Hey all. I just wanted to gauge interest in this project I’ve been planning for the past few months. Briefly, I want to write a book reviewing every officially-released AFI song (including covers, excluding live versions and alternate recordings unless there are notable differences between them), along with other thoughts on the band and their work.
I’ve compiled a list of 185 songs that I think is comprehensive, and I own (or will soon own) legitimate copies of almost all of them, which was important to me. I didn’t want to take the easy way out and just download the rare tracks.
I’m posting about it here because I’d also like to include reviews, essays, and fan art from fellow fans, so that it’s not entirely one fan’s effort. That said, I’ll go it alone if I have to. My plans for the book include self-publishing it at zero profit, and hopefully getting copies to the band themselves, as was done with a previous fan book project. Let me know if you’re interested, thanks!
I love this idea because it’s like a family tree… each song tells a story to every single fan. While “I Hope You Suffer” could mean more to one person than another, songs like 6 to 8 could also mean a ton to someone else.
I know that may not constitute as a “review” but that could be part of it.
This would be a huge undertaking, but very possible.
I would love to write entries for some songs, especially “Greater Than 84!” ️
Many of the songs will likely have multiple people who want to write or submit images for the same song. Perhaps if this project is a digital book, all the submissions from people can be used?
We should just use this thread to start making our entries.
For example, I could start with a confession that my one tattoo was inspired by Davey whispering the poem at the end of “Midnight Sun”. I didn’t care for all that I wrote; all that it inspired me to write but my favorite part was the beginning…
“O thee, who once looked down upon me. I’ve gained strength since its last…”
It’s a very meaningful line to me and Midnight Sun inspired it.
If there are 185 songs to cover, wouldn’t it make sense to set up a thread for each song (or album if that’d be easier)? That way the entries wouldn’t get mixed up.
Glad some people like the idea! Since I’m going to be the one putting it together, I suggest that instead of having 185 separate threads clogging up the works, we could have 10 threads (one for each album), 1 thread for EPs, 1 thread for b-sides, and 1 thread for covers. This would also make it easier for me to sort through.
Hey all. Just wanted to update you that I’ve started work on the book in earnest. I’ve got an outline worked out in terms of how the book will be organized (basically, preface, TOC, introduction, glossary of abbreviations, alphabetical song reviews interspersed with articles about all the official EPs/LPs & fan art, an article about the live show experience/live albums, and a conclusion), and I’ve written a draft of the introduction.
I expect that I can have this completed by the end of the year, though I’ll try to have it finished earlier if I can manage it.
What I’d like from other fans who are interested in contributing is either short blurbs about individual songs (as many as you like), the albums, live shows, and if there are enough people interested, I could even throw in a section like, “What AFI Means to Me” or something for general thoughts and feelings on the band. I’d also be interested in fan art.
I’ll also take care of posting the discussion threads (as mentioned earlier in this thread). For the purposes of avoiding clutter, I’ll stagger the threads a bit, posting a new one every few days. I’ll start with the 10 albums in order, then make the EP thread, then the B-side thread, and finally the cover thread. Sound good?
I’ll share more on this soon, but I’m working on something as well (complerely different than yours - don’t worry!)… but I plan to title it, “I Am AFI”.
I’m calling it AFI - A2Y because it’s basically an A-to-Z guide. There’s no AFI songs that start with Z, hence Y, plus it rhymes and balances out nicely with the band name. Yes, the book will actually start with “…But Home Is Nowhere” and the songs that begin with numbers, but I’m not going to let such trifles interfere with clever titles.
The icons obviously represent each album, and while it’s hard to tell at that scale, I recreated each one in a sort of angular, segmented style. The words in the background are the titles of all 185 songs covered in the book.
What font is that? I’m not married to my choice, it’s just a placeholder for now.
I did want to include the word “official,” though, in order to clarify that this isn’t a guide to every AFI song, only the officially-released ones. Like, “The View From Here” is an AFI song that many people have heard… but it was never released officially. I also liked the idea that this is an unofficial guide to something that is official.
️
