Albums That Changed My Life 10: Everything Else

In the last Albums That Changed My Life entry I discussed the "Alternative" or Grunge bands which I listened to through high school.  After that point - a period in which I listened to Grunge and Thrash music to the exclusion of almost everything else - my taste in music grew a lot more diverse.  Part of the reason for this was college.  I was meeting a lot of new people who listened to many different kinds of music.  Another part of the reason was the purchase of a turntable, which allowed me to discover a lot of the late 60s and early 70s music I'd missed earlier on.  Looking back at that time from 2021, I can see my ears really opening up for the first time.  No longer obsessed with what was "cool" or "new," I was really hearing the music I was exposed to, and judging a lot of music on its own merits.

What follows is a list of bands I've listened to since college.  Maybe you like some of this stuff too.

1. Reggae

I listened to Buju Banton's Til Shiloh a lot in college.  Alpha Blondy and Steel Pulse were also in heavy rotation on my car stereo.  I've never been a huge Bob Marley fan, but I've owned several of his albums.  African Herbsman is probably my favorite.

2. Late 60s Rock

I've gone back and forth through this genre so many times.  The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and all that came after.  One of my favorite 60s bands is Arthur Lee's Love, but there are countless other great bands from that era.

3. Glam Rock

This is a huge one for me.  Sometime in college I bought Ziggy Stardust, and from that moment on I was hooked.  Bowie's albums were strangely difficult to find at the time, but after tracking down everything from his first album to his early 80s stuff I moved on to T-Rex and Roxy Music.  I still listen to some of those albums - especially Lou Reed's Transformer and Mick Ronson's Slaughter on 10th Avenue - quite a lot.

4. Progressive Rock

Another huge one for me, and in many ways the polar opposite of Glam Rock.  ELP's Tarkus album is still my favorite, but I've loved Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Gentle Giant, Procul Harum and all those bands at one time or another.  Later albums by many of these bands SUCK, but when they were great they were truly great.

5. Metal

I'm not even sure where to start with Metal.  I've moved back and forth between genres and regions over the years, going from the NWOBHM bands to Thrash, and from there to bands as diverse as Mastodon, Bathory, Opeth, Animals as Leaders, Meshuggah and some of the more fringe "Metal" like the stuff Alex Skolnick was doing with Michael Manring.  When Metal is good I love it more than anything else.

6. Classical

I started off with the Baroque composers: Bach (most of all), Vivaldi and Albinoni.  From there I moved on to the likes of Beethoven, Brahms and other composers of that era.  My favorite era for Classical music is probably the early 1900s, when Russian composers such as Rachmaninov and Prokofiev were doing really exciting things.  I like Philip Glass and some of the other Minimalist composers too.

I've never liked Wagner, Mozart or Tchaikovsky though.  I can't fully explain why.

7. Jazz

One of the first LPs I ever bought was Bitch's Brew.  That album blew me away.  It sounded nightmarish and beautiful at the same time.  I've since moved on to Miles Davis' other albums, and I'd have to say that Miles in the Sky has become my favorite of his albums.

After Miles, Keith Jarrett is probably my second favorite.  His The Survivor's Suiteblew me away as well.  That chord progression that just builds and builds.  It's amazing.

My favorite Jazz Fusion album is definitely Billy Cobham's Spectrum.  I liked The Mahvishnu Orchestra, but never as much as other Fusion bands from the same period.

Ornette Coleman's Skies of America was another big one for me.  I love that album.

8. Mandarin and Taiwanese Music

I've lived in Taiwan since 1999, and although the amount of Mandarin or Taiwanese music I listen to is very small, I do still enjoy it sometimes.  Wu Bai was one of the first local musicians I liked, but I've never been a huge fan.  I've owned CDs by Wang Fei and Teresa Teng, and I thought that Jay Chou's most popular album (the one they play on the radio endlessly) had some great songs on it.

9. Later Alternative Bands

Anyone else remember Shudder to Think?  Frank Black's solo stuff?  Rage Against the Machine?  311?  Ozomatli?  I still listen to that stuff occasionally.  It brings back a lot of memories.

7. World Music

I once owned an album by the name of Afro Rock that I listened to incessantly.  It was like James Brown went to Africa and personally told every awesome band there to record a song.

Of course when I say "World Music" I mean everything outside North America and the UK.  With respect to that definition I've enjoyed Chinese Classical, Bollywood soundtrack, Indian Classical, music from several South American countries, Mariachi, Tango, Bluegrass, Thai Pop, Gamelan and Buddhist chanting.  As far as this almost endless category goes, I listen to more music from Africa than anything else, with Bollywood being a close second.

8. Rap

Like a lot of guys my age I know the lyrics to several Public Enemy, LL Cool J and Doctor Dre songs.  Am I a huge rap fan?  No, not by a long shot, but there were periods of my life when certain albums captivated me.  Busta Rhymes' Extinction Level Event, for example, or that album by Hieroglyphics, 3rd Eye Vision.

