Customer Reviews

Stairway To Hell

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(25)

 

 

As a longtime metal fan, this book managed to irritate me even more than the average Eddy product.

He goes to admirable lengths to avoid supporting his statements (read his especially entertaining explanation of why metal = whatever Chuck Eddy wants it to be), but there are times when that simply isn't enough. Sure, it's notoriously difficult to categorize music, and Chuck Eddy is notoriously arbitrary, but even in the face of his formidable steamroller of verbal ephemera, Stairway to Hell is often unconvicing.

You can't accuse him of lacking chutzpah; though Stairway To Hell purports to be a book of the top 500 metal albums, it includes about two hundred punk albums, a handful of "classic rock" albums, and some jazz-fusion. Moreover, around #50 of these "best metal albums in the universe," he starts sporadically attacking them. One gets the impression before long that the point of this book, to Mr. Eddy, was a lengthy screed against rockism.

Of course, that so misses the point that it's hard to call it anything but an argument in bad faith; metal can't be understood through popist lenses, and anybody who's been a fan knows that. Metal is tricky to reconcile with pomo irony, and it's certainly never been about "pow-pow-powerpop hooks." In one sense, metal is a sort of adolescent ethos emphasizing on earnestness, intensity and pathos, often at the expense of maturity. In another sense, it's Wagnerian romanticism obsessed with a particularly grim view of the sublime. What it isn't is: ninety percent of the things Mr. Eddy claims.

He blasts "Black Sabbath No. 4" and "Who's Next," dismisses Soundgarden, and includes as "heavy metal" acts like Weezer, Supergrass and Prodigy (all of whom would no doubt be offended). If that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about his lack of respect for the subject he's writing on, it's further reason to skip this book and find one better informed.

In a strange type of irony, reading "Stairway to Hell" is not too dissimilar from hearing an Yngwei Malmsteen album: during the first couple songs the reaction is, "Wow -- this kid can really jam!" but by the third or fourth song you're reduced to, "Okay, I GET IT already! Shut Up!" In short, it's stylistic overkill intended to impress, not enlighten. To that end this book is exempliary of the worst aspect of any critical offering, being far less about the designated topic and much more about the author himself. Eddy wants to wow, apparently, with snide similes and cleverer-than-thou descriptive wordsmithing -- mired in a vinyl elitist's smugness, no less -- but the resulting compendium displays far less acumen regarding its subject.

Purportedly that subject is a chronicling of that musical genre broadly defined as Heavy Metal's finest products -- but unless musicians like Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams actually belong to a subset of Heavy Metal I'm unfamiliar with, this volume reads less like a cataloguing of Heavy Metal and more like an egotistical pretense for lumping a synopsis of every album in Eddy's collection into a "Best of Chuck Eddy" volume.

Reading through the entries one is not so much taken aback by what's included (although much of it does leave the astute -- and even not-so-astute -- Metalhead scratching his head), but what's not. As many reviewers have rightly pointed out, it's nothing short of blasphemy to compose a book about Heavy Metal that fails to include even one entry for Metal kingpins Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Saxon, Scorpions, MSG, Rainbow, Ozzy Osbourne, Alcatrazz, and countless others. But then, perhaps it's Eddy's intent not to take the compilation task with any modicum of seriousness, and instead simply thump the reader over the head with irony-laced quasi-descriptive blurbs replete with trademark Eddy hogwash. The astute -- and even not-so-astute -- Metalhead would rightly question whether NOT ONE of those Metal exemplars above has produced output that ranks among the best of the genre, worthy of being archived in a Metal encyclopedia. Eddy, apparently, doesn't care -- he's got his own agenda.

