Customer Reviews

The Who: The Complete Guide to Their Music (Complete Guide to the Music of...)

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

 

 

Part of a series, this book seeks to say something about every song released by The Who in as concise a manner as possible, so as to keep the book's length commensurate with the format of the series, I suppose. Charlesworth is quite good at sifting through the complexities of the Who's CD catalogue, which keeps getting upgraded and altered, with overlapping bonus tracks appearing here and there (and sometimes in different mixes), but his judgments about the music itself are both mercurial and banal. BOringly, he affirms all the tracks everyone already affirms, then fails to give the wealth of non-album material that has appeared on CD over the last decade even a cursory listen. "Glittering Girl," "Melancholia," "Water," "I Don't Even Know Myself," and so on are cursorily addressed with a minor shrug of indifference. "Cut My Hair" is astoundingly judged "one of the less memorable songs" on Quadrophenia. And absolutely everything after The Who By Numbers gets coolly dismissed. Someone needs to do for The Who's catalogue what Ian McDonald did for The Beatles' in _Revolution in the Head_.

Great book for the uninitiated who are listening to the Who album by album for the first time. Skip this one if you're already in the know.

In 1981. a great little book was published by Omnibus Press, that book was entitled: "The Who - The Illustrated Discography." The author was Ed Hanel, and his 176 page book was a great read about all Who recorded products {albums, singles, bootlegs, solo efforts, soundtracks, imports, cover versions and just about everything else 'Who' related.} The book, was a joy to read, and contained graphics {promo meterial, and printed advertisements, you could not find anywhere else.}

This 2004, edition of that book, pales in comparision to the earlier and much more entertaining and all-round superior guide through the music of The Who.

This book is slightly reduced in physical size, and it is greatly reduced in content. Now, at a skimpy 144 pages, and with so many chapters missing from the 1981 edition, all the greatness from that superior book has been removed from the pages of this one. The fantasic rare images of the band, that were all over the original edition are not present in this. Chapters from the first book concerning live tapes,bootlegs and all the great foreign Lp's and singles, WILL NOT be found in this current in-complete guide to the music of The Who.

Chris Charlesworth, now has top-billing as the author over Ed Hanel, and there is little text in this that is any different from Ed's version. This book fills in some details between 1982 and 2004, but without adding anything to what was a much more informative and entertaining guide.

This book is about a quarter of the book that it should be....The Who deserve a better guide to their music than this!

Two & 1/2 Stars

A small book which examines every song recorded by the Who, one of the most majestic rock bands of all time. Mr Charlesworth is the leading expert on the Who and this book pays great attention to detail.

Item not available in timely manner at all. The book is good and in good condition.