"Life is a blast when you know what you're doing / Best to know what you're doing / 'Fore your life get ruined / Life is a thrill when your skill is developed / If you ain't got a skill or trade then shut the hell up!"

9. R & B / Funk / Disco

Motown.  Yeah.  I've spent years in Motown.  James Jamerson, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson Five, Diana Ross.  There's some excellent music there, some top-notch songwriting - even if people conveniently forget all the songs that WEREN'T hits.  For me the biggest of all is Stevie Wonder, whose early 70s output was fantastic.

Then of course, as the 70s wore on the Motown stuff morphed into Funk and Disco.  I have obsessed over several of Parliament/Funkadelic's early albums, even if their later stuff was lost on me.  Disco?  I think some of the later, non-American interpretations of that genre are more interesting, especially what showed up in soundtracks during the later 70s and early 80s.

Related Entries:

See "Albums That Changed My Life 1-9 in the sidebar.

Albums That Changed My Life 10: The Late 90s

For me the late 90s was the onset of adulthood.  By then I had moved out of my parents' house, and I'd moved on to a series of girlfriends, rented rooms, used cars, jobs and whatever else goes into forming the adult version of yourself.  It was a good time overall, and in a much larger sense it was a good time for America.  Were mistakes made?  Sure.  Were any of those mistakes the end of the world?  No, not even close.

In terms of music I was listening to a lot of different stuff at the time.  With the passing of Grunge/Alternative from the public consciousness, I took a deeper dive into music and styles of music that I'd ignored or been ignorant of before.

1. Miles Davis - Miles in the Sky

At some point I crossed paths with Miles Davis, specifically Bitches Brew.  It was the most beautiful/nightmarish thing I'd heard up to that point.  Afterward I bought up a lot of Davis' discography on LP, with my hands-down favorite being Miles in the Sky.  I already loved Miles, but Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams really sealed the deal for me with this album.  It will always be one of the coolest things ever.

2. The Inner Mounting Flame

Of course for most of us Rock guys, jazz is the gateway to Fusion (or vice versa).  Soon after discovering Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk I moved on to Fusion bands like Tony Williams' Lifetime and (of course) The Mahavishnu Orchestra.  Do I enjoy The Mahavishnu Orchestra as much now?  Not really, but at the time I couldn't get enough of them.

3. Bach's Italian Concerto

Sorry if this transition is jarring, but I was big into Baroque at the time too.  Part of the reason was college - I found that studying was easier with music that didn't have vocals.  As far as Classical goes I pretty much started with Bach, and from there moved on to Vivaldi and other Baroque composers.  The Italian Concerto remains my favorite.

4. Isaac Albeniz - Asturias and Other Pieces

Those of us exploring Classical from a background in Rock are bound to come across music for the classical guitar sooner or later.  In my case a few misguided guitar lessons with a classical guitar teacher helped.  This teacher recommended one of Segovia's recordings, and that led me to Albeniz.

5. Emerson, Lake and Palmer - Tarkus

I still listen to this album quite a bit.  I always thought it was the best thing that band ever did, even if I do have a soft spot for their first album.  I loved ELP so much that I even went and bought all of The Nice's albums - hell, I even bought other albums by The Nice's bass player!  This said, none of those related albums are half as good as Tarkus, an album which continues to rock my world today.

6. Yes - Close to the Edge

I'll agree that it's a bloated album.  I'll agree that the lyrics don't make a lot of sense.  I'll even agree that Fragile might be the band's most concise statement.  But man, when this album builds to a climax it REALLY builds to a climax.  I can't tell you how many hours I spent driving around Seattle with this blasting in my car.  "Seasons will pass you by/I get uuuuuuuup!!!/I get down...."  Fuck yeah.

7. Atomic Rooster - Death Walks Behind You

I had this on tape when I lived in Seattle's University District.  Back then I inhabited a tiny basement room that occasionally flooded when the upstairs people flushed too much.  It was squalid, but I managed to lure female classmates into that hovel anyway.  And what were those female classmates likely to hear in that dilapidated space?  Death Walks Behind You.  I played it so much I broke the tape.

8. David Bowie - The Man Who Sold the World

Sometimes you get tired of Prog Rock.  Too many notes?  Whatever the reason, towards the end of college I switched over to Glam.  My point of entry?  Bowie.  I formed an easy friendship with albums like Ziggy Stardust and Hunky Dory, but it was The Man Who Sold the World that really blew me away.  It helped that I'd loved Cream for ages.  This lineup of Bowie's band sounds like a gender-bent version of Cream.

9. T-Rex - The Slider

Where Bowie goes Marc Bolan is soon to follow.  I kind of, sort of liked the first Tyrannosaurus Rex album, but like most people I didn't like Bolan until I heard him play electric guitar.  Of course it helped that Bolan had Bowie's pal Tony Visconti producing his albums.  In the absence of Visconti, Bolan wouldn't have been as good.

10. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Cosmo's Factory

The first time I heard Creedence I could have sworn they were a bunch of black dudes.  Imagine my surprise when I learned they were all white guys from San Francisco.  I got into Creedence about the same time I got into John Denver, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5, James Brown and countless other bands.  In the late 90s the record and thrift stores were overflowing with that kind of stuff.  I found of a lot of great albums by a lot of great bands through them.

Of course in 2020 collectors/speculators have ruined stuff like that.  Back in the 90s Ebay and sites like it weren't much of a thing, and YouTube hadn't arrived yet.  To make matters worse there wasn't much on torrent sites.  Where did we go hunting for music?  CD stores, record stores and thrift stores.

And it might seem like a lot of work for those of later generations, but I sure picked up my share of girls in those places.

Or maybe they picked up me.

However it worked.

Back then.

Related Entries:

Albums That Changed My Life 9: Other Alternative Bands

Albums That Changed My Life 8: Grunge and the Seattle Sound

Albums That Changed My Life 7: "Rust in Peace" and Other Thrash Albums

Albums That Changed My Life 6: Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast"

Albums That Changed My Life 9: Other Alternative Bands

After Kurt Cobain's suicide "Grunge" became "Alternative."  It wasn't that all those bands broke up at once, just that Nirvana and the other Seattle bands were always at the center of that scene.  After Cobain's death, a lot of bands not from Seattle began making their presence known.

The Alternative bands that appeared in the mid-90s were more varied than the Grunge acts.  Rap was fused with metal.  Ska made a brief but forgettable comeback.  Many other bands were so weird that they defied easy categorization, and placing them in the Alternative category was the easiest option at the time.

When I look back at this period two bands stand out: Faith No More and Rage Against the Machine.  Faith No More predated Grunge of course, but as the Grunge bands faded from the scene Faith No More got a whole lot more interesting.  At around the same time Rage Against the Machine was offering something a lot harsher, a lot less introspective than Grunge.  "Killing in the Name," man.  That song was huge.

I saw Rage open for Primus (another Alternative band) and Alice in Chains on the Lollapalooza tour.  You could tell Grunge was on its way out even then.  Tool was on the second stage, and more electronic bands like White Zombie and Nine Inch Nails were mentioned heavily in our conversations.

Tool, flailing away in a corner of that huge festival, was a band I came to love.  It was impossible to hear them over Front 242's irritating performance, but upon hearing them later on I was an immediate fan.  Maynard James Keenan remains one of the great rock vocalists, and I enjoyed the first Perfect Circle album a lot too.

Radiohead was also getting noticed then.  Their first album appeared alongside the Grunge stuff, but by the Lollapalooza show The Bends had appeared and I was a rabid fan.  In the wake of Grunge that band spoke to a lot of people in Seattle, and their fanbase there endures to this day.  Don't even get me started on OK Computer.  I listened to that album continuously for weeks.

Korn appeared around that time too.  "ArE yOu ReAdY?"  Man, that song was big.  Tom Morello likes to disown bands like Korn, but I think they were doing a lot more than ripping off Rage.  Is some of their output ridiculous in retrospect?  Of course it is, but I'd take Korn over bands like Limp Bizkit, Slipknot and Creed any day of the week.

Shudder to Think was more out of left field.  Their album 50,000 B.C. is still one of my favorites.  As Grunge began to implode, record companies signed up any band they considered "grungy," and bands like Shudder to Think were thus given their shot on MTV.  The Toadies were another example of this trend.

Another plus to the demand for anything "alternative" was that bands like Bad Brains gained a bigger following.  Bad Brains started as a punk band, and became something much stranger later on.  I saw them open for Living Colour not long after attending Lollapalooza, and that show is still one of the best concerts I've ever been to.

Fishbone?  I always hated Fishbone.  Sorry.  Ozomatli?  Anyone remember them?  I liked their first album a lot.

Other bands I remember from back then: 4 Non Blondes, Stone Temple Pilots, Frank Black, Modest Mouse, Queens of the Stone Age, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Smashing Pumpkins and Urge Overkill.  Of these bands Frank Black was my unquestioned favorite.

Looking back at it now, the 4 Non Blondes album is somewhat embarrassing.  Their vocalist is/was excellent, but man some of those lyrics are super cringey.  Stone Temple Pilots, hated by many Grunge fans at the time, is pretty much universally embraced now.  And without irony.  I didn't like Modest Mouse and Queens of the Stone Age until much later, but I often listened to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Urge Overkill in my car.

Related Entries:

Albums That Changed My Life 8: Grunge and the Seattle Sound
Albums That Changed My Life 7: "Rust in Peace" and Other Thrash Albums
Albums That Changed My Life 6: Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast"
Albums That Changed My Life 5: Rush's First Album and "Power Windows"

Albums That Changed My Life 8: Grunge and the Seattle Sound

I attended high school in Seattle from 1989 to 1993.  It was the perfect time, the perfect place, and the perfect age from which to observe the rