Customer Reviews

The Rolling Stone Album Guide: Completely New Reviews: Every Essential Album, Every Essential Artist

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

 

 

I first purchased "The Rolling Stone Album Guide" back in '94 together with the "All Music Guide" edition of that year. I was a music-crazed, scatterbrained, hormonally-inflamed teen back then going through the turbulence of adolescence. I wasn't a reader then, but going through the pages of this book, browsing the snippets of reviews here and there, I was impressed and enthralled with the smart and memorable lines the talented reviewers would use to describe and stamp their collective marks on the artists and their recordings. Before the age of bilious Political-Correctness and mediocre music, this edition of Rolling Stone's ongoing music guide was a representative of it's time: an era of taste and quality matched with integrity and vision.

Here one can find some of the most apt and most sound criticism ever penned or typed for the printed page. And a collection of artists chosen for their merit, not popularity. Thus one will find praise for artists as diverse as Elvis, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, etc.. Rolling Stone started as a rag to chronicle and feature the Rock scene, hence the preponderance of Rock musicians in the book, but artists who influenced the course of Rock music and were influenced by it are well represented too: Robert Johnson, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Muddy Waters, etc., are given their equal tribute. Other genres are economically touched on, and Rap, Folk, Country, and others are given just due. The writings are some of the very best, balancing seamless lines between worship, accuracy, humor, scathing word-bites, pathos, and knowledge.

As admirable as this edition gets, there are some slips and tangles that come along, just like almost anything else. Some of the reviews are hilarious, perhaps inappropriately so (read the one on Gino Vannelli and laugh). Others are ridiculous, revealing the critics' prejudices and limitations (2 stars for Black Sabbath's "Vol.4"?. And the same for Slayer's "Reign in Blood"?.). And as one critic who I read from the net pointedly stated, somewhere along these lines, "Did they really listen to all of those recordings? What's with all of those old bluesmen all getting 5 stars?".

After the passage of more than a decade, I still go back to this model of music criticism. I still appreciate the brevity and wit with which Messrs. Mark Coleman, J.D. Considine, Paul Evans, and David McGee shared their talents and efforts for future music fans to revel and cherish only the best in Popular Music.

Excellent and good fun. The New York Dolls review sums up the tone of this guide nicely. Definitely not for the Top 40 crowd though. If you're one of them, stay away as you'll probably get somewhat insulted.
A drawback is that out of print albums were omitted, which makes the guide incomplete as soon as these albums are reissued. And of course the guide is outdated. Any guide is the moment is goes off to the presses.
That said, we want an update now.

This is the 1992 edition of the rolling stone album guide . When it comes to reviewing the well known albums from the Fifties and Sixties , the so called reviewers seem to be on auto-pilot , churning out the same old rhetoric that we`ve heard a thousand times before , without adding anything new or interesting that could stimulate the discerning reader`s mind . Lazy journalism at it`s worst !

It is with the reviews of albums by key Eighties bands that this book becomes something of a joke , the reviewers are so out of touch they must have been living on Mars . Well established classic albums are consistantly given two or three stars , and the information given is embarrassingly sketchy and way off the mark ( Mark Coleman`s review of The Smiths , and J. D. Considine's review of The Pogues , is some of the worst music critique that I have ever read , they must have listened to these albums once , and that`s being kind ) .

Compared to the Rough Guide To Roc!k , The Trouser Press Guide , or All Music Guide , this Rolling Stone Guide is lazy waffle !

This is a reasonable album guide that covers the basics, but little else.

The main problem is that at nearly 7 years of age, this is in sore need of an update.

This book, I must confess, was a guide to listening (together with subsequent "Rolling Stone" reviews) for many years.

On the whole, it has many virtues: the arguments are very sensible, the writers appear to be very well-qualified, and the selection of music included is varied enough to satisfy most listeners - especially someone like me who was looking then for music from the 1980s to listen to. There is very little outright lying: indeed most of the album reviews are very clearly written and do indeed provide an accurate description of the music being written about - something I wish I was able to do far better.

However, this book's age gives it one fatal flaw: it does not understand the real impact of music over a long period. Many albums I bought on its recommendation have proved quite useless to me even if I understood the reasons (though my narrow perceptions at that time can in no way have helped me).

Moreover, some of the albums it recommends (or at least does not condemn) would be violently condemned by critics like Joe Harrington and David Keenan whose knowledge and intelligence certainly exceeds that of those critics in this book. It is to them that I now recommend one turn for really accurate music criticism - I recommend their list to people who do not know much about msuic all the time. However, with older music I was never into back in the 1990s the book is actually more helpful and accurate due to greater hindsight, though many albums of great value were not then reissued.

Thus, read with great caution: this is introductory, but good for that. there is better criticism - the problem is finding it and seeing for yourself.

This is the second edition of this particular tome, and for somebody trying to get a sense of the history of rock 'n' roll and which old albums by artists are worth tracking down (and which ones aren't), it's a very valuable thing to have around.

Now, I mention this 2nd edition bit because I first stumbled upon this book sometime in the mid-late '80s, and the 1st edition from '79 or so did great coverage of old albums from the '50s-'70s, but good luck on getting the latest word on John Cougar or Def Leppard or the King of Pop or those other '80s artists we loved so much! Some solace was to be found when a 2nd edition came out in 1992 -- you could now find out what Rolling Stoners thought about '80s albums you had aleady purchased by then (in addition to the '50s-'70s albums, naturally).

