The Who - The Definitive Guitar Collection 1

Rating:
Summary: Helpful, but hardly a revelation
Review: I think the truth about the actual value of this series lies somewhere between the two previously expressed extremes. I've played many of the songs from the second volume of this series, and I certainly didn't find them to be fraught with errors. If they were there, I didn't catch them. I would hope that someone who would make such an accusation would cite a few examples, but our first reviewer did not provide any. That being said, however, I cannot recommend this Who series as a bargain. The best I ever had in regards to sheet music was the Complete Beatles scores that was released a few years ago. For less than eighty bucks, you got everything on every Beatles studio album-all the originals, all the covers, all the parts. In hardcover, no less, and with a slipcase. In comparison, if you bought all four of these Who books, you would not have all the material, nor would you have the complete arrangements, and the books are all softcover. And as great as the Who have been, you'd have to say even if all else were equal, most musicians would rather have the Beatles scores. The other thing that irks me is there was a Who book out years ago that included handwritten notes by Pete Townsend. Surely the publishers of this series could have investigated the possibility of reusing that material, but apparently they didn't. Overall, I'd suggest you check out the book in the store before buying. If you need help deciphering chords and lyrics, then it might be worth your while. But don't be too reverent about it. You may very well find something on your own in these songs that's not in the books.

Rating:
Summary: Fraught with errors
Review: This whole four-volume series, a large undertaking by a big-name publisher, is so fraught with errors that I find it hard to believe the company would want to put its name on the cover. It seems the transcriptions and lyrics were hastily compiled with no knowledge of the Who's music and absolutely no quality checking. This series could've been an excellent -- and legitimate -- resource given that previous 'anthologies' were horribly incorrect and lacking. What's more, no entity had ever undertaken such a detailed and complete study of this body of music. However, this company 'missed the boat' by not putting their product through any type of review and making sure their product displayed some semblance of quality. In the end, consumers end up with erroneous, incorrect, incomplete, misleading -- and overpriced, given the quality -- multiple-volume set that provides little value and a lot of frustration.