Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Books like this generally suck not because they leave out a few of my favourite albums but because they are deliberately populist, lack depth and consistency and try to be everything to everyone without really satisfying anyone. I will say however that the list is not bad up till 1980 although I'll never understand, as an example, why Elton John's "Yellow Brick Road" and "Madman Across the Water" is favoured over "Tumbleweed Connection" and "Honky Chateau". The 80s is still reasonable although there are some albums that should be hidden in a box under your bed. Another gripe I have is why an innovative genre like metal is constantly ignored particularly when the book moves into the 1990s. Metal is constantly relegated to the same few albums of the NWOBHM (Iron Maiden; Judas Priest; Motorhead; Venom) and the Thrash Big Four (Metallica; Slayer; Megadeth; Anthrax) giving the impression that metal stopped in 1988. Death Metal and Black Metal, while being specialist extreme genres obviously didn't happen, yet something as lame as Brit Pop gets excessive mentions. By the time the book gets to the 2000s it is so far off the mark of where it should be going. According to this book you can die happily without having heard these bands: A Certain Ratio; Aesop Rock; Albert Ayler; Albert King; Aim; Ambitious Lovers; Amon Duul II; Amon Tobin; Animal Collective; Anthony Braxton; Autechre; Bad Religion; Bathory; Bessie Smith; Bethlehem; Blind Willie Johnson; Blues Magoos; Boogie Down Productions; Boredoms; Boris; Broken Social Scene; Burzum; Cabaret Voltaire; Cannibal Ox; Carcass; Cecil Taylor; Celtic Frost; Charlie Haden; Charley Patton; Company Flow; Cornelius; Crass; Darkthrone; Dead Can Dance; Death; Deicide; Deltron; Descendents; Dismemberment Plan; Don Cherry; Earth, El-P; Emperor; EPMD; Eric Dolphy; Exciter; Exodus; Felt; Foetus; Four Tet; The Fugs; Galaxie 500; Ghost; Godflesh; Godspeed Yr Black Emperor; Gong; Grandaddy; Guapo; Hank Williams; Interpol; Jesus Lizard; Josef K; Kevin Coyne; Khanate; Leadbelly; Lee Scratch Perry; Legeti; Louis Armstrong; Low; M83; Magma; Mayhem; Matmos; Mastodon; MDC; MF Doom; Melvins; Mercyful Fate; Misfits; Mississippi John Hurt; Mobb Deep; Modest Mouse; Morbid Angel; Morphine; Neurosis; Neutral Milk Hotel; Nile; Nocturnus; Obituary; Olivia Tremor Control; Ornette Coleman; Pan Sonic; Peter Brotzmann; Son House; Krzysztof Penderecki; Pestilence; Pharoah Sanders; The Pop Group; Popul Vuh; Quasimoto; Red Crayola; Red House Painters; Rites Of Spring; Robert Johnson; Roland Kirk; Royal Trux; Sage Francis; Foetus; Scratch Acid; Shellac; Dmitry Shostakovich; Sigh; Silver Apples; Sparklehorse; Squarepusher; Karlheinz Stockhausen; Suffocation; Sunn O))); Sun Ra; Swans; Tool; Type O Negative; Ultramagnetic MC's; Ultravox; Ulver; Univers Zero; Edgard Varese; Vaselines; Venetian Snares; Voivod; Wayne Shorter; Weezer; Witchfinder General; Woody Guthrie If you haven't heard of these then you're looking in the wrong place. These were left out in favour of delightful albums by: Christina Aguilera; Britney Spears; Justin Timberlake; Destiny's Child and Coldplay. They were juxtaposed next to Lightning Bolt; Tortoise; Robert Wyatt and Devendra Banhart. This is what really annoys me because no one listening to the former will like the latter (or I hope not anyway). Maybe this review reveals more about my snobbery than the content of the book but it's still annoying. I own 554 and there's 80 albums in the list I would not allow in my house under any circumstances.