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

If the review stands, it's evidence the critical consensus is a conspiracy. As we know, all ROLLING STONE writers received their marching orders from Jann Wenner's office as he snorted cocaine out of the collective navels of Carly Simon and James Taylor.

However, if five decades of reviews, books and special issues evince any change of opinion, it's because the magazine lacks all credibility, vacillating between indifferent and ecstatic reviews as it chases public opinion and newsstand sales.

Does that cover every possibility? I realize that no review could represent the honest opinion of any specific writer. There's always an agenda at work.

I'm always amused how much hostility is generated on this site by any mention of Wenner or his magazine. If any media organ promulgates the idea of the eternal relevance of Classic Rock, the core belief of this discussion board, it's ROLLING STONE. You know, the publisher of those special issues at the checkout stand covering all those current hitmakers like the Beatles/Rolling Stones/Bob Dylan/Pink Floyd/Bruce Springsteen/Fleetwood Mac/Nirvana.

 

Well at least you tried to listen to it. RS has no credibility with me for many reasons, but giving high marks to a Yoko Ono album, and that album in particular, is one area where RS and I agree.

 

Here's the Record Guide in a nutshell:

Punk rules!
Metal sucks!

 

Growing up, the RS guide was more of a discography source than anything. This was obviously pre internet, so it helped in pointing me towards releases not in my local store. The reviews were usually just a sideline for me!

 

Other magazine-based record guides, like "Goldmine", are only useful to me because they list more individual record entries, like a discography, but value estimates are off. It is hard to publish a value for a certain record as it is only worth what someone will pay for it. Not only because I am a contributor, but "Rockin' Records" and it's online subscription service, "Cyberguides", is one of the best resources. The printed version is updated yearly and the online version, weekly. Values and cataloging are made from real world sales and availability by many contributors such as myself.
Another source of cataloging, but with no values, is from "Both Sides Now"(bsnpubs.com). Listings of LP's are grouped by record label. The best thing about it is it's free! There are some issues with missing or incorrect listings and attitude, but they invite everyone to contribute. If you send them a correction, they might give you a hostile reply. For other discography information, also look at another free site, allmusic.com.

 

I get very irritated with the guides. To the point where every time I walk past one I scream at it.

 

Used to have it (blue one). It's entertaining in a stupid, trashy kinda way, but it absolutely shouldn't be taken seriously!
I mean... it's just too stupid for it's own good. It's so overtly biased and misjudging it's almost hilarious!

 

I've used in the past the RED and BLUE books since they first came out.

I liked them.

Are they perfect, he'll no.

But in their time before internet they could be very useful.

But when there was few sources to know what LP''s were out there, it a least gave you a guide what to look for.

Some reviewers, I never trusted, but isn't that part of the game?

 

I'll never understand how RS was ever taken as any kind of authority in reviews as they had so many purple prose writers enamored of Hunter S. Thompson or whoever rather than actually fulfilling the function of providing a useful review to the reader. I'm sure it was nice for what they raved about to have some sun shone upon them, like The Pretty Things' Parachute album, but they would so often run to the other extreme on whims of writers with huge egos. I have far less issue with their non-music content. If something gets reviewed in Mojo or Uncut it means something to me. I feel I know to some extent the qualities of writers they publish under their masthead. A RS review is a mostly random proposition, they would have someone review something they know nothing about and damned well unwilling to educate themselves on, who would attack Stereolab for not being Wilco basically or whatever idiosyncratic value system they might hold without much explanation, and that might then stand as the 'official' RS review to be republished over and over or never again. A qualified review can approach a piece of music without that rampant personality complex forced upon it and ask if it is successful on it's own terms and the terms of what the educated reviewer knows to be it's contemporaries and equals. It's completely wrong to say any piece of music is worthless if you have nothing more applied to it than personal likes and dislikes, anyone off the street could write that (if not as well artistically or technically). It depends on what you think a review is for and what the reader wants from it, the coloring of the writer's personality or something of use to someone considering the material themselves. I don't want to get to know the authors outside of judging whether they can write informatively and with a basis for comparison. Lester Bangs hating on James Taylor or The Hollies did nothing for anyone but him, and not even maybe good for him. Like many Rs reviewers he showed mainly idiosyncratic biases, didn't do his job and was thus unable to to provide useful information to other listeners. If people buy his works it's for him writing about whatever music, not for useful writings about the music.

