Chris Rock Books

I ordered this book from amazon.uk (I was there pre-ordering the new book about Genesis slated for a Sept. release). I thought, "Sure, why not?" when this was shown to me. Well, I can say this for Mr. Welch; he certainly has opinions. Some of them seem to be rather ill-informed, however. I have to wonder if Welch actually listened to some of the songs he "reviews." For example, he seems not to know that "Scenes From A Night's Dream" was based on Windsor McCay's Little Nemo character (his attempt at humor with a 20,000 leagues pun is horrid!). He also appears unable to discern what some other songs are about. He complains about "No Son Of Mine" that "...the true nature of his (the son's) crime is not explained..." I've got to wonder how thick he is to not get the domestic violence theme of the song. He also seems not to understand that "Home By The Sea" is about a haunted house.
I disagree with many of his demi-reviews, sometime mildly, sometimes vehemently. But I did learn a few new things from this book. I found out more about the band's early years and that first album which gave them their name. I'd recommend it for the thorough discography and history. But please don't judge any of Genesis' songs from this book. Listen for yourself and see if you don't agree... or disagree.

After spending many hours in the library during the late 70s and early 80s reading concert reviews and interviews with various members of Genesis in imported copies of Melody Maker - most of them penned by Chris Welch, I found this booklet to be disappointing in that it is far from complete and (based on other readings) sometimes inaccurate. It would be my hope that some day Chris would write a real book about Genesis, similar to his book about Yes, full of anecdotes about their touring days, insites into more of the songs - the stuff Gallo didn't have the space for.

This Guide is slighter than you'd expect with regard to the kind of detail that Genesis fans would really love. Good but not great.

It's a challenge to take The Complete Guide To The Music Of Genesis seriously after reading Chris Welch's review of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. His assessment of the early albums is astute, but one can only assume he needs to give The Lamb some more listening time. (Of course, serious fans of Genesis always knew it was not an obvious record, and that it required repeated headphone application.)

Granted, there are unwieldy instrumental sections, and the story is a bit of a dud. But we never really bought progressive rock albums for the lyrics, did we? (In fact, if we'd wanted words, we'd surely have bought Penguin editions of William Blake?) No, we wanted to listen to music, and music that was arguably more interesting than anything else available at the time or, in many cases, since.

However, to suggest that Phil Collins might have been "...falling asleep over his kit" on Hairless Heart, or that Tony Banks might have been making "... the best of a bad job" on Anyway, is simply short-sighted. Indeed, when Welch suggests that the punk movement was accelerated by such albums, one might, in turn, also observe that it was the punk movement which was influenced by such albums. Killing Joke or The Clash would have surely embraced Back In NYC with its manic insistence and demonic charge?

Furthermore, even though The Lamb addresses a city theme in its story, the album still overflows with much the pastoral beauty and atmosphere with which we had come to associate Genesis. These qualities became virtually extinct in later albums and had all but disappeared by the time of Invisible Touch, an album Welch seems to think came "closest" to being the band's "ultimate" opus.

Finally, to point out two small factual errors, it is clear on the album notes for Seconds Out that Phil Collins is not playing keyboards on Robbery, Assault and Battery and Cinema Show, but that he is playing drums during the respective keyboard solos.

A track-by-track record of any great band's complete works is always welcome and, for this fact alone, praise must go to the publishers. However, there will be many a Genesis fan for whom this book will represent misplaced criticism of some of the band's greatest work.

Chris Welch is a very good writer, and I enjoyed his little pamphlet (for that is really all this is) on Genesis. When I first read this, I had no clue about his history with Melody Maker and so forth, I was just trying to learn about the band. He writes descriptions and short critiques of every song and every album they did up until "We Can't Dance" and pretty much every solo effort to that point (mid-1990's). I would only truly recommend this book to someone who values Welch's opinion on this sort of thing. Hardcore Genesis fans like myself would find it rather hard to swallow that he thinks "The Lamb" is a complete and utter waste of time, and that "Invisible Touch" is the ultimate Genesis album. Still, if you're a Genesis neophyte, and wish to know a general description of the style and contents of each album, this helps. Probably just as informative to read amazon.com reviews of each album!

