Metal. The Definitive Guide :: Education by Design Store

Customer Reviews

The Handbook for Metal Scholars

2008-10-07
Mr. Sharpe-Young has performed a great service to Metal Studies. I just received my copy in the mail just last week and my satisfaction with this excellent volume grows daily. This is probably the best and most accurate encyclopedia of metal yet; it far surpasses the "Rough Guide to Metal" (which suffers mainly from its failure to include several important groups) in scope and breadth.

The entries are arranged more or less according to genre--under "Doom Metal" you will see bands like Electric Wizard, My Dying Bride, and Pentagram, while under "Progressive Metal" you will see Dream Theater and the like. You get the idea. Each band has a substantial entry, the length of which is generally in proportion to the band's importance in the history of metal. Black Sabbath, as you might expect, has the longest entry, while a more obscure band like Brujeria has a much shorter entry. Each write-up consists of a detailed bio and career chronology as well as an authoritative discography that includes releases up through the year 2006. Sharpe-Young includes a generous sampling of black-and-white photos embedded in the text.

Each individual who uses this reference will inevitably have one or two "Why didn't he include so-and-so?" complaints. I myself regretted that one or two of my faves weren't included. I would add that some of Sharpe-Young's categorizations are debatable as well; while his stylistic categories ("Thrash Metal" or "Death Metal") make sense, sometimes his geographic categories ("Swedish Metal" or "German Metal") do not. Hammerfall and Kreator are both German, for example, but worlds apart stylistically. Likewise, is there anything particularly "Swedish" about Opeth, an otherwise outstanding black metal/progressive/doom band that happens to be from Sweden?

But these are minor quibbles and not major flaws; besides, all this talk of categories is the stuff of vigorous metalhead conversation and debate. And despite those few omissions, one must admit that the book is pretty exhaustive.

All in all, it is a very high-quality product that you will be able to enjoy for years to come. I recommend highly and without reservation.

Makes absolutely great toilet reading, too, by the way!

ultimate guide

2008-07-14
The Definitive Guide - I agree absolutely!!! Useful and practical book - over 400 pages and about 300 bands covered. The essential bands are there due to their talent and influence, and not sales. There are definitions and introductions of genres and sub-genres (from HMR and NWOBHM to goth, power, doom etc) discographies, geography - from UK and Finland to Central America. This book is an honest, knowledgeable and decent job of true professional and real connoisseur. Not only I finally found what I've been looking for (and couldn't find in "Great Metal Discography" - avoid it), I used it as a guide to buy many decent albums, and to read "Nuclear Blast". Few suggestions only - to find some place in the next edition for "Grand Funk", "Blue Cheer" and "Iron Butterfly". As for doom - honestly, "Swans" and - especially - "Laibach" should be there. And a real must is "Mezarkabul" ("Pentagram") from Turkey. But just buy this book, it's a give away price.

Best gift ever!

2007-12-29
Got this gift for my husband who is a metal fanatic. He loved it. He said it was the best gift he ever got. I would recommend this for any metal enthusiast!

Awesome book about metal

2007-11-26
This book is basically a big thick encyclopedia of different metal bands. The author did a really good job of writing about bands that are purely metal, as opposed to other metal books that just get all ridiculous and have entries on Pearl Jam and Insane Clown Posse, but leave out a lot of important bands. Pretty much every band that should be in here is in here. The only band that I was really surprised was missing was Melvins (it was also kind of surprising that the Japanese band Boris wasn't in here either). Anyway, the focus on metal means that many hard rock bands that are either considered to be metal or proto-metal are not in here. So that means no Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, Deep Purple, or AC/DC. There's also no hair metal and no nu-metal.

The book is broken up into sections for different genres/categories of metal. Because there are so many genres of metal and so many different metal bands, this sounds like a bad idea, but the categories are split up pretty well. Every band entry is pretty informative and includes a discography. Most entries for bands span multiple pages. Entries for more popular bands like Black Sabbath, Metallica, and Anthrax span several pages and had all kinds of information I had never read before. So while reading this I've never really gotten the feeling that I'm just reading a bunch of stuff that I've read before, which is a huge plus with this kind of book. Also, the band entries are often accompanied by a band photo, which is nice.