Anyway, I think a lot of people would say that Rolling Stone and their guides have been at least partially useless to them for reviews where other publications haven't been. It is a failing editorially and of the individual reviewers. The imprint signifies nothing, no standard, no voice, varied experience. That may've fit in with the late '60s initially though, I'm just saying over the long haul they have not established a standard like others have. It's just random luck-of-the-draw roulette what you would get from them. Going back through their pages to establish some kind of RS value system can't work. Even the All Music website gives something graspable in terms of standards in comparison.

 

From an interview with Ken Hensley from Uriah Heep

Q - According to Rolling Stone's Encyclopedia Of Rock one critic wrote about Uriah Heep "If this group makes it, I'll have to commit suicide." I don't get it. Was so offensive about Uriah Heep.

A - In actual fact, that was a lady by the name of Melissa Mills, who was a record reviewer for Rolling Stone magazine when she received our first record from Mercury, I think it was when she received that to review. That was her opening line of the review of the record. You have to believe we had some fun with that, especially when we accomplished what she was going to kill herself over.

Q - I bet she's still alive today.

A - The last time I knew, and this is going back many, many years, she was working in the subscription department of Rolling Stone. Yeah, it was Melissa Mills who wrote that and I think we even featured that on our 'live' album cover because it's a stupid thing to say. Look, Uriah Heep wasn't perfect, wasn't the greatest band in the world, but it gave people something that they wanted at a time when they really wanted it, willingly and energetically and pretty much without stopping. I think we deserved the success we achieved. I think we worked hard for it and we deserved it. Probably what they did was they just gave the reviewing task to the wrong person. I mean, we had some very unkind press, especially in the U.K., in our home country. None of the critics there ever thought we would achieve anything. They labeled us with all kinds of unkind labels and of course the more we achieved, the more it pissed them off and so the more they wrote bad stuff about us. We didn't care. The fact is, if you've got twenty-thousand people in an arena and one person doesn't like what you do, who you gonna listen to? (laughs) I just make music. I can't guarantee that people are gonna like what I do and it's OK if they don't. So, I just do what I do. What I do is very honest and natural and organic. I obviously hope that people like it, but if they don't... I listen to music a lot and I listen to a lot of music don't like. So I can understand that not all music fits all tastes. It's fine. But the reason for people to be so caustic and to try and determine other people's tastes by their own I think is a little irrational. We had some very interesting experiences with concert reviews because we were doing an interview in the afternoon with a local magazine or newspaper and then during that interview that person would specifically ask us what we were going to play. We finally twigged the fact that what they were doing. They didn't actually come to the show, they just quoted the set list from what we told them in the interview. So, once we twigged that, anybody that asked us that, we simply made up a list of imaginary songs and just sat back and let them publish it and laughed in our beer. You can't account for people's behavior. If people have better things to do than honestly review a show, then fine. It's all nonsense. You can't bother yourself with it. You can't allow yourself to get tangled up in it. Otherwise it's contagious and you don't want to be involved in that. We were just five guys having fun. We weren't the greatest musicians in the world, but we came along at the right time. A lot of kids supported us and encouraged us and inspired us and so we kicked on for as long as we could.

 

The 1st soft back from early 70s is the best.The blue book from 1981 is also essential to music threw 1981.After that who cares.

 

Me. I think I have just as much music post 1981 as 60's & 70's music. For me there is plenty of great music to be found in every era post WW2.

 

[QUthat's Kingsley Fats, post: 17865453, member: 71022"]Me. I think I have just as much music post 1981 as 60's & 70's music. For me there is plenty of great music to be found in every era post WW2.[/QUOTE]
No thats not what I meant.I was stating that the post 1981 guides are not as well edited & thought out as the first 2 editions.

 

Cool! I must pick up a copy.

