Customer Reviews

The Book of Metal: The Most Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Metal Music Ever Created

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Just to let you know, I am a trivia freak. I love collecting useless information and storing it away waiting for the moment to dazzle someone with my knowledge of useless information. That being said, this book is full of errors...Here is a (very condensed) list of errors that I found:
1. On the Type O Negative page it states that their album called "The Origin of the Feces" is a live album when it is not. Granted, it is made to sound like a live album, but it is not, and 2 minutes of research this could have been cleared up.
2. On the Cult page, it said that they (The Cult) had an infleuence on Sound Garden. I don't know about you, I don't know of Sound Garden....I have heard of a little band called Soundgarden (one word).
3. On the Cradle of Filth page, it mentions an album called Bitter Suites to the Succubi....when it should be "Bitter Suites to Succubi."
4. On the Ratt page, it mentions a band called Kixx....maybe they meant Kix.
5. On the Queensryche page, it named an album called Hear in the new frontier.....again...no such album...it is called "Hear in the Now frontier."
So you can see my frustration...these are examples from bands that I know something about. What about the bands that I'm unfamiliar with. I don't want to be filled with bad information when I try to learn about other bands for the first time.

Oh yeah...one more thing...what the hell is up with Opeth getting 1/4 of a page when Limp Bizkit, Blink 182 and other such suckass bands get their own page, full color etc. It's a good thing that I really never read Metal Hammer magazine (Chris Ingham does something for them..I can't remember what it is...but instead of guessing and being wrong, I'll just let you know that I don't know)....If I did, I probably wouldn't know one thing about real metal...(at least anything true)

To view the front cover and opening pages, one expects this anthology to be definitive and comprehensive. Instead, "The Book Of Metal" is a disgrace to the genre and music in general.
First of all, it's full of incorrect history, so much so as to be embarrassing to even read it. For example, the book says Ted Nugent's "Cat Scratch Fever" is his second solo album. Wrong. "Free For All" was the second Nuge album.
Second, the book is in dire need of proofreading. I have never seen a book in published form that was so full of misspelled words and incorrect punctuation. Ingham has no clue when it comes to contractions. A band records "its" debut, Chris, not "it's" debut. That makes it short for "it is" and you get a sentence that would say, "the band recorded it is debut album." Sound retarded? Of course it does. You should know better.
The most grating of all is the inclusion of outfits so obscure most rockers never heard of them, exclusions of metal legends except for listing a name of a band at the end of each chapter, and calling such twits as Blink 182 metal. How can an "expert" on metal include Papa Roach (gimme a break) and exclude Saxon, Budgie or Sacred Reich? And where is Norway's infamous Mayhem?
Avoid this book like bird flu laced with a touch of bubonic plague. This author knows not what he writes.

Where to begin? 4 blind yaks could've done a better job than this hideous, no-talent hack Chris Igham of "Metal Hammer" whatever the crap that is. I cannot believe that someone could actually earn money for this piece of garbage, let alone sucker a publisher!
To wit:
Blink 182??????Bloodhound Gang????Bush????The Queers????
Silverchair????Tura Satana????Zebrahead????
I won't go on about the sad inclusions in this disgrace.
And, what of the litany of mistakes? Just one sad example:Deep Purple. Ritchie Blackmore joined Elf, which became Rainbow? Ummm, Blackmore quit Purple and made Rainbow, originally a solo project a full-time band as he asked Ronnie James Dio to sing. Dio would only do so if his bandmates in Elf could join, and after the first Rainbow album Blackmore sacked them all anyway except for Dio. Deep Purple disbanded in 1984? Try 1976, and then they REFORMED in 1984! Their final ambum was "Perfect Strangers"? No, it was their REUNION album! And, they've been together ever since. The "Classic" line-up was Coverdale, Blackmore, Lord, Paice and Glover? Glover never played with Coverdale-and the "Classic" line-up would involve Gillan not Coverdale, though Coverdale was great.
This is just one example of the garbage that this book is. It's not even worthy of dog poop. I'm glad I only spent $6.99 on it, but I still feel robbed!!!!!

I think almost every thing's been covered by all the previous review. Typos, misinformation, inclusion and over exposure of a slew of non-metal bands, and exclusion of many bands and sub-genres.

