Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock by Michael Heatley

Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock Reviews

• 
  Roberto Zaracho

  This book amazed me about the quantity of bands and artists that I didn't know. This book with good accuracy describes every relevant band since the origins of rock. For every decade it talks about the lifestyle of that time with a lot of important details besides music. A lot of great compressed biographies in it.
  Mainly I appreciate this book so much because it showed me hundreds of artists and bands from the past that were awesome and I didn't know about. And with my curiosity and my spotify combined, I've got to know and enjoyed a lot of bands and they got added to my playlists.
  It's a sunshine of musical wisdom for me. Highly recommend it. Love the design of every page and section too. Awesome graphics and images.
• 
  Terry Hinkley

  Very informative book. A lot of bands and performers included that I have never heard of that had very little influence. Also left out numerous bands that did. As for Canadian content the author chose mostly individual performers which was good but only mentioned Rush, Steppenwolf, The Band and BTO in that Category. No Guess Who? They were not one hit wonders. Also Trooper, Triumph, April Wine, The Stampeders to name just a few who had numerous hits both here and Stateside. I still liked the book because it steered me to songs I had forgotten and was able to download to my collection.
• 
  Jodi

  Love love love this book. I bought two. One for my library, and one for my coffee table. Will recommend to any and every fan ever.
• 
  Jamie Hicks

  This thing is heavy.
• 
  Stormy

  Lots of pictures, easy to find artists.
• 
  Vincenzo Ridente

  This book is awesome it's got a lot of pictures and it's very easy to find the artist your looking for and I especially like the section on one hit wonders
• 
  Tom O'Grady

  This book is an ok starting point for many themes in rock over the years. The photos are nice, the layout is good, and the connection of music through the decades and genres of rock rings fairly clear.
  
  I feel that next steps for the next edition of this book are to first of all, look at one of the most influential bands in Canadian history, The Tragically Hip. For this band to be unmentioned in this book is bizarre to say the least. Another might be to explore the impact of: "Metal", "Hair Bands", "Southern Rock", more thoroughly and perhaps loosening the reins on some of the flash in the pan British / Euro bands, that one could argue were not that impactful in the history of rock.
  
  The one hit wonders section certainly brought back many fond memories of exact moments in time, cemented, by these pesky tunes.
• 
  Brian

  Gives the decade in a nutshell, devotes several pages to the usual suspects from each era, then tries to summarize many influential bands with no more than a paragraph. Complete in the sense that it lists just about every band that recorded during a given decade, but with no entry for 99% of them. Lots of fine pictures, again of the usual big names, a few photos of the more popular bands. Cute end chapter on one-hit-wonders. But for actual facts, stick to the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia or Trouser Press or many text-heavy album ratings guides, that do at least as good a job summarizing careers.
• 
  James

  While books like these are an excellent starting point for those unfamiliar with Rock and its history, and almost always contain (as this one does) great photographs of the artists covered, they are simply not essential for people who really know rock music. These books are simply to general for someone looking for a serious study. Still, this is a quality release; it's just I've seen all this info before, in more encyclopediac forms.
• 
  Lei

  okay encyclopedia. prefer wikipedia. Gives you a good look at history
• 
  Cynthia

  Good starter book for my 13 year old to learn about rock. It would only be better if it included a CD with snippets of songs.
• 
  Alex Wj

  Amazing book for the best people of the world
• 
  Dolores

  Comprehensive enough, great photography, fun and enjoyable reading.