I like the photos. I checked out the photos, whizzed over the writing (because it is just logistics), and tossed the book on the shelf.

Then, I FORGOT I had the book and purchased a second copy which also later ended up on the shelf! So one day? I discovered two copies on my shelf and passed one on to a friend. (My review is about as enticing as the book!) smile!

So the concept of this book is pretty cool. I know I'm always wondering what the meaning is behind a song's lyrics. *Especially* Bowie's songs because the guy is such an intellectual that a lot of his stuff is filled with crazy references to random philosophers and artists, and a fan like me rarely knows what he's talking about. Jean Genet anyone? Kahlil Gibran?

Unfortunately, this book does a really crappy job of telling the stories behind the song. The author really doesn't know much at all; basically I learned nothing new in this book that I didn't know already. You can find out the same kind of information by browsing around FAQs on the net, or going to alt.fan.david-bowie and asking a question of the people there.

The only thing saving this book from a 1 is that it has pictures, and it takes you along the whole discography path (well, up until 20 years ago at least), and what can I say, Bowie's had an interesting life. If you buy this, though, be prepared to return it... it doesn't do much of a job of serving up the stories.

Before I even owned this book, I knew it didn't deserve 5 stars. A David Bowie book written in 1999 should go a little further than 1980's Scary Monsters! Many Bowie fans will argue that Scary Monsters was his last good album. This statement is prejudice and wrong. Chris Welch needs to realize that 3 pages covering nearly 20 years of music does not earn a book 5 stars. If the publishing would have been delayed a few months, Welch could have written another sentence about "Hours...". However, Welch makes the reader think about things that would usually be overlooked by other biographers. Yet sometimes Chris can get carried away. (My main reason for giving it 3 stars.) For instance, the review of "Fame" is out of control. Now, "Fame" is a great song and deserves a lengthy review since it's David Bowie and John Lennon together. Unfortunately, this certain review is filled with garbage and nonsense. That's the only real bad review in the book that I can recall. Every Bowie fan should still buy it, and there are some quite enjoyable pictures in there as well!

Well, not every David Bowie song, despite what the title says. No, this covers Bowie's RCA period, from Space Oddity up to Scary Monsters. Each section is done per album, and before the song-by-song analysis and description, there is a detailed history of Bowie's life at that point. Bowie's better-known collaborators are given decent print, especially Mick Jagger, Marc Bolan, John Lennon, and Tony Visconti, as are influences such as Kraftwerk for his three Berlin albums, Stanley Kubrick's 2001 for Space Oddity, and George Orwell's 1984 for the Diamond Dogs album. Bowie's inter-album projects, such as his movies and plays are also included in the history. And there's a good deal given about his early life before Space Oddity.

There are certain insights into Bowie concerning his art. He even said, "I don't like a lot of my albums... I like bits and pieces. A bit of it works exceedingly well and a lot of it only works." This mirrors somewhat my feeling on his lesser albums, such as Diamond Dogs and Young Americans, but not on his spectacular ones such as Hunky Dory, The Man Who Sold The World, or Low.

Many of the stories behind the song are revelatory for those not in the know. I wasn't totally aware of the 1984-theme that pervaded Diamond Dogs apart from the "1984" song, but "We Are The Dead" (in 1984, Winston Smith's words to Julia before they are caught by the Thought Police) and "Big Brother/Chant Of The Ever Circling Skeletal Family" are two other songs that contribute to that.

To take an example from my favourite 1970's Bowie album, Hunky Dory, I learn that Bob Dylan wasn't exactly happy with the playful tribute "Song For Bob Dylan" because Bowie referred to him by his real name and described his voice akin to "sand and glue." Ouch! However, as I learned, the song was actually calling for Dylan to go back "to writing songs for the 'revolution' and to scour his scrapbook for inspiration if the muse is not upon him."