THIS BOOK IS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT METAL BUT THEY HAVE BLINK 182, AND PEARL JAM? THIS BOOK HAS SOME GOOD PICTURES AND THERE ARE ACTUALLY A LOT OF GOOD METAL BANDS IN IT, BUT ABOUT HALF THE BANDS DON'T EVEN BELONG IN THIS BOOK. IT WILL MAKE YOU SICK WHEN YOU SEE WHAT THIS BOOK CALLS "METAL"

The author states in the forward how he could not include every metal band. I can accept that. But I can't accept the fact that he finds space for non-metal bands like "Blink 182" and "Bloodhound Gang".

If you check the part about the band you know everything about and you spot loads of mistakes, then you assume that also the other parts share the same defect.
No one isexpecting a book to cover all the Heavy Metal Bands in the world of all the ages but what is expected is accuracy and this is what this text lacks. Nice photos anyway!

Unlike other frustrated reviewers such as myself, I find no need into "thorough explanations" of why this book is filled with nonsense from beginning to end. I threw this out within two hours of it arriving in my mailbox. Literally speaking, today's 12-year-old girl with almost no knowledge of hard rock could have probably put together a similair list to what this book tries (and fails) to force down people's throats. Fortunately, most heavy rock fans hold such a strong passion for what they love that this won't even matter.

1. First and foremost. Once I see bands like Blink 182 (perhaps the biggest laugh of this entire book), Hole, Everclear, Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, and so on (bands that are in no way METAL) in a book entitled "the most complete enclyclopedia of METAL music ever created", I know this was going to be not only an insult, but a bewilderment of how whoever wrote this book was paid for this piece of work? The Beatles, Stones, and Badfinger had a lot of heavier rock tunes themselves, I would have rather seen those guys get a mention over Hole or Everclear?

Tons of errors and inaccuracies in the very few interesting bits I did read. Somebody below pointed out several of them, one more I can add is in the WASP history where it mentioned Steve Riley as being on the first WASP record. He was not, though he did tour for the first WASP record.

Many metal legends (ie. Manowar comes to mind, who have been around since '78) aren't even mentioned, or others are given VERY SMALL sidebar shows while nu-metal buffoons like Slipknot, Korn, Coal Chamber, and slews of others are given a whole page (sometimes two, with photos).

This was terrible. I do not even know how this was released. Do not waste your time reading this book. It is terrible, full of lies, and I am beginning to think this 'list' is maybe just a big joke or parody?

I thumbed through this in a bookstore. Garbage. If you want a metal book probably the best I've seen (and own) are Sound of the Beast for generalized sutff, and Lords of Chaos for BM. Honestly, I've never come across a perfect or "comprehensive, definitive guide" that these metal encyclopedia books claim. But this one is one of the worst. As other reviewers pointed out the author seems to have no idea what metal actually is. Blink 182? Errrr right..... next.

I saw this book on sale, appropriately it wasn't even inside the store that sold it (it was in a stand outside), at an increadibly give away price of 2 Euros. Normally, that would have meant that I should have bought this thing blind. Knowning that anything in terms of Metal literature is always welcomed in my generally huge book collection. But, I took a look inside of this book, and was dismayed at what I was staring at.

This self-professed author claims to have written "The Most Comrehensive Encyclopedia of Metal Music Ever Created", already that title is so ludicrous that it isen't even funny anymore. Anyone who knows anything about Metal, will tell you that there must be literally thousands and thousands of Metal bands all over the world. To believe that any human being could possibly put them into one single book (or any number of books for that matter) is either totally ignorant, or just plain dumb.
Next, as others have mentioned, the bands portrayed here as being Metal bands are hardly that. If my memory service me right, then about 90% or more, where (Hard)Rock, or wanna be Metal bands, with a heavysided NU-Metal amount, most Metal fans wouldn't consider Nu-Metal to be real Metal in the first place.
Another laughable, as well as, down right deploring matter was how many times the author actually managed to contrive up information that is so plainly wrong that any 14 year old Metal fan will immediately spot it, upon first sight ! For example that Dio's Band ELF founded Rainbow. It was basically the other way around, since Ex-Deep Purple gituar legend Ritchie Blackmore asked Dio to join his new solo project Rainbow, that he founded after leaving Deep Purple. There are numerous other mistakes of this sort, that one has to ask whether the author was drunk, when he wrote this masterpiece!
Apart from being riddled with mistakes which shows the embarrasing lack of knowledge the author had, one really has to wonder how that person ever managed to sneak this one by the publisher! But presumably the publisher knew even less about the subject than the author, and the same must have been true of any editor(s), if there ever was one.

To make a long story short: Avoid this one at any cost (even at about 2 Euros = 2 Bucks) or else you'll be sorry, since this thing isen't even worth the paper that its written on !!!