All Music Guide to Rock: The Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (3rd Edition) [Paperback]

Vladimir Bogdanov (Editor), Chris Woodstra (Editor), Stephen Thomas Erlewine (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2002 | Series: All Music Guides

Easy to use and fun to explore, this 1,400-page tome is the most complete guide ever published on the artists and recordings that really rock. Compiled by dozens of music critics, it reviews and rates more than 14,000 great albums by over 2,200 artists and groups in more than 400 styles - both mainstream and alternative - including bootlegs, import-only releases, important out-of-print recordings, and lesser-known cult artists. A brief profile details each performerÕs career, while insightful reviews of top recordings help define the musicianÕs artistic development and impact on rock. Expanded biographies spotlight major figures, along with complete album discographies. Also features educational essays and "music maps" that chart the evolution of rockÕs diverse subgenres at a glance.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

As accurate and obsessively detailed as www.allmusic.com is, its print cousins can seem somewhat redundant. This well-established entry, now in its third edition, offers biographical and listener's advisory information on artists and recordings that All Music Guide (AMG) editors Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine have deemed rock an all-encompassing term that includes pop, soul, R&B, rap, and easy listening. Since the last edition (1997), about 3000 album reviews and 400 artist profiles have been added. That makes for a total of 2200 alphabetically arranged artist entries and 14,000 reviews (rated on a scale of one to five stars), most of which are signed. While the contributors cover a remarkable range of new artists from Aaliyah to Weezer, they often give short shrift to those who recorded prior to the 1980s; sometimes, whole bodies of work are ignored in favor of "best of" compilations. Refreshingly, most reviews are free of rock elitism, so useful guidance is given for styles often reviled by critics (e.g., heavy metal). The closing section offers a series of introductory essays on various rock styles, some obvious ("British Invasion") and others obscure ("Jangle Pop"). Also included are dozens of "music maps," flow charts that illustrate the development of each style. The AMG provides more detail and analysis of an artist's career than the MusicHound, Rough Guide, and Rolling Stone books, so having circulating copies on hand may be most appropriate. Recommended, but keep the web site bookmarked. Lloyd Jansen, Stockton-San Joaquin Cty. P.L., CA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Vladimir Bogdanov is president of All Media Guide (AMG); Chris Woodstra is AMG editor-in-chief; Stephen Thomas Erlewine is an AMG senior editor.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1399 pages
• Publisher: Backbeat Books; 3rd edition (April 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 087930653X
• ISBN-13: 978-0879306533
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #630,694 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good but not the book it used to be, June 23, 2002

By 

peter piper (London, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All Music Guide to Rock: The Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

I fully agree with Harley Payette's statement which is posted here on [...]: "This is without a doubt the best rock reference book around today" and they add "however, it does not quite live up to the standard of the original 1995 edition which was simply the best rock reference book ever."

This is dead right (well, except my previous edition was dated 1997 and not 1995 but let's not quibble!). In this new edition the write-ups for each group have been cut right down and are far, far shorter than in the previous edition. Also some of the breathtaking excellent essays have been dropped. For example compare the entries for Nirvana: 20 column inches in 1997 have been reduced to less than three column inches!

Fortunately the All Music website provides access to most of this missing data but I would really like to have it in book form.

Yes, this is still the best rock reference around but sadly it is not as good as it used to be. It is drifting worryingly towards the format of the MusicHound book on Rock (which, if you don't know it, is another rock reference guide).

I guess the best way to fill the hole which is now appearing in the All Music book is to get the Rough Guide to Rock. The Rough Guide was always a bit idiosyncratic as a lot of its entries were written by fans of the groups involved (but they were not always sickeningly sweet in their statements!) but the Rough Guide always gave a far more immediate sense of the passions and emotions of what the band was all about, whereas the All Music guide confined its remarks to the strictly factual and it always seemed to write as if the All Music guide was thinking about the band's lawyers suing it!

Just to complete the comparison of the All Music guide to other similar volumes, there is the Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Despite its high price the Virgin book really doesn't stand up to any of the guides I have mentioned. It is not worth considering.

So buy this All Music guide. It still is the best. But the best just got worse. Maybe buy the former edition (1997, second edition) instead to make sure you get all the band info. In fact, I could see a case for buying the former edition in preference to this latest edition if your real interest is not on album reviews but on background to bands!

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally updated: the best rock reference book, bar none, April 24, 2002

By 

Paul Allaer (Cincinnati) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: All Music Guide to Rock: The Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

5 years after the 2nd Edition, we finally receive the 3rd Edition of the All Music Guide to Rock: 1,399 (no, not 1,400!) pages of vital information on the best in rock music from yesterday and today. What sets this reference book apart from its competitors is the detailed album-by-album review (and rating) of the artists. A good example is how the editors treat Bob Dylan's career and its 40+ (and counting) albums.

The book cover albums issued before or no later than October 2001, so you will find reviews on albums such as Dylan's "Love & Theft" and Collective Soul's "7even Year Itch", but you won't find, say, Radiohead's "I Might Be Wrong--Live Recordings" or Natalie Merchant's "Motherland". Of course, as the editors note, this book is culled from the vastly more expansive on line version of All Music Guide, which obviously is also updated more frequently. The book has some curious omissions (what, no listing for Creed?) and out-of-proportion reviews (3+ pages on The Fall, about the same as for the Beatles!).

In the end, those are minor quibbles. While the on line version is more complete and up to date, I also want to have something I can physically leaf through (same reason why there are still actual newspapers, I guess). Let's just hope that it won't take another 5 years before the 4th Edition sees the day of light! Meanwhile, we will do with this. BUY IT!

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great but not quite the book its father was, May 22, 2002

By 

Harley P. Payette (Phillipsburg, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: All Music Guide to Rock: The Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

This is without a doubt the best rock reference book around today. However, it does not quite live up to the standard of of the original 1995 edition which was simply the best rock reference book ever.

The good news is that there is little overlap between this and the previous volumes. Nearly all of the reviews (maybe 90 percent) have been assigned to new writers and re-written. Besides the new and often fascinating reviews, the advantage this book has over its predecessor is more reviews per artist. And as in the previous edition nearly all of the albums featured receive an in-depth critical appraisal not the one or two tossed off lines you'll find in other music guides. Of course the book is also up to date featuring dozens of albums released since 1995 by both new and veteran artists.

That all being said, the original book was much better. The artists biographies are cut to the bare minimums this time around. And while this new edition contains individual essays on rock's various sub-genres, there are less of them in the new book. Further the first volume contained a number of book and bootleg reviews. In this edition there's none of the former and precious few of the latter. There are also less of the one-hit wonders and obscure bands that were present in the first book.

As usual, the criteria for inclusion is erratic and subjective. Like the first volume the editors draw the line at performers associated with a Country and Western audience excluding even performers with large pop and rock followings like Johnny Cash and Brenda Lee. There are similar oversights with current performers like the hugely popular Sugar Ray. The questionable selection criteria is also present in the albums that are reviewed. For example, the Temptations are represented only by greatest hits collections all essentially featuring the same songs. While a casual fan needs to know which of these to select, they also want to know where to go for more. Finally, though they are few and far between, there are a few factual errors. (The CD reissue of "Ray Charles and Betty Carter" does not contain "But on the Other Hand Baby". That's one example that jumps out at me.)

Still, the majority of these flaws are only noticeable in comparison with the stunning standards set by the previous book. Nowhere else are you going to find this much rock history in one volume. When you're done with this you'll know more about the music as music than you'd ever thought you would know. Just don't throw out the first volume.