| Beatles Book:
The Beatles Second Album Rock of Ages
Book
The Beatles' Second Album (Rock of Ages) |  |  | | List Price: $16.95 | | Publisher: Rodale Books
Salesrank: 321698
Released: October 30, 2007 | | Our Price: $6.25 | | Used Price: $3.38 | | | Media: Hardcover | |
Editorial Review:
The Beatles' Second Album runs only 22 minutes, with just 11 songs - many of which the group didn't write. Despite all that, the album personifies the Beatles: the world's greatest rock'n'roll band, according to well-known rock'n'roll critic and author Dave Marsh. With its overload of rock'n'roll, R&B, and early soul influence, including "Roll Over Beethoven," and "Long Tall Sally", The Beatles' Second Album - the book and the album - offers a great vantage point from which to see the group's enormous impact on pop music and culture. Marsh breaks new ground by focusing on the Beatles' US recordings and how they evolved from British releases at a time when the two nations' approaches to rock'n'roll production were vastly different. The Beatles' Second Album (Rock of Ages) Reviews:
Marsh's essay 
2009-04-02 - To write about the 'assembly-line' approach Capitol records took with the Beatles' LPs, is to write about Dave Dexter. The two cannot be separated.
The book tackles several ironies: yes, as many have stated, Dave Marsh loathes Dexter for Dexter's disdain of the band. Yet, Dexter unwittingly pieced together a power-house LP, doing so after having passed on the Beatles numerous times! There is your corporate joke, folks: the guy who has the least interest in the project/product is put in charge of it, and despite his lack of qualifications, succeeds in a big way.
A fascinating essay on what is viewed as the encapsulation of The Beatles treatment by Capitol - treating every record as though it was the last the cash-cow has to offer.
I read the whole book in one sitting
2009-01-19 - Outstanding book for any hard core Beatle fan or any musicologist interested in the history of rock and roll.
i liked the dexterized versions! 
2008-10-03 - I see the point Marsh is making. But I think he's a little unfair to Dexter. Marsh makes the mistake of taking Dexter out of the context of his time. It is like someone saying they "knew" Michael Jordan would end up being arguably the greatest basketball player ever while MJ was @ UNC.
Nobody from Dexter's generation understood the Beatles.
Also,the music/record business back then always treated artists like moo-cows. It was not just the Beatles that got hosed by record companies.
One thing the Dexter versions I really like (the stereo ones) is that as a hobbyist guitar player myself,I can really hear detail in the guitar parts that I can't hear that well in the mono versions.
When I bought these LP's back in the mid-60's I bought the monos and had a crap record player so there was a lot I did not hear and spent a lot of my time cursing (a 12 year old's version) at my phonograph while watching it's tone-arm skipping all over the LP's like a girl on a hop-scotch.
So,when I bought the Capitol CD re-releases a few years ago,I heard lots of stuff on the stereo versions I never heard before.
I think the Dexter versions are just as valid as any other "alternate" Beatles mix.The more Beatles,the better!
Marsh was right on in labeling the Beatles 2nd as their "Motown" album.
Anybody who listens can see how tight a band the Beatles could be,(yes I know that the songs were produced by George Martin). But in 1962-64,there was no other white band I can think of that covered MoTown better than the Beatles did. You can ask the Motown people about that,as they and other black artists covered a lot of Beatles songs. That's the ultimate sign of respect.
A really good book; reader criticism simply not justified 
2008-07-08 - Dave Marsh is a well-known and well-respected author in the world of rock criticism, so it makes sense that he would someday turn his sights on the greatest rock band of all time. Add to that his quirky choice of The Beatles' Second Album as the subject for a full book and what do you expect? This is not a feel-good biography of the album, folks, or a rose-tinted history of it, though it includes some of those elements as well. This mini-tome represents Marsh at his best: opinionated, knowledgable, experienced, outspoken and absolutely fearless. While Marsh's scathing words about Dave Dexter are pointed, Marsh grounds his criticism in both history and fact. Do I believe every idiosyncratic jibe was necessary? Maybe not. A case can easily be made that Dexter's big, fat reverb-laden sound was, in fact, justified and served The Fabs very well on the AM radio of the day. And at the time, of course, who knew? Even now, it's probably my favorite early Beatles' album for all the reasons Marsh delineates in this book. Wow! What a collection of songs! So agree with it or not, this book is valid food for thought and made me appreciate the fabulous Second Album all over again, for better and worse. I can highly recommend this book for all fans. Thank you, Mr. Marsh. I'd love to read more.
disappointing 
2008-05-27 - i love the album and figured i'd love the book also. unfortunately marsh's book is far more about marsh than it is about the beatles' second album, or even the beatles. way too much ego to make for an interesting read.
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