Well, I think you see what I'm getting at. This is a great guide to what's out there at the time of publication, but it rapidly goes out-of-date. Sure, you'll find out good information about (yes, I'll go ahead and call him what I know him as) Prince's older albums, but as far as learning about the 348 albums he's released since 1992, you're out of luck. This is a book that really needs to come out in annual editions -- though that would be a difficult and likely unprofitable option for the writers. Too bad -- I may actually be willing to plunk down the money once a year for this thing.

The powers that be at the fishwrapper that is RS magazine have compounded a felony by updating their album guide from two previous editions. On the plus side, Dave Marsh and John Swenson, the two high-falootin' ignoramuses who were in charge of the earlier edition apparently had nothing to do with this one, which in almost any circumstance would guarantee improvement. However, the writers who have taken over for them are just as bad, and thus this edition of the Guide emerges as even more irrelevant and vacuous than its predecessor, if such a thing is possible. The discographies provided for artists of long standing are usually hopelessly incomplete, muddled, and inaccurate, and oftentimes bands or artists who were still performing at the time of this volume's release are treated as if their careers were over years ago. Mark Coleman, in particular, continually embarrasses himself with his inacurracies, superficial knowledge, and attempts to sound "hip" and "on the cutting edge" which are even more pathetic than Marsh's were. I agree fully with Peter Laffey's review below. Most of the reviewers at amazon.com can provide a more intelligent music album review than any writer at Rolling Stone.

I'm happy to see that I am not alone in my loathing, not only for the book under review, but for ANYTHING to emanate from the Princes Of Superciliousness at Rolling Stone.

First of all, let's look at the sub-title: "The Definitive Guide To The Best Of Rock-Pop-Rap-Jazz-Blues-Country-Soul-Folk & Gospel." OK. From that you might expect simply a compendium of the available albums of the major artists in any of the genres mentioned.

But no. The writers have to proceed to dump all over those artists whose music appealed to the masses [example: "His name synonymous with soft porn shlock, Tom Jones remains a phenomenon of pandering and a marketing triumph."], while extolling the virtues of spaced-out drug-culture icons like The Velvet Underground - who most definitely did not attract mass attention.

And that would be fine IF their book title included a further blurb along the lines of "and offering the very personal biases of the editorial staff."

This is to be avoided at all costs. You would be better served by any of the books from Joel Whitburn at Billboard.

As to what to do with my copy? Well, I recall Max Reger's response to a severe criticism of one of his works: "I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me."

I have to dock it a star just because this edition is now ten years old. With encyclopedic material like this, if it's not updated at least annually, the immediate value of the work depreciates each year in which there's no new information.

That having been said, this guide decently represents the state of the music world at the end of 1991. Nirvana's "Nevermind" and Pearl Jam's "Ten" both make the anthology; Stone Temple Pilots' debut does not, if that helps fix a place in time. Although these grunge heavyweights make the collection, there's no hint of the impact these groups would later have. Consider, for example, this excerpt from the review of Motley Crue's last album to make the collection:

"And though 'Decade of Decadence' spends most of its time summing up past strengths (with some re-recording), tracks like 'Rock 'n' Roll Junkie' and the spiritedly profane cover of 'Anarchy in the U.K.' suggest that the Crue will only continue to improve."

This isn't meant as a slam on the Crue; the point is that there is no hint that 80s metal megastars like Motley Crue and Def Leppard are about to be overshadowed by another rock movement.

Although I'd be foolish to consider myself an expert in the genre, similar statements could be said about the state of rap music prior to the "gangsta rap" phenomenon.

Two other developments at this time were a) the breakup of some seminal indie groups of the 80s, and b) the move to remaster and reissue albums from artists from the early rock and roll movement. With respect to the former, groups such as Husker Du, the Replacements, and Camper Van Beethoven end up having their entire collection of albums reviewed. And blues and rock pioneers such as Robert Johnson and Buddy Holly, who until just a few years before had not had their songs properly catalogued, get their proper mention.

I'm not saying that this will be good reading for folks whose musical history begins after 1991. And heck, this isn't even an open endorsement of the Rolling Stone magazine, which I think has cheapened itself in the late 90s pop revolution. But if anyone wants a glimpse of how certain artists were treated prior to the grunge revolution and the VH1 career makeover, this will be at least an interesting, albeit not up-to-date, assessment.

Many have mentioned that the RS guide is outdated. However, the fact that edition comes out every 10 years gives a timely perspective of an era. For example, The Doors enjoyed a big revival in the 80s. The older edition of the RS guide slams the Doors; the newer one praises them.

Rather than showing a lack of integrity or consistency, this and other changes reflect that each decade shapes a new musical, critical perspective. And because RS has been there since the beginning, what better guide to give that perspective than Rolling Stone?

The guide's strongest with the standard rock heroes of the 60s and 70s. Why wouldn't it -- Rolling Stone chronicled them. You'll get a solid foundation of the roots and demimonde of rock and roll -- Muddy Waters, Little Richard, Presley, Beatles, Dylan, et al. It's good with the 80s in a "pre-alternative" mindset.

While RS is a bit weak (and superficial) on indie heroes and hip-hop, well consider that it was written in '91-92, just when alternative rock hit mainstream.

Many may consider this a fault, and it is. RS is not the ONLY guide out there nor is it necesarilly the best. But, before you go to the Trouser Press, this is the one to start with. Before one can enthuse about the latest, greatest Flaming Lips record, an appreciation of the Beach Boys would help. And as a capsule of how rock was like before the 90s really broke, it's great.