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

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

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  1. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    anything with the name Rolling Stone has to be biased...there are better guides out there...I still have a few books when they really were the only game in town back then...now I mostly use the web.
     
    delmonaco likes this.
  2. Rfreeman

    Rfreeman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lawrenceville, NJ
    Even most diehard GD fans (I speak as one who saw them 188 times) would not rate their albums all that highly and thought they were kind of demos for what the tunes became live.
     
  3. ribonucleic

    ribonucleic Forum Resident

    Location:
    SLC UT
    If not for the magazine, I wouldn't have found Hüsker Dü or Minutemen until years later - if at all. So I'm not going to be bitter about anything it became after I stopped reading it.
     
  4. ShockControl

    ShockControl Bon Vivant and Raconteur!

    Location:
    Lotus Land
    I have no use for critics. They never write about the music I listen to.
     
  5. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    or to some just getting it free tends to sway the stick...
     
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  6. markp

    markp I am always thinking about Jazz.

    Location:
    Washington State
    I picked up.the red version in the early 80's when I was in college. While not perfect, it was a great guide and introduction other artists. There was nothing like All music or Amazon with online music samples to accompany the reviews. All in all, the RS guide helped my find a lot of great music, and increase my knowledge of.rock and jazz music
     
  7. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    me neither why would I deprive myself from music or movies by the biased the pen of a bought and sold critic? I'll decide for myself...: )
     
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  8. Aftermath

    Aftermath Senior Member

    Liked the red edition much more than the blue. Personally not a fan of Dave Marsh's reviews and found some of them a bit childish.
     
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2018
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  9. ribonucleic

    ribonucleic Forum Resident

    Location:
    SLC UT
    Just for its breadth of coverage alone, AllMusic makes the idea of a record guide that must fit in, say, 500 printed pages seem as barbarous as practicing medicine with leeches.

    I remember when YouTube first became popular, NPR did a segment about it in which the person marveled over its "time machine"-like ability to transport you back to great musical performances from the past. (And doubted whether copyright holders would permit it to survive for long.)

    And so it was! It - along with AllMusic, Wikipedia, IMDb - is one of the miracles of the Internet age that is completely taken for granted.
     
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  10. Stone Turntable

    Stone Turntable Independent Head

    Location:
    New Mexico USA
    Sorry to break the news, but you're a music critic critic.
     
  11. Stu02

    Stu02 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    It favours US bands over UK bands with some exceptions. Don’t use it to compare bands . It’s only really useful to get one persons take on which are the best albums of a particular band. That way if you like the band a two star review on one of their albums vs 1 stars on the rest leads you to check out that 2 star lp first. I found many 2 star reviews of UK bands equaled 3 or 4 star reviews of American bands.
     
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  12. JonUrban

    JonUrban SHF Member #497

    Location:
    Connecticut
    I still have both the red and the blue. I remember being a bit annoyed at some of the reviews of albums that I really liked as they were trashed or poo-poo'd by the reviewer.

    Still, it never affected the way I felt about those albums. Both books were still welcome references in the days before the internet and Google.
     
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  13. Muggles

    Muggles Forum Resident

    Location:
    Midwest
    I beg to differ - Sandinista is 1/3 filler.
     
  14. rswitzer

    rswitzer Forum Resident

    Location:
    Golden, CO USA
    I was strongly influenced by the "guides" only to realize later that I should/did have my own opinions. However, I have found that since joining the Hoffman forums I am still too easily swayed by the opinions of others. I'd like to think it's being open minded, but too often I end up buying stuff when I should've known better. My own fault. Gotta take a chance now and then. :)
     
  15. egebamyasi

    egebamyasi Forum Resident

    Location:
    Worcester, MA
    They gave Europe '72 two stars.
     
  16. zen

    zen Senior Member

    Usually I'm against burning books....but these RS guides could be used for the folks freezing currently.
     
  17. Rawkdude

    Rawkdude Forum Resident

    Location:
    NYC
    Used to own some of these in the 90s switched to All Music Guide and now I use their website for reference or to see new releases.
     
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  18. BrentB

    BrentB Urban Angler Thread Starter

    Location:
    Midwestern US
    That is probably true. It is not only the ratings, but also the snide comments about certain artists fans. The guide seems particualrly harsh on GD fans.
     
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  19. egebamyasi

    egebamyasi Forum Resident

    Location:
    Worcester, MA
    Glad the internet came along. The All Music Guides were starting to get heavy.
     
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  20. ianuaditis

    ianuaditis Matthew 21:17

    Location:
    Long River Place
    That's funny about the Grateful Dead because they were the darlings of RS during its first few years, the magazine certainly contributed heavily to what success and exposure they had early on.

    Unlike some diehard fans, I think their studio albums are much better than they are given credit for. I don't think it's fair to compare it to what they did in live performances; they stopped trying to capture that sound in the studio after 1968. If I'm making a 'top whatever albums list' I would certainly include a few GD titles near the top.

    It's not surprising though, that in 1983 the RS list was critical and disparaging. Wasn't Dave Marsh the editor of that? He's well-known to despise the Grateful Dead and also thought John Bonham was a terrible drummer.
     
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  21. Daryl M

    Daryl M Senior Member

    Location:
    London, Ontario
    I hope that CD guides aren't finished, but I fear that they are.
     
    lbangs likes this.
  22. Morton LaBongo

    Morton LaBongo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Manchester NH
    I used to consider RS "definitive" when I was much younger, although their bias became apparent once I started reading their reviews with a more mature insight. One time in particular I was pretty miffed when they gave a nasty dismissive review of Asia, a band that I happened to particularly like. It was in a library book when I first read it and there must have been at least one other person who agreed with me, because in the margin someone had written "**** whoever wrote this." Nowadays I take reviews with a grain of salt and never really use it as a basis on whether or not to purchase.
     
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  23. Gaslight

    Gaslight ⎧⚍⎫⚑

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    I recall that RS guide and how bummed I got on the mediocre / bad reviews some of my favorite albums received.

    But of course I was a teenager back then.
     
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  24. pbuzby

    pbuzby Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago, IL, US
    Yes, Dave Marsh wrote the dismissive Grateful Dead article in that 80's record guide.
     
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  25. wdiv

    wdiv Forum Resident

    Location:
    Maryland
    The RS guide was my bible back in the pre-internet days, and it inspired me to check out a bunch of bands that I probably wouldn't have heard of otherwise. But yeah, the ratings are really slanted, especially for hard rock & metal, which were apparently beyond the grasp of the RS reviewers. Some of my all-time favorite albums only received 1-star or 2-stars in that book.
     
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