 

And for me, that would be fine.

 

Yeah, it's always struck me as odd that some folks seem to want a magazine like that to have a unified or an official opinion that they stick with perpetually. It's as if people look at the magazine as being a single individual (and they don't allow individuals to change their opinions for some reason) rather than what it is--a relatively loose collection of hundreds of writers over many decades, all with their own unique opinions, and where there's a regularly changing roster.

To some extent maybe it's mostly objectivists wanting consistent opinions over the years. If aesthetic value is objective, and the magazine is credible, then it should be getting things right and not changing the viewpoint. But aesthetic value isn't objective. And we've got a bunch of different people over the years expressing different subjective opinions.

 

Before the internet, it was very difficult to hear music before you bought it. You pretty much either had to hear it on the radio, hear it from a friend's copy, or gambled and purchased an album that you never heard before and hoped it was good. Through their written reviews in the '80s, Rolling Stone guided people towards certain music in an effort to help their readers find music that Rolling Stone thought was good enough to buy.

I read a quote once that said: "writing about music is like dancing about architecture."

Now, that everyone is literally able to listen to any music on their phone before they buy it,
it becomes more evident of just how silly music reviews are. And that quote above rings true more than ever.

 

Where I come from hearing it on the radio was not (& is still not) an option. Friends with copies were very important.

 

The value of music reviews is exposure to music that you may not normally be exposed to...I got turned on to a lot of things out of the mainstream Top 40/AOR universe based on reading great reviews

 

The purpose of a record review can vary, of course. While virtually all contain some kind of description of how the music sounded to the viewer on the simple level of whether the reviewer liked it or not, the review can then go in different directions. Some reviewers might offer a thoughtful analysis of how the work under review relates to previous work by the musician(s). Some might discuss how it "fits" into work being done by others, or the cultural moment of sorts.

Perhaps the most complex purpose a review can serve is one where the reviewer in effect is trying to have a sort of conversation with the musician. Describing how a piece sounds and what is good and bad about it certainly has the potential to be part of a dynamic where the musician gets ideas about how they came across in the music. A well intentioned and generous reviewer can perhaps offer good advice on a going forward basis that can be taken up by the musician. If a review can serve such a purpose, it can certainly go beyond being silly, and in fact have real value.

I read all kinds of reviews. In particular I tend to read or watch movie reviews before I will see the film in question. But also book reviews. I find them helpful.

 

I had the red one. Loved it, even when I disagreed with the rating. I wrote notes all through my copy and would add stars or cross off stars according to my own opinion. But I thought it was a fine resource.

 

They got that correct.

 

I have almost a "phobia" about that; or at least I'm really neurotic about it. I very much prefer watching films with as little info as possible about them beforehand. I want the absolute minimum to know that I'm interested in the film. Just the genre and a cast member or two is often enough. Or even just the genre and an idea of the budget. Occasionally I'll read a small bit about the premise, but I stop reading as soon as I have enough to know if I'm interested or not, and that's often less than one sentence.

I flip out if a preview starts playing of a film I've not seen yet--I'll change the channel as quickly as possible, and in the theater I don't look at the screen and I mentally block out most of the sound during previews. I'd never read a review before watching a film (or before reading a work of fiction).

 

Always hated the Rolling Stone guides, and this from someone who still subscribes to their magazine. The Music Hound guides are much better, plus they rate by bones instead of stars.

 

Agreed, though looking back on it, that was the joke -- it's just that they weren't in on it!

I actually love the blue guide -- it's just a piece of nostalgia, for a certain attitude and way of thinking about music. I grew up going to a record store that Dave Marsh used to frequent, and his opinions were the subject of a lot of discussion. I think he's right about a lot, and wrong about a lot as well. As good as any of them, and better than most.

If I ever want to get pissed off, I know I can always look at current reviews in Rolling Stone magazine, which have been smug, showy garbage for around two and a half decades, maybe more.

Once upon a time I found online someone's thesis about the blue guide. Just tried looking for it now and couldn't come up with it. It was called "Marshing My Mellow," or something like that. Worth a read if you come across it.