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The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal: Volume 2: The Eighties
A tribute to metal's golden age, this volume highlights the albums and bands of the 1980s that built the foundation for today's heavy metal sound. Full of reviews and recollections of hundreds of rarities and monster catalogs from 80s bands, this book also includes little-known trivia that brings the albums back to life. Sure to attract any fan of 1980s metal, this user-friendly guide documents dozens of bands and hundreds of albums.
- GenresMusicNonfictionReference
450 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2005
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About the author
Martin Popoff
223 books246 followersAt approximately 7900 (with over 7000 appearing in his books), Martin has unofficially written more record reviews than anybody in the history of music writing across all genres. Additionally, Martin has penned approximately 85 books on hard rock, heavy metal, classic rock and record collecting. He was Editor-In-Chief of the now retired Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles, Canada’s foremost metal publication for 14 years, and has also contributed to Revolver, Guitar World, Goldmine, Record Collector, bravewords.com, lollipop.com and hardradio.com, with many record label band bios and liner notes to his credit as well. Additionally, Martin has been a regular contractor to Banger Films, having worked for two years as researcher on the award-winning documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, on the writing and research team for the 11-episode Metal Evolution and on the ten-episode Rock Icons, both for VH1 Classic. Additionally, Martin is the writer of the original metal genre chart used in Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey and throughout the Metal Evolution episodes. Martin currently resides in Toronto and can be reached through martinp@inforamp.net or www.martinpopoff.com.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 23, 2010
"Hello Styx and goodbye zamboni, which means the third period's about to start." -- that's just an aside in a review of Europe's The Final Countdown, but man, there's why I love Martin Popoff. Unlike the mighty Robert Christgau -- sole precedent for this sort of record guide -- Popoff knows how people use LP's and cassettes and CD's in their daily life, how buying music enhances their social esteem, how catharsis and anger and fellatio-bait can turn a work into something for the ages. Papering your room with April Wine posters, or cruising half-buzzed down the highway, drunk buds feet hanging over the front seat, "Spirit of Radio" blasting out he cassette deck -- that's what he digs, music as communal experience.
This eighties metal guide includes everything you even vaguely remember from Girlschool to Black Flag to Queensryche. With capsule gonzo reviews that achieve Christgau concision while rambling with the Lester-Robitussin wordplay. As with any great critic, he pisses you off sometimes, wields Occam's razor on difficult cases (Ratt, Krokus for example), but dives into the muck for cool reviews of things most critics don't take seriously, for example the complete eighties discographies of Raven, Venom, Kiss, Black Flag, Manowar, etc.
So take the title with a grain of salt -- sure this can be a collector's guide, but really it's a consumer guide, a really groovy and fucked-up one, compulsively readable and so far (in my case) with zero naff recommendations. (Remember when Christgau was pumping Freedy Johnston, Beck, and Fluffy? I mean really...)
This eighties metal guide includes everything you even vaguely remember from Girlschool to Black Flag to Queensryche. With capsule gonzo reviews that achieve Christgau concision while rambling with the Lester-Robitussin wordplay. As with any great critic, he pisses you off sometimes, wields Occam's razor on difficult cases (Ratt, Krokus for example), but dives into the muck for cool reviews of things most critics don't take seriously, for example the complete eighties discographies of Raven, Venom, Kiss, Black Flag, Manowar, etc.
So take the title with a grain of salt -- sure this can be a collector's guide, but really it's a consumer guide, a really groovy and fucked-up one, compulsively readable and so far (in my case) with zero naff recommendations. (Remember when Christgau was pumping Freedy Johnston, Beck, and Fluffy? I mean really...)
November 27, 2016
You have to give Martin Popoff (of Brave Words and Bloody Knuckles) credit for his ambition, if nothing else. Over the course of three (soon to be four) volumes, he attempts to chronicle all of the albums that remotely qualify as metal and provide some commentary on each one. This volume - The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal: Volume 2 - The Eighties - is the most important in the series.
As much as I love the metal of the `90s and beyond (as well as the great `70s proto-metal sound), there's no doubt that the `80s were metal's most important decade. The very idea of metal, as well as its key sub-genres, was formed in that decade, and Popoff covers `em all. From hard rock to NWOBHM to thrash to power to death metal, Popoff reviews the albums we love and the ones we've never heard of. This is just a great resource for tracking the decade's key releases and discovering new bands and albums.
But it's not all metal in this book. I can understand the need to pad The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal: Volume 1: The Seventies with all manner of hard and heavy rock, as the decade just didn't have that much in the way of true heavy metal. But in this book, there's simply no need for the sheer volume of AOR, punk, grunge and Southern rock albums that are included. April Wine, Molly Hatchet, the Clash and Sonic Youth have no business in a book about metal.
As for the reviews themselves, I'm not a huge fan of Popoff's style, and he comes across as pretentious at times, but the reviews are the secondary reason for buying this book. I respect that he's always willing to venture an opinion that goes against the accepted wisdom.
You don't need to agree with all of the reviews to appreciate the fact that if you're a fan of `80s era heavy metal, this is an absolutely essential resource. I just wish Popoff would have spent more time on the "Collector's" aspect of the title. It would have been great to know which of these albums have since been reissued on CD, for example.
As much as I love the metal of the `90s and beyond (as well as the great `70s proto-metal sound), there's no doubt that the `80s were metal's most important decade. The very idea of metal, as well as its key sub-genres, was formed in that decade, and Popoff covers `em all. From hard rock to NWOBHM to thrash to power to death metal, Popoff reviews the albums we love and the ones we've never heard of. This is just a great resource for tracking the decade's key releases and discovering new bands and albums.
But it's not all metal in this book. I can understand the need to pad The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal: Volume 1: The Seventies with all manner of hard and heavy rock, as the decade just didn't have that much in the way of true heavy metal. But in this book, there's simply no need for the sheer volume of AOR, punk, grunge and Southern rock albums that are included. April Wine, Molly Hatchet, the Clash and Sonic Youth have no business in a book about metal.
As for the reviews themselves, I'm not a huge fan of Popoff's style, and he comes across as pretentious at times, but the reviews are the secondary reason for buying this book. I respect that he's always willing to venture an opinion that goes against the accepted wisdom.
You don't need to agree with all of the reviews to appreciate the fact that if you're a fan of `80s era heavy metal, this is an absolutely essential resource. I just wish Popoff would have spent more time on the "Collector's" aspect of the title. It would have been great to know which of these albums have since been reissued on CD, for example.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews