All Music Guide: The Definitive Guide to Popular Music

by Hal Leonard Corporation, Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra (Editor)

(Book). From folk to avant-garde to world music, this fun-to-browse book easily guides readers to more than 20,000 great recordings by over 4,000 artists through thorough reviews and ratings. Arranged by genre (the book covers 16 styles in all), each section provides informed essays on how the music evolved and its various styles, intriguing artist biographies, and insightful reviews and ratings of the top recordings. The lives and work of major artists are described in depth. Easy-to-read "music maps" chart the development of each genre, its key players, and their influences. Now in its fourth edition, this authoritative reference highlights "essential collection" albums as well as "first purchase" recordings to help listeners buy CDs. Nearly 1,500 info-packed pages! "Makes you delirious with knowledge." Entertainment Weekly "The most useful single volume your money can buy." Mojo

Genres: Music

1496 pages, Paperback

First published November 19, 2001

About the author

Hal Leonard is an American music print publisher. Musical scores published by Hal Leonard are frequently not credited to an individual author or editor.

Reviews

[Dan Ream · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an encyclopedia , this can’t be read over to cover, but I have been browsing this for several years now and found countless new musical discoveries through it. It’s amazingly wide scope includes rock , folk, country, jazz, avant-garde, world music, Cajun, and more.

[Ted Gurley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strong reference

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Indispensable, but available free online at allmusic.com. The key feature is that albums are reviewed within the context of their genres.