Lost In The Grooves: Scram's Capricious Guide To The Music You Missed

Rating:
Summary: Decent bathroom reader....
Review: ...as these types of books go, but I finished it in about 15 minutes. The premise: get a bunch of aging "music critics" to write a couple of paragraphs about a relatively obscure/totally obscure "lost classic," mainly in the bubblegum/power pop genre.

Warning: the Beach Boys L.A. (LIGHT ALBUM) is considered (by one of the contributors) to be one of these "lost classics." Alrighty then....

Bottom line: The book is OK if you have $14 bucks that you really don't need to spend on something else. If you're like me and don't have that kinda dough tearing a hole in your pocket, visit your local library.



Rating:
Summary: Thanks Mom!
Review: I'm a bit biased, since i was involved, but i really loved reading this book while trying to decide what i would illustrate. I've always considered my record collection to be diverse and obscure, but this book introduced me to a ton of new music (a lot of which is hard to find). It's an encyclopedic-style index of really obscure records with reviews written by all kinds of writers, critics, musicians, etc. The great thing is it's written without all the snobbery of many obsucure record collectors. This book loves the bizarre, ugly and ridiculous forgotten records without irony or shame.

Rating:
Summary: Terrific Reference/Guide for all Music Lovers
Review: Lost in the Grooves, Scram's Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed from Routledge Press, written by many contributors, is edited by Kim Cooper and David Smay with cover and illustrations by Tom Neely. This could be considered both the anthology and encyclopedia of the not-so-popular music scene. Written in clever, whimsical, tongue in cheek style, the book is a wealth of trivia and facts about hundreds of albums and singles which never made the Top Ten or Hit Parade in the last forty-plus years, some by obscure artists and some non-hits by well-known artists. Because of the alphabetical arrangement of the numerous reviews the juxtaposition of the aritists, styles, and genre of the music is outrageously interesting in itself! For anyone who ever shoved nickles into a Juke Box, any music lover of any kind, and any pop-culture enthusiast, this book Rocks! Tom Neely's delightful cover design, illustrations, and caricatures of some of the artists will delight any reader

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful source for overlooked joys!
Review: Reading Lost in the Grooves is the most fun and uniquely informative thing I have done in the last few months. Kim Cooper has been a fan of what she calls "unpopular culture" from the time she realized that "good" and "marketable" are often not synonymous. Her magazine, Scram has championed guilty pleasures such as Boyce and Hart records and TV chimp shows for years. David Smay and Kim collaborated to put out Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth, which explored one of their shared maligned obsessions. They used the same modus operandi of soliciting music lovers to share their thoughts on what turns them on in this latest book venture. They asked a number of people who review records, for a wide variety of music publications, to talk about records they feel deserved more acclaim and acceptance than were initially bestowed upon them. Their picks, naturally, are anything but another "greatest hits" or "best of" list. I have discovered several records I had missed out on until now (Bee Gees - Mr. Natural and Johnny Cash - Bitter Tears) and will be checking out others when time and budget allow. If you're the kind of person who won't listen to anything that wasn't a number one radio hit, this won't interest you. If you are open minded and always looking for hidden treasures, you will find Lost in the Grooves to be a rare delight.