What do you think?
Rate this book
The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal: Volume 3: The Nineties
A tribute to heavy metal, this volume highlights the albums and bands of the 1990s that stood on the shoulders of giants and gave metal this generation’s greatest hits. Full of reviews and recollections of hundreds of rarities and mainstream metal albums from the 1990s, this book also includes little-known trivia that brings the albums back to life. Sure to attract any fan of metal, this user-friendly guide documents dozens of bands and hundreds of albums.
- GenresMusicNonfiction
520 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2007
1 person is currently reading
55 people want to read
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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 4, 2011
The usual historical narrative tells us that metal died in 1991, when grunge (Nevermind, specifically) took over the airwaves and thereby plunged hair metal heads into the toilet. But Nevermind had little effect on metal: indeed metal got fretful and multiplied. Popoff's third metal record guide not only crams more albums in than either of the other two (and without copping out with terse "bomb" symbols and such, as in Christgau's 90s guide), but points out the scores of new scenes and genres that metal begat. And grunge is only one of them -- yes, he does include Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Tar, Tad, the whole shebang. But you also see lots of grindcore (which Popoff initially dismisses), death, death'n'roll, industrial , power metal, melodic death, new "southern rock", punk, etc. etc. As always his gonzo style is descriptive, witty, accurate, comprehensive, and generous. And as with any great critic, he'll turn you on to some cool tunes you've never heard before -- in my case it was Love/Hate and the Tea Party. The only thing I miss is the LP cover reproductions.
July 3, 2023
About as comprehensive as you can get, with Popoff delivering short, sharp, and shredding reviews of all your faves and a ton of records you’ve never heard of. Your taste may not exactly align with his - on the same page Popoff gives Tools 1996 masterpiece Aenima a lukewarm 8 and Pat Travers 1991 release boom boom the same score but with much more bombast. But darn it if he hasn’t put me on to some scorchers I’d either never heard of (Lowbrow), had heard of but ignored (Love/Hate and Alice In Chains S/T) or have but just haven’t listened to in awhile (Faith No More “Album of the Year “). A great book to expand and explore your collection.
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 3 - The Nineties - is probably the least impressive book in the series.
The `90s weren't the glory days of metal that the `80s were, but once the grunge wave came and went, there were a lot of important and innovative developments in metal. This book attempts to track most of the decade's metal offerings. 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 by the `90s, even with the heavier grunge bands, metal was pretty clearly defined, and much of this book is devoted to non-metal bands. Several bands and albums from the resurgent prog/power genres are left out, as is a wide array of the emerging black metal scene, which was arguably the decade's most important metal scene. Instead a good chunk of punk, grunge, southern rock and AOR albums are covered. I like plenty of that stuff, but it has no business in this book.
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. I will say this, his top 100 lists at the end of the book are just embarrassing.
You don't need to agree with all of the reviews to appreciate the fact that if you're a fan of `90s era heavy metal, this is a pretty impressive 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. Also, the "rarities" CD that's included features regular album tracks from fairly common Metal Blade albums. I didn't see anything that would be considered rare.
The `90s weren't the glory days of metal that the `80s were, but once the grunge wave came and went, there were a lot of important and innovative developments in metal. This book attempts to track most of the decade's metal offerings. 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 by the `90s, even with the heavier grunge bands, metal was pretty clearly defined, and much of this book is devoted to non-metal bands. Several bands and albums from the resurgent prog/power genres are left out, as is a wide array of the emerging black metal scene, which was arguably the decade's most important metal scene. Instead a good chunk of punk, grunge, southern rock and AOR albums are covered. I like plenty of that stuff, but it has no business in this book.
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. I will say this, his top 100 lists at the end of the book are just embarrassing.
You don't need to agree with all of the reviews to appreciate the fact that if you're a fan of `90s era heavy metal, this is a pretty impressive 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. Also, the "rarities" CD that's included features regular album tracks from fairly common Metal Blade albums. I didn't see anything that would be considered rare.
October 18, 2024
The 5/10 review of Death's "Spiritual Healing" is just one of many reasons this useless "guide" belongs in a landfill with the other GARBAGE.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews