Last year many of you were kind enough to participate in a quiz I created where I quoted reviews from the red 1st edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide. Well, you can stop your angsty fretting and letter writing because now it’s time for the sequel!

I’ve recently picked up a copy of the Blue 2nd edition that extended the range from 1978 to 1982 or so. I explained in the previous post the impact that the red edition had on my music collecting and taste right up until its influence was finally eroded by the internet and print magazines in the mid 90s.

For much or the 80s and early 90s, this blue edition was a near-mythical beast amongst my record-collecting buddies, and one that I never actually saw in the flesh at the time. My mind ran wild with possibilities of the new ratings, and rumours of some previous critical darlings being lopped off at the knees.

Now I have it in my hands it doesn’t really seem that different. The few extra years offers only a small increase in girth, and most of the ratings and comments are the same as in the previous » Continue Reading.

…hundreds of books have attempted to define or at least circumscribe the music or some part of the experience of hearing it.” So begins the first edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide from 1979.

Some work was being done on our house yesterday leaving me without power for a couple of hours. While I was sitting at my desk my eye fell upon my old, battered copy of the red Rolling Stone Record Guide that was my beacon in my formative years of music infatuation. Nicked from the school library in about 1985 (no guilt – it hadn’t been checked out since 1980), I can’t overemphasise the importance of this book in my life right up until the internet era. I still have a mental barrier that runs through 1979, dividing music history into ‘classic’ and ‘modern’ eras. At the mention of a band I still instantly see the star ratings for their albums in my head.The book was illustrated with the covers of 5-star albums and seeking these out was my perpetual goal for a decade or more. I still have a natural aversion to albums it dismissed.

The book is in bad shape, its pages having that » Continue Reading.