Nick Drake's Pink Moon (33 1/3)
"The latest addition to the evergrowing33 1/3 series (now up to volume 51) is an in-depth look at Nick Drake's finalalbum "Pink Moon". Tackling a 28 minute album of sparse folk by anartist whose life went largely undocumented (there are no known video clips orinterviews with Drake) is a daunting task, but Petrusich handles the job nicelyby telling the story through interviews with the people who knew Drake andworked with him musically, as well as testimonials from current artists whohave felt his influence. She also does a great service to the readers by not paintingDrake as some romantically doomed poetic soul, like so many other writers havedone in the past. In fact, she does an excellent job of dispelling many Drakemyths (ex: he didn't anonymously leave the tapes for Pink Moon atIsland's reception desk without saying a word), and evenpoints out flaws in the album (many of the vocals are garbled). The mostinteresting part of the book is the final third which focuses on Pink Moon's21st Century revival thanks to a 2000 Volkswagon commercial featuring the titletrack. While many make the argument that using a song to push a productcheapens the artistry of the song, "Pink Moon" was used to such greateffect that it has simultaneously become synonymous with Volkswagon. Moreimportantly, thanks to commercial exposure, annual sales of the album jumpedfrom 6,000 to 74,000 in the year that it hit the airwaves - exposing Drake'swork to a new generation. Perhaps the best praise I can give the book is thatafter I finished reading it I put it down and listened to Pink Moon." —Losing Today.com