Seemingly that agenda is Eddy satisfying himself with hip, inventive, postmodern dissections of the likes of Bryan Adams, Prince, Neil Young, Funkadelic, Teena Marie, and Suzi Quatro. Not to mention extolling obscurity in such forms as Feedtime, Amon Duul, Glen Branca, Raszebrae, Head Of David, Pere Ubu, Roky Erickson, and Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments. Personally, I couldn't care less about Eddy's ability to self-indulgently flex his knowledge about fringe acts that have a questionably faint connection to things Metal. Where are Samson and Raven and Viper and TNT and Mama's Boys and Tygers of Pan Tang and Tora Tora and Grand Prix and . . . you get the picture. Oh, I see -- they've been displaced by Bo Donaldson, James Blood Ulmer, Sir Lord Baltimore, Dick Destiny and the Highway Kings, Plastic Ono Band, and those Metal luminaries The Chocolate Watchband. Puh-LEEZE. Lynyrd Skynyrd and .38 Special are about as Heavy Metal as a wet dish towel, as are The Divinyls and The Byrds and King Crimson and Argent and Lou Reed and Paul Revere & The Raiders -- yet all are included in this compendium. And even if Eddy's approach was intended to be ironically "eclectic" (to say the least), some of his choices are downright inexplicable: Poison, but not Dokken; White Lion, but not Ratt; Bon Jovi, but not Motley Crue. And why should Maryland AC/DC clone Kix (who mercilessly plunder Cult riffs for material) warrant FOUR entries, while Krokus and Helix deserve NO CREDIT for having trod the same stylistic ground much earlier? Under the auspices of "Best Heavy Metal Albums" we've been presented with a phony bill of goods.

Eddie's pint-sized explanation for the vast array of empirically (despite what he says) non-Metallic inclusions is to insist -- in a tone which seemingly protesteth far too much -- that "genre-naming equals corporate categorization equals a shortcut to false order." Apparently the fact that stylistic differentiations provide a foothold for individuals seeking to compartmentalize their preferences is a whopping no-no imposed by the Big Business Powers-That-Be, not a useful system created by music aficionados who'd prefer to know that when they buy a Boz Scaggs album it ain't gonna sound the same as W.A.S.P. His rationalization serves to do nothing but let him off the hook of attempting to adhere to any constrictors (that'd be too close-minded!) and justify, therefore, how in his universe REO Speedwagon can be obliquely counted among the Metal hordes.

Thus, based on what's presented in this book, Eddy apparently cares as much about what constitutes the 500 Best Heavy Metal Albums in the Universe as my cat. In fact, I'd bet my cat cares more. It's maddening for those of us with a proud insight into Hard Rock / Metal esoterica (which would allow us to know, for instance, that Riot's 1981 Elektra release was actually titled "Fire Down Under," not "Fire Down Below" -- the "Below" was a misprint on the album jacket spine, making it NOT, as Eddy suggests, a title "nicked" from Bob Seger) that this type of psuedo-encyclopedia might wind up in the hands of impressionable tots who don't know any better. But it's also redeemingly satisfying that Eddy shows he doesn't know as much as he'd like you think, despite the crafty word-slinging.

All of which leads me to the conclusion that this tome is not so much an empirical guide towards anything resembling what could be called Best Heavy Metal Albums, but more a collection of Stuff Chuck Eddy Likes. And even at that, it becomes evident in rather short order that he's not really all that fond of the majority of the entries included. Instead of helpful exegetical analyses, we get 500 snotty screeds that while at times seem to bear some relation to the album under discussion, most are just stuffed with Eddy's self-indulgent linguistic inventions that 90% of the time make sense only to, well, Eddy. Hardly a useful enterprise for us Earthbound music fans who can only shake our heads wondering what "squishing drums" and "razorback-nudging-your-pup-tent guitars" actually SOUND like.

Ultimately, any book purporting to catalogue a definitive "best" of ANY artistic endeavor can only be subjective, but such endeavors should at least be counted on to adhere to some semblance of stylistic continuity. You won't find that here -- you might as well just stick to the comprehensive All Music Guides for all the diversity presented in "Stairway To Hell." The only worth I see in this book is that it's inspired me to review my entire music collection -- from Abba to Zappa -- dress it up in cutesy crypto-jargon, and chronicle the tastes it represents in a book entitled "The Best Jazz EVER."

If you know heavy metal you will hate this smart alecky and uniformed book. If you don't know metal and want to learn something about the genre, don't buy this book because you will be mislead. Chuck Eddy is an @ss. That he writes for the overated and self important Village Voice should give a clue as to his "Oh aren't I clever!" writing style. The frigging Osmonds are not and never will be metal. Good for starting a charcoal grill, bad for reading. Now Stairway To Hell may be taken as a general guide to music but the title is such an incredibly misleading piece of literary dishonesty that I give the book one star. Eddy does a diservice to his readers by playing falsely with their expectations. I'm sorry but he can take his postmodern definition of metal as anything he says it is and firmly jam it up his poststructuralist @ss. Thank god I read this at the bookstore rather than buying it, terrible.

