Zeth Lundy

Well, it's a bummer that my goal book of the year, my three-hundredth read in a goal of completing 300 books this year, sucks.

I don't know if I got lucky with some of the earlier 33 1/3 books I read, but the last three have been complete stinkers (The Ramones/The Ramones, Guns 'n' Roses/Use Your Illusion I & II, and now this one).

The author takes at least two opportunities to take swipes at Emerson, Lake & Palmer's bloated prog rock (I'm not a massive fan of ELP, but one swipe in a book as short as this is enough). But what I found hilarious (probably too hilarious, but I'm desperately trying to find any fun I can) is that the author busts a prog rock band because they take all the humanity out of the electronic instruments they employ, as well as all the fun and improv out of the music. And that's exactly how this author writes. Seriously, the writing is pretentious and bloated, and the author won't state a fact cleanly in a sentence of five words when a bigger sentence with a lot more adjectives, adverbs, and analogies can be substituted in. So, where a different author to deliver the information cleanly and with humanity and with fun, this author instead choose to batter the reader into submission.

For such a short read, this book is a bloated, pretentiously-written excuse for the author to void their diarrhetic lexicon.

For all that, are there some nuggets of information in here? Yes, there are, when you wade through all the shit.

But yet again, while I understand it helps to get a sense of where the artist in question was coming from with their previous album and some of the stuff going on in their life, as well as a bit of insight into what happened once the album was released, I simply don't understand why, when the book specifically titled Stevie Wonder - Songs In The Key Of Life has to dive back to when he was twelve years old, and jump forward two decades.

Can't we just get an in depth look into the album and artist the book is titled after? Please?… (mere)