Yeah, some sort of definitive resource would be nice, for sure. Thing is, I don't think one exists. So far, how I've been going about it is cross-referencing dates listed on AMG, RYM, Amazon, artist's websites, Wikipedia (a last resort) -- and if there's agreement between any of those sites, then that's the date I'll go with. Even at this point, I still haven't been able to track down any book with this info.
Further to this, when I enter a particular album/date into my blackberry, it actually shows what day of the week it was. For example, February 1, 1994 was the release date of Green Day's "Dookie" (at least, that's the consensus), and on my BB that date shows up as a Tuesday, so I feel pretty confident that the release date is correct. But then, something like February 17, 1985 -- the release date of Tears for Fears' "Songs from the Big Chair" (as listed on their official website) -- was a Sunday. I have a hard time with that one, since when were records ever released on the weekend?
Also, I forgot to mention to that with UK/US releases, I've gone with the release date from the artist/band's native country (eg. "Kid A" came out on October 2 in the UK; October 3 in the US/Can. Since Radiohead are a UK band, for my purposes it's October 2).
But for live albums, I'm actually going with the date of the actual show, not the date of the release. So for example, the official bootleg for Pearl Jam - "11/6/00 - Seattle, Washington" -- listening to it on November 6 seems a lot more appropriate than listening to it on its official release date, March 27. In the case of "Frampton Comes Alive!", which was recorded over several nights, I've picked the date that the majority of the live album was recorded on: June 14, San Francisco. (Realistically, I should go with the date that he went into the studio to do overdubs! haha)
