If you’re not familiar with them, the 33 1/3 series of books is a stellar way to read about an album. Each book of 30,000 words is written about a particular album. Some of them are actually about the album, others are written from the point of view of the author and the impact the album had on their life. So far, metal is pretty underrepresented on the list , with Slayer’s Reign in Blood (written by occasional Metal Sucks contributor D.X. Ferris) the only true metal album to have a book devoted to it. Andrew W.K.’s I Get Wet, Guns N’ Roses Use Your Illusion albums and Nine Inch Nails’ Pretty Hate Machine are also among the 89 albums that have been written about so far. That might change though.
The series’ web site recently ran a complete list of the proposal that they’ve gotten so far for books to come out in 2015. And of the 408 proposals they’ve gotten, there are actually a few metal albums on the list. Granted, there’s a lot more indie and alternative in the list, and many of these books won’t get made, but a fair amount of the proposed books are metal, with Van Halen, Megadeth, Iron Maiden and Aerosmith getting two proposals each. Here are the heavier proposals that came in for the class of 2015:
Van Halen, 1984 and Van Halen
Rush, 2112
Guns N’ Roses, Appetite For Destruction
Sepultura, Beneath the Remains
Ozzy Osbourne, Blizzard of Ozz
Megadeth, Countdown to Extinction and So Far, So Good So What
Mr. Bungle, Disco Volante
Sleep, Dopesmoker
Electric Wizard, Dopethrone
Failure, Fantastic Planet
Aerosmith, Get a Grip and Pump
Melvins, Houdini
Tool, Lateralus
Cult, Love
Metallica, Master of Puppets
Queensryche, Rage for Order
GWAR, Scumdogs of the Universe
Iron Maiden, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son and Number of the Beast
Quicksand, Slip
Godflesh, Streetcleaner
Metallica, Metallica
Pantera, The Great Southern Trendkill
Refused, The Shape of Punk to Come
Living Colour, Time’s Up
Stryper, To Hell With the Devil