The always excellent 33 1/3 book series just announced the next two editions that are due to be added to the series: David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs and D’Angelo’s Voodoo. Though you’ll have to wait until circa Spring 2020 to snag these, they’ve got cover mock-ups and some words from the editors on why these will definitely be worth the wait.

David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs

Series Editor Kevin Dettmar says: We’re very excited to add a second David Bowie title to the 33⅓ series—Glenn Hendler’s book on Diamond Dogs. Hendler will look at Bowie’s almost-rock opera in the context of its time, and ours. Interest in Bowie has of course exploded in the wake of his untimely death last January; Diamond Dogs is eerily timely once again, as the George Orwell novel from which it takes its name shot up the bestseller charts following the election of our new president, and the album has new things to say as we examine the post-human and trans- identities that are now coming to the fore. Hendler promises to show us just how untimely and prescient this weird and gorgeous album always was.

D’Angelo’s Voodoo

Series Editor Gayl Wald says: In 2014, the multi-talented musician D’Angelo came roaring back into the public spotlight with Black Messiah, an album positioned both politically and aesthetically as a “soundtrack” to the burgeoning #BlackLivesMatter movement. For this 33 1/3 volume, filmmaker and writer Faith Pennick turns the clock back to Voodoo, the 2000 album that earned D’Angelo a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. Pennick explores Voodoo’s themes and sounds in the context of D’Angelo’s career and the history of millennial rhythm-and-blues. A sharp observer of black sexual politics, she pays special attention to the video for “Untitled (How Does It Feel),” which became a sensation for its hyper-eroticized representation of the artist’s naked torso, establishing D’Angelo’s permanent place in the pantheon of (black American) male musical sex symbols.