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

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by BrentB, Jan 6, 2018.

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  1. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    I got the red guide when it came out in 1979. I often didn't agree with the opinions expressed, but it was at that time a handy guide for some basic discography info, and it helped me expand my listening, especially with genres like country and gospel.
     
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  2. Roland Stone

    Roland Stone Offending Member

    B
    There were two standalone ROLLING STONE jazz guides.

    The first yellow edition was issued in 1985, edited by John Swenson. It's 219 pages. Artist catalogs were very spotty on LP and except for the biggest names it's difficult to assess anyone's career arc.

    Swenson got to edit the massive second blue volume, released in 1999. This edition also incorporated reviews of blues records and swelled to 781 pages. The CD reissue and box set boom was in full effect and artist catalogs could be reviewed with an eye toward the big picture.
     
  3. pbuzby

    pbuzby Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago, IL, US
    I bought that when it was new. Since I was only starting to listen to jazz then it was useful, but between shallow writing and the dated pre-CD discography I doubt it is worth finding now.
     
  4. Roland Stone

    Roland Stone Offending Member

    Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the first yellow edition is how poorly jazz was represented at the end of the LP era.

    Fourteen years and one edition later things had changed considerably. Even a suburban record store had access to, say, most of the Blue Note classics or the John Coltrane discography on CD.
     
  5. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic

    Location:
    Britain, Europe
    No rock critic of the time liked progressive rock. If you're evaluating that genre, you're basically out on your own without a guide (no bad thing, perhaps).

    I seem to recall the Blue Book was sound on Dylan, though it slated Street Legal (as did most critics of the time - it took a few decades for it to be properly appraised).
     
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  6. scott palmiter

    scott palmiter Senior Member

    Location:
    joliet il
    for my review purposes, i use the original RS review grade, the christgau grade, the spin grade and the original all music guide grade and then make up my own mind.
     
  7. BDC

    BDC Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tacoma
    Another thing that bothered me in the red book was the the description of Pat Dinizio's vocals as being "so-so".
     
  8. Dodoz

    Dodoz Forum Resident

    Location:
    France
    I'd never read these infamous reviews and I have to say I find the one for "Led Zeppelin II" quite amusing. "Jimmy wrenching some simply indescribable sounds out of his axe while your stereo goes ape-****", "Robert Plant, who is rumored to sing some notes on this record that only dogs can hear" :D...Yes, Plant was a bit over the top at the time vocally.

    It was Album of the Month in french magazine Rock n' Folk :D:D:D.
    That's pretty much the one classic music magazine we have, which appeared in 1966, making it "our" own Rolling Stone so to speak, up to the highly debatable (and debated) reviews. It's still around too.The Ramones used to get destroyed by the editor (who wrote a scathing review of their first album at the time, and of a box set in 2000). The same guy suddenly started writing positive things about them around 2002... Just one of many examples.
     
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  9. the pope ondine

    the pope ondine Forum Resident

    Location:
    Virginia

    every once in a while theyd hate an artist I like (in which case id ignore) but for the most part had pretty good advice - I think they pretty much loved van morrison/Dylan so they got something right
     
    Bluesman Mark likes this.
  10. jay.dee

    jay.dee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Barcelona, Spain
    Each new thread is always a great opportunity to highlight some of their most clueless stinking garbage "criticism":
    Rolling Stone's 500 Worst Reviews of All Time (work in progress)
     
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  11. the pope ondine

    the pope ondine Forum Resident

    Location:
    Virginia
    which boasts a vocalist who sounds like a cross between Donald Duck and Robert Plant....

    well even a broken clock :unhunh:
    just kidding. they managed to slip in a dig at grand funk too, they really hated those guys
     
  12. Hadean75

    Hadean75 Forum Moonlighter

    In general, Rolling Stone and I have two very different opinions on artists/albums. Once in a great while, I will agree with a review, but it's rare. I just tend to ignore Rolling Stone at this point because sometimes their reviews really irritate me. :shrug:
     
  13. dammitjanet

    dammitjanet Fun, natural fun

    Location:
    Montreal
    Thanks for the link. I love the notes at the end of the reviews saying how the albums are now rated in RS's greatest of all time list - I wonder what accounts for those revisions... maybe just different people in charge? Or what fans actually liked and bought versus what the critics said?
     
