Music Guides by Rolling Stone, Penguin, Rough Guides, All Music, etc

A thread for the discussion of published music guides such as:

The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll.
The Rolling Stone Album Guide. (4 editions).
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings.
The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings.
The All Music Guide to Rock.
The All Music Guide to Jazz.
The All Music Guide to The Blues.
The Rough Guide to Jazz.
The Rough Guide to The Blues.

Please feel free to add to this list.
I will gradually give the publication details of each, and I would encourage all of you to give your reviews and critical assessments of these books.

 

Many years ago my local library had a copy of The New Rolling Stone Record Guide. It was so popular that someone nicked it. I eventually found a used copy for myself, which started my collection. I own all of the books listed above, among others. I refer to them a lot.

It's fun comparing album reviews across the different books, and also how the assessments change over time.

They also gave a good overview of the artist's career, in the days before the internet.

 

I've got into a lot of great music thanks to some of the aforementioned guides. Also this one:

 

That's great! Can you provide publication details?

 

I have an early edition (perhaps the first?) that went up only to Yellow Submarine (1969 edition).

 

The first edition was published towards the end of 1969. It was reissued at least once to my knowledge

 

You may find these two volumes to be of interest - record reviews from the early days of Rolling Stone magazine…

 

The Ninth Edition of The Penguin Guide to Jazz is an unparalleled achievement and it is truly a loss to jazz as a whole that it is no longer being published or updated.

I don’t know how much you want to go down the rabbit hole of guides, but The Deadhead’s Taping Compendium books and Deadbase put together constitute as thorough and well-researched documentation of a rock band that exists. They are invaluable resources to the most important part, live concerts, of one of the greatest rock bands ever.

 

Spin Alternative Record Guide – October 10, 1995

 

The All Music Guide to Rock.
3rd edition 2002.
Published by Backbeat Books, San Francisco.

The All Music Guides are an excellent series. Very consistent in their reviews and ratings. Can be a bit repetitive. More thorough than the RS Guides. No longer published, but they do keep an updated website. (www.allmusic.com)

 

Martin C Strong's series of Discography books, starting with Rock:



Published by Times Books, 1998 ISBN 10: 0812931114ISBN 13: 9780812931112

All subsequent editions/updates are listed on the same site:

The Great Rock Discography by Strong Martin C - AbeBooks

There are also ones for Indie, Metal, Folk and Psychedelia.

EG.

 

The Trouser Press guides were essential reading for those who were turned off by Dave Marsh and other Rolling Stone contributors’ rockist elitism.

 

For rockist elitists they sure hated a lot of rock, Ironically as the first guide was published Marsh had a weekly syndicated review column that supported punk, post punk, early hip hop, r&b which would go on to be the foundation of his Rock/Rap Confidential newsletter through the 80s/90s. There was something in the culture of Rolling Stone that encouraged disdain, yet on their own many of the writers were quite open and supportive of broad scope of music.

 

I have just discovered a relatively new book series called ‘On Track’. The books are mainly specific to one particular artist and write about every track that they have recorded. There are also some genre guides.

I ordered a couple last week to try to get a feel for this series - The Incredible String Band and Roy Harper. They seem to be good on first impressions.

Link to publisher, but the books are also available on other major book selling websites:

Home

 

All Music Guide to Jazz. 4th edition. 2002. Backbeat Books, SF.
All Music Guide to The Blues. 3rd edition. 2003. Backbeat Books, SF.

 

The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD. 3rd edition. 1996. Penguin.
The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings. 1st edition. 2006. Penguin.

These Penguin Guides are among the best. Reliable reviews. Excellent, thorough discographies.

If you find an album that rates highly in the Penguin Guide, and also in the All Music Guide, you're on a winner.

 

Wow, they look great. I will come back and check these out soon.

 

The first volume of the Penguin Guide to Jazz was my bible when I was first exploring the music. I spent untold hours reading it.

 

Anyone have images of Classical music guides?