Rolling Stones Book:

		List Price: $20.00		Publisher: Random House Salesrank: 882640 Released: October 27, 1992
		Our Price: $11.14
		Used Price: $0.01
		Media: Paperback

Editorial Review:
A completely revised edition of the bestselling guide to popular recordings--featuring 2,500 entries and more than 12,500 album reviews. The definitive guide for the `90s.

The Rolling Stone Album Guide: Completely New Reviews: Every Essential Album, Every Essential Artist Reviews:
Bilious Bilgewater
2007-07-28 - I'm happy to see that I am not alone in my loathing, not only for the book under review, but for ANYTHING to emanate from the Princes Of Superciliousness at Rolling Stone.

First of all, let's look at the sub-title: "The Definitive Guide To The Best Of Rock-Pop-Rap-Jazz-Blues-Country-Soul-Folk & Gospel." OK. From that you might expect simply a compendium of the available albums of the major artists in any of the genres mentioned.

But no. The writers have to proceed to dump all over those artists whose music appealed to the masses [example: "His name synonymous with soft porn shlock, Tom Jones remains a phenomenon of pandering and a marketing triumph."], while extolling the virtues of spaced-out drug-culture icons like The Velvet Underground - who most definitely did not attract mass attention.

And that would be fine IF their book title included a further blurb along the lines of "and offering the very personal biases of the editorial staff."

This is to be avoided at all costs. You would be better served by any of the books from Joel Whitburn at Billboard.

As to what to do with my copy? Well, I recall Max Reger's response to a severe criticism of one of his works: "I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me."

1/2... A Standard in the Genre - A Personal Fave
2005-08-27 - I first purchased "The Rolling Stone Album Guide" back in '94 together with the "All Music Guide" edition of that year. I was a music-crazed, scatterbrained, hormonally-inflamed teen back then going through the turbulence of adolescence. I wasn't a reader then, but going through the pages of this book, browsing the snippets of reviews here and there, I was impressed and enthralled with the smart and memorable lines the talented reviewers would use to describe and stamp their collective marks on the artists and their recordings. Before the age of bilious Political-Correctness and mediocre music, this edition of Rolling Stone's ongoing music guide was a representative of it's time: an era of taste and quality matched with integrity and vision.

Here one can find some of the most apt and most sound criticism ever penned or typed for the printed page. And a collection of artists chosen for their merit, not popularity. Thus one will find praise for artists as diverse as Elvis, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, etc.. Rolling Stone started as a rag to chronicle and feature the Rock scene, hence the preponderance of Rock musicians in the book, but artists who influenced the course of Rock music and were influenced by it are well represented too: Robert Johnson, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Muddy Waters, etc., are given their equal tribute. Other genres are economically touched on, and Rap, Folk, Country, and others are given just due. The writings are some of the very best, balancing seamless lines between worship, accuracy, humor, scathing word-bites, pathos, and knowledge.

As admirable as this edition gets, there are some slips and tangles that come along, just like almost anything else. Some of the reviews are hilarious, perhaps inappropriately so (read the one on Gino Vannelli and laugh). Others are ridiculous, revealing the critics' prejudices and limitations (2 stars for Black Sabbath's "Vol.4"?. And the same for Slayer's "Reign in Blood"?.). And as one critic who I read from the net pointedly stated, somewhere along these lines, "Did they really listen to all of those recordings? What's with all of those old bluesmen all getting 5 stars?".

After the passage of more than a decade, I still go back to this model of music criticism. I still appreciate the brevity and wit with which Messrs. Mark Coleman, J.D. Considine, Paul Evans, and David McGee shared their talents and efforts for future music fans to revel and cherish only the best in Popular Music.

An introduction to the most mainstream of rock criticism
2004-07-13 - This book, I must confess, was a guide to listening (together with subsequent "Rolling Stone" reviews) for many years.

On the whole, it has many virtues: the arguments are very sensible, the writers appear to be very well-qualified, and the selection of music included is varied enough to satisfy most listeners - especially someone like me who was looking then for music from the 1980s to listen to. There is very little outright lying: indeed most of the album reviews are very clearly written and do indeed provide an accurate description of the music being written about - something I wish I was able to do far better.

However, this book's age gives it one fatal flaw: it does not understand the real impact of music over a long period. Many albums I bought on its recommendation have proved quite useless to me even if I understood the reasons (though my narrow perceptions at that time can in no way have helped me).

Moreover, some of the albums it recommends (or at least does not condemn) would be violently condemned by critics like Joe Harrington and David Keenan whose knowledge and intelligence certainly exceeds that of those critics in this book. It is to them that I now recommend one turn for really accurate music criticism - I recommend their list to people who do not know much about msuic all the time. However, with older music I was never into back in the 1990s the book is actually more helpful and accurate due to greater hindsight, though many albums of great value were not then reissued.

Thus, read with great caution: this is introductory, but good for that. there is better criticism - the problem is finding it and seeing for yourself.

best one out there
2002-07-31 - Excellent and good fun. The New York Dolls review sums up the tone of this guide nicely. Definitely not for the Top 40 crowd though. If you're one of them, stay away as you'll probably get somewhat insulted.
A drawback is that out of print albums were omitted, which makes the guide incomplete as soon as these albums are reissued. And of course the guide is outdated. Any guide is the moment is goes off to the presses.
That said, we want an update now.

FLAWED & DATED BUT STILL USEFUL
2002-05-22 - This 1992 Guide replaces the 1980 edition with completely new reviews by only four reviewers of the most important rock, pop, soul, country, reggae, jazz and blues albums stretching back into the pre-rock �n roll period and up to the end of 1991.
Designed to serve as a consumer guide for fans wanting knowledgeable assistance and a critical overview of artists� careers, this encyclopedic publication contains acts ranging from Abba to ZZ Top. Not quite all of them though; there is a definite slant towards the American scene and some lesser-known or cult stars from the UK are absent in these pages. That is because the editors had to restrict the entries to what was available in the United States at the time of US publication.
In addition to the alphabetical section on groups and individual artists, there are two further sections: one for Anthologies and one for Soundtracks.
It�s interesting to compare the numbers of albums by the greatest artists: Elvis comes in at 121, followed by James Brown at 88, Frank Zappa with 51, The Beatles and Bob Dylan with 36 each, while the Rolling Stones slot in at 35 and other favorites like the BeeGees and Bowie do well with 24 and 26 respectively.
Flipping through the pages amply rewards the peruser, often for the unexpected little tidbits: a band called Silly Wizard, dubbed �masters of classic Scottish folk� and the fact that Hound Dog was first recorded by Big Mama Thornton in 1954.
Grunge is well represented by Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soul Asylum, while World Music is a bit neglected: King Sunny Ade and Youssou N�Dour are there but no Salif Keita.
Still, one can establish the exact difference between Lisa Stansfield and Taylor Dane, and read all about important but obscure singer/songwriters Laura Nyro and Gram Parsons.
In the soundtrack section, I was pleased to see Saturday Night Fever and Thank God It�s Friday rated highly while Fame and Flashdance fared poorly.
Although I sometimes disagree with the critics� assessments, they always phrase it amusingly: Meat Loaf is dismissed as �schlock rock�!
Every entry is rated with a star-system from 1 to 5 just like here on amazon, although in any piece on artists with large oeuvres (like Elvis) the emphasis is rather on a general overview rather than a detailed discussion of every album.
I would say this is a worthwhile reference work to have at hand, but shouldn�t be considered the last word in music criticism.