Listen, if you have even the slighest passing interest in Heavy Metal, you KNOW that Rancid is the farthest thing from! And guess what the #1 best Heavy Metal album of the 90's was? Rancid. This alone should give you enough information to steer well clear of this ludicrous book. Unbelievable.

Let me see: Poison is better than Metallica, Bryan Adams and Prince are heavy metal, and Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne, Dio, the Scorpions, Judas Priest, and Megadeth (for starters)have no albums worthy of inclusion within the 500 greatest of all-time? Though his Lester Bangs wannabe style is slightly interesting, as a guide to picking music this guy is strictly an amateur who I can't take seriously. For a much better (and less obnoxious) guide, buy Martin Popoff's "The Collectors Guide To Heavy Metal."

I bought Martin Popoff's original heavy metal guide many years ago and, although he has a tendency to devolve into nonsensical prattle at times and I strongly disagree with him at others, I was extremely entertained and informed by his work. His writing has pizzazz and is detail-oriented (in a sense, that is); hence, every time I picked it up I'd get something new from it, which is a sign of a great work.

A year or two later I spotted Chuck Eddy's "Stairway to Hell: The 500 Best Heavy Metal Albums in the Universe." I flipped through it a bit and could tell that it wasn't a conventional take on the metal genre but decided to buy it any way -- hey, I'm openminded and enjoy great writing, even if I don't happen to necessarily agree with what's written 100%. Besides, I didn't necessarily like Popoff's style at first either, but grew to appreciate it.

The first problem most metal fans will have with this book is that it doesn't contain any albums by the likes of Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Ozzy, etc. in the entire list of 500!! Excuse me: Black Sabbath may be heavy, but Judas Priest is metal! How could a writer omit one of the primary creators of the artform in a book with such a title? The second problem you'll note is that hundreds of the albums he cites aren't even from the metal genre, like The Osmonds and Suzy Quatro (huh?). Don't get me wrong, I realize that bands like Neal Young, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Hendrix were considered metal (or, at least, hard rock) in the 70s and contributed to some extent to what metal evolved into; they therefore have a place in this book. But The Osmonds? Come on!

So, the very title of the book is a major problem. Imagine if I wrote a book called "The 500 Best Country Albums in the Universe" and included numerous commentaries on bands like Mercyful Fate, Slayer, Agalloch, Metallica and Judas Priest. Wouldn't you find it absurd? Of course you would. That's essentially what Eddy does here.

But that's not the biggest problem with the book, believe it or not. I owned it for years and kept it around because, like I said, I'm an openminded guy and enjoy a different or challenging viewpoint at times. Every now and then I'd pick it up and TRY to get into to it, TRY to get something out of it, TRY to be entertained on, at least, some level. But you know what? It never happened. Finally, after literally years of trying, I just pitched it in total disgust.

So, the biggest problem with the book is not that it's ridiculously mistitled, but rather that it's utterly boring and unengaging. In other words, the writing is rubbish and completely unworthy of your time or money.

That said, I fully realize that it takes all kinds to make a world, so there may be a minority out there that actually appreciates Eddy's style and BS. For this reason I recommend that you check it out at the library first or REALLY examine it at the book store, so you don't waste your cash and time like I did.

Needless to say, NOT recommended in any way, shape or form.

When Chuck Eddy wrote this, he was a regular at The Village Voice....thus I knew what to expect from STAIRWAY TO HELL. For those unfamiliar with the Voice, two rules apply:

1) No matter what the 'subject' is, it's ALWAYS really about sociopolitics

2) Any Voice writer purporting to dig metal is ALWAYS a poser pretending to dig metal...as a jumping-off point for looka-me essays showing off their sneering superiority to the music and its fans

Eddy's a good writer, but he's also a phony. His intention with this book was subversive - to sucker Judas Priest & Megadeth fans into buying this so he could slyly steer them towards punk & hardcore bands. As if those of us who don't write for The Voice and drink at dives on Ave C are too dim to tell the difference. Bad job all around.

One add'l note: I'm no metalhead, and if anything I share a lot of Eddy's disdain for bands like Iron Maiden. But a book so titled (and expressly target-marketed to the metal fan) should play fair with its audience: this one blows a raspberry at its readership after suckering it out of the cover price. Let's see a critical history of hip-hop that blows off Wu-Tang & Ice Cube in favor of Jimmy Osmond's "Killer Joe" & Blondie's "Rapture" and see if the critics respond with the same hosannas...

