Heavy

Weinstein here executes an academically well-trained description of the heavy metal genre, but in doing so agglutinates several generations of metal into one pseudo-genre which, not surprisingly, does not fit the broader conclusions academics must draw from sociological studies. This book repeats the classic error of all academics in assuming all metal is Motley Crue or derivates thereof, and consequently, the book is completely obsolete in the current time. Well-written and smoothly flowing it is an afternoon's read and provides great supporting evidence for any mainstreaming or assimilation of the heavy metal lifestyle in academia.

Definitivamente estamos ante un libro de gran calidad y que conste que no lo digo por ser un metalhead. La autora ha sabido dividir el tema en las partes pertinentes para un efectivo análisis. La cultura del heavy metal, efectivamente, puede verse como la interacción de los media, las bandas y los fans y el concierto de heavy metal como una Metal Epiphany. Esto hasta cierto punto es arbitrario pero no podemos negar que es de una consistencia útil. A lo largo de las páginas de este libro podemos encontrar cosas tales como el origen del nombre del metal, su evolución, la tenaz lucha que ha tenido contra los sectores más oscurantistas del sociedad occidental pero no sólo ello. También se muestra una abstraccion de los elementos de nuestra cultura metalera que permite sacar a la luz características como la ética del guerrero que se encuentra inmersa en el metal, el mensaje de que todo está mal y que no hay nada que podamos hacer para cambiar las cosas salvo el trabajar para nuestra propia superación individual. Además el libro nos muestra una enorme facilidad para comprender las metáforas del metal y de como la música prima sobre el mensaje verbal. Por otro lado, y esto es importante, también se hace mención de los defectos del metal como la Homofobia y el machismo, dos defectos que parecen se están superando. Es pues este libro, muy recomendable tanto para headbanguers como para cualquiera que quiera acercarse al metal con espiritu crítico y abierto. ¡Gloria eterna la metal!

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This is the bible of Heavy Metal for Metalheads throughout the world. I have scoured the universities and libraries for books regarding H.M., and this book is not only the best, but is referenced with awe and respect by every other text discussing H.M. If you love Metal, you MUST own this book. While it might seem slightly outdated (1991 - 1992 published), it is a fascinating look at H.M., and provides key information on the development of H.M., the dreaded P.M.R.C. and Metal detractors (always a favorite topic), and H.M. social status, plus much more. There is (thank God) a new Weinstein book about Metal coming out in April 2000 called "Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture", and it's in paperback form, no less! Cheap books are good. I hope Deena has written another top notch book, because "H.M.: A Cultural Sociology" is perhaps the best damn non-fiction book I have ever read. Extremely informative, completely subjective (yet written by a Metalhead), ever extensive, this book is worth every damn cent!

why waste money on this?? get the lyrics for FREE of the internet. If it becomes a collectors item it'll be solely because no-one bought the darn thing!!

Well the book title sums this up altogether. All the bands lyrics in a 112 page book with just that...lyrics. Not 1 picture of the band, just lyrics.

These lyrics you probably already own if you have the bands albums. The only lyrics that you won't already have in the album booklets is the Load and ReLoad lyrics which are published officially for the first time right here in this book along with the lyrics to the bands last single "I Disappear" which featured in the film "Mission Impossible 2".

So out of the 74 songs on the albums you only really buy this album for 28 songs.

Only get this if you are a die hard Metallica completist or desperate for the lyrics to the Load and Reload albums and I can't see many people shelling out the money for lyrics to those.

being a fan of a major band like metaliica is like being in a marriage you stick by them through thick and thin, they have matured in life and musically ...being big and selling millions of records over the period of 2 decades ,dix. this book deserves to be looked at and read over to fully understand their songs...

I bought the 'Wheels of Confusion' book 4 years ago, read the whole thing in one sitting and at the end didn't know a lot more about Black Sabbath than what any good fan would know (and who else would buy the book?). This new edition adds very little, so if you already have 'Wheels of Confusion' you don't really need to buy this. As others have pointed out, the book focuses on the Ozzy era, and I think that's just fine. Black Sabbath is Ozzy+Iommi+Geezer+Ward, no more, no less.

