The Essential Rock Discography - Spotting the Errors

For many years, Martin C Strong, with little help from collaborators, has been putting together his rock discography series of books, the main one being the ever-expanding The Great Rock Discography. The books have been praised by music mavens such as John Peel and rock trivia master Fred Dellar. Somewhere in the middle of Strong's 25 year endeavour, the internet came along and made the whole business easier and harder at the same time – all those people quibbling, all that seemingly correct information on past releases – from the labels and bands themselves – but can it be trusted?

Can Strong be trusted? Not always, for his books are littered with mistakes, but how can they not be? (Well, a proof read would help, or a team of researchers in an underground bunker in China perhaps, but let's not spoil the ethos of this most bedroom of enterprises!) I still reckon the mistake count is relatively low, and to me, it's one of the series' strengths. If you buy the book to browse, you probably won't notice that the phrase 'their first Stateside success' appears twice in an article, or that someone's 'real name' is misspelled.

If you are a fellow rock trivia anorak – and that must account for many sales of these popular books, then the whole point is spotting the bloopers and feeling superior. That and the way he toes the line on the canon. The hurried, slightly crazed writing style is also a joy (on Tori Amos: 'Jools Holland and his TV programme 'Later with...' intensified her complex image with a ubiquitous piano-playing performance that would put even Rick Wakeman to shame').

The latest book is his equivalent of the Concise Dictionary – because the main volume is getting too big for the average greying rock-fan to hold, and because the series is splitting into specialised areas (eg The Great Psychedelic Discography), Canongate have issued a smaller volume, The Essential Rock Discography (£30) - just 1250 pages! The emphasis here is on better-known and currently popular acts who are within or come close to the mainstream of rock and pop. This not the place to be checking the release date of that rare Shy Limbs disc or what was on the B-side of the first I'm So Hollow single.

So let's put Martin to the test. I'm a stalwart member of the internet's best music discussion forum. There has been a string of 'sacred cow' threads recently, questioning various classic albums. There are also a few eternal questions which pop up there, on which we never can agree. So we shall run a couple of those past him too. But let's start with three of rock's greatest urban myths, and see how Martin deals with them.

Mama Cass choked on a ham sandwich.

• 'Tragically, on the 29^th July '74. Cass Elliot died of a heart attack while choking on food.' Well, not so good here. At least the ham sandwich (a slur on her Jewishness and weight problem) is not mentioned, but it's wrong. And no mention of the interesting trivia fact that Keith Moon died in the same room four years later.

Bob Holness played saxophone on Gerry Rafferty's 'Baker Street'.

• '... Raphael Ravenscroft's famous sax solo forming the basis of this world-weary classic.' So we're put right on that then, but a mention of this famous wind-up wouldn't have gone amiss.

Charles Manson auditioned for The Monkees.

• The Monkees are (perhaps rightly) given short shrift in this edition, and no mention of the murderous one's (lack of) involvement, but we are told that 'Randy Scouse Git' took its title from Alf Garnett's catchphrase.

Now a couple of sacred cows... Patti Smith's Horses top or tosh?

• It gets a mighty 9/10 rating. 'The album was a blueprint for a generation of both American and British punk / new wave artists... although Smith's vocals were something of an acquired taste.' Well, thank goodness for rejoinders!

Never Mind the Bollocks – a musical revolution, or a dodgy heavy metal album?

• 'Legendary', which is hard to disagree with, unlike the 10/10 rating, which is as rare in this book as a ballad on this album. Strong comments that it undoubtedly contained some filler, which calls the rating into question. Half of it is obvious filler, if you ask me, but the article on the band here is fairly comprehensive.

Is Edwin Starr still alive?

• Readers will have to wait for The Great Soul Discography to discover the answer to this. Not rock enough, I guess. One of the greats though.

Astral Weeks or Moondance – c'mon now, which is better?

• Having resolved the Rubber Soul vs Revolver debate with a 10-9 win for the latter set, let's see how he separates this pair from Van Morrison. 'An album which has grow in stature with each passing year,' he says of the brooding, wordy Astral Weeks. Moondance is 'a more solidly constructed affair... reigning in his more abstract tendencies.' Another 10-9 win, this time for the earlier record.