I'm looking for original reviews of metal albums that came out back in the day. It's great that we have an overwhelming number of reviews on the web now, especially on MA, but these are mostly written in the last few years, with the perspective of time. From a historical perspective, I'd like to read the contemporary reviews that were written when seminal metal albums were released to see how opinions may have changed over time. For example, I've read that Black Sabbath was always critically panned by the mainstream press back in the 70's, but I've never actually read these reviews. Are there any websites that have compiled these "classic" metal reviews (Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Metallica, etc.)? If not, could I suggest there may be a place for it on MA? If this has been covered before or belongs in another forum, just let me know (and provide a link, if possible).

This is an interesting question, I'd love to see some stuff like this.

The MA can't host such things, I'm afraid. Copyrights and such would most probably turn into problems, and it's quite far outside the current scope of the database. We do not allow plagiarism in any form, and this would certainly be a form of that.

Well, if the reviews are cited and attributed correctly (which obviously would be the whole point), that's not plagiarism. Plagiarism is when you steal text, and claim it is your own. Copyright issues, yes, I understand that. Permission from the original magazines/newsletters would be required.

Edit: One idea I have that is a compromise is to add a link on the album pages to the original reviews, if they are online. There should be no copyright issues with that approach. It doesn't solve the main problem, though, of actually finding these reviews.

Maybe some of the more diligent among us could raid the archives of local libraries or something. I would very much love to read contemporary reviews of the first three Sabbath albums, for instance.

I was thinking about this about half a year ago and decided to head down to the Carnegie Library (One of the largest libraries on the east coast USA, or so I'm told) and dug around for a couple hours. Unfortunately, I didn't find much, although I wasn't really sure where to look in the first place.

If somebody had a good idea as to where to start I wouldn't mind going back sometime soon. It's only an hour or so away, and it might be well worth it.

Well, a little googling and I came upon this:

Rock's Backpages

From the website:



You have to subscribe, and it's $60 for the yearly fee. Maybe it's worth it, though. They definitely have some of the old Black Sabbath reviews, but I'm not sure how much else. I'll do some more checking.

To give an idea of why this is neat, here's a quote from a Judas Priest article from 1978 by Jon Young of Trouser Press (whatever that was):