Chuck Eddy wrote one of the essays on heavy metal for "The Rolling Stone illustrated history of rock and roll". After reading it, you begin to understand a little better why Chuck Eddy compiled such an odd list of "The 500 best heavy metal albums in the universe". Sure, I understand that Chuck Eddy is a "true" individual who rejects the herd mentality of the heavy metal subculture, but we have to be a little objective. "Metallica couldn't "rock" to save its life"? "Metallica settled on life as average myth metal schnooks"? According to Chuck Eddy the difference between Boston/Foreigner fans and Iron Maiden/Judas Priest fans is that the former had a life and the latter didn't. I suppose that fans that have a strong passion for music have no life. Is Chuck Eddy passionate about music or does he have a life? The only thing that I can conclude from that essay and from this list of 500 heavy metal records is that Chuck Eddy carries some kind of grudge against heavy metal fans. It is too bad that such a bitter person should be so high up on the ranks on the rock journalism hierarchy. Don't buy this book. I am not a metalhead. I even own some of his "cool" choices like Sir Lord Baltimore, The Osmonds ("heavy horses"), Funkadelic, and I don't diss all glam metal as worthless, but I realize the importance of thrash/speed metal bands in the evolution of the genre. Trust me, this guy Chuck Eddy is a farse.

Since this book is not really about heavy metal at all, whether you like it or not depends on if you like Chuck Eddy's writing -- and therefore his personality. And in that regard, if deliberate factual misrepresentations and transparent attempts at being clever are your bag, you'll love this. Teena Marie, Prince, and Jimmy Castor in the top 100 -- yeah, I get it, you're trying to be funny and shock me and anyone else who would dare listen to the music so despised by unreproachable rock critics. Oooh! I'm about as shocked as I would be by a first-grader's Halloween costume.

Some defenders of this book claim that Eddy's stance on metal and inclusion of obviously non-metal artists effectively punctures perceptions and conventional thinking, but it accomplishes neither. I mean, I could write a book about jazz and say that Paula Abdul made a better jazz album than Dave Brubeck, but that doesn't make that clever (or true), either. Just like Eddy's premise, it would be pure nonsense.

In the end, Eddy's contrived reactionary view does such a 180 that he ends up positioned next to all of the AOR program directors who believe nothing heavier than Boston and Foreigner (Did I mention that Eddy includes both of them -- blowing kisses all the way -- too? Groan) is worth hearing. It also places him squarely next to the branch of rock critics who (even in 1991) had been penning screeds denouncing and/or making fun of metal for years. Contrary to Eddy's self-aggrandizing statements (yet another annoying aspect of this book), there is nothing new or original to his line of thinking.

I will grant that when this was originally published in 1991, it at least filled a void in writing about many obscure bands -- Granicus, Highway Robbery, Dragonfly, etc. -- that hadn't been written about before. But 17 years of reissues, magazines, online forums, and other books have eclipsed even that minor positive.

The ultimate irony of Stairway to Hell is Eddy's repeated implication that metal fans are closed-minded, rigid and elitist. To see someone fitting that description, Chuck Eddy need only look in the mirror.

If you think you might enjoy this as a heavy metal parody, then see This Is Spinal Tap (Cultographies)
-- a true five-star winner that lampooned metal stereotypes seven years before this book -- instead of wasting your time here.

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. There are 500 albums, and between 200-250 of them listed arent even hard rock or metal. Prince - Purple Rain - Enough Said.

2. Now you ask - well what are they? Rap albums (Beastie Boys), Grunge albums, (what many consider the antithesis of metal), Punk Rock albums, R&B albums (no disrespect to classic R&B, but it isnt metal), oldies and classic rock albums (again no disepect at all as I love classic rock, but most of these werent really hard rock or metal), and southern rock stuff.

3. Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits at #3. Okay, "Greatest Hits" albums don't really classify as albums to me, they are compilations of albums. Not withstanding that, I could probably name 100 MORE CLASSIC albums to be at the number 3 slot than Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits.

4. We have about 3 KIX albums on the top 25 list and only one Black Sabbath album. Kix was a good band, Sabbath were/are legends. I could maybe see Kix making the list somewhere in the bottom 400-500, but not in the top 10 or top 25 (Kix must be a big favorite of this guy). Meanwhile, the original Black Sabbath album comes in somewhere around 240. Speaking of Sabbath, NOTHING in regards to some of their other legendary albums when the band was fronted by Dio or Tony Martin. Enough said...

5. 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?