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

The safe bet and comfort zone reviews...

How they would have rated ‘Caravan - In the land of pink and grey’ is another story.

 

Actually, I disagree. There were some five star reviews which had me scratching my heads particularly from artists that the label favored.

 

which ones? im sure there are some for me too but I haven't read it in years, going by memory know they steered me to : blonde on blonde/highway 61, whos next, vu with nico, etc

 

The one I remember the best would be "So" by Peter Gabriel. The album has some terrific material on it but I would hardly call it a five star album. Let It Be would be another one that doesn't deserve five stars. Siren, ditto. It's a very good album but hardly five stars. Rhythm of The Saints--the arrangements are interesting but a lot of the material is second tier Paul Simon. Those are some that I recall off the top of my head. Some, of course, are spot on but they weren't always right about these either. Some of these were also revised later as well.

 

They had a lot of compilations with 5 stars, but lots of Dylan, Beatles, Stones. The Doors had s/t, Strange Days, L.A. Woman and 13 (a comp). CCR had two: Green River and Willy and the Poor Boys. Ry Cooder Paradise and Lunch. Tons of jazz were given 5 stars: Eric Dolphy, etc etc.

 

Let It Be didn't have 5 stars, at least in the Red one.

 

Which Let It Be are we talking about. I'm fine with The Replacements album getting full marks, but The Beatles effort has always seemed like a tired end to their excellent career.

 

I was thinking he meant The Beatles. Isn't The Replacements one after 1979?

Edit: if it's a different edition being discussed, I have no idea. I only know the Red one.

 

i only had the original I dont think it had rhythm of the saints ( I agree more a 3-4 star - ps im sure they gave graceland five if this got five!) not really familiar with Peter Gabriel. Let it Be maybe a four star but it did have some great songs....hard to rank it too low

going on ancient memory (I used to study that book) Aretha had a few, Costello, Hot Rats? I remember they hated Chicago, gave them all 1 or 2, Styx as well, they weren't really into Eagles/Linda Ronstadt

 

Yes, on Aretha. Also a couple of Joni Mitchell (Court and Spark, for sure). Fairly new, at the time, was Graham Parker. And I'm pretty sure there were a couple of Yes albums with 5 stars.

Almost too many jazz and blues, considering those sections were add-ons (didn't it say "someone should do a similar guide for jazz and blues"?). I thought they were getting a bit carried away in handing out the stars.

 

You can see the 1983 list here:

1983 version: Rocklist.net....Rolling Stone 5 Star Album Lists - 1992

 

wow linda Ronstadt and james taylor both got a 5 star, not nearly as biased as I remember

 

Apparently the two acts that Dave Marsh hated and kicked off the initial list were The Doors and Yes.

 

yeah I don't see sticky fingers or exile on here, I thought they were 5 stars but maybe now, has this been edited?

 

Very true. They have been stuck on the rock acts that were popular when the magazine was founded.

I mean, I love the Beatles, the Stones, Floyd, Hendrix, etc., as much as the next guy. But to Rolling Stone, nothing can ever reach those peaks.

I also find it somewhat humorous the way they savaged new bands that came along, only to honor them as legends later on when they would have been crazy not to. Their early reviews of Zeppelin were outright brutal, but now they find them good enough to join the above-mentioned canon of greats.

 

Yep, they disappeared. Neil Young's Everybody Knows This is Nowhere is gone, too. And The Beatles Let It Be is now on the 5 star list.

 

Doesn't it just depend on how much the reviewer likes the album? Do you think that no one could really like So, Let It Be, Rhythms of the Saints, etc. that much?

 

I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, but Rolling Stone had a personal relationship with a lot of people in that crowd--basically the singer-songwriter and soft rock crowd, including both JT and Ronstadt. They were always very biased towards people they had personal relationships with. Sometimes that seemed to make them a bit more (and more pithily) demanding on them, too--they seemed to get more frustrated with those folks when they did something that RS felt wasn't up to par, though they'd give more thoughtful, constructive criticism about it, but they were still biased towards those folks.

Personally, I'd give both JT and Ronstadt 5 stars for some albums, and not just because I had out 5 star ratings like candy. But that doesn't mean that RS wasn't biased towards them or lots of similar/associated artists.

 

I picked up the first couple of editions used when I was in high school and even then I thought they were snobby. I used them just as basic discographies until I got M.C. Strong's and my first price guides.

 

The Dylan one was really good reading I thought.

 

I'm in the middle of reading the newly published history of Wenner/ Rolling Stone, "Sticky Fingers". It's a good read particularly if you were a longtime subscriber back in the day, and its quite an eye opener. Around 1970, RS was close to bankruptcy but was rescued by loans from the big labels which Wenner personally arranged. I'd love to go back to see how said labels' major releases fared relative to those which did not give RS money. Landau's snarky reviews of several acknowledged classics are recounted. Wenner had a person antipathy toward Paul Simon and, for instance, Bookends was panned. Being a SF guy, Wenner is said to have disliked LA artists CSN, Joni, Jackson & the Eagles. On the other hand, he is depicted as a Jagger groupie who did not deny (or confirm) they had slept together. Someone earlier wondered how RS could have given Jagger's "Goddess in the Doorway" a five star review.

 

I'm sure that I did at the time too. I purchased the blue guide in the late 1980's when I started scouting around for used albums. It did help me discover the New York Dolls, for one, so I'm grateful for that.

I still have that blue guide and have gone back through it recently. It's a fun read at this point, especially with 30+ years of perspective, both personally and in terms of how certain artists are now viewed critically.

 

Group Shot:



Missing In Action: Rolling Stone Record Review (1971)

-- Tom

 

I disagree with all of them. I agree with all of them.

I like to use the guides for what they are good for: a good starting place to learn more about music that you are not familiar with.

They're also good for a laugh.

It's only music; it's not a competition.

-- Tom

 

More miscellaneous information that I discovered on my own: if you want the most complete version of the light blue (& most recent) version of the album guide -- get the hardcover. It includes artists left out of the softcover edition, like George Harrison.

-- Tom