Reseñas
Rush : album by album por Martin Popoff
Veteran rock critic Martin Popoff leaves no stone unturned in taking apart The Who’s generation-spanning masterpiece, Quadrophenia, while exploring each of the album’s 17 tracks and their themes of identity, anxiety, and mental health. Chapters cover:
Popoff also takes you on side journeys examining each band member, mod vs. rocker culture, the album’s famous graphic design, manager/producers Chris Stamp and Kit Lambert, Quadrophenia collectibles, and more.
There’s even a brief discography and complete LP tour dates.
Presented in a 10" × 10" slipcased book, The Who & Quadrophenia is illustrated with stunning performance and candid off-stage photography as well as rare memorabilia.
The result is a richly presented celebration and your ultimate tribute to the rock opera masterpiece.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: They're rising 80, Daltrey and Townshend, and yet The Who are still touring. People are still buying the album discussed here FIFTY YEARS LATER.
Getting old is as simple as just not dying, but nothing can prepare you for the weirdness of your youth being History to most of the world's population. My parents remembered the 1930s vividly and felt that the Second World War was a recent event my whole life. To me, of course, they were History. I knew somewhere in my logic circuits that, if I just didn't die (not a sure thing as a gay man in the early 1980s) it would happen to me, too.
But one of my most coveted albums, one I begged for all during 1973 (didn't get it), is now historically important enough to warrant an expensive, lavishly produced, slipcased hardcover book. That feels...weird, unsettling, a little shocking. Millions upon millions of us Boomers are left in the world sitting atop a vast pile of pilf to plonk down for gift items like this. We can afford, most of us, to give it to ourselves as well as to other old people.
Old People! Books about ROCK MUSIC for Old People!
The book itself is on-brand for Author Popoff, he of Rush: The Illustrated History and Queen: Album by Album and Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers: The Rise of Motörhead among others. He does an admirable job of delving into the songs, the ideas in, the people behind, and the legacy of this astoundingly influential and important album, treating it with the historian/fan's eye that it as a concept and as an item can easily support. The photographic documentation of the Who began before this album was released, but it definitely makrked a sea change in the intensity and the completeness of that documentation.
The table of contents, as you see above, is a beautiful design. It's also demonstrating Author Popoff's characteristic completeness of view. His analyses, and takes on the events of the day, his credibility as a rock writer with publication credits in the likes of Revolver, Guitar World, Goldmine, and Record Collector assures the fussy reader of an informed, well-presented opinion. Let me end with a page spread, which (let's be honest when it's just us here) is the real reason you'll buy the book whether for yourself or someone you really, really want to spoil:
My love for this album has only grown in the 45 years since.
So, when Popoff gives a good lead in to the band building to this album, how the cover and album imagery came about, then a song-by-song walkthrough, and then the subsequent tour and life of the band and album, I'm all in.
And Popoff does a spectacular job. A great book for any lover of Floyd, and especially of this album.
I like the use of fifty separate "career highlights" told in roughly chronological order, it is more like revisiting those days than reading a history of the band (though it is a history of the band). Like Popoff I bought their first album when it was their only album. I don't remember how close to the release date, I wasn't waiting for it, I had heard about them and when I happened to see the album I bought it. That was the beginning of a rocky but ultimately long-lived love of Kiss. I was five years older than Popoff so my memories, especially of those first albums, will be different. But I did catch them live for the first time in 1974, and seven times since.
I mainly mention my fanhood because this is one of those books that is almost exclusively about the band, minimal contextualization with the world around them other than where it impacts their music or career decisions. That isn't a bad thing, but it might make it just a little less appealing for non-Kiss fans. Still solid if you enjoy learning about musical artists but maybe a bit less fun than for those of us who enlisted.
On a slight aside, but still very much Kiss related, this book made me think about how we, as fans, remember those artists we have followed for decades. I remember these moments in the band's trajectory, other than a few little details there wasn't a lot new to me. But as far as what I readily called to mind when I thought about them took a jolt. I had, unintentionally, blocked some of the lowlights from their career, well, lowlights from my personal perspective. Maybe an album or two, maybe some music business nonsense, whatever. The point is it reminded me how we remember our favorites very selectively. Not quite through rose-colored glasses, those less-than-ideal moments were in my memory banks and if I had ever been on a panel discussion of the band, I would have acknowledged them. But when just remembering them as a band I liked I kept the positives at ready recall while hiding the negatives in the back under some old clothes. It was good to remember those times, mainly because it also made me remember how I was then. Sometimes too picky, too judgmental, sometimes just plain out of sync with what they were doing.
