know it will find A place on my library’s shelf!

I really enjoyed this one -- I have read many of these titles and they are great reads all the way down the line in terms of research and criticism. This one stands out though -- everyone likes to talk about that one album they love that nobody else cares about. The joy in these shorter pieces in infectious. The pieces on the albums I know offered me some interesting insights and the ones on other albums made me dig them up for a listen. We all have albums like this in our lives -- the minor pieces by major artists that strike us as important for reasons that might have nothing to do with the music itself. Celebrating these guilty pleasures is always fun and these authors do it well.

I love the 33 1/3 books. They’re just little packages of delight. I’m also a music nerd and grew up listening to Blur b-sides obsessively and claiming them better than album tracks. This is basically my Venn diagram of interests intersecting perfectly.

My favourite chapter was Rodan’s ‘Rusty’ - one of my favourite albums of all time. I added so many albums to my spotify playlist while reading this too! Can’t wait to listen to that Weakerthans album - what a story. Oh and to be reminded of my teenage love of For Want Of! What a wonderful book.

I really like reading the 33 1/3 extended essays on albums that I love, so I was looking forward to this collection of shorter essays on "B-sides" (less well-known, less acclaimed albums that still hold a special place in the heart of these writers). Although I didn't know quite a few of these albums, they were still enjoyable to read - it's refreshing to see a person's passion about something, expressed without tearing others down or being cynical. I'm looking up a bunch of these to have a listen.

I've read several 33 1/3 books, and this inventive collection is one of the most enjoyable. Previous 33 1/3 authors are asked what "B-Side" records they write a book about, if they had the opportunity. Their essays in response are divided into three categories: juvenilia, marginalia, and memorabilia. The authors' choices are often surprisingly and intriguingly supported, and in some ways the categories steer them away the overly academic style that hampers some 33 1/3 offerings. On the other hand, several of the writers are not entirely skilled at autobiographical essays; some feel uninspired, dashed-off, and uncertain of their audience. Overall, however, I value the book for the records it motivated me to investigate and for authors' insights into the power of music that connect with my own. #netgalley

Those familiar with the 33 1/3 series will enjoy this compilation which focuses not on one album, like the other entries in the series, but discusses many albums including classic LP's by Leonard Cohen, The Rolling Stones, R.E.M., the Smashing Pumpkins, Bob Dylan and others. It appears that the compilers felt that the albums chosen would not warrant separate 33 1/3 books on these albums (which in most cases are not the artist's most popular albums) and so they devote only a few pages to each album and compiled them all in this book.

A great addition to the 33 1/3 collection. Interesting, well-written takes on albums from previous writers in the series.The three sections are ordered by album release date. I personally found some of the picks to be somewhat obscure but some of the fun is being able to listen to an album or track as you are reading about it (praise to the internet). Each piece is only a few pages long and with over 50 included there should be something for every music lover.

These are short essays each by a different author on a favorite album that wasn’t one that was popular with the masses, the “B sides.” The small book features 55 different musicians (counting the introductions.) If you enjoy music these essays will remind your favorite album and how it affected you.

Many, or at least the ones I read, seem to feature the author reminiscing back to their youth, when music first started taking hold, and the album they listened to over and over, that became a constant.

I didn’t read this entirely, just dabbled here and there with the artists I’m familiar with. I tried reading one or two of ones I don’t know and it didn’t do much for me. I love the concept of the series and will be looking for one of the full-length books dedicated to one artist.

Like its parent series the 33 1/3 B-sides collection is a mixed bag of essays about albums across all genres, mainly focusing on personal connections to an album or a making of overview. I largely enjoyed these, learning more about albums I already love, and finding new albums to listen to. However some essays focused on albums that were just too unknown to me or were a little boring in writing style so it feels like one to dip in and out of. It also seemed like less than 20% of the 50+ essays were by women and this felt really noticeable and a real shame!

An interesting and enjoyable book that has been well researched.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for a copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

Authors of previous 33 1/3 books are invited back for brief essays on other albums about which they might have written. So in that sense, yeah, B-sides. But the editors (whose 33 1/3 I didn't read because I once saw Petra's Beyond Belief film, so have already had all the LOLs one life needs out of Christian rock) have also stipulated that the albums concerned should themselves be B-sides in some other sense, which mainly serves to occasion logical contortions by the contributors: I don't care how punk your crowd was, mate; Leonard Cohen's Songs of Love and Hate is in no sense a B-side. Nobody has the sense to do the obvious thing and write about an actual B-sides collection such as Pet Shop Boys' staggering Alternative, or Suede's Sci-Fi Lullabies which, despite its unforgivable omissions, remains one of their best. A few at least gesture convincingly by writing about oddments such as Christina Aguilera's Spanish album, or releases before or after an act's peak – though the piece about REM's debut EP, for all its undoubted love, can't help but be dominated by a) the writer's 'I was there!' over being into REM considerably before you and b) the writer's description of 1982 as a famously terrible year for music, which is a very strange thing to read when any UK pop fan in my circles just takes it as read that it was one of the best. Far too many pieces, though, are about acts' most obvious and canonical albums - Scritti's Cupid & Psyche '85, Cale's Paris 1919, even a couple that don't have years in the title. Not that the pieces are necessarily uninteresting; at this length, even something where a slim 33 1/3 volume might not appeal can offer a worthwhile glimpse of worlds entirely new to me. It's only the entirely avoidable error of that editorial straitjacket which makes them seem out of place for failing to fit a restriction that was never needed in the first place. Then too, there's a competition in which the most popular entry here will be expanded into a full 33 1/3 volume, which seems misconceived, because while there are definitely entries here which seem like pitches, some of the best are the ones which are perfect just the way they are: I loved the account of a new father coming to terms with Billy Idol's Cyberpunk, but I suspect that at book length it would be purgatorial, not least for the writer.

