The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal: Volume 2: The Eighties Paperback – November 1, 2005

I bought volume 1 of this series (the 70s) over ten years ago. I put off buying the 80s hoping for the price to go down. Finally, I could not resist longer and took the plunge. I am not into 80s metal that much but love the writing! Popoff's style is punchy and highly original. He has such a way with words that I find myself on the floor with laughter at some of these reviews. He is on point with these bands, he takes no prisoners and does it with style. Witty, knowledgeable and not afraid to tell it like it is. I now find myself venturing into 80s metal just because I am curious to see how his review compares to the music. Rock on Popoff!! You have a considerable bibliography already, and yet, I would love to read your take on main stream bands from the 60s and 70s. Tear 'em a new one!

2 528 reviews arranged with the bands arranged alphabetically and the bands catalogues arranged chronologically form the meat and potatoes of this 432 page book on the hard `n' heavy product of the metal decade. With this tome Popoff has hit the decade where the number of hard rock and heavy music releases started to spiral upwards. As such the book is not as complete as per the volume on the Seventies appeared to be even though this one has more than twice the reviews. Popoff comes across to me as a completist - one of those retentive fans that just wants to include the lot. And for that I salute him and I can imagine the pain he went through not being able to cover even albums he knew belonged in here due to space and time limitations.Having said that basically everything that is important is here. Popoff doesn't have much time for live albums and that's fair enough, though he is willing to cover a few salient items. Nor does he give much truck to greatest hits compilations unless they pique his interest for some reason. And given the number of times greatest hits selections are put out with little track listing variation by some bands that's a totally justifiable position to take. One difference apparent in this volume is that while there is still a score out of ten for each release the heaviness quotient - a score out of ten for heaviness - which the author utilised in his 70's book has been discontinued. Personally I don't really miss it as I have albums from throughout the hard `n' heavy spectrum in my collection, so just a description of the music will do me just fine thanks.In terms of his musical opinions, this is a guy who has carved himself a career in music built on sheer passion - I may not agree with each and every review of his but for petes sake who would? While some of his reviewing tendencies have been justly pointed out (he isn't much for punk or hardcore or some of the more extreme metal alloys) to me the idea that your going to pick up a book like this and react angrily if one of your pet bands is rated poorly is pretty childish. Just scroll through some of the less flattering reviews and you'll find people whimpering that this album or that album scored badly. Get over it! Personally I love to have a chuckle when he rubbishes one of my pet bands, I often muse to myself that yes.... that particular album does indeed suck but hey, I like it and darn it all, I'm gonna put it on!I should note that Popoff won't be winning a Pulitzer or whatever anytime soon but it's the guys knowledge and passion and irreverent attitudes that I buy his books for. That and they are a useful guide for finding out about bands that may have been before my time or passed me by upon release. And they are handy reference guides to have lying on your shelf.I really must say I enjoyed this book, last I checked there was talk of releasing the books for the 70's, 80's and 90's as a box set. If so I'd love to see the books revised - he managed to produce a book of 520 pages for the 90's which is almost 90 more than he had for this one. In a perfect world I'd love to see his opinions on some of the stuff he didn't have time to put in here. And I'm sure since putting it out we punters have let him know of other bands that should have been put in both this tome and his 70's book. For a revised edition, I'd buy this again. Get reading.

Martin Popoff is the only kind of writer or reviewer worth a damn -- the kind with a writing style all his own, and opinions out the a$$. You will either love him or hate him, and I for one think he's one of the best descriptive writers ever produced by the human race. I read his reviews whenever I'm about to do some writing of my own, in the vain hope that he'll rub off on me. He knows more about metal than anyone else alive (although he certainly doesn't know everything about it) and has a distinct, historical authenticity backing up his choices of what's metal and not, and what's good or not, with a heavy dose of personal opinion of course. When you read this book (as you must if you care at all about metal), you will be full of adoration, fury, disgust, surprise, and above all curiosity about the tons of bands you never knew you needed to check out.

you may disagree about what Martin says about your favorite band or his tastes, and there are some glaring omissions (where are Treat? Praying Mantis?? 0 to Danger Danger's debut??? what about such low scores to the mighty Armored Saint???? and general disdain for the gret hair metal scene), but this is great reading regardless - I found myself laughing hard several times while skimming this guide - cheers to the author!

What an awesome little (thick) book this is. Tons of information in here and I havn't even scratched the surface. I'm really glad I got this to add to my collection of heavy metal. A real good resource book.

It's still so sad to see the one star reviews left by people that must have been upset by Popoff somewhere along the line as the reviews are worthless and don't think they have read his books, just maybe a one off review of an album somewhere. Anyway, I can't praise his books enough as although I don't agree with many of his reviews, he mostly nails his analysis and has encouraged me to to be a bigger fan by listening to bands I would have otherwise not bothered with. The 80's was the high point of hard rock/metal and years like 1980 and 1985/6 are left strong in the memory making you wonder how on earth so many classics could come all at once. Popoffs preferences are obvious but he does justice to all areas of the scene and the sheer mass of reviews is once again breathtaking. Well done Martin and on a personal note, thanks for answering emails when I had geeky questions about certain things, you are a great person writing about what I love...