Rolling Stones Book:

The New Rolling Stone Record Guide Reviews:
Useless
2002-08-07 - What can you say about a guide that doesn't give 5 Stars to Wire, The Replacements, Husker Du, The Pixies, New Order, Joy Division, David Bowie, or The Smiths. But they love Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, Bob Seger, and Jackson Browne. The book also blindly gives 5 Stars to the most popular artists, even on albums that overlap each other with the same songs. So if you followed RS advice, you would have several albums with very similar programming from the same artists.

Mistakes
2002-05-15 - This book has been very informative to me, but I've found some mistakes which makes me not sure if I should trust a lot of things from this book. I'm sure most of it is true, but still a book like this shouldn't have mistakes. One mistake being for Triumvirat saying that they were from Finland when they're really from Germany. Another mistake is under the discography for Spirit. It says the album, 12 Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus, was released in 1967 when it was really released in 1971. I also do not agree with a lot of reviews in this book. I mean how could they give EVERY Black Sabbath album the same rating which was 1 star? This book also doesn't have complete discographies if the album wasn't released in the US which is annoying. It's also missing a lot of great bands such as Amon Düül II who deserve to be in the book.

The only RS record guide worth owning
2001-01-07 - I did enjoy the pictures from the first guide, but the unacceptable Rush bashing on the part of the 1979 reviewer annoys me tremendously. In any event, John Swenson does an excellent job of righting the wrong that Alan Niester once perpetuated. Other than that, I am not particularly fond of the denigration of Yes, esp. with respect to TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS, however this book was very informative and I enjoyed it overall. IMHO, the only record guide that is comparable to this 1983 version is the ALL MUSIC GUIDE TO ROCK. As far as I am concerned, the 1992 guide was a waste of paper.

An important job badly botched
2000-12-19 - One is tempted to give this book the "bullet" so liberally employed by the contributors, since The New Rolling Stone Record Guide is useful only as a discography (and even at that it is spotty). The reviews are dominated by the overwhelming egotism and elitism of authors Marsh and Swenson, and are for the most part grossly out of touch with the general audience the work is supposed to be aimed at. This does stand as a good example of why Rolling Stone has to be considered with MTV as one of the two institutions that helped kill off good music. Dave Marsh is to rock and roll what Howard Cosell was to sports, only even more obnoxious and less perceptive. He is biased against many genres (particularly progressive); and even on those occasions when he does see fit to try honest analysis instead of a witty critical barb, seems incapable of offering any geniune insight into the music: His and Swenson's writing is every bit as pretentious as they frequently accuse various artists of being. The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll published at about the same time is a much better and informative reference work.

A great resource
2000-08-06 - I bought "The New Rolling Stone Record Guide" when it first came out in 1983 and still have my original dog eared copy. What makes the book so excellent is the incisive, witty and often biting commentary on the albums reviewed. I must have purchased over one hundred albums through the years based upon its recommendations. If you can find a copy, it is WELL worth the effort.