Inevitably, cycling through so many entries from people who often share a certain mindset can sometimes feel like exposure to an inhuman amount of American-style music criticism; one entry is mostly about the author apologising for once being snarky about Guided By Voices because he wanted the big boys at Pitchfork to think he was cool. Style-wise, the worst offender might be the piece on the Smashing Pumpkins' Adore, with its description of Mellon Collie and Gish as the band's "cornerstone outputs". Although there's a strong rival in the tediously predictable piece on a live album by the predictably tedious Band, who in any case have already had a 33 1/3, which is at least one more than they deserve. Honestly, it reads like an unnecessarily long and particularly cruel post to Facebook's Group Where We Pretend To Be Boomers. Even the generally likeable piece about the soundtrack to the Village People's Can't Stop The Music, whose general agenda of not being ashamed to like things sincerely I wholly support, is riddled with that maddening assumption that the American experience is universal. "The title track nails it. Think about the lyrics for a second, and don't pretend you don't know them." Except it's not one of the three Village People tracks which prospered in Britain, so I feel like Granny Weatherwax successfully not thinking of an elephant.

More often, though, it's just a case of 'well, I wouldn't have done it like that'. Melody Maker's Unknown Pleasures book remains the gold standard for anthologies about underappreciated albums, even if many of its entries have since joined the canon. Footnote acts I would have thought naturals for inclusion - the Devils, Lifter Puller, the Creatures - may or may not have their stories told elsewhere one day. And in the meantime, this collection has interested me in a couple of new acts, and will hopefully likewise introduce Kenickie to people for whom, astounding as it may seem, they weren't a core part of teenagerdom.

(Netgalley ARC)

I had such high hopes for this based on the title and summary. I’m a music lover and there’s nothing I enjoy more than finding recommendations for some obscure music to explore. But while this book might have eventually done that, I couldn’t sustain interest long enough to find out. I only read the first 2 chapters before giving up. It was very boring to me and seemed super circuitous to get to the point of each chapter/title, if there really was one. I don’t recommend this. Thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury for sharing the ARC.

33 1/3 was (is?) a series of books I never really got on board with – people I've never heard of talking about albums I've never heard; until the likes of, say, the Bjork one at least. If anything combined the selections it was a kind of "student listening" I never grew into, either when I was a student or afterwards. But I do love the series, for the "Twin Peaks soundtrack" one got me addicted to the sci-fi-kitsch of Jean-Jacques Perrey, and for that I will be forever grateful. Now, Perrey albums are just not "student listening" – you'd have to have a unique whimsy to attempt to culturally unpack anything with such a sense of humour and a Moog front and centre. It's just not compatible with the bedsit canon. But they may have found their way here, where a lot of returning authors from the franchise give us thoughts on a "B-side album" – a set of music that doesn't deserve a full book, but whether it hit a formative time, or marked a distinct watershed in a musician's or genre's existence, or just acted as a kind of ephemera, deserves a proper look.

And that's why I really liked this book. No, once more there is too much "student listening", but heck it made me want to look again at the second De La Soul set, it made me aware how unaware I was of Del Amitri, and so much more. I will confess to reading little of this, but why try and like the musicology when you know you don't like the music? (Although scanning some of the "who? What?" sections taught me at least one thing – that Modest Mouse overlapped with Alta Vista web searches.) That's not to say these people can't write, mind – for those with an adventurous taste, this is a minefield; it looks like common ground where you know what to expect, but you can tread on a right banger in wait just for you at any time. With 55 charges present, there's something for everyone here.

Love the 33 1/3 series, this is a great addition to that wonderful book series. Highly recommended for all music fans.

Many of these records were new to me. Sadly, I've lost touch with new music over the past 30 some years. But I enjoyed the book and am looking forward to exploring music again in the not too distant future! I have often discovered the B-sides of albums had better music on it than the A-sides! I liked so the many essays by a variety of writers discussing their own B-sides. I don;t know that it's well researched, but it is very readable and it's interesting to read about how others view and judge their music. I'd recommend this book to music lovers. It would make great gift, as well.

Varied, and necessarily variable in terms of quality, collection of short narratives about obscure and/or overlooked albums. Some should definitely have been extended to full 33 1/3 volumes, others would probably be best forgotten. But quite fun though while we're waiting for the next 33 1/3s to appear.

I really enjoyed this book, it was well written and researched and has set me on a path to discover the B side of some fantastic new music!

Essays on less famous/successful albums by very well-known artists by a diverse mix of commentators. They paint a broader picture of the artists rather than a traditional track by track assessment, and give a greater feel for the artists themselves

An interesting and well written book. It was an entertaining and engrossing excursus on music and it helped to discovered some underrated records.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine