About book Old Gods Almost Dead: The 40-Year Odyssey Of The Rolling Stones (2002)
The book was quite detailed up until the late 70's. Though, one of my pet peeves was the author's insistence (in the early portion of the book) of using lyrics to pepper some of the stories, e.g.: 'Marianne Faithful turned to Mick and smiled sweetly and said, 'don't worry.'' (Lyrics from 'She Smiled Sweetly). That irritated me to no end, because it seemed like the author was taking these flowery liberties. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I loved how Keith told Babyface off, 'After working with Mick, you won't be Babyface anymore, you'll be Fuckface!" I now anticipate Keith's autobiography. Least favorite passage: "By 1992, the rock music movement was almost finished. The beginnings of Brit-pop, the riff-banging of heroin-fueled Seattle grunge, and the radical murder music of the rappers took over a new generation that had never known a world without the Stones. U2's 'Achtung Baby' and Aerosmith's 'Pump,' can arguably be called the last great rock albums."
The first two-thirds are very entertaining and informative, quite a few things I didn't know, and the middle parts should be familiar to anyone who has seen "Gimme Shelter" or "C***s***er Blues". However, the last third is a bit "People Magazine"-ish, marriages and money problems as well as bad music. Still, lots of great dish from Marianne and Anita and Stu. Not earth-shaking, but a good look at part of what makes the Stones tick, without too much "poor Brian" hand wringing or anti-drug sermons ( see "Blown Away", much more informative but VERY preachy ).
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Mr. Davis did a good job, rich in detail and confirmed no bit is made up sensasionalistic bullshit by using endless quotes from interviews with each of the Stones and the other people involved in each episode. Besides telling everything you could possibly want to know about the Stones' career up until the point the book was written, it includes a pretty good description of the dawn of British blues in the beginning. Incomparably better than Tony Shanchez's book, which is the only other book on the Stones I've read so far, even if Davis is an outsider.I just won't give it 5 stars because it's not a life changing book (nor meant to be), but it totally fulfills the promise.
—Caio