  14. dammitjanet

    dammitjanet Fun, natural fun

    Location:
    Montreal
    Actually reading through some of these it seems there is a trend for once panned albums to be later boosted after they proved to be influential on other bands and movements... so just plain old revisionism I guess. But that still seems like it was thanks to other artists liking an album, not necessarily critics getting it right.
     
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  15. mschrist

    mschrist Forum Resident

    Location:
    Madison, WI
    I have the red edition and love it. I think it's interesting as a historical document, as a first attempt to (mostly) comprehensively review a young genre, right as the "classic-rock" era was winding down at the dawn of punk and disco. I've also enjoyed some recommendations from it in albums that got five stars but aren't really talked about today, like Ry Cooder's "Paradise and Lunch", or Atlanta Rhythm Section's "A Rock and Roll Alternative". Plus the jazz and blues sections--especially the blues section--are really good starting points into those genres for a rock fan.
     
  16. Sax-son

    Sax-son Forum Resident

    Location:
    Three Rivers, CA
    I always felt that I lived in an alternate universe from that of Rolling Stone. I could never understand their reasoning for anything that pertained to music.
     
    Jackson likes this.
  17. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    The good thing about these is, hen you first read the review for this album or that album, you didn't notice..but then, all bundled together in a grouping, the prejudice of one reviewer or another becomes clear.

    So the upshot is...maybe you can't trust the reviews, but you can sure come to a conclusion about thr tastes of the reviewers!
     
    klockwerk likes this.
  18. Yeah, I personally think the reviews in Rolling Stone are a joke, and are biased against certain bands or types of music. If I recall correctly they gave every "Journey" album each one star, and some of their albums had a full sides worth of hit singles. Like a band or not, any album that has half the album become hit singles is at least worth 3 or 4 stars.
     
  19. mschrist

    mschrist Forum Resident

    Location:
    Madison, WI
    I probably fit in that category (not in the '70s, when I was a toddler, but today). But it pays off!

    I can think of plenty of cases where I've picked up a record that was highly regarded by critics, found that I initially didn't like it, but then found myself thinking about it months or even years later, put it back on, and found that it was good all along. Either it needed some time to marinate in my head, or I wasn't listening for the right thing the first time around, or maybe I encountered some more accessible music of a similar type in the interim that helped me understand it.

    There is a lot of music that I have come to love as a result of this kind of experience, and it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't trusted the judgment of critics to begin with. So: I trust critics. I gladly admit that they know more about music than I do, and can identify what's good more quickly and perceptively than I can. They won't always be right--there are inevitably fashionable records that turn out to be duds as soon as the zeitgeist changes. But overall I'll hear more good music if I listen to them.
     
  20. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    An interesting account. I am genuinely curious, based on that G.B. Shaw riff, as to record buyers' experiences in that vein. No sarcasm whatsoever intended. But it would seem to be something that would warrant its own thread independent of one's views of various editions of RS record guides.
     
    mschrist likes this.
  21. j.barleycorn

    j.barleycorn Forum Resident

    Location:
    MN, USA
    Still have the Red book packed away somewhere and bought it when it came out mainly as a discography aid. I had long since stopped taking music reviews in RS or anywhere too seriously by then. After 74 RS in all areas pretty much lost it for me even though I still read it.
    The old paperback record review books Vols 1 and 2 I still have fond memories of from the early 70s. I didn’t actively start reading RS until late 1970 and those books were helpful for directing me to some artists and records when there weren’t the resources people take for granted now. Plus they were the original long form reviews.
     
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  22. keyse1

    keyse1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Australia
    That’s me
    In regard to Gram Parsons thank god they raved about him
    One of the most influential figures in country music now known as Americana
    Not to mention the country influences on the Stones from Beggars through Exile
    Thanks at least from me to Rolling Stone
     
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  23. klockwerk

    klockwerk Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ohio USA
    Who?
     
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  24. beccabear67

    beccabear67 Musical omnivore.

    Location:
    Victoria, Canada
    I looked at one with a really dated piece by Lester Bangs, apparently based on a single covers heavy Imperial U.S. LP, absolutely trashing and writing off The Hollies. I just never bothered looking in one again. Lame. I did buy some other Wenner & co. books cheap that have been worth having though; one about Gram Parsons by Ben Fong Torres, and another about the Haight-Ashbury.
     
  25. Thievius

    Thievius Blue Oyster Cult-ist

    Location:
    Syracuse, NY
    I'd never read nor take anything that rag has to say seriously, so no.
     
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