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

Remember, Marsh grew up outside of Detroit, so Motown was his formative music, even before the Beatles. His tastes were shaped by R&B and Blues , and his preferences amongst even rock bands were those with a strong base in those musical styles. Pretty much the further away from that base a band moved, Marsh (generally) disliked them

 

I am taking this purely from today's perspective and consider what anyone thought of Zeppelin in 1969 irrelevant.

I'll grant that there are younger people who are meeting Zeppelin or another historically important band for the first time in 2019, and so the useful question is whether Rolling Stone reviews that take a longer view (or those in the All Music Guide, etc.) serve these listeners well. I'm tempted to say only the descriptive stuff matters, because we know star ratings are often inflated based on popularity (or in the older guides deflated based on personal taste). However, in talking music with other fans it is good to be knowledgeable about the popular stuff you don't necessarily like. I can't stand the Allman Brothers, but I hang out with a lot of jam band fans and wouldn't be served well if I didn't have a rudimentary understanding of what the Allmans did.

 

I was only referring to magazine sales.

 

I doubt they care much at this point. And everyone is reading too much into consistency anyway. Different people at Rolling Stone have held differing opinions of Queen, just as you'd expect from any publication that's been around for over 50 years. Even that first record guide is now 40 years old.

 

People have made up the notion in their heads that RS is this unified front that tried to do x and y awful things to their favorite bands, and so they then hate them for it... and then get angry when it turns out that the "front" wasn't actually very unified.

 

Yep. Or just disappear. Just once it would be refreshing to see a "I didn't realize the magazine album reviews were completely separate and independent from the record guide and it's contributors." But, yeah, I realize that's asking too much.

 

The
May have had a longer shelf life but doesn't mean anything. Why do these guides get to you?

 

I grew up with the Red the Blue and the Yellow and they have sent me in good and weird directions. Ben Sidran 5 stars? I’ll try to get it I guess. Doctors Of Madness 5 stars? If you say so. 1983 me trying to find needles in haystacks.

 

Before this thread dies its death, I will point out that it was because of these guides that I found out about both the Velvet Underground and Big Star. Both of these discoveries rocked my world in 1992.
To me these were the proverbial "needles in a haystack".

 

I had a similar experience with Spin magazine's Alternative Record Guide (published in 1994). I had vaguely heard of The Velvet Underground, though hadn't heard them, but the book introduced me to Big Star, The Feelies, The Fall, Can, Throbbing Gristle, Wire, Richard Thompson, The Undertones, Pere Ubu, X-Ray Spex, and on and on...

 

Richard Thompson was another earthquake for me, but that was due to a 1999 concert I saw of his, not due to RS.
In that case I had never heard of him before that day, I only went because my girlfriend (now wife) wanted to see him.