I would readily recommend this to anyone with an interest in reading about iconic musical artists, though I would even more highly recommend it for those who are fans and might remember all or most of the events highlighted here. Come for the pictures if you want, but make sure to read about how they travelled this long road.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
There was a period of almost three decades when I lived in places where most tours hit, so I went to a lot of shows. AC/DC probably ranks among my most seen acts, I think I saw them 8 times. Not as much as the real big fans of theirs, but their shows were so high energy, whether with Scott or Johnson, I rarely missed an opportunity. This book brought back many of those memories, as well as some moments where their music served as a soundtrack for other events in my life. I mention this because I think anyone who is a fan of theirs will have moments that will come back to them while reading this book.
I've come to enjoy Popoff's books quite a bit, usually a nice mix of commentary, facts, and images. I am currently reading an older book of his as well, Satisfaction: 10 Albums That Changed My Life, and am enjoying it as well.
Like any book that touches on music, it is made ever so much better by listening to the music to both make some commentary more concrete as well as turn your nostalgia into full blown flashbacks (sorta).
Certainly AC/DC fans will love this book, I think anyone who likes rock/music history will enjoy it as well. Since at least a few of their songs are known to most people, there will likely be a-ha (not the band) moments, and those who know all of their music will see their lives flash before their eyes.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
My introduction to Pink Floyd was shaky at best, a friend played a couple of albums for me when I was in junior high school (middle school for all you young whippersnappers) and the only one I bothered to go out and buy was Meddle. Then came Dark Side, and I was hooked. This book brings me back to those days and reminds me of the joy that could be found in exploring albums rather than cherry-picking singles.
The photographs in this volume are wonderful and, thankfully, include more than just the usual ones. I like the behind-the-scenes pics as well as the space devoted to those who contributed, especially Clare Torry. What makes the pictures even more impactful is their placement in the text that serves to explain what was going on. While thumbing through initially will be a wonderful flashback, reading the book and looking at the photographs more closely is like reliving some of those times.
This is definitely made for the Floyd fans, though any lover of rock history will enjoy it. This is definitely one I will add to my collection, and it may well get a permanent place on one of my display tables/shelves.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
From albums and songs to friends and lovers, these moments in Bowie's life offer an excellent overview. Don't worry, the bit of analysis of the music that is included is more a restatement or paraphrase of many opinions and not, as some passive readers will claim, a case of Popoff showing his level of appreciation. If you read some of these people, you'd think anyone who holds an opinion different from theirs is not really a fan. Well, insecure is insecure I guess.
That said, because Bowie's career was so long and varied many readers will disagree with some assessments. I did, though not to the extent that I feel, as a fan of his since 1969 (thanks to some UK friends), qualified to determine how much Popoff is or is not a fan. Plus, the fact that the best books are often from only casual fans but those with a tremendous level of respect, and that is present throughout.
While I enjoyed the short sections for each event/moment, it is definitely the illustrations that make the book. Even if only a few are less common, it is nice to have them all in one place and even organized for you. It is the difference between cutting out several hundred pictures from, say, Life Magazine versus having them all bound into an organized collection. This volume puts them together for convenient browsing if you have it as a coffee table book or as a display volume on your shelves.
Highly recommended for fans of Bowie as well as fans of music history, both as a source of some information and a lot of wonderful pictures.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
As a history of the band, it's far too slight to be quite satisfying, but it is a nice, pleasant walk down memory lane for Rush fans. My one big complaint about it involves a design choice: the text is printed somewhat lightly against a background patterned with faint images, and it's genuinely a bit difficult to read in anything but ideal lighting conditions. I'm willing to forgive it a lot, though, because, in the final pages, it alerted me to the existence of a remixed version of Vapor Trails, which I'd somehow utterly missed -- I know, I know, I'm clearly a Fake Rush Fan -- and had been grumpily longing for for years when I could have already had it in my hot little ears.
Rating: I was kind of set to give this a slightly stingy 3.5/5, not for any great reason, just for being a bit physically hard to read and not as in-depth as I might have liked, but the Vapor Trails thing has put me in such a good mood, I'm giving it a 4/5 instead. Hey, nobody ever said my ratings couldn't be idiosyncratic and arbitrary!
