All Music Guide to Rock: The Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop and Soul

When a guide becomes "selective" that means they're leaving out artists that interest you and that you like. This guide tries to include all the major and a great deal of the minor artists of rock. You'll disagree with some of the reviews but having an informed opinion is a good thing. A great reference book as well as good reading on your favorites.

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.

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!

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.

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!