Anyway, I guess I would sum up my thoughts on this book as thus: If there were a college course on heavy metal, this would probably be the textbook you'd have to buy.

The Best "Metal Only" book out there.

2007-09-20
I recently bought this book back in August and am stillreading it, its thatgood. First of all, this book only deals with "True Metal" bands only. There are no NuMetal, Grunge, hair,etc.What you get is different genres of Metal. American Thrash, British Thrash, Death, Black, Doom/Gothic, Power, American Heavy Metal, Swedish Heavy Metal, Japanese Metal, NWOBHM, NWOAHM, Brazilian Metal, etc. Band histories and discography are very well done. No longer will you have to buy individual Metal books. Its allhere. In fact, flipping through theAmerican Thrash section, I discovered several Canadian Thrash bands that totally shred. Ended up buying several of their cd's. Garry Sharpe Young has put together the best book on Metal out there for the True Metal fan. If you're a Metal Maniac, buy this now, trust me.

Great organiziation of the different Genre, very complete

2007-08-21

This is a comprehensive, illustrated book about one of the most enduringly popular forms of music. Combining biography, critical analysis, and detailed reference sections, it profiles all the major heavy metal artists as well as a huge selection of other niche acts from around the world. Metal: The Definitive Guide includes new firsthand interviews with many major metal musicians and detailed discographies. It is the definitive metal encyclopedia.The over 300 illustrations in this book encompass fantastic including artist pictures and memorabilia such as posters, ticket stubs, and much more.

greatest most accurate metal guide yet!

2007-07-28
This is the best metal book ever assembled. This and the "Encyclopedia Of Heavy Metal" are the greatest metal books. nuff said everything that is metal is this book!

An A-Z of key artists

2007-06-17
Fans of heavy metal who enjoy reading and learning about the genre will find appealing METAL: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE. It blends biography, history, critical analysis and a fine reference section to profile all the major heavy metal artists along with related niche acts around the world, and includes a interviews with many major heavy metal musicians, discographies, and more. It's packed into a survey which also features the sub-genres of heavy metal - goth, black, etc. - in an A-Z of key artists. Any lending collection strong in general-interest, contemporary music must have this.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Extensive sampling of "true" metal

2007-05-19
This book does an excellent job of including biographies and listed discographies of many representative bands in metal separated by categories such as style of music (like Power Metal), geography (like South American Metal), combinations of these (like UK Trash) and a few others (like 70s Metal and Innovative Bands). So you will see a collection of bands from Black Sabbath to Lordi, from Metallica to Cirith Ungol, from Japanese Ezo to Italian Rhapsody (of Fire), from legends to obscure road warriors.

What you won't be seeing, though, are some controversial genres. I'm talking about Hair Metal, Grunge, Nu Metal and bands that the author perhaps thought were split between Hard Rock and Metal (the aforementioned 70s Metal category is rather short, but the bands there are very crucial to Metal's history). So there is no Motley Crue, no Nirvana, no Korn and no Deep Purple, for example. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since a book focusing in band biographies could be three times the size of this one and still leave out interesting bands. So, all the bands in this book are inarguably metal and reading this book can get you to know what kind of bands are (or were) out there.

However, the thing I expected a little more from this book was a general focus on the music itself, not only the story of the band. Yes, you will know what kind of sound is the trademark of every band (usually at the beginning of the entry) and if a band changed the face of metal in big or subtle ways that comes across in the text as well. But the entries can't have the same length (bands like Infernal Majesty never had the long career of Black Sabbath) and often I want to read more about which albums by Trouble are the classics, not what happened to them between albums or which bands they toured with.

Bottom line, this book is a great read (some cool photos as well) but if you want to expand your knowledge of the bands AND their music, pair this book with the ones by Martin Popoff's, most of which have excellent reviews of whole discographies, and even of individual songs.