1 
bragan | Sep 27, 2021 |
bragan | Sep 27, 2021 | 
RAWK!
I had the great pleasure of recieving a review copy of an amazing Iron Maiden discog table book. 245 pages, 16 albums spanning 1980-2015
The goal is simple, sixteen albums reviewed and deconstructed in order of release with straight conversation by fans and peers on both epic and bombed albums.
Martin Popoff collected his personal musings regarding one of the die hard New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) plus 15 esteemed guests from Maiden Coverbands to Maiden Band members.
Released in October 2018, this book was PACKED with photography, singles cover art, ticket stubs and back story that I have not seen elsewhere.
Participants included (among others):
Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth (Overkill)
Marty Friedman (at minimum, Megadeth)
Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater)
Blaze Bayley (Iron Maiden)
Nita Strauss (musician)
Chris Jericho (wrestler)
Matt Heafy (Trivium)
Kirsten Rosenberg (musician)
Ahmet Zappa (musician)
Fast forward a few years to another friend who was a Rush fan. He pushed Tom Sawyer at me enough and it was a much easier song to love. But it was Subdivisions off their Signals album that yanked me in, wholeheartedly. I'm not much of an Eighties music fan, it's far too synthesized for me, but something about that opening caught me, and the brilliant wordplay (Subdivisions = suburbs, but also, subdivisions = all those various teen cliques). It was the first Rush album I actually bought.
And I never looked back. I even went back and bought the earlier screechy albums, but I still don't enjoy them that much.
Long story short, this is where the Rush story picks me up and is more interesting to me.
And while Popoff ably chronicles this decade, once again, he glosses over some things—Geddy mentions almost losing his marriage because of his unrelenting focus on the creation of one of the albums—that likely have some fascinating backstories, and would provide more insight into the band, while utterly beating other topics to death, and then continuing to beat them until there's nothing but blood and pulp. Things such as...
- The fact that synths and keyboards were increasingly used up to Hold Your Fire before the band began to back them off a touch.
- Alex was out of sorts at having his role as a guitarist diminished at the addition of the keyboard washes
- The synths.
- Alex.
- Synths.
- Alex.
Seriously. The chapter focusing on the making of Signals goes around and around the synth topic. Popoff also has a habit of drawing from various interviews where the same people are saying the same damn things, only slightly differently. For example, Neil talking about loving how Geddy will indicate that he loves certain lyrics, but they need to be adjusted to allow for better singing, and Neil rising to the challenge. It's mentioned a lot.
Still, despite being repetitious, it's still a good, if even more formulaic (search for a producer/get a producer/demo the songs/record the songs/a song-by-song overview/release the album/touring notes) look into one of Canada's greatest bands.
Looking forward to the third (hopefully less formulaic and repetitive) installment.
But then along comes Rush, who do admit to some partying, some drinking, and some pot, but that's as far as it goes. "Neil knows his limits. He knows when he's had too much to drink. He knows when it's time to stop and go to bed." I defy you to find another top-of-the-heap band who can make that claim. I mean, the only thing we don't read (at least not in this first of three books), is about Alex, Geddy and Neil saying something like, "Oh ya, after da big gig, we'd boot over to da nearest Tim Hortons fer a double double an'a chocolate dipped, eh? I mean, what else ya gonna do on a Sadderday night in Sudbury, eh?" (And yes, I can make fun of how Canadians talk, being a born and bred Canuck.)
Anyway, as I said, overall, this is a really solid overview of the ups and downs of the band. There's a lot here to love.
Having said that, two things stop this from being a five-star review.
The first is Popoff showing his limits as a journalist by offering up a story, then having Geddy talk about it, then Alex say virtually the same things, then bringing in Neil to say similar stuff, then moving to management or road crew or parents to once again state the now-oft-repeated circumstances. These stories would have been served better by taking all those viewpoints and weaving them into one coherent story, told only once.
The second and, I suspect, likely more personal decision on Popoff's part seems to be to sanitize the band a touch. I'm not looking for muckraking here, because I'm not a fan of it. However, as an example, Popoff goes to pains to illustrate how, once Neil wrote lyrics that harkened to Ayn Rand (Anthem/2112), or organized labour (The Trees), etc., the press would hound him on this stuff, and he apparently didn't have much patience for it. But all we get is, "and it wouldn't end well for the interviewer" when they questioned him. Why not give us an insight into this? I'd love to know how Neil actually dealt with this stuff.
