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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A treasure trove of information, 2 Feb 2003
This all-encompassing volume has about 3,300 entries covering various musical styles of the past century, but with the focus on pop and rock. In the introduction, the author points out that he had to choose from over 20,000 entries in his database - and he is planning to double the size of that database. Unlike so many books of this type, there are no pictures, allowing all the available space to be used for information.Obviously, this book can only cover a selection and cannot please everybody. However, a series of specialist volumes is available, so anybody wanting to focus on jazz, country, heavy metal, sixties, seventies or any of several other genres can find a book covering their particular interest. The author says that you can find artists in these specialist books for which there is no room here. Even so, there are a staggering number of obscure singers and bands here.
Once you focus on who is in this book rather than who isn't, it is quite impressive. The book I am reviewing is the fourth edition, so any errors that existed in earlier editions have hopefully been corrected. Each entry contains basic details about the singer or band, their music and the author's opinions, plus a brief discography. Again, this discography is deliberately limited. The idea is to provide an introduction to music that is new to you, so the emphasis is on stuff that was readily available at the time book went to press. Fans of a particular singer or band must look elsewhere to track down all the rarities. My tastes in music are wide, but while my knowledge is extensive, there is a lot I don't know, even about my favorite genres. A book like this is invaluable to me. It is certainly the best book of its kind that I've come across.
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