I agree with some points that you are criticizing, but not with others. For example:

The writer really spend most time dealing with the Ozzy-era Sabbath. Well, any average Sabbath fan knows that Sabbath ceased to be a band after the Mob Rules album (after Dio left), and became a sort of Tony Iommi solo band, beginning a wheel chair dance of countless musicians (all of them highly skilled, but not forming a "band"..!!!)

And another answer: no, there's not a better book about Sabbath out there....

Having been an Ozzy fan for many years now, I was introduced to Black Sabbath later rather than sooner. I have to say that this book is an honest account and charts the band's success form the humble start in Birmingham to worldwide recognition. It is very true to say that Sabbath single handedly shaped heavy metal as we know it today.........ROCK ON

This book was very undetailed. It was barely good enought for the average rock fan let a lone an average Pearl Jam fan. I could have edited it better myself. The grammar was horribly written and the whole book was taken from quotes from other magazines. If you just want to know the basics of the band then read this book.

I was excited to get this and start reading - hopefully find some insight into some things that I didn't previously know about one of favorite bands. Unfortunately, however, this book was little more than regurgitated facts easily found on the internet and quotes from other articles. I picked up a few unknown tidbits here and there, but nothing extraordinary. The author took a rather detached stance and didn't really ever allow the reader to know whether or not he actually LIKED Pearl Jam. The drummer history and early band history were both fairly interesting, but you can find out everything in those sections over at lukin.com. The most fun part of reading the book was coming across references to specific shows, then running to my bootleg folder to listen to the show. It's always cool to have some background to put the thing you're listening to in perspective. Except that, even this, is easily available on the web at Five Horizons. It's a decent "refresher-course", but I was looking for something that, when I was done, would make me want other people to read it. When I finished this, I was, instead, just rather ho-hum about the whole thing.

but... PEARL JAM ROCKS

I have read this and find it very good. I am a pearl jam fan and recommend this book to any and all who are interested in Vedder and crew. He's the last true anti-hero.

This book could have achieve much more than it did, had the writer spent mroe time really checking the facts. I had the impression the book was rushed to meet some dead-line, I don't know. Anyway, it's the best thing ever produced about Black Sabbath and it's worthwhile read for die-hard fans, only. It does not reach the quality of HAMMER OF THE GODS or RUN TO THE HILLS.

For any hard-core fan of Black Sabbath as I am this book offered many unheard of insights of how the band met, and gave personal information about each members contribution to Black Sabbath. During the Book drummer Bill Ward inlightins us on the personal side of the band and speaks very clearly on the down-fall of Sabbth during the post-Osbourne years. Rosen captures the in-depth interviews during Sabbaths creation of Heavy Metal music, and gives the reader emotional experiences of each member in Sabbath. From the outrageous hotel bashings to Ozzys personal side of the Sabbath break-up, Rosen allows the reader hear the story that answers the burning question that many new Black Sabbath fans want, and need to read. Rosen offers valuable information for the Ozzy Osbourne fan. He interviews Ozzys past, and present guitar players, and lets them speak on their experiences on the "crazy train." Steven Rosen has given me a front row seat in the "real play" of the Sabbath story. His "never say die" approach to interviews gave me the insight of the "hard road" Black Sabbath had indured to be able to convey In your face music with real life experiences, and still be accepted by the masses

I was certianly shocked by the reviews of most of these readers. Most of these reviews by readers were saying how Rosen lacked comprehensive detail of Black Sabbath. For any hard-core fan of Black Sabbath as I am this book offered many unheard of insights of how the band met, and gave personal information about each members contribution to Black Sabbath. During the Book drummer Bill Ward inlightins us on the personal side of the band and speaks very clearly on the down-fall of Sabbth during the post-Osbourne years. Rosen captures the in-depth interviews during Sabbaths creation of Heavy Metal music, and gives the reader emotional experiences of each member in Sabbath. From the outrageous hotel bashings to Ozzys personal side of the Sabbath break-up, Rosen allows the reader hear the story that answers the burning question that many new Black Sabbath fans want, and need to read. Rosen offers valuable information for the Ozzy Osbourne fan. He interviews Ozzys past, and present guitar players, and lets them speak on their experiences on the "crazy train." Steven Rosen has given me a front row seat in the "real play" of the Sabbath story. His "never say die" approach to interviews gave me the insight of the "hard road" Black Sabbath had indured to be able to convey In your face music with real life experiences, and still be accepted by the masses