Other than that, though, I will say I thoroughly enjoyed what I got, and I look forward to the next book, especially because that one spans the decade that I first took serious notice of the band, and started attending their concerts.
Another bonus? It's made me go back and listen to those early albums for the first time in years.
But Martin, Malcolm (RIP!) did play leads on the following songs:
- Little Lover, Soul Stripper, You Ain't Got A Gold On Me and Show Business on High Voltage (Australian release)
- Can't Stand Still on Stiff Upper Lip
I do wish that the live albums would have been included as well.
Ride on
This is the final entry in Martin Popoff's trilogy of Rush books, following "Anthem: Rush in the 70s" and "Limelight: Rush in the 80s". It covers a lot more ground, chronologically, than both of those books combined, as it takes us from the release of "Roll the Bones" in 1991 all the way to Neil Peart's tragic death in January 2020. In between, we are treated to some wonderfully in-depth discussions of each of the albums Rush released over their final three decades, told from the points of view of the band themselves, producers, engineers, and other people who worked on their albums, and bands that toured with them. I particularly enjoyed a passage at the end of the first chapter where Primus's Les Claypool talks about what it means to be cool - a theme that comes up again later in the book as Rush started to become more and more a part of popular culture, eventually earning accolades such as their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I actually started listening to Rush in the mid-90s, and even though I've followed the band quite closely since that time, I still ended up learning a lot of things I never knew about from this book - I especially enjoyed the detailed discussions about how some of the songs were constructed, and I've made notes about some of the more esoteric things so that I can try to spot them myself the next time I listen to these albums. Overall, I would recommend this book very highly for Rush fans.
(edited on 2020-01-20 to add disclaimer at the top)
I admit to being one of the fans who prefer their earliest records. My first album of theirs was Fly By Night while I was in high school. I then found their first album, bought it, and bought every one through Grace Under Pressure when they released. While I still liked them, GUP was the album that made me decide not to buy their albums immediately upon release any more, and I only bought a few more after that. So now you know where I am coming from.
Popoff goes into detail on every album as well as the influences that helped form the later Rush sound(s). I think that reading this has given me a better appreciation of what they were doing with the albums I liked less. As expected, I was particularly interested with reading about their albums early in the decade and I was not disappointed.
It is funny how as listeners we often only pay attention to one or two aspects of an artist's music when it is first released. Reading this made me remember some of my thoughts during those years and how, in some respects, they were quite ignorant of many fine points. I also never really bought into genre names too much, I either liked something or I didn't, so liking Rush or Yes didn't conflict with my liking Sabbath or Judas Priest, or even The Eagles for that matter. Progressive was a term I knew then but simply disregarded as being a way to divide music and listeners into warring camps. Anyway...
I recommend this to fans of Rush (whether the 80s was your favorite period or not) as well as readers with an interest in rock history.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
1 pomo58 | 3 reseñas más. | Sep 20, 2020 |
pomo58 | 3 reseñas más. | Sep 20, 2020 | I first started listening to Rush in the 90s, so by that time they were already well into their third decade. Over the course of a few years, I acquired each of their albums in no particular order - some of them came from my parents' and uncle's record and cassette collections, some I got because they were on sale or brand new at the time, and the rest were chosen because I was already familiar with some of the songs (from videos, live albums, and other sources). Out of all their albums, it was their mid- to late-80s output that took the most time to grow on me. The 80s saw Rush move from the sprawling, side-long opuses that defined their 70s output to a much more streamlined, keyboard-driven style of rock that - while still uniquely Rush - was a long way from where they were at the start of the decade. But what I find really remarkable was how gradually these changes occurred: any two consecutive Rush albums are more similar than they are different, but there are enough little tweaks to things like instrumentation, song structure, or overall sonic texture to show a band that was never hesitant about pushing the envelope and continuing to evolve from album to album.
Martin Popoff's "Limelight: Rush in the 80s" does a tremendous job of going into very fine detail about the band's second decade. Interviews with each of the band members, their producers, their crew members, and even some of their opening acts all contribute to an overall picture of everything that was going on with the band throughout the decade. Over the years, I've spent a LOT of time listening to, watching, and reading about Rush, and I still found myself learning a ton of new things about the band and their music while reading this book. Some of them were subtle little details, such as the meaning of the different types of water sounds that open and close "Natural Science", or details about each of the people on the Moving Pictures cover; others were much bigger things, like the reason that Geddy Lee started (and continued) singing in a lower range as time went on, or the way that Alex Lifeson's guitar solos were constructed in the studio.
