BOOKS
STAIRWAY TO HELL The 500 Best Heavy Metal Albums In The Universe Chuck Eddy (Harmony Books) $35.95 (try Uni Bookshops) OK, let's get the boring stuff outta the way first, it's a "consumer guide" like Christgau's or something, a list of 500 rec's with capsule reviews of each and all the bigdeal contempo tributaries of the genre — neo-generic-classic rock a la G'n R, Metallicoid rock-machine-rock, post-Kiss blowdrier-j ockeydom, prog-fusion-ponk-fonk whatever, they're all here if you want 'em — sure and I could care less 'bout any of that stuff (tho' Mr Ed manages to wax perfectly readable about any and all of them) but check it out some more and you'll find there's something here to say boo to
just about anyone's goose — like, Miles Davis? Pere Übu? Pussy Galore? THE OSMONDS? Say WHAT??? and so OK, it dawns on you soon enough yr not lookin at just yr regularaverage "rock book" but at the life's-work of someone quite patently certifiably insane and hell-bent-for-leather on talcing you "there" with him. Climb on top o' that, and you can start to have some of the most fun to be had outta any book since R. Meltzer's immortal Gulcher or mebbe even Celine's WW2 trilogy. As a forum for debate (get together w/ yr pals, pull back a few brewskis and get worked up about how anyone can possibly claim that Sabotage is the best Sabbath album or Lou Reed's Rock n'Roll Animal is worth listening to or that Guns
n'Roses are qualitatively better'n anything by the Ramones or Sonic Youth or Last Exit 'cept of course it could mean "by metal criteria" and maybe those bands aren't "Metal" so, etc), just for laffs (a fair few bands seem to've been included only so's he can take the p. outta them — Swans for inst, good), as a general guide to righteous living in unrighteous times, this's gotta rank among the ultimate reading material ever for record collectors, drunks, dopefiends and losers of every description. And yeah, there's plenty o' stuff in here that I still haven't heard (anyone got any Dust or Sir Lord Baltimore LPs they can lay on me for inst. I'd 'preciate the heck outta it) so if that ain't reason enough to continue living, I'd like to know what-the-hell is. What more do you want? Blood? You got it!
DUANE ZARAKOV
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/RIU19921001.2.57
Bibliographic details
Rip It Up, Issue 183, 1 October 1992, Page 36
Word Count
393BOOKS Rip It Up, Issue 183, 1 October 1992, Page 36
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