Although I can devour 33 1/3 books like so many Kit Kats, I’ll admit they’re not all created equal. I’ve preferred the nuts ‘n’ bolts “behind the scenes” volumes to the ones that attempt to capture an album’s appeal in fictional or personal essay form. The last two 33 1/3 books I’ve read have won me over to the latter approach, though.

First, there was Mountain Goats mainman and Decibel magazine columnist John Darnielle’s novella concerning Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality. Through his narrator, a troubled youth confined to a psych ward (and having had all his tapes confiscated, to boot), Darnielle manages to capture the appeal of Sabbath and their heaviest album, as well as depicting exactly how, for some of us, music functions as a stabilizing, essential constant in our lives. It’s a moving little book.

The last 33 1/3 I read was one I’ve picked up many times in stores, wondering exactly what its deal was. Author Carl Wilson’s choice of subject jumped out at me as surprising, if banal—Céline Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love. Was he kidding? This wasn't exactly up there with The Velvet Underground and Nico or Unknown Pleasures in terms of albums with rock crit credibility. The book’s subtitle helped to clarify the author’s intentions a little bit: “A journey to the end of taste.” Well, that was nearly enough to sell me on it.

Instead I checked it out of the library. It was better than I could have imagined. Wilson picks up and connects many threads in his very personal exploration of Céline Dion’s appeal—notions of kitsch, schmaltz, “lowbrow” art, Quebecois culture, the talent show as genre, and so on—but the question this book really seeks to answer is “Why do we like what we like?” And that’s a big question, comprising personal decisions and impulses both conscious and unconscious.

It’s a small thrill when a writer connects their subject matter to something I enjoy. Wilson, bless him, does it here:
“As her songs rocket to their predestined apexes, she does not resist, she goes along for the ride, leaning on the accelerator and seldom the brake, emphasizing intensity not difference. It reminds me of nothing so much as current ‘underground’ metal, which has thrown out the spare musical parts of past hard rock and pared down to loud guitars, drums and screaming. Today’s metal has no power ballads, no more Nazareth doing ‘Love Hurts,’ no more Kiss doing ‘Beth,’ no more Guns N’ Roses ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine.’ So Céline is singing them instead. It’s been said that ‘pro wrestling is soap opera on steroids,’ so maybe Céline Dion is metal on estrogen.”

To paraphrase the Dayglo Abortions, reading about Black Sabbath is lots of fun. Rat Salad: Black Sabbath—The Classic Years, 1969–1975 is a mad thing, that's for sure. I've devoured it like a handful of fig newtons. Wait, that doesn't sound very metal. Oh well, author Paul Wilkinson doesn't come across as all that diabolical himself. The book weaves together a few different threads. First, it's a dissection of Sabbath's catalogue, album by album, song by song...but only the first six albums. Wilkinson doesn't hold truck with anything post-Sabotage. I'd push for the remaining two Ozzy-era albums, but hey, it's Paul's book. Second, it's a Sabbath biography, pulling in material from a variety of secondary sources in time-honoured rock bio tradition. Wilkinson's innovation in this respect is setting Sabbath's career amidst the world events of the time—Vietnam, the oil crisis, Watergate, and so on. Finally, it's an autobiography. As the Sabs graduate from Hamburg's Star Club to the a-list touring circuit, our author savours his first kiss, cracks his head open and convalesces in hospital, experiences a death in the family (admittedly a very moving passage in the book), cops his first feel, and finally gets to see his heroes in concert (on the Never Say Die tour, where the PA packs it in after an hour).

The jacket blurb likens the book to Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the Head meets Spinal Tap, which is kind of a cheap shot. I'd drop the Spinal Tap reference, and leave intact the comparison to MacDonald. Wilkinson's musical analysis is extremely credible and thorough, and he doesn't skimp on the criticism. Underwritten songs, failed experiments, and bad lyrics are lamented almost as often as the classic songs come in for praise. While "Supertzar" "sits on Sabotage like a Sunday painter's worst watercolour in a room full of Vermeers," "Killing Yourself to Live" contains "a whole album's worth of music...that hangs together in a, quite literally, breathtaking manner."

Sometimes Wilkinson's footnote-heavy, chatty approach makes his book seem like it contains an entire lifetime's worth of writing, but really, I want to hand it to the guy for penning one of the most enjoyable and necessary rock books I've read in quite a while.

Sabbath, Sabbath Everywhere
After The Osbournes last night (highlighted by the spectacular boaking, as they say in Alan Warner novels, of Jack's bulldog) we saw some snippets of a show about Ozzy fanatics on MuchMoreMusic. The fans were a sad and deluded bunch. "I wanna thank Ozzy for inspiring me to become a tattoo artist." "I think if I got to hang out with Ozzy, we'd become best friends." "Ozzy's never ever let me down." And so on. The best bits of the show were the live clips of Ozzy with the reunited Sabbath. The footage was regrettably Ozzy-centric, though. I could see Geezer back there directing traffic, and I caught a glimpse of Bill Ward's bass drums once or twice, but otherwise it was all Ozzy all the time, interspersed with shots of ham-headed bully rockers down "in the pit."

That was okay, because I got a good dose of Sabbath on the weekend—gluesticking mauve polka dots to our bedroom wall to the strains of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. It was a testicle-retention gambit.

Those mid-period Sabbath albums used to daunt me as a kid. I didn't know anyone who was into that stuff. Acmac had Paranoid, which I borrowed and taped some choice cuts from. "Iron Man" and the title track—yes. "Rat Salad," hoo-boy! "Hand of Doom"? Nah. My infrequent friend Glenn had Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, but I never got to listen to it, and Glenn was well on his way to becoming a dirtbag anyhow. It just bolstered my suspicion that getting too deeply into Sabbath would cause one to plunge into waywardness and become Addicted to Drugs.

It's dangerous fucking music, that Volume 4/SBS/Sabotage trilogy. The process of understanding its genius would have taken too much of a toll on my teenage self. At 15 I was one short, sharp shock away from being put on life support (such was my lack of wherewithal and worldliness), so I think if I'd clicked with, say, "A National Acrobat" or "Megalomania" my sense of self-preservation would have stopped me from ever leaving my room again.

I can't say for sure, though. I could hack the likes of Close to the Edge, Brain Salad Surgery, and other musics clearly composed off-planet. The difference between that music and Sabbath, besides the fact that it's bleedin' poncy bollocks, lies in what Prof. Bill Martin identifies as prog rock's optimistic, utopian nature. That was me to a T back then. Sabbath is anything but utopian, and I realize now that that's what disturbed me about their music. Ozzy was wearing a "Kill Hippies" shirt last night, so the Sabbath ethos is alive and well!

I'm glad I was more or less a fully formed adult when I entered the church of Sabbath, which, incidentally, is located in the vicinity of Gilley and Patrick in South Burnaby. There I found guidance and solace as I peered into the Iommi-riffed abyss. I soon took sticks in hand and worked up to performing a credible version of "Cornucopia" with my benevolent mentors. Acting like Black Sabbath, it turns out, is lots of fun.