By Martin Popoff and David Perri
My rating: 70%.
Hi, As expected, the book is entertaining especially Martin's sections. I appreciate his love for 1980s metal, his loyalty and continued interest in 1980s hair bands that became completely uncool around 1992 and his humour and long sentences are funny and enjoyable as usual. His continued love for and interest in Deep Purple and Cheap Trick is endearing because you know he is just being true to himself.
The second author, DP, is a younger dude and possibly this is why I find him so hard to relate to. He seems to disrespect many of the 1980s bands and especially power-metal of both past and present eras. At times DP seems to mimick MP's humour, e.g. his note not to confuse Goat Horn with Goatwhore appearing in both Goat Horn and Goatwhore reviews! The subtle implication is that GW are cool but Goat Horn are out-of-date and uncool. Why not just say it then if you believe it? His insulting comments about the great HammerFall are also annoying. We hear the standard cliche that only the first HammerFall album is any good and even that is just good for novelty value.
DP's continued respect and admiration for endlessly repetitive black metal releases is also tiresome. He believes that black-metal (Norway, 1991) was truly a ground zero, earth-shattering "Smoke on the Water" type of thing whereas many metalheads who were there in the 1980s don't give it that much credit. Why mock and insult power-metal for its lyrics and themes while not giving black-metal a blast(beat) for its repetitiveness and its cheese factor? All we get is the reference to "Darkclones" and DP thinks he is cool just to say that.
As another Amazon.com reviewer has said, I would also have loved to hear MP's review of Death Magnetic. Also to read of DP's love of St Anger simply led to me writing him off immediately. I mean Grade One of Metal is that you appreciate how bad that album was. DP's claim that Death Magnetic was a copy-cat record misses the point: the old-time fans WANTED a return to the Justice-era Metallica and most old time fans (who were there in the 1980s) were satisfied with Death Magnetic although few would give it an equal place among the band's first four. Death Magnetic was a sincere effort and the band was trying to connect with its fans again.
I also thought MP's review of Motley's The Saints of Los Angeles misses the point. I really expected more from him here. Songs such as "Down at the Whiskey" and the title track are warm, humorous, infectious and show maturity, class and charm - an excellent album. I would put it up there with the debut and Feelgood. No-one can deny the enthusiasm of the guys on Saints.
MP, let me explain the album title Saints of Los Angeles to you (my personal interpretation): It is not "pompous" (as you claim), it is saying that those four guys have endured so many troubles over the years, both self-inflicted and in Mick Mars' case not self inflicted (his degenerative bone disease), that they are like saints in that they just keep on perservering. Secondly,they have kept a fairly "saint-like" attitude over the years: (a) respecting the fans and (b) not continually slagging off other bands (compare to Dokken, Kevin Du Brow and G'n'R for example).
One factual error I picked up (DP, this is your review): the first album released by Christian prog-death band Extol was of course Burial and not Undeceived.
The second author, DP, is a younger dude and possibly this is why I find him so hard to relate to. He seems to disrespect many of the 1980s bands and especially power-metal of both past and present eras. At times DP seems to mimick MP's humour, e.g. his note not to confuse Goat Horn with Goatwhore appearing in both Goat Horn and Goatwhore reviews! The subtle implication is that GW are cool but Goat Horn are out-of-date and uncool. Why not just say it then if you believe it? His insulting comments about the great HammerFall are also annoying. We hear the standard cliche that only the first HammerFall album is any good and even that is just good for novelty value.
DP's continued respect and admiration for endlessly repetitive black metal releases is also tiresome. He believes that black-metal (Norway, 1991) was truly a ground zero, earth-shattering "Smoke on the Water" type of thing whereas many metalheads who were there in the 1980s don't give it that much credit. Why mock and insult power-metal for its lyrics and themes while not giving black-metal a blast(beat) for its repetitiveness and its cheese factor? All we get is the reference to "Darkclones" and DP thinks he is cool just to say that.
As another Amazon.com reviewer has said, I would also have loved to hear MP's review of Death Magnetic. Also to read of DP's love of St Anger simply led to me writing him off immediately. I mean Grade One of Metal is that you appreciate how bad that album was. DP's claim that Death Magnetic was a copy-cat record misses the point: the old-time fans WANTED a return to the Justice-era Metallica and most old time fans (who were there in the 1980s) were satisfied with Death Magnetic although few would give it an equal place among the band's first four. Death Magnetic was a sincere effort and the band was trying to connect with its fans again.
I also thought MP's review of Motley's The Saints of Los Angeles misses the point. I really expected more from him here. Songs such as "Down at the Whiskey" and the title track are warm, humorous, infectious and show maturity, class and charm - an excellent album. I would put it up there with the debut and Feelgood. No-one can deny the enthusiasm of the guys on Saints.
MP, let me explain the album title Saints of Los Angeles to you (my personal interpretation): It is not "pompous" (as you claim), it is saying that those four guys have endured so many troubles over the years, both self-inflicted and in Mick Mars' case not self inflicted (his degenerative bone disease), that they are like saints in that they just keep on perservering. Secondly,they have kept a fairly "saint-like" attitude over the years: (a) respecting the fans and (b) not continually slagging off other bands (compare to Dokken, Kevin Du Brow and G'n'R for example).
One factual error I picked up (DP, this is your review): the first album released by Christian prog-death band Extol was of course Burial and not Undeceived.
By Jack Frost, first posted on Amazon.com 15 June 2011
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