What do you think?
Rate this book
Metal: The Definitive Guide
(Book). This is a comprehensive, illustrated book about one of the most enduringly popular forms of music. Combining biography, critical analysis, and detailed reference sections, it profiles all the major heavy metal artists as well as a huge selection of other niche acts from around the world. Metal: The Definitive Guide includes new firsthand interviews with many major metal musicians and detailed discographies. The definitive metal encyclopedia, with 300+ illustrations including artist photos and memorabilia such as posters, ticket stubs, and much more.
- GenresMusicNonfiction
495 pages, Paperback
First published March 28, 2007
4 people are currently reading
73 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 9, 2017
While this book review includes a start and finish date it does not represent the number of times it has been opened. To determine time frame would be best served by looking at the dog eared corners.
Metal The Definitive Guide - appropriate title although, a close second could have been
"The Metal Bible"
Metal The Definitive Guide - appropriate title although, a close second could have been
"The Metal Bible"
March 26, 2012
Given what it seems to promise by calling itself a "definitive guide" this voluminous book disappoints far too often and in too many ways. To be fair, some sections are quite decent, and there are a number of interesting excerpts from interviews with heavy-hitters from the metalverse. But, it's far too inconsistent to be a guide to more than certain genres of Metal.
To me -- a guy who grew up listening to the early-on and predecessor Metal and kind-of-metal bands in the late 1970s, then got fullbore into the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, the more glammy American metal, and Thrash Metal in the 1980s -- the book reads very much as if it was written by someone who got into Metal much later than during its formative years, through the genres that assumed larger importance, even (for some) took on any determinate shape, more in the 1990s and afterwards. There's clearly a much greater weight being given to Death Metal, Black Metal, Progressive, Gothic, Doom, etc. genres -- with plenty of attention to Thrash as well -- but less to the Power Metal that deliberately hearkens back to the sounds and styles before this proliferation of specialized genres.
While the claim can be made that Black Sabbath was by far the most important catalyst for the early development of Heavy Metal, I'm unconvinced -- even though it means disagreeing with Rob Halford's own reflections on the topic -- that one can legitimately claim that Black Sabbath uniquely originated Heavy Metal. Bands that are given relatively short shrift in this encylopedia -- including Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Thin Lizzie, Blue Cheer, Alice Cooper, and of course, KISS -- arguably ought to have much greater place in the discussion than Sharpe-Young gives them. The oft-overlooked Budgie gets discussed, which is great, and I think he makes the right choice in following up discussion of Black Sabbath and Budgie with other acts spreading the Metal sound in the 1970s, like Judas Priest, Motorhead, Ozzy, and the Scorpions.
There are some very glaring omissions -- strange ones, given that Sharpe-Young mentions many of these bands in passing, so he's evidently heard of them. There are no entries for Deep Purple, UFO, KISS, Twisted Sister, Van Halen, Girlschool, RATT, Motley Crue, Fastway, Michael Scheckner, Whitesnake, Rainbow, or Dokken just to name a few major bands -- again, signs of an unfamiliarity, or perhaps a lack of interest and appreciation, bearing on the broader genre (and likely lifestyle and community) of Heavy Metal as it developed, fermented, cross-pollinated musicians, and captivated audiences in its first decades.
The "definitive guide" starts veering off the rails early on in its treatment of the NWOBHM genre. It does highlight some of the really key bands associated with that seminal movement, like Iron Maiden, Saxon, Diamond Head, and Raven, as well as mentioning some lesser well-known but excellent bands, e.g. Tank -- just what a good guide ought to do -- but it omits some of the other top-tier NWOBHM acts -- e.g. Def Leppard, Tokyo Blade, and Tigers of Pan Tang, as well as some of the really great but more obscure ones, like Soldier, Battleaxe, and Jaguar.
After the section on NWOBHM, Sharpe-Young lurches towards one genre admittedly spurred by some of those bands: Thrash. I'd have no problem with that, if he'd also have discussed some of the other developments contemporaneous with the rise of Thrash in the mid-80s -- but instead, he displaces the bands fitting into the early-mid 80s -- those he does discuss, like WASP, Dio, Accept, Riot, and Loudness -- to much later discussions of less-genre-organized "American," "German," or "Japanese" Metal. Unfortunately, he brings no such needed balance, and launches into long sections on Death Metal, Grindcore, Black Metal, and Doom Metal, areas of interest in which seems well-versed.
