Blank Generation by Peter Astor

Another winner in the 33 1/3 series

The 33 1/3 series is pretty straightforward: a slim little book that obsessively deep dives into an album. Some writers analyze track by track.  Others concentrate on the cultural atmosphere around the record. I’ve always preferred the latter, which is why Pete Astor’s Blank Generation worked for me. He doesn’t pick one angle—he moves between them, which can feel a little disjointed, but usually in a way that suits a record as jagged as Blank Generation. 

Astor starts with the mythmaking. The PLEASE KILL ME T-shirt—long assumed to be Hell’s own bit of street nihilism—turns out to have been worn by Richard Lloyd, pushed into it by Hell. Astor doesn’t treat that as a debunking but as insight: Hell understood image, pose, and theater. He didn’t just look like punk; he constructed the framework for it. These kinds of insights are exactly what makes Blank Generation enjoyable for me.

The book mixes a little of everything: snapshots of a broke, decaying ’70s New York; glimpses into Hell’s poetry; tangents on gear and recording; and a sincere appreciation of the Voidoids as more than backing players. At times Astor sounds like a frustrated music teacher and things get a bit nerdy, but just when you start drifting, he swings back into the cultural or lyrical context and it’s fun again.

What he does best is point out details that make you re-hear the album. His dive into “Betrayal Takes Two” stuck with me: Ivan Julian—just 22, fresh from touring with The Foundations—twisting the chord structure of “Build Me Up Buttercup” into something warped and menacing. Then there’s Hell’s lyrics  Astor gives a smart, sharp analysis that sends you straight back to the track with new ears.

I also appreciated how seriously Astor takes the Voidoids. Quine’s angular guitar lines, Julian’s bright slash-and-burn style—they weren’t just window dressing. They shaped Hell’s vision as much as he shaped theirs.

Personally, I came to the book already loving punk—both the British stuff and the classic New York lineage: Television, Blondie, the Ramones, Patti Smith. “Blank Generation” the song has always been iconic to me, but the album never sat on the same tier as Horses or the first Ramones record. Astor’s book nudged it upward. Reading a page or two and then playing the corresponding track brought a new appreciation (and was just plain fun to do).

If the album has always been on the periphery for you—or if you just like reading about the strange, fertile early days of NYC punk—this is one of the stronger 33 1/3 entries to dig into. (It’ll never match book number 83 in the series, though: Marquee Moon, by Bryan Waterman, which is one of the best books on the New York punk scene I’ve ever read.)