And it's peppered with colour and black-and-white photos. At the end of the book, a chronology from 1947 to 1980, and a singles and album discography are included, with song listing and album issues and reissues included, as was done under Ryko for the albums being explored in this book.

In the end, Bowie is revealed as a great songwriter, wordsmith, and artist whose creativity knows no bounds, even if he did alienate many of his fans with his shifting musical directions.

Nothing more to say. Braindead author dribbles lame incoherent excrement across pages of library photos. Shoot him please so his sad rock laments are stopped now. Contradicts himself within same paragraph, tells lies, clutches at straws. Made me really really angry. Burn in hell fool.

So you think Peter is dead? well don't just expect to see a CD released every year under his name. He is a serious musician, composer and human rights front man. So if you think he didn't do anything in the past six years well just take a look to his Real World catalogue. He also works and compose for others. Please before talking about him check his background. He help developing groups from all around the world. PETER IS THE BEST. Still growing up...

No. "The man is dead, the man is dead. ..." What's he done the last 6 years?

If you are a serious fan, as am I, then you will want this book, because you will want everything you can get your hands on about The Master, the greatest vocalist/lyricist/composer of our time. Please ignore the first review above, which was obviously written by someone who only knows about Peter's hits. Peter is a serious musician and unequaled in his passion for creating serious music as well as being involved in myriad other projects. His latest album, UP, is a masterpiece! And his concerts are a religious experience! OK, I will quit gushing and review the book. Actually it is NOT well-written. The author is clearly not a writer, as it just does not flow very well. However, it is still worth having, because of the content. I have been a fan for 25 years and I learned quite a few little nuggets of info that I hadn't known b4, and these made it worth the price of the book.

1-7-06 update: Most of the 'tasty gems' of info can be found in Spencer Bright's PG biography, a much better read.

Chris Welch's book "The Secret Life Of Peter Gabriel" is a well written book about a legend in the music bussiness that goes by the name of Peter Gabriel. This book only helped to confirm what i had already known about Mr. Gabriel; that being that he is the best Singer/Songwriter in the modern day world. I have been a huge PG fan for some years now and this book pretty much gave a step by step analysis of Gabriels life. What i didnt know about Gabriel was what intrigued me most about this literary work. Gabriel deserves to win a life time achievement award for the things hes done in his life time, not only being a hero to his die hard music fans, but for always trying to help those in need and always trying to make people happy. His mind is a asset to the world and we should all be thankfull for the genious that he has produced and bestowed in everyone and everything around him.. The book was extremely well written from a first hand approach in many instances. Well worth Reading...

The world is full of bad books written by amateurs. But why settle for the merely regrettable? High Sierra Climbing is a bad book written by experts. Gripping, squeezing, mashing, bashing, this book will give a man cramps and a woman a prostate. It delivers. Don't fail to miss it if you can. This book will draw readers like a magnet draws hungry flies!

This book is of typical SuperTopo quality; that is to say, quite good. You would be hard pressed to find the level of approach/route/descent and historical detail presented here in any other single source. One minor issue is some overlap with the SuperTopo Tuolumne Free Climbs book, but that is excusable.

In the history of rock music, including all genres, it is difficult to overstate the influence of Metallica. They are constantly growing and developing their art, and trials and tribulations aside, continue to produce excellant music. It is fascinating to read a retrospective of the creative process of the band, song by song, with an emphasis on the lyrics. HOWEVER, the author lays the hero worship too thick at times, and takes away the credibility of the book. It isn't necessary, as they are a great band and a compelling story. It is still good enough to read, and the pictures are great, but spare me the over the top, walk on water attitude.

Metallica, one of the greatest rock bands of our time, both lyrically and musically. I have always been a diehard Metallica fan, I own all of their albums and love to read about their history and lyrics which is what convinced me to buy this book. However, this was a very uninteresting read to be quite honest. The way the lyrics are described are at many times based on personal opinion and their meanings are no more in depth than you would get on a Metallica site with song meanings such as Encycmet. I'll admit, I learned a handful of cool Metallica facts from this book, but it certaintly does not make up for it's many poor aspects. If you want a good Metallica book, I suggest Metallica Unbound. Nothing Else Matters : The Stories Behind the Biggest Songs, is Poorly written and plain boring. This book just doesn't cut it and it will feel like a chore reading this.