By now, you've probably realized that if a comprehensive, evenly researched, guide to the development, key moments, important and promising bands, this is not that book, and I hate to end on a sour note, but one other significant weakness ought to be mentioned as well. Sharpe-Young is quite good on reconstructing narratives about recordings, tours, changes of personnel. What's lacking in the entries, with a few exceptions (the Black Sabbath entry providing a good example), is any sense of what the bands actually sound like, how their music changes over their careers, who they sound similar to -- in short, one major dimension bearing on why people listen to them in the first place
To me -- a guy who grew up listening to the early-on and predecessor Metal and kind-of-metal bands in the late 1970s, then got fullbore into the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, the more glammy American metal, and Thrash Metal in the 1980s -- the book reads very much as if it was written by someone who got into Metal much later than during its formative years, through the genres that assumed larger importance, even (for some) took on any determinate shape, more in the 1990s and afterwards. There's clearly a much greater weight being given to Death Metal, Black Metal, Progressive, Gothic, Doom, etc. genres -- with plenty of attention to Thrash as well -- but less to the Power Metal that deliberately hearkens back to the sounds and styles before this proliferation of specialized genres.
While the claim can be made that Black Sabbath was by far the most important catalyst for the early development of Heavy Metal, I'm unconvinced -- even though it means disagreeing with Rob Halford's own reflections on the topic -- that one can legitimately claim that Black Sabbath uniquely originated Heavy Metal. Bands that are given relatively short shrift in this encylopedia -- including Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Thin Lizzie, Blue Cheer, Alice Cooper, and of course, KISS -- arguably ought to have much greater place in the discussion than Sharpe-Young gives them. The oft-overlooked Budgie gets discussed, which is great, and I think he makes the right choice in following up discussion of Black Sabbath and Budgie with other acts spreading the Metal sound in the 1970s, like Judas Priest, Motorhead, Ozzy, and the Scorpions.
There are some very glaring omissions -- strange ones, given that Sharpe-Young mentions many of these bands in passing, so he's evidently heard of them. There are no entries for Deep Purple, UFO, KISS, Twisted Sister, Van Halen, Girlschool, RATT, Motley Crue, Fastway, Michael Scheckner, Whitesnake, Rainbow, or Dokken just to name a few major bands -- again, signs of an unfamiliarity, or perhaps a lack of interest and appreciation, bearing on the broader genre (and likely lifestyle and community) of Heavy Metal as it developed, fermented, cross-pollinated musicians, and captivated audiences in its first decades.
The "definitive guide" starts veering off the rails early on in its treatment of the NWOBHM genre. It does highlight some of the really key bands associated with that seminal movement, like Iron Maiden, Saxon, Diamond Head, and Raven, as well as mentioning some lesser well-known but excellent bands, e.g. Tank -- just what a good guide ought to do -- but it omits some of the other top-tier NWOBHM acts -- e.g. Def Leppard, Tokyo Blade, and Tigers of Pan Tang, as well as some of the really great but more obscure ones, like Soldier, Battleaxe, and Jaguar.
After the section on NWOBHM, Sharpe-Young lurches towards one genre admittedly spurred by some of those bands: Thrash. I'd have no problem with that, if he'd also have discussed some of the other developments contemporaneous with the rise of Thrash in the mid-80s -- but instead, he displaces the bands fitting into the early-mid 80s -- those he does discuss, like WASP, Dio, Accept, Riot, and Loudness -- to much later discussions of less-genre-organized "American," "German," or "Japanese" Metal. Unfortunately, he brings no such needed balance, and launches into long sections on Death Metal, Grindcore, Black Metal, and Doom Metal, areas of interest in which seems well-versed.
By now, you've probably realized that if a comprehensive, evenly researched, guide to the development, key moments, important and promising bands, this is not that book, and I hate to end on a sour note, but one other significant weakness ought to be mentioned as well. Sharpe-Young is quite good on reconstructing narratives about recordings, tours, changes of personnel. What's lacking in the entries, with a few exceptions (the Black Sabbath entry providing a good example), is any sense of what the bands actually sound like, how their music changes over their careers, who they sound similar to -- in short, one major dimension bearing on why people listen to them in the first place
May 3, 2012
i like this book because this tell you all the metal band in the world. it has all type of metal doom heavy thrash goth power and death and many more. they has stories of how the bands became big and many pictures of the band. it also have uk types of metal and us type of metal. i really like this book for all metal heads in the world
November 23, 2016
AMAZING! Anything and everything you would ever want to know about, (and never give a shit about,) Metal music, from start to finish. This was a blast to read, during summer, while I bought my way through the Metal section of Zia records lol I genuinely found bands I loved and bands I loved to hate.
November 29, 2010
I used this more as a reference guide rather than as a book that I read from page to page.
January 14, 2013
great book for anyone who loves metal
February 4, 2026
The Heavy Metal Bible. Must have for any metalhead. Every band in this book is important in the creation of all sub genres of metal excluding glam and nu metal.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews