After publishing eleven album guides, the MusicHound series was sold to London-based Music Sales Group,[1] whose company Omnibus Press had originally distributed the books outside America.
[1] Subtitled "The Essential Album Guide", each publication typically contained entries providing an overview of an artist's career and dividing their work into categories such as "what to buy", "what's next", "what to avoid" and "worth searching for".
[4] Graff has said that he had envisioned the books as buyer's guides, specifically: "something akin to a good record store clerk or that fellow shopper you meet while you're looking through the racks and with whom you strike up a spontaneous conversation".
[6] Among the guide's reviewers were US music critics Joel Selvin (San Francisco Chronicle), Mark J. Petracca (Creem), Greg Kot (Chicago Tribune, Rolling Stone), Brian Mansfield (USA Today), Thor Christensen (Dallas Morning News, Spin), and Roger Catlin (Hartford Courant).
Among the latter contributors were the following: Joan Baez, Peter Buck, Adam Clayton, Phil Collins, Jakob Dylan, Ben Harper, Mickey Hart, Lenny Kravitz, Simon Le Bon, Stevie Nicks, Lou Reed, Robbie Robertson, Gene Simmons, Patti Smith, Paul Stanley, Sting and Pete Townshend.