There is also a tremendous amount of detail given about some of their more popular songs such as "The Spirit of Radio" and "Tom Sawyer". I almost wish that every song could be given that kind of treatment, but then the book would easily be a thousand pages long and probably not as much of a joy to read. Overall, I think Popoff has given an appropriately proportionate amount of detail to each album and song in this book (although, should he ever decide to write a "song by song" book where he goes into really fine detail about every Rush song, I would definitely want to read it). Whether you're a hardcore fan of the band's 80s output or are more on the fence about it, I would highly recommend this book - you will very likely learn some new things, and you may come out of it with a changed opinion about some songs or even entire albums.
Pink Floyd is one of the biggest names in rock history. Dark Side of the Moon remained on Billboard for fourteen years and sold over forty-five million copies. The Wall took over the radio on boom boxes of my high school years. Animals remained one of my favorite albums of all times and I remember wearing out a copy of Wish You Were Here on 8-Track. Pink Floyd offered a something different than what Van Halen, AC/DC, and other hard rock groups offered. With the exception of "The Nile Song," there was not much heavy and hard with Pink Floyd, but it fit right in with the rock of the day.
Popoff covers Pink Floyd's discography in a richly illustrated large size book. Instead of writing about the albums and songs with his thoughts, Popoff turns to interviews. Dennis Dunaway the bassist, songwriter, and conceptual artist for the original Alice Cooper group is interviewed for Pink Floyd's first two albums -- Piper at the Gate of Reason and Saucerful of Secrets. Roie Avin of The Prog Rock covers the some of the later albums. Three musicians made up the interview on Animals. Not to be excluded, Popoff also includes interviews with sound engineers to complement the words of musicians and the media.
A very well done discography filled with first-person experiences with the band and all it works to include live albums such as Pompeii. A very well executed project that produces results that will be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in Pink Floyd or their music will appreciate.
The book as a whole has a strict structure with each chapter being a discussion about one album. Within each chapter there is a loose structure where Popoff makes sure certain aspects are always covered, such as production values and such. But most of the conversation, while prompted by Popoff's questions, go off in whatever direction each speaker wants to go. Kinda like when you and your friends are talking about something. A question sets you off but you make whatever connections matter to you.
The conversations range from close analysis of some songs to placing the songs/albums in the larger context of the music business and even to some extent world politics. We also have talk about what the band meant to some of these people when they were young and first discovered them. There is a lot of information to glean from these conversations but just be aware this is not a track-by-track technical overview of production, engineering, or the music performance itself. This is a bunch of knowledgeable people sitting around and having fun talking about one of their favorite bands. There is talk about how some things were done but that is few and far between since that wasn't the purpose of the book. This is less for the "fan" who thinks fandom is pretending not to be a fan but rather a (usually semi-literate in music) technician and more for the fan who may or may not be musically inclined but likes to hear about the history of a band. This is an oral history ABOUT the band rather than OF the band.
I recommend this to any Maiden fan (of course) as well as those interested in the history of how a band evolves over time and how a band can influence their fans and peers. The participants include musicians, rock critics/historians, even a wrestler/rock musician. We have a former (short term) Maiden member as well as a former Megadeth member as well, so this isn't just a group of everyday fans. If you're a fan of Maiden yourself, you'll have plenty to both agree and disagree with in the book, just like in any good conversation among friends.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
1 datrappert | otra reseña | Jul 4, 2018 |
datrappert | otra reseña | Jul 4, 2018 | 
I have been a fan of Motorhead since I first heard them play Ace of Spades on the British TV show "The Young Ones" back in the 80's. While I liked their music I didn't really know much about the band or its members. This was a really good history of the group, and it's especially timely since we lost Lemmy last year. This is a definite must-read for fans of the group.
VERDICT: This sharp package has something for both the curious and diehard fans, with no shortage of Ramones lore.
—My Library Journal review
1 lisapeet | Jun 13, 2016 |
lisapeet | Jun 13, 2016 | 
Este sitio utiliza cookies para ofrecer nuestros servicios, mejorar el rendimiento, análisis y (si no estás registrado) publicidad. Al usar LibraryThing reconoces que has leído y comprendido nuestros términos de servicio y política de privacidad. El uso del sitio y de los servicios está sujeto a estas políticas y términos.