I admit that I don't have much respect for the so-called "science" of sociology. I seriously doubt human behaviour can be so neatly quantified and explained with a couple of studies--especially as such studies tend to contradict each other. I've argued this many times with a friend of mine who aspired to graduate studies in sociology.

Even so, Arnett is a poor representative of this discipline. His study is based on personal interviews with less than 150 "metalheads" from two urban communities in the U.S., the definition of metalhead being someone who agreed to be interviewed in exchange for a free record album. They are compared with "non-metalheads" who are not interviewed, but asked to fill out anonymous questionnaires. From these sketchy data gathered through poorly-controlled methods, Arnett draws conclusions about all of American society.

Now, I was a heavy metal fan in my adolescence, and still listen to several metal bands, and I won't deny some of Arnett's discussion of metal as a means to escape isolation applied to me. But he doesn't acknowledge that isolated teens may seek other sub-cultures--goth, punk, electronica, video games, role-playing, comics, poetry, foreign film. Nor does he explain why some "normal" teenagers also like metal, or why some people continue to like metal well into their 50s. In addition, his definition of "normalcy" is disturbingly anachronistic: long-term heterosexual marriage with children.

I even found his anthropological analysis of "sensation-seeking behaviour" to be of interest, but not entirely satisfying. If the situation he describes is common among American teenagers, why aren't there more metal fans instead of the small minority Arnett claims?

I'd read this book for the interesting profiles of some of the survey subjects. But as a work of social research, "Metalheads" is a joke.

Arnetts point in his book "metalheads" is that he sees metalfans as the vanguard of adolescent alienation, emotional isolation and hyperindividualism in western society. Even if he writes in an entertaining and eloquent way, and obviously is an expert on adolescence, he doesn't support his claims in a scientific way, even if he states that he does so. He compares the behaviour and views on life of "metalheads" and "non-metalheads", overlooking the fact that there is no homogenous social group called "non-metalheads". That group could include adolescents within jehovahs witnesses, hip-hopppers, among many others. Furthermore the group of "non-metalheads" is exclusively highschool and collegestudents only, excluding unemployed or working-class adolescents. These errors of course lead him to make several doubtfull conclusions. Another crucial error is his misjudgement of the music in heavy-metal, as his analysis is based on a primitve and completely outdated and unscientific german musictheory from the 17.century - the so called "Affekt-theorie", which is nearly as ridiculous as a theory that claims that the Earth is flat. However, his points about adolescent alienation in western society, and the potential dangers for the socialization of future societies, seem both enlightning and interesting. He just misses the fact that this is a general trend in Western society, and not specifically linked with heavy-metal.

This is an extremely well-written book on fans of heavy metal music. Jeffrey Arnett provides an in-depth and fascinating account of the psychology of the fans of the music and their culture. As a psychologist, I found his description of the metal heads to support what I already knew as well as to provide me with new and very helpful insights. The book told me something about the fans in general and it also provided a good sense of how each fan is unique. There were no easy overgeneralizations. I would very highly recommend this book to other psychologists and to parents or anyone else who would like to learn more about both the positives and negatives of what it means to be a metalhead.

I was a bit disappointed in this book. It would seem that these guys had an old A-C day on a farm, then got a camera and decided to take pictures and make a book. There are alot of colorful pictures of reconditioned tractors, but I was looking for a more data based and historical account of A-C.

brief narrative,uses same picture over and over,would not reccomend!!!

This book covers the whole spectrum of Allis Chalmers farm equipment from the Roto-Baler to the newest four-wheel-drive models introduced before the AGCO takeover. It provides interesting facts about failures of some of the tractors and successes with technological advances that were made by AC. I found it a very fascinating book with wonderful pictures that are the signature of the Enthusiast Color Series.

