Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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!

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!

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.

If you're into rock trivia or just have the need to know more detail, this is an excellent source. It is not fully encyclopedic, missing many albums found in other books, such as the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock. The writing is generally very good to excellent and doesn't lean into the overly opinionated, a fault with the Rolling Stone book. At the back of the book, there is a section covering the evolution of rock music that is very informative. It includes recommended recordings for many genres. Another minor point - some of the album release dates in this book are incorrect.

I agree with most of the sentiment expressed by the other reviewers. It's still the best guide out there, but its previously high standards have dropped alarmingly. Not only do we lose some excellent and helpful essays, but these are frequently replaced with fan-type reviews, which almost always are unobjective (i.e. they praise the band/artist without question), and which are therefore largely useless to the reader wishing to explore the music of that artist (I seem to recall the entry on 'Modest Mouse' being something on these lines...although my memory may be failing me).

To summarize: It's still the best guide out there, but I sincerely hope that the editors realise the error of their ways with this 3rd edition and rectify it in the 4th.

Has some errors and odd omissions, but I still learn something every time I pick it up. The online version is far more complete ... but I don't have a computer in my bathroom, yet.

The Website Allmusic.com is easily the biggest resouce for music information on the internet. Reviews on nearly every album ever made as well as helpful and educational essays can be found there. The rock version of that site has been put in a book and released in 2002.

For the most part you will no longer have to use the site if you just want to look up rock and soul albums. In fact only the most obscured artists and albums are left out. Not every rock essay is included in the book so you'll be returning to the site if you want to see all of those. A black dot next to a review indicates a good first purchase for that artist. A star indicates an essential purchase bu that artist. A black star indicates both a good first purchase and an essential purchase.
A helpful system that Rolling Stone's album guide didn't care about or try to emulate.

One may argue that the book is too generous. 95% of the artists get at least one five star review. The artist or album only gets blasted when it truly deserves it ( such as Milli Vanilli or Vanilla Ice ). For the most part the book treats everyone with kid gloves ( would you rather they be mean and hateful like Rolling Stone? ).

I don't agree with all the reviews such as Peter Gabriel's hit album, "So", which only get four out of five stars. They still gave a believable reason as to why the album deserved that rating instead of just saying that the album quote 'sucks' like the so called literates at Rolling Stone would have said.

To sum it up this is a very good book. It's still a good idea not to completely ignore the site because the whole site is not in the book. I cannot count how many artists this book has led me to recognize and maybe it will be helpful for you too.

First off this is supposed to be a guide to ROCK. With that in mind the following artists are missing:
Fear, Robin Trower, Accept, Raven, Giant Sand, Saxon, Yngwie Malmsteen(in fact there are no shred guitarists from the 80's included), New Model Army, Monkeywrench, Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band, The Pandoras, Warrior Soul & Deadbolt.
The next list is all of the artists that are in this ROCK guide:
Celine Dion, Mary J. Blige, D'Angelo, TLC, Tony! Toni! Tone!, Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Spice Girls, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Mariah Carey, Biz Markie, Coolio, Das EFX, Dr. Dre, Raekwon, Puff Daddy, Public Enemy, Queen Latifah, Rakim, Busta Rhymes, Vanilla Ice, Jay-Z, Jodeci, K-Ci & Jojo and last but not least the rockinest act ever Kid & Play.
Another beef that I have is that quite often a greatest hits type of record will be the only album reviewed by what I consider to be important bands. One that comes to mind is Rainbow. They had many albums with many different lineups so reviewing a greatest hits album will just not suffice. With all this negativity I still admit to reading this thing to death and it does come in quite handy for mostly classic rock purchases.
Next time leave the radio r&b for the r&b guide and include more complete discographies, metal, indie & punk or press up some separate guides for those genres.

This book is without a doubt the best overall guide to rock bands and musicians I have encountered. The coverage is very full - each artist has a career summary at the beginning which usually indicates highlight albums. THEN there is a discussion album by album. This is fantastic for being able to decide (if a given band is one you want to check out but are not familiar with their total output) which albums to buy to get their very best. The reviews are in general very well balanced. On some bands, a few albums are only listed rather than reviewed, reflecting the Guide's view that these albums are minor by comaprions - and one may diagree with this on given albums - but all up, this book is a must-have!

Cool book but not a patch on the previous edition. The best is still the best but it just got worse. Pity. Needs more groups info in the text.

There are few books as good as this but it is not what it used to be.