Rolling Stone record guides. Anyone else get irritated???

IIRC, they said of Toto IV - then the most recent record from the band - something like "Toto continues to grow more popular. But cockroaches are expected to outlive us as well."

Ouch.

 

5 stars for Sandinista?? That is delusional.

 

"The Only Band That Matters", as was said at the time.

 

I prefer the ivory tower approach.

 

They clearly had a massive publicity buzz at the time. Wonder where that come from really.

 

Sandinista!

 

Christgau can be so far up his own ass as to be literally unintelligible. However, he can also craft a phrase so brilliant that it can never be forgotten.

Truly, what better description could there be of Chuck D's rapping style than "bully-boy orotundity"?

 

“Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read”.

-Frank Zappa

 

Just like the subject that review goes on far too long and says even less.

 

Speaking of RS reviews......who can forget their 5 star review of Mick Jagger's "Goddess in the Doorway"?

 

I got the 1992 (IIRC) version and found it for the most part quite helpful as it introduced me to several great bands I'd never been exposed to ranging from the 60s ('Love') to the 80s ('Husker Du') and much in between. It was a wonderful resource for me at that time. Did they crap on a bunch of established/fairly well known bands giving them only one or two stars? Absolutely - but I'd already been exposed to the majority of those bands and had already formed my own opinions on them. Those bands were not why I bought the book.

OTOH the followup version from this century was garbage. Bizarre/inexplicable additions/omissions compared to who was covered in the previous volume (the one example that still stands out in my memory is Ringo is in/George is out ), wildly different ratings (one or two star albums in the last volume getting 4 or 5 stars in this volume - and vice versa - some of those changes arguably justified/many not) Higher level of snark/non-objectivity compared to the 1992 version, massive drop-off in the quality of the writing/analysis in much of the reviews compared to the 1992 version. Nothing as insightful/well written in the newer version as the (to name two) essays discussing 'Guns & Roses Appetite' and 'Derek & The Dominos Layla' in the 1992 version.

I was actually tempted to send Rolling Stone a letter reviewing the book and giving it 2 stars out of 5 (looking back, that may have been too generous)

 

I've had two or three RS guides over the years and notice that they are not consistent in their ratings. When Neil Young was in his supposed "career suicide" period some of his records were rated lower than they were later when is popularity rose again.

I'm very wary of all rating guides and systems because bias is always a factor and although I don't always agree with their ratings, I do tend to look at the AllMusic on-line source (I'm a paid subscriber) to get good general info on albums as well as (quite often) song samples.

AllMusic | Record Reviews, Streaming Songs, Genres & Bands

Also, I wish there were more reviews on Discogs. Obviously, a lot of music savvy folks use Discogs but the reviews are still fairly scant.

 

You mean "Dogsh*t in the Doorway"?

 

Actually, I'm not, because I've never bothered to critique critics. I simply don't use them.

 

John Swenson was co-editor of the blue guide, so every Who album except Magic Bus and It's Hard got four stars.

 

I'll never forget reading what amounted to a lame three paragraph, two star review for what i consider one of the best albums released in the last decade, Ray Lamontagne's ''Till The Sun Turns Black''. I remember thinking at the time that the idiot who reviewed it hadn't even bothered listening, maybe i was right, because that review can't be found anywhere online, apparently even RS was embarrassed by it.

 

Weren't there some acts that were Rolling Stone "darlings" where their sales didn't match up to their acclaim? I'm thinking the likes of Little Feat or Jesse Winchester or pre-Nick Of Time Bonnie Raitt or pre-"Short People" Randy Newman, or Gram Parsons, etc. Something with that whole business reminded me of what George Bernard Shaw had written in Don Juan In Hell about people who regularly went to the opera and enthusiastically applauded when the time came, because they were supposed to enjoy and like it. I'm curious as to how many record collectors of the '70's who read Rolling Stone were in that category, i.e. buying certain records because they were supposed to enjoy them because a RS critic said so.

 

Almost every record I bought up until the 80’s was reviewed in Rolling Stone
There was no real alternative
Maybe NME in Britain
But given the popularity of what I think of as hideous music both in cyberspace and the charts I think more people should read reviews because since the early 70’s all the great music disappeared from the radio

 

I had the 1992 edition and there was some irritating stuff but there were some very well written reviews. Then I bought the one that came out in 2004 or thereabouts and the writing wasn't nearly as good.

 

Yeah, bought the May/June RS 1971, couldn't comprehend the bad review/negativity for Paul McCartney's RAM.

 

I disagreed with a lot of the reviews and I thought it was funny how some bands got massively downgraded from one edition to the next (like Yes) but I thought they did a did a good job of picking the best albums by each band. I also really enjoyed reading the reviews of the acts they trashed like Mac Davis and the Osmond Bros.

 

I had the red one, maybe still do in a box put away, but haven't seen it in many years, and am probably better off for it. Seems that edition has Sandinista rated at 2 stars, but maybe my memory is off. I remember they didn't like Black Sabbath much, and this influenced me to hold off a long time before getting Vol 4/Sabotage/Never say die/TE... I think they gave 3 stars to Paranoid/MOR/SBS......The latter of which the review actually influenced the purchase. In time I heard music from those albums and decided they were mostly wrong. I became somewhat of a completist on BS........Pun intended......


They gave terrible reviews to heavy metal and prog rock. While those thing are not my favorite type of rock, I like a hell of a lot or that material. In time you learn their biases and the reviews can be of limited use...

 

I agree. The Dead was doing the post Napster music business model 50 years in advance. Which was a very good thing for them and us.

 

As Socrates would say most true.
But they were trying to boost the Clash into American popular music culture. A fellow traveler myself I forgave them.