My only complaint about this book is the way the pictures of the same tractor are repeated again and again at different angles. The captions are written in such a way that the intention of the authors appears to be to make the reader believe they are different tractors. Close inspection shows that they are shots of the same tractor taken on the same day. (For example, the same AC 6-12 is shown on pages 10, 11, and 12).

Ther are much better books that cover New Identity in much more detail than this. For example; the Morphiss Press series is definitely the best and easy to find in your search engine "Morphiss Press" Dont waste time on this book!!

I was new to this field and found this book to provide only the bearest of information. It is not worth the money. In fact the new identity game is full of money grubbers who give you a little advice and then recomend ten or fifteen other books that will help you through the process. This book mearly outlines the process with no real meat!! I give it two stars because there are a couple of items of minimum interest.

the book was very ggod becouse it opend up a whole new world for me.

They just forgot some bands like Alice cooper, and MEGADETH !!!!!

Commercial Heavy metal only (music from supermarket)

I am a fan of Martin Popoff, and I was expecting great things from this book, but it is unable to deliver, unfortunately. The book names the most influential metal acts of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, summing up their careers in two or three pages. Sounds great, but the whole system just proves to be extremely boring, and the book is not designed to be a straight through read as I thought it would be (this was acceptable, obviously, with another Popoff book 'The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal'). The book overall leaves me feeling unsatisfied, exactly the opposite reaction I thought it would give. I must also mention that the book leaves out Husker Du, who I feel several of the grunge bands (Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam) are heavily indebted to.

Martin Popoff established himself as a writer of acerbic wit and tremendous knowledge with his collector's guide to heavy metal. That book and its three-thousand-plus reviews is a mammoth testament to his energy as well as the genre's amazing invention and staying power.

For this outing, Popoff gives what I see as a survey course in Heavy Metal History, utilizing the more "objective" standpoint of artistic and historical influence in metal to discuss the music rather than the slightly shakier ground of a subjective album review.

Popoff divides the music into the decades of the 1970's, 80's, and 90's, and from there ranks (okay, so we still have a tiny bit of subjectivity) the bands and/or artists in terms of their importance and influence on metal as a whole. The result are 50 bands that Popoff sees as essential to the progression of metal. This is terribly intriguing as it introduces bands like Marilyn Manson, Nirvana, and even The New York Dolls into the list alongside undoubted legends like Black Sabbath and Judas Priest. Along the way there are pleasant surprises like seeing Yngwie Malmsteem make the list as well as UFO, Bathory, and Alice In Chains. In an effort at being completist, Popoff nobly lists in a series of appendices bands too strange or unique to make the list, bands that almost made it, and his short list of the most influential metal records.

The drawbacks? Well for one the written pieces on each band are limited to around 2 pages each, so there is nothing deep or exploratory. There is also the issue of Popoff's biases, which show themselves rarely but sometimes humorously. Having said that, there is also much to like about this volume. It is a short, readable, entertaining ride through metal's high points as seen through biographies and key works of each artist. Where possible Popoff has included either in textboxes or sidebars snippets of interviews with the bands themselves. It also (like Popoff's collector's guide) demonstrates a keen sense of the history of the genre. The bottom line folks is that someone has to be setting this stuff down for posterity, and no matter whether you agree or disagree with Popoff's opinions he is plainly a huge fan of the music too!

This is a book that will spark debate and discussion to be sure, and it is overall quite worth a read by those wishing to acquire a sense of the history behind the power chords as well as those who want to revisit classic metal vibes. Rock on...

This is an unfortunate example of an academic trying very hard to understand with her mind what she obviously does not with her heart. To her credit, she tries very, very hard.

I can only imagine one of the band members endeavoring to read this intellectual over-analysis and gasping for breath in between bursts of laughter. It reads like a parody of itself, and it sure cracked me up.

