The Book of Rock: From the 1950s to Today

This book is packed with photo's of rock stars and bands. You get a separate artist or band,on each page, for the most part. Also, on each page, you get a "qoute" from one of the rock stars being featured on each page. This is a thick book. If you like to see pictures of rock stars and bands, along with "qoutes" from the stars, then you'll love this book. THIS BOOK IS VERY EASY TO READ, BECAUSE IT IS MOSTLY PHOTOS. However the qoutes are interesting to read also. Note: This book covers rock stars and bands only. At the beginning it tells you the criteria that had to be met to be classified as a "Rock". It also tries to define the word "Rock". So, don't expect alot of photos or "Quotes" from "Pop Stars" or "Hip-Hop" Stars. However, there are some Pop Stars, and Hip-Hop Stars, that they consider to be "crossover" stars, such as ABBA, ABC, and others. The book is in alpabetical order beginning with ABBA, & ABC and then proceeds on to Frank Zappa. This is an excellent book to have in any rock music lover's library, and in that context I recommend it. Thanks!!!

it has tori amos in it!!!

This is a great large simple book on most of the major music artists both solo and bands Important to point out this is the extremely lose, general basically anything other than classic music term for rock and is not just talking about bands classified under the title rock in music stores such as Bon Jovi, AC /DC and the like. Everything from soft rock, hard rock, pop to hip hop is covered in here.There are basically a couple of hundred words on each artist together with a large colour picture. This is what differentiates this book from its competitors, the large photograph of every artist covered. If you are a huge fan of any particular band or artist you probably will not learn anything new in here on them as it is just a simple summary of their career, where they became huge and where they crashed in some cases. It is important to note that this is information is written from a UK point of view but most is pretty similar to Australia, New Zealand or North America. Most artists are in here, both major successful ones and ones who had one or two hits, in fact I've never even heard of some of them. Some are missing though such as "Weird Al" Yankovic, Kylie Minogue, Leann Rimes, Ugly Kid Joe to name a few but you get that with any of these type of encyclopaedias. For this type of book this is the best laid out and simple to read. It is in alphabetical order but has no index or contents page.

The Book of Rock has a unique quality as it captures the rock era absolutely perfectly. Philip Dodd is a master of telling you how it is (or was), and he has struck a perfect balance with regard to content. In my eyes the author will go down as legend alongside the stars that it portrays! From One happy reader!!

This is a beautiful, beautiful book. Unlike most coffee table-type books, which usually have lengthy essays from historians and self-appointed pundits, this one is nothing but page after page of photos--one dazzling full-page photo for each featured band or musician, in alphabetical order, with a short description and quote superimposed upon each. The Book of Rock is NOT a history of rock or an encyclopedia of musicians. It gives very little information about each band (though the names of band members, albums and key songs are listed at the bottom of each page). Instead, the Book of Rock is a weighty pictorial journey through hundreds of shapers of rock music--in many cases, people who helped define generations and decades of music, from Guns n' Roses to John Lee Hooker, from the Grateful Dead to STP. As a pictorial, it's about as beautiful as it can get. The photos look like they're straight out of Rolling Stone (alternating between b & w and color, sharp and grainy), the layout is great. Pretty much a dream come true for any rock music fan.**if anyone would like to send me this book for christmas, i will have no real objections