Blog Report: 52 Songs in 52 Weeks by Ari Hest

If you know me (which you probably don't, but that's okay), you know that I'm a big Ari Hest fan. I got hooked in by a song sampler that was in an otherwise terrible give away bag. I've seen him in concert twice and interviewed him once. He's a singer/songwriter all the way, and a personable one at that.

From a conversation I heard between Ari and someone on his management team (which I participated in by by trying to look cool and nod without letting anyone know how nervous I was to actually be a foot away from Ari), I knew that he wasn't happy with his corporate record deal. I don't think his second album, The Break-In, is nearly as good as the The Green Room Sessions, which is an EP he put out on his own (but The Break-In is still better than most of the stuff on the radio today).

In celebration of getting out of that contract, Ari has pledged to write a song a week for a year. You can follow along on his blog here. You can also buy individual songs via the site or iTunes, or do like I did and buy the year long feed -- 52 songs for $20. Not a bad deal if you ask me.

Now back to your regularily scheduled reading...

Comments

bookbabie said…

Hmmm, I've heard of him but I don't think I have any of his music, I'll go check out his blog:)

January 20, 2008 at 6:03 PM

Book 26 of 52: The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor — the Truth and the Turmoil by Tina Brown

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Book 23 of 52: Because of Miss Bridgerton by Julia Quinn

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Book 12 of 52: Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

Marjane Satrapi is an author and graphic novelist who grew up in Iran and, as a tween and teen, lived in the country through the Iranian Revolution before her parents sent her to Europe for school, and for her safety. As an adult, she wrote Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood , a nonfiction graphic novel, originally in French. I read the English translation, which was published in 2003, three years after the original. It was a critical success, won a slew of awards, and became a movie . I haven't read the sequel, Persepolis 2 , but I hope to (you can also buy them in a set . I found Persepolis in a Little Free Library, or I'd have bought them combined). In the tradition of Art Spiegelman's Maus , which is about the author's father talking to him about the Holocaust, Persepolis is a memoir of trauma told through a mix of images and words that when combined, combust into powerful, beautiful and soul cracking art. For example, Satrapi portrays the 1978 Cinema R

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