Philippe Margotin

Interminable book provides details about every track Dylan has recorded to the time it was published. For a long-time Dylan fan, it will give you a little insight and bring back some great memories of older songs you haven't listened to lately. But the book is so full of contradictions (sometimes within a page or two), questionable info, and unsubstantiated opinion that it gets to be really annoying at times. Obviously, the amount of research (or at least Googling) was immense, but the authors don't write that well, and their opinion on individual songs gets too lost in pointing out when a guitar is slightly out of tune or Dylan makes a noise while singing into the mike too closely or there is a less than perfect splice in the tape--instead of focusing on how good the song really is, which, in Dylan's case, overrides the technical quality of any performance. In many cases, the authors' rating of a song is vastly different from my own, and the authors also seem to have a deep fascination with Dylan's Christian period that is perhaps a little out of proportion. What does become clear, however, especially if you were a listener to Dylan's wonderful radio program, is that when he picks some obscure old song to record, he knows exactly what he is doing. So, I can't really recommend this for reading straight through, although that is what I have done. But the next time you pull out Highway 61 Revisited, you might read a a few pages here and learn something--or find something to disagree with! I bought this as a cheap Kindle Book (I think $1.99) on Dylan's 75th birthday, and at that price it is okay. Now that Dylan is a Nobel Prize Winner, this really isn't the place to find out why. With luck, someone will write a better account of his work, although that could take a lifetime--just as long as Dylan has spent creating it.… (altro)

A tour de force that looks at every one of the Beatles songs and gives the details behind them, both known and rumors (indicating the rumors with a ?). A lot of pictures of the Fab Four, who always seemed to be in just the right pose to make the picture look artistic, complement the work. Discussions of the songs and albums center around the British releases, but the authors provide information about the American releases, as well. There is also abundant information about the lives of the Beatles, their loves, and their petty (and not so petty) quarrels. A must read for any Beatles fan.… (altro)

Note: I read the first third of this story as a digital ARC from NetGalley, but received the book in print for Christmas, so I finished reading in that format.

This is a hefty, hefty book, but it'll end up being a must-own for Beatles fans. A large portion of the book is devoted to photographs, so it's not a demanding read and there are lots of interesting tidbits for diehard fans, although some of them are common knowledge by this point (eg. John shredding his vocals on "Twist and Shout").

Fans with a background in music will find even more to appreciate, as the instruments and technical details are reported for each song. I skimmed over much of this, but I still found much to appreciate. In the future, I want to read each section and listen to the appropriate album to pick up on the small details mentioned by the authors.

This book won't give you the multi-faceted view of the Beatles the way other biographies have, but that is also not the book's intent. I think it works best as a companion to the substantial amount of Beatles literature, and it's definitely an eye catching book to put out on the coffee table.

A small distraction for me was the author's liberal use of unwarranted exclamation points. Not a major concern, but it was frequent enough for me to take notice.… (altro)