Same old mistakes as previous versions, same old clumsy ratings. What the hell is "PG" supposed to mean? Why are the same climbs denoted with an alpha and numerical listing??? If you do not own a copy, it is a "must have" but only because you do not have a choice!!

[...] Like most every guidebook I've seen, this one has trouble integrating routes with their location on the surface of the earth. You'll probably need to bring a USGS topo map along with this book. The authors provide a PG/R/X "protectability" rating, along with a 0-3 stars quality rating. They cover some of the premier alpine route in Tuolumne, like Cathedral Peak and Mount Conness, though I'd like to see more of these.

Let's face it, almost every guidebook out there sucks in serious ways, and this one's not immune. But the reason that there isn't much competition to this guidebook is the fact that this one is so complete. They've probably got around 1000 routes listed.

Can't say too much for the text in this book, but the color pictures of the group are wonderful!

Collingwood claims to have the inside track to plenty of Def Leppard information. Unfortunatly for anyone who bought the book, he can't even find the correct spelling for Joe Elliott's last name. If you're looking for information on the band, just watch the videos available from their record label, apparently that's all that the author did.

If you are already an Etheridge fan, this book holds no new information. Everything seems to have come from previously published articles, and some of that information is incorrect. (i.e., Arduous Moon and Theresa's Tattoo are not the same movie under different titles). The narrative style is irritatingly omniscient, assuming the emotions of the principles.It is shallow reading, always feeling as if the author had a minimum number of pages to hit. The respect and care with which Nickson treats Melissa's gay lifestyle deserves comment, and his approach is sympathetic and supportive, but aside from one really beautiful photo of Julie Cypher, there was no reason to purchase this book if you are a fan and have read the interviews Melissa has given to the press. For a biography which includes never released information and photos and interviews with intimates of the subject, you might want to read Joyce Luck's "Our Little Secret", just released also. Search above with Melissa Etheridge as Subject and Joyce Luck as Author for info on this book...

Chris Nickson seems to supplement his income as a music critic in Seattle by researching and writing unauthorized biographies about stars such as Melissa Etheridge, Mariah Carey, and Soundgarden. The problem is, none of the research is original at all....his entire book is swiped, without attribution, from already published interviews. There is not a single thing in this book that fans don't already know, and Joyce Luck's Melissa biography (which was also unauthorized, though I hear Melissa and her management liked the book) at least had some new, previously unpublished info and photos in it. Plus Nickson's book is just riddled with errors (for example, it says John Shanks was with the band during the Never Enough tour, which is totally false). One good thing about Nickson is that he at least doesn't have a problem with Melissa's lesbianism. Other than that I'd say his book's a total flop.

I thought that Chris Welch was better than this. Maybe it's his editor's fault, but avoid this book like the plague. There are many, many inaccururacies in the text which, if you are a die-hard Floyd fan, will have you hooting with laughter. Some of the photos are quite nice, ( one 2 page shot is so nice that they print it twice!!) but often there are annoying logos of the book's title on top of them. There is nothing new here for long time Floyd fans, and beginners are advised to look elsewhere for a biography that is accurate.

This book was pretty interesting. I really like Pink Floyd and never knew much about their past until I read this book. Chris Welch followed them from the very beginning, before Syd Barrett lost his mind, up to the point that David, Rick, and Nick finished the Division Bell.

However, there seemed to be no editor in the process. It looks like the book went to print the day after Welch finished. Whoever was in charge of editing should have been fired, because there were too many mistakes to count. For example, I would see semi-colons in the middle of words, like thi;s. Commas were misplaced and some sentences lacked key words. It made for some awkward reading. But I give it three stars for its informative nature.

