Rating: 
Summary: Book Excerpt: All rights reserved by Visible Ink Press
Review: Bob Dylan
Born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24,1941 in Duluth, MN.
Decades from now, when all the dust has settled and the rock music
revolution is viewed with historical hindsight, Dylan will stand out as
one of the three most important people to ever pick up a guitar.
George Harrison feels even more strongly; he's been quoted as saying
that 500 years from now, Dylan will be the most remembered and
revered name from this era, eclipsing even the Beatles. Unlike the Fab
Four and Elvis Presley, Dylan's profound influence on the music
world--and society in general--was never matched by his sales.
Nonetheless, his key material truly serves as the soundtrack for a
generation, and is deeply ingrained in our daily lives. Phrases like
"The Times They Are A-Changin'" have worked their way into
everyday journalistic vernacular; his song "Like A Rolling Stone"
even helped give a moniker to our biggest music magazine.
Dylan's most important contribution was giving the voice of social
consciousness to contemporary music lyrics, starting with folk music
and then evolving into rock. When girl groups and teenage idols were
topping the charts in 1962 and '63, Dylan woke up a sleeping public
with songs about racial injustice and the ravages of war. All of this has
earned Dylan a continuing level of respect that is on a par with greats
like Duke Ellington, Leonard Bernstein and Miles Davis. His
influence may be best illustrated by the fact that one scholarly study
concluded that he was the one person, from all walks of life, most
responsible for stopping the Vietnam war.
What to buy: To this day, Dylan's legacy is still very much that of a
folk artist, and his key work in that genre is The Freewheelin' Bob
Dylan (Columbia, 1963, prod. John Hammond) (4 1/2 stars). This
album single-handedly launched the mid-60's protest movement with
such venerable songs as Blowin' In The Wind and A Hard Rain's
A-Gonna Fall. Once Dylan started rocking full time, he made
Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia, 1965, prod. Bob Johnston and Tom
Wilson) (five stars), which many pundits feel is one of the greatest
albums ever released, perhaps even tying the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band for the all-time crown. It is hard to over
praise an album that opens with Like A Rolling Stone and closes with
Desolation Row, and doesn't have an ounce of fat in between. Directly
following that was Blonde On Blonde (Columbia, 1966, prod. by Bob
Johnston) (5 stars), another highly regarded album that always winds
up in the top 10 of any greatest albums of all-time poll. Probably
Dylan's most popular record among his legions of hard-core fans, the
album is a folk-rock masterpiece featuring Rainy Day Women #12 &
35, I Want You and Just Like A Woman. Although Dylan's creative
output peaked with that record, nine years later he shocked everyone
with the brilliance of Blood On The Tracks (Columbia, 1975, prod. Bob
Dylan) (5 stars). As his marriage started to crumble, Dylan wrote and
sang songs like Tangled Up In Blue and Idiot Wind from the soul,
causing critics everywhere to pull out and dust off the "masterpiece"
moniker once again.
Rating: 
Summary: I suppose a tin-ear goes with a poison pen!
Review: Critics, everybody is a critic. Those who can't do teach.......except there is nothing to be learned here.
Rating: 
Summary: poorly edited...
Review: Doesn't hold up to the first edition. I know there is a fine line between pop and rock,but Mariah Carrie,Hanson and Backstreet Boys in same book with Black Flag,Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan.?And the photos...I could live without a full page pictures of Paul Rodgers,Zac Hanson,Noel Gallagher and so on.It seems you need to sift through many unwanted pages for the good parts. This is a complete guide on music and the information is close to certain, yet is it really neccessary to call this a rock guide or the "poprock" guide.
Rating: 
Summary: A lively, insightful colleciton of rock criticism.
Review: Durchholz and Graff aren't historians, but they're two of the most literate, insightful critics in rock 'n' roll. They've assembled a strong cast of contributors who write with flair and insight. This book puts other rock 'n' roll guides to shame. If it was important -- and even if it wasn't -- it's all here.
Rating:
Summary: Foward and backwards links are great
Review: Each artist has a list of their major influences and who they influenced. I used this to quickly skim through and spot who I might be interested in. I was able to find hundreds of bands that I did not know but were pretty good. I usually did enjoy the stuff I thought I would from reading the book. This book led me to what I wanted.
Rating:
Summary: Absurd
Review: For this book to state that the Stranglers had "little to no compelling material" is indisputably absurd.
Rating: 
Summary: If you agreed with everything, you would've written the book
Review: I have to say that I enjoy books like this, but they are, as with any criticism, subjective. Many times their reviews are right on target, but I have to question whether they actually reviewed some of the albums listed. Example: If I Were A Carpenter is given a terrible rating. It's probably the best CD to come out of the tribute album wave earlier this decade. There are many questionable choices, but all in all this is a cool book, useful for helping build your collections.
Rating:
Summary: Kick a**!!!
Review: I love rock 'n' roll, and I won't be putting any more dimes in my local CD store without consulting this incredibly awesome book first. Everyone's in here. And the "what to avoid" information is very valuable. Long live Music Hound Rock!!!
Rating:
Summary: Fair
Review: I was able to find most of the artists that I was looking for. The book mostly has artists from the past not many from the present. It listed all the albums that the person had ever made and that was a plus. If you need to know a little something about a well know artist than this is your book.
Rating:
Summary: Well worth the price
Review: In the introduction to this book, it says that if it gets you to NOT buy a couple of bad records, the book has paid itself. I definately agree and have confirmed this with some of the albums I wish I had never bought. There is definatly some omissions but these are understandable when you consider all the records that are out there.But the best thing about this book is that it is up to date. The Rolling Stone guide stops in the early 80s and the Rough Guide only covers to the early 90s. I have not yet been disapointed with the results of my purchases for which i've consider Musichounds advice. I will probably buy the Musichound World book so that I can start with this kind of music. If you are a serious rock music collector, you should get this book.
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