Ian Christe - The Sound of The Beast (The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal)

1. Intentionally tries to make Mark S's head explode by using the term "influential" & variants thereof as many times as possible
2. repeatedly equates sales with excellence, which is not a very heavy metal thing to do, since an essential HM trope is "lack of popularity has nothing to do with how good something is"

Ha! I can't believe somebody called my book credible!! Wow, that's a first! I'm actually a fan of Martin Popoff's metal guide myself. Not to mention that wacky early '70s *Encyclopedia of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal,* or whatever it was, which is almost all Status Quo albums. I forget the authors off the top of my head. George Smith would know.

(Oh yeah, Chuck Klosterman's book is fun, too. I'm not lying.)

many ppl can't even remember all the names of the osmond brothers

>it wz credible bcz none of the numbers from 1-500 were omitted
many ppl can't even remember all the names of the osmond brothers

Actually, there was no # 66! (The Osmonds were at 66.6, remember??)

The reviewer (JP - ?) obviously likes his prog, glam & power metal and complains that it isn't sufficiently covered in the book. Which is fine by me because I don't think those developments were very relevant to the bigger picture (so, bonus points for Christe) Also, keeping rock (grunge/nu-metal) out of the picture = more bonus points, so it seems.

The criticism that it's too US-centric is a heavy one. Let's face it, apart from a handful of Florida and NY death metal bands, approximately zero decent metal has come out of the US in the past fifteen years. So am I right in fearing that this is another example of a book on metal getting the first fifteen years right and missing the point for the second fifteen years?

And what I wonder about most, this review doesn't really tell me how analytical the book is. Is it mostly factual or does Christe dig deep into the underlying themes, subcultures and techniques?

Oh well, I'll order it anyway.

Wait, what 15 years would THOSE be? Lesse, by my count, "Rumble" by Link Wray and his Wraymen was 1958, so if you add 15 you get 1973...

Also, aren't smaller pictures often MORE interesting than bigger ones?

I do agree that excluding Skyclad would be a very bad idea, however.

Fun but completely falls apart when Klosterman tries to explain himself now as opposed to explaining himself then -- the postscript he added to the paperback edition is just awful, really, an embarrassing melange of backfilled justifications in the hopes of trying to score a final definitive answer in a nonexistent argument. It and his Ratt/Ramones obituary attempts are two of his worst pieces of writing AND arguing I've read.

The Osmonds were at 66.6, remember??

I always hoped that was intentional. The DECIMAL of the BEAST!

(Apropos of nothing, hearing "Run to the Hills" in NYC over the weekend was both incredibly great fun and a realization that that song is so astoundingly ridiculous that even Iron Maiden couldn't take it seriously...I hope.)

I agree that the book is a little U.S.-centric, but if the past fifteen years = what, since 1988 or so?

In a nation that produced Dillinger Escape Plan, Discordance Axis (R.I.P.) Khantate, Crossed Out, Botch (R.I.P.), Sunn0))), Today is the Day (at least from '92-'97 or so), Crom, Burmese, Converge, the first Isis album, Eyehategod, the almighty Mastadon, Structure of Lies, Kyuss, Earth, Sleep, High on Fire, I'm not sure why you would say this.

Pure provocation of course, Joe! Although most of the bands you mention come from the post-hardcore/noise & stoner side of things whose claims to being "metal" are somewhat dubious in my (rather purist) eyes, the amount of post-80s US bands I like is actually a lot bigger than just a handful; Absu and Winter are even major deities in this house.

Great interview btw on metalupdate.com, Ian! Just ordered the book and looking forward to reading it. I wonder how much the top 25 supposedly in the book overlaps my top 100, hahaha!

While we're on the subject, anyone read "Extreme Metal" by Joel McIver & is it worth getting? I never hear that one mentioned...

I do agree that excluding Skyclad would be a very bad idea, however.

Done! Born to be bad.

Anyway, aren't you due for a third edition -- 00s, the Skyclad years. Could make for an interesting author photo.

...The reviewer (JP - ?)...

He's also the same Canadian who compiled the "Mental Metal Meltdown" trivia pursuit game (with pentagram-shaped board rendered in computer-graphic chain) a few years ago. Anyway, even the long negative paragraphs in the review are amazing, because the guy obviously took the book so personally. He has since admonished himself for low-balling Hirax.

>> So am I right in fearing that this is another example of a book on metal getting the first fifteen years right<<

Good question, but the 1990s were fragmented for metal so it's a more subjective bunch of pages. I think a certain kind of purist fan likes to pretend that Rhapsody, Gamma Ray, Manowar, or Hammerfall held down the core of metal in the 90s, but I think by most measures those conservative acts were more marginal than Napalm Death, Morbid Angel, Carcass, Sepultura, Emperor, and eventually Slipknot. There's probably too much Metallica in the late 90s, but fuck it, metalheads were still obsessed with their bumbling, so in it went. Anyway, see for yourself, and ask again in 10 years.

anyone read "Extreme Metal" by Joel McIver & is it worth getting?

Well, maybe, but not until you get the Malc MacMillan "New Wave of British Heavy Metal Encyclopedia," which is a highly anecdotal 800-page guide five years of music on a small island.

I wonder how much the top 25 supposedly in the book overlaps my top 100, hahaha!

Pretty close, and not far from the group effort, either. I wish Torque was better, but it's really not a very well mastered or mixed CD comp of those crushing early No U-Turn 12" tracks. I remember going to Jungle Nation in the meat-packing district when "Crystal" and "Mad Different Methods" came out, and just thinking "Celtic Frost"!!

...Crom...