I saw this book on sale, appropriately it wasn't even inside the store that sold it (it was in a stand outside), at an increadibly give away price of 2 Euros. Normally, that would have meant that I should have bought this thing blind. Knowning that anything in terms of Metal literature is always welcomed in my generally huge book collection. But, I took a look inside of this book, and was dismayed at what I was staring at.

This self-professed author claims to have written "The Most Comrehensive Encyclopedia of Metal Music Ever Created", already that title is so ludicrous that it isen't even funny anymore. Anyone who knows anything about Metal, will tell you that there must be literally thousands and thousands of Metal bands all over the world. To believe that any human being could possibly put them into one single book (or any number of books for that matter) is either totally ignorant, or just plain dumb.
Next, as others have mentioned, the bands portrayed here as being Metal bands are hardly that. If my memory service me right, then about 90% or more, where (Hard)Rock, or wanna be Metal bands, with a heavysided NU-Metal amount, most Metal fans wouldn't consider Nu-Metal to be real Metal in the first place.
Another laughable, as well as, down right deploring matter was how many times the author actually managed to contrive up information that is so plainly wrong that any 14 year old Metal fan will immediately spot it, upon first sight ! For example that Dio's Band ELF founded Rainbow. It was basically the other way around, since Ex-Deep Purple gituar legend Ritchie Blackmore asked Dio to join his new solo project Rainbow, that he founded after leaving Deep Purple. There are numerous other mistakes of this sort, that one has to ask whether the author was drunk, when he wrote this masterpiece!
Apart from being riddled with mistakes which shows the embarrasing lack of knowledge the author had, one really has to wonder how that person ever managed to sneak this one by the publisher! But presumably the publisher knew even less about the subject than the author, and the same must have been true of any editor(s), if there ever was one.

To make a long story short: Avoid this one at any cost (even at about 2 Euros = 2 Bucks) or else you'll be sorry, since this thing isen't even worth the paper that its written on !!!

Unlike other frustrated reviewers such as myself, I find no need into "thorough explanations" of why this book is filled with nonsense from beginning to end. I threw this out within two hours of it arriving in my mailbox. Literally speaking, today's 12-year-old girl with almost no knowledge of hard rock could have probably put together a similair list to what this book tries (and fails) to force down people's throats. Fortunately, most heavy rock fans hold such a strong passion for what they love that this won't even matter.

1. First and foremost. Once I see bands like Blink 182 (perhaps the biggest laugh of this entire book), Hole, Everclear, Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, and so on (bands that are in no way METAL) in a book entitled "the most complete enclyclopedia of METAL music ever created", I know this was going to be not only an insult, but a bewilderment of how whoever wrote this book was paid for this piece of work? The Beatles, Stones, and Badfinger had a lot of heavier rock tunes themselves, I would have rather seen those guys get a mention over Hole or Everclear?

Tons of errors and inaccuracies in the very few interesting bits I did read. Somebody below pointed out several of them, one more I can add is in the WASP history where it mentioned Steve Riley as being on the first WASP record. He was not, though he did tour for the first WASP record.

Many metal legends (ie. Manowar comes to mind, who have been around since '78) aren't even mentioned, or others are given VERY SMALL sidebar shows while nu-metal buffoons like Slipknot, Korn, Coal Chamber, and slews of others are given a whole page (sometimes two, with photos).

This was terrible. I do not even know how this was released. Do not waste your time reading this book. It is terrible, full of lies, and I am beginning to think this 'list' is maybe just a big joke or parody?

I thumbed through this in a bookstore. Garbage. If you want a metal book probably the best I've seen (and own) are Sound of the Beast for generalized sutff, and Lords of Chaos for BM. Honestly, I've never come across a perfect or "comprehensive, definitive guide" that these metal encyclopedia books claim. But this one is one of the worst. As other reviewers pointed out the author seems to have no idea what metal actually is. Blink 182? Errrr right..... next.

missed alot of good bands. somewhat incomplete, otherwise, ok reference book on metal bands.

Title: "The Most Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Metal Music Ever Created."

Pages: 256.

Enough said.