While I would certainly agree that you can overanalyze and lose touch with the emotional edge critical to LZ's appeal, I found Fast's academic approach refreshing. She brought up a number of aspects of the band's music and performance I'd never thought about before, e.g., the sexual interplay between Page and Plant. I also appreciated Jonesy's insights into the creative process, particularly the fact that the music always came first and then the lyrics. But I have to admit it would be interesting to hear from Page and Plant as well.

This is a good book for the thinking Led Zeppelin fan. And no, that's not an oxymoron. I think there are a number of us trying to understand why this band and its members continue to draw us in 20 years after their disbanding. This book is a step in that direction. But it won't titillate you with gossip about groupies and dionysian orgies. Look to Richard Coles for that.

I'm afraid the previous (one-star) review of this book reminds me of some of the clueless press coverage that Led Zeppelin received from certain rock critics during their heyday. (My personal favorite: a 1977 concert review in Rolling Stone that called John Bonham and John Paul Jones "the clumsiest rhythm section in rock.") So here's my take on Susan Fast's "Houses of the Holy": it's a thrilling book, one that should be read not only by every Zeppelin fan, but by anyone interested in popular music. In fact, it's probably the most sustained musicological treatment of any rock artist -- certainly any "hard rock" artist -- ever published. You come away shaking your head at Fast's scholarly energy and her penchant for coming up with striking, original insights into both Zeppelin and the broader "power of rock music."

The book is divided into five chapters, each focused on a particular Zeppelin song, and exploring a different aspect of the band's persona and musical output: intertextuality (musical cross-referencing), myth, "foreign" musical influence, physicality (the music's "pre-linguistic" appeal to the body), and gender. The structure allows for a minutely-detailed breakdown of individual songs -- perhaps too detailed for some readers -- and wider comments about Led Zeppelin and the rock 'n' roll art form they did so much to define.

Is the book a tough read? It depends on your perspective. The run-throughs of particular songs and riffs are, as mentioned, very detailed. There are passages of technical musical criticism that are Greek to me -- but I enjoyed reading them anyway, just for the pleasure of seeing Zeppelin's music receive the sustained and expert attention it deserves. The academic prose? Well, I have to confess I'm a university teacher with a graduate degree in the social sciences -- but I have no time for postmodern jargon and academic windbaggery. Fast's approach steers well clear of these shoals. Her prose is fluid, full of passion for her subject, and chock-full of fascinating observations and interpretations. She refuses to separate the music from the physicality of performing it and the experience of receiving it, as listener or audience member. The result is a well-rounded, subversive synthesis that presents Led Zeppelin whole, and easily doubled my understanding and appreciation of the band.

In a very democratic move that enhances the book's accessibility, "In the Houses of the Holy" gives a fair amount of space to the comments of Led Zeppelin's fans, whom Fast surveyed over the Internet and through an ad in a Zeppelin fanzine. The personal testimonies of what the band has meant to its devotees are moving, and the comments about mythological, musical, and gender aspects of Zeppelin -- carefully sifted and organized by Fast -- illuminate the band's enduring appeal. Fast was also able to carry on an email correspondence with Zep bassist John Paul Jones, who offers his own thoughts and recollections about the band's creative process and diverse musical influences.

Want to try before you buy? Go to FindArticles.com, and search for "Led Zeppelin." Fast's 1999 article for American Music, "Rethinking Issues of Gender and Sexuality in Led Zeppelin: A Woman's View of Pleasure and Power in Hard Rock," will come up at the top of the list. The essay appears in reworked form in her book, forming the heart of Chapter 5. It will give you a good idea of her style and argument, and features a lot of fan commentary besides.

If one misses anything in the book, it's more attention to the contribution of Jones and especially John Bonham, whose heavy but limber drumming revolutionized rock percussion. (Fast acknowledges her emphasis on vocalist Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page.) Readers interested in Bonham can consult Chris Welch and Geoff Nicholls' book, "John Bonham: A Thunder of Drums," available here on Amazon. It doesn't take a scholarly-musicological approach like Fast's; but in addition to tracing the outlines of Bonham's short and booze-soaked life, it offers intelligent and technically informed insights into Bonham's drumming, including a song-by-song breakdown of classic Zeppelin cuts in the final chapter. Great photos, too.