[.ca] Essential Rock Discography 1 (ISBN 1841959855)

From Amazon.com:
It took Strong 10 years to compile this discography, and the rock music world is in his debt. More accurate and comprehensive than other books attempting to accomplish the same ends, more readable and better organized, The Great Rock Discography title may toot its own horn, while Strong calls his opus "the ultimate rock book of all time," but it's entirely merited. It starts at A with ABBA and spends over a page on them (and these are rather large pages, with very small print), describing the history of the band and their albums, then compulsively listing their every recorded musical output from October '73 until October '96, including a jungle of code notations (you can refer back to the formats-and-abbreviations page whenever needed) with catalog number and recording label, whether the A- or B-sides differ in their U.K. and U.S. versions, which are essential to your collection, and whether the vinyl was a long player, a double-long player, a colored long player, or a mini-long player. Covering Adam & the Ants, Bootsy's Rubber Band, Tom Petty, Linda Rondstadt, and Muddy Waters on up through the Zombies and ZZ Top, Strong lists every track by more than 1,000 groups. --Stephanie Gold

Very useful, but not always clear and consistent.:
This book, which is readily found in almost all bookstores locally, is an interesting read for those interested in music. It is very useful reference in that it contains a great deal of information about major rock bands - including long out of print albums and all the tracks on them, chart placings in the UK and US, and infornation on singles released. Basically, each artist's releases are listed in chronological order with tracks and UK and US peak chart placings (if any - note that a line in the box indicates that the album never got a domestic release in the relevant country). Each artist discussed is summarised through each album and the way in which it fared both critically and commercially. In the list of albums, band line-up changes are mentioned as they occur, though full line-ups are not given for each album to make the book still easier to understand. The albums are rated on a scale from (*0) - only one case in the whole book - to (*10) for the best albums, but, like so much rock criticism, the ratings are inconsistent and never explained with any clarity whatsoever. This is especially true of later releases by established artists, almost all of which are panned whether there is a good reason or not for doing so. The guide is very good in that it is very easy to read because of its layout, but, with the exception of a small number of extremely popular artists it neglects the less "rock" styles of popular music such as r and b almost entirely - and because it is British, artists receiving no interest outside the US are left undiscussed. This makes it a bit problematic for a serious study of pop music. On the whole, a very useful reference work for the student if little more than that.

Very flawed.:
This book is very good for what it does have, with very complete discographies. However, there is way too much emphasis on artist/groups of the 80's onward; most of those of the 50's and 60's (except for some of the heavyweights) are not even mentioned. May I respectfully request the authors to do another volume of rock and rollers, well known and otherwise, from 1945 to 1970?

Somebody Had To Do It - Somebody Had To Buy It:
This is an amazing work - a telephone book of people you might actually want to call, a lost gnostic text to a doomed civilization's pizza delivery places, a total compendium of where all the effort spent in conquering the world went after the fall of the British Empire. God love them, these British folks are serious about that Rock and Roll music! As for the work itself, it's thorough, fair, and fun to browse through in any time or place. I can become lost for hours, and find myself jonesing for some of the groups Strong knows but about which I've never heard. Some things are a trifle annoying, like which bands are labelled Psychedelic and which are not, but to hell with it; stand back and let the man do his work. I slaver for the second edition of the Pschedelic Discography. When Stong says Great, he means it. The Great Pyramids, the Great War, Great Coats, and Alexander the Great come to mind. Everyone should have one of these in his or her homes. Or a bottle of Xanax. I'll take the great maroon book with a glass of water before meals and bedtimes.

Quite comprehensive!:
Before I purchased this, I was looking at all other similar books, deciding which to get, and in the end I chose this one because overall it is the most comprehensive. And despite the title, it spreads out into genres related, such as punk, pop, hip hop, rnb, and even rap. I was able to find some bands not in this one, but I am sure they could be found in his other books of similar style, metal, indie, etc. I am very satisfied, and I am passionate about all genres of music, so to the average music listener this is very very comprehensive. I believe it must be the best music reference book out there. Sometime in the near future, possibly when the next edition comes out, I will buy The Great Metal Discography.

Monumental Effort:
...Measuring a little over 8 inches wide by 111/2 inches long, and 2 inches thick, it has 1109 pages and must weigh two pounds. Not something you want to be reading in bed and doze off. risking a broken nose. The effort that went into its compilation can only be described as monumental, as it provides single and LP discographies on MANY \obut not nearly all\c of the North American artists who formed the genre known as R & R, as well as some of those who ensured its continuation in the music scene in the 1970s to 1990s. Are there faults? Well, as with any endeavour this ambitious, it's going to be difficult to please everyone. First of all, there are some who will wish it came with some sort of Rosetta Stone to help decipher the author's rather unique method of recording various details, rather than the equally-confusing single page headed "How To Read This Book." \oIt CAN be done - it just takes a little practice\c Secondly, from the point of view of this collector of North American singles hits, it would have been better had the author compiled a North American edition which included only those British and European artists and groups we've at least HEARD about over here. Obviously, that would include those like Abba, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Dave Clark Five, etc., along with lesser-known but still identifiable artists such as Adam & The Ants, Madness, and Jan-Michel Jarre. They're all in the book. But there are way too many like Aphex Twin, Apollo 440, Arab Strap, Syd Barrett, Basement Jaxx, Lloyd Cole, dEUS, Fluke, Goldie, Roy Harper, Inspiral Carpets, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Kula Shaker, etc., etc., that precious few on this side of the Atlantic know, let alone collect. And while literally hundreds of such artists are included -and, I'm sure, are of great benefit to U.K. and European collectors - there are also far too many North American greats omitted. Among these are the likes of Bobby Darin, Gene Pitney, Brenda Lee \oall three in the R & R Hall Of Fame in Cleveland\c, Connie Francis \owho SHOULD be\c, Ivory Joe Hunter, Pat Boone \oYES, Pat Boone in spite of the opinions of Rolling Stone and others\c, Chubby Checker, The Fleetwoods, The Drifters, The Coasters, The Four Seasons - etc., etc. For that reason alone I had to deduct one star. Thirdly, there are also annoying little errors, such as appears in the Buddy Holly portion. According to the details listed, with the exception of the first two single releases by Decca in 1956, all other North American releases were on Decca's Coral subsidiary. In actual fact, Decca muddied the waters back then by alternatingly releasing one single on their Brunswick subsidiary as by The Crickets and another on Coral as by Buddy Holly & The Crickets - sometimes literally within days of one another \oe.g., Peggy Sue by Buddy Holly & The Crickets on Coral which made its debut on the North American charts on November 11, 1957, and Oh, Boy by The Crickets which debuted on November 25!\c No mention is made of this questionable practice in the blurb above the discography which, to my way of thinking, was one of the reasons Buddy didn't have more Top 40 North American hits than the eight credited to him. With these limitations would I recommend the book to a North American music fan? In one word - yes. As one reviewer points out, the trivia alone is almost worth the price. However, if your memory is of the North American artists be warned that there are MANY of them missing and that JUST as many are included that will be completely unknown to you.