The Top 500 Heavy Metal Songs of All Time

Rating:
Summary: Provides important keys to understanding the genre
Review: Fans of heavy metal music who seek a definitive guide to albums and songs will find Martin Popoff's Top 500 Heavy Metal Songs Of All Time to be an important key to the genre, compiling the results of a massive worldwide poll and including entries which feature a quote from one of the band's artists, shots of rare singles covers, and listings by song, band, album, year and country. Descriptions of the music are both personal and critical and provide important keys to understanding the genre.

Rating:
Summary: Attention librarians: Heavy Metal reference material!
Review: Headbangers everywhere should throw horns in praise of Martin Popoff, possibly the only person writing about metal these days who offers so much encyclopedic knowledge and insight into the workings of the genre without intellectualizing it to the point of alienating fans. Key to Popoff's success is his all-inclusive approach to the genre. While he does differentiate between sub-genres, he maintains that heavy metal is overdriven guitars, bass, drums, and volume, volume, VOLUME. Thus you will find entries in his many books for seemingly non-metal acts as Black Flag, Sweet, and Nirvana. For Popoff, it's all about the MUSIC. The writing here is top notch as usual-Popoff using wordplay that at times only diehards will appreciate (describing one tune as "Heep Purple" while another band "goes for baroque"-- love it!). The only factor detracting from this work is the relatively predictable collection of songs found within. There are no surprises here for the long-time fan. This is of course, out of Popoff's control, as these stats resulted from an honest-to-God poll of metal muthas' all-time fave rave-ups. So librarians: Purchase this book for your reference collection. It is an excellent example of authority-by-community, organized and packaged by possibly the most authoritative person on the subject. And while you're at it, pick up Popoff's "Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal" too. Both works are indispensible reference material.

Rating:
Summary: Another great work from Popoff, but where is grunge?
Review: I would have given him 5 stars but i have some doubts about the way he made his "worldwide polls", I surely agree that Black Sabbath, Metallica, Iron maiden, Judas Priest AC/DC, are the most influential groups in making Metal anthems, I even consider myself an 80's metalist and trust me I'm a Hard Core Black Sabbath fan. But, and this is the part where i retire a star from my rating, if he dares to mix a lot of genres in his books, how could he almost exclude grunge? If it were only Heavy Metal, there would be no problem, but again he deals with hard rock, funk, Jimi Hendrix, Cannibal Corpse (Yikes) and grunge (this in a minor degree), Did really Martin asked as many as almost 18000 people in the world? If so, most of this people must be 30 something almost 40 years old people. The heavy load of the "votes" lie in the 80's era. I mean: Where the hell are the new anthems? Nirvana is more than only "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Where Are "Spoonman", "Crackerman" or "Them bones"?
Is really Celtic Frost above Pearl Jam, STP, Alice in Chains, etc?
Are Cannibal Corpse and The Beatles (even tied with one hit to their names) in but Pearl Jam out of it?
Martin: Try another poll and name the 500 new anthems. Or the 90s and beyond Best Hard Rock Albums.
I would recommend Martin Popoff (With a lot of respect for him, of course) to stop considering his books Heavy metal related. I think it's much better to tie them with Hard Rock.
In my opinion he could scare people who loves grunge, prog metal or simply Hard Rock. That last one is the real umbrella (as he claims in his books)that covers all this genres.
Any way is a great and very interesting effort with that charming Popoff style.

Rating:
Summary: Another great work from Popoff, but where is grunge?
Review: I would have given him 5 stars but i have some doubts about the way he made his "worldwide polls", I surely agree that Black Sabbath, Metallica, Iron maiden, Judas Priest AC/DC, are the most influential groups in making Metal anthems, I even consider myself an 80's metalist and trust me I'm a Hard Core Black Sabbath fan. But, and this is the part where i retire a star from my rating, if he dares to mix a lot of genres in his books, how could he almost exclude grunge? If it were only Heavy Metal, there would be no problem, but again he deals with hard rock, funk, Jimi Hendrix, Cannibal Corpse (Yikes) and grunge (this in a minor degree), Did really Martin asked as many as almost 18000 people in the world? If so, most of this people must be 30 something almost 40 years old people. The heavy load of the "votes" lie in the 80's era. I mean: Where the hell are the new anthems? Nirvana is more than only "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Where Are "Spoonman", "Crackerman" or "Them bones"?
Is really Celtic Frost above Pearl Jam, STP, Alice in Chains, etc?
Are Cannibal Corpse and The Beatles (even tied with one hit to their names) in but Pearl Jam out of it?
Martin: Try another poll and name the 500 new anthems. Or the 90s and beyond Best Hard Rock Albums.
I would recommend Martin Popoff (With a lot of respect for him, of course) to stop considering his books Heavy metal related. I think it's much better to tie them with Hard Rock.
In my opinion he could scare people who loves grunge, prog metal or simply Hard Rock. That last one is the real umbrella (as he claims in his books)that covers all this genres.
Any way is a great and very interesting effort with that charming Popoff style.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome book - Awesome Author
Review: Martin Popoff is the quintessential rock and roll afficianado. He's done it again with another great book. His style of writing is extremely entertaining with a lot of music knowledge. Martin is the Chris Berman of rock and roll with his word play.
I love his books. Another book I just picked up that I totally enjoyed was Rock and Roll War Stories by Gordon G.G. Gebert. If you enjoy Popoff's writing you will surely enjoy Gebert's book too.
Keep up the great work. The Top 500 Heavy Metal Songs of All Time
by Martin Popoff is on my shelf to stay!

Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended
Review: Martin Popoff returns with yet another comprehensive tome of metal bits, wisdom and knowledge that can be only be thought of as encyclopaedic. Like his previous metal books, Popoff's latest manifestation bases itself on three impressive characteristics: a) intelligence, b) readability, c) damn-near impossible to find insight and off-the-wall facts that even the most seasoned metallic purveyor will find interesting, unique and eye-opening. For this specific book project, Popoff asked the general public to list their top metal songs of all time (an exercise we all partook in as kids, no doubt). 4500 tunes later, The Top 500 Heavy Metal Songs Of All Time has the man not only describing inaudible intricacies I still can't figure out (witness why anyone would ever pick anything by AC/DC post Bon Scott), but he's delved into his own interview archive and compliments most song reviews with quotes from the band members themselves (Jake E. Lee discussing the solo in Ozzy's 'Bark At The Moon' is beyond cool). To top it off, Appendixes are included at the back of the book, and Martin P has compiled detailed sub-list upon sub-list of top songs, top albums, numbers of metal countries represented within the book and much more razzle dazzle to entertain you on any given day or night. Honestly, the man's a genius and if there was any justice in the world, he'd be writing for Rolling Stone or Spin (but he writes and edits for Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles, arguably a better rag than either of the aforementioned, so things kind of work out, no?). I'm impressed, yet again, with Popoff's work and the levels of comprehension, wit and foreclosure that the author has put forth. Another indelible shining mark on the metal community.

Rating:
Summary: A Very Entertaining Book
Review: Popoff continues to entertain those of us out there who still care about heavy metal. Even though I am now in my 30's I still love to read about my favorite metal groups. This book contains the results of a massive poll with Martin's comments about each song as well as comments from the band members themselves. There are also several top ten lists from various musicians as well as several album covers. I must admit that I don't care for some of the bands that made the top of the list but that's to be expected. As long as many of my favorites (Accept, BOC, Savatage, Schenker) are represented, I'm satisifed. This book is definitely worth buying if you like various kinds of metal and you want to know what other metal heads think are the best metal songs ever.