Metal books?

[JRA]

The three books on Metal that I've seen the most whenever I pop into a bookstore are "Sound Of The Beast," "The Encyclopedia of Heavy Metal," and "Bang Your Head."

What are your thoughts on these books, or name a book you've seen on metal that you love/loathe.

[overkiller]

The 'big 3' for me are Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal, Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground and Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore. They're all very informative, but the album lists in Sound of the Beast are pretty lame unless you're absolutely new to metal and you are just looking for new things to hear.

[DethMaiden]

Haven't read Sound of the Beast or Bang Your Head, but The Encyclopedia is decent solely for the huge-ass pictures. The writing, however, sucks.

Good metal books: any Martin Popoff book and Lords of Chaos. I still need to read Choosing Death though.

[ravenheart]

Originally Posted by DethMaiden

any Martin Popoff book

He sucks! He doesn't do any damn writing! He just gets loads of interview material from over the years and strings them together with a few padded sentences.

Granted he's not as bad as Mick Wall and Paul Stenning, who are terrible writers. Particularly Stenning. But even so.

There are no good general books on metal. They're all either written by someone trying to make a quick buck, and therefore say all the tedious generic stuff everyone always says when talking about metal. Or they're written by such big fans that they're ridiculously one-sided.

If you want really comprehensive information about bands, the Rock Detector AtoZ series is the best. I've got the Power Metal and Doom Metal volumes and they're full of bands I don't know that I need to check out. They're not books you read, though. They're purely reference.

[powerslave_85]

I think Sound of the Beast is a great book. Like Brady said, the lists are a little weird, but it's very comprehensive in covering the major sub-genres (sorry, no power metal, though) and gives a great metal history lesson, even if you're already pretty familiar with things. My only major complaint is that it's WAY too heavy on the Metallica worship.

[DethMaiden]

Tell ya what, just read Decibel Magazine. All of those guys are fantastic writers plus they do interesting features, not just stories on bands.

[JRA]

Originally Posted by overkiller

The 'big 3' for me are Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal, Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground and Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore. They're all very informative, but the album lists in Sound of the Beast are pretty lame unless you're absolutely new to metal and you are just looking for new things to hear.

Enh, at least the album list wasn't in any particular order. I guess I've come to realize that trying to put metal classics together in order of greatness is a lost cause. Just recognize the albums and your golden.

[ravenheart]

Originally Posted by DethMaiden

Tell ya what, just read Decibel Magazine. All of those guys are fantastic writers plus they do interesting features, not just stories on bands.

I agree about the writers. They are decent. But they don't cover any decent bands!

[DethMaiden]

Originally Posted by ravenheart

I agree about the writers. They are decent. But they don't cover any decent bands!

You've gotta be kidding me, their cover stories are even on good bands (Type O Negative, Neurosis, Pelican, Behemoth).