EVERYONE'S ACCUSING ME

I'm a fan of Continuum's 33 1/3 series. These are bite-sized books each dedicated to a single album, and some are quite insightful and entertaining.

However, others feel like they're fighting a bit too hard for a tenure track.

To wit, I just finished reading the entry on the Ramones' debut album, and commenting on the “second verse, same as the first” refrain in Judy is a Punk, the author notes:

"Although too much could be made of the affinities between these self-reflexive lines and experiments in metafiction-- fiction that breaks the frame and refers to the fact that it is fiction-- it's clear that the songs self-aware qualities were products of the same cultural trends that made possible the experimental, frame-breaking novels of Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, Hubert Selby, Charles Bukowski, William Gaddis, and others.”

Um, yeah. Either that, or it is a direct quote from one of the biggest hits by British Invasion popsters Herman's Hermits: I'm Henry the VIII, I Am:





Just my opinion you understand, but I think it's important for someone writing a book on the Ramones to know their Herman's Hermits at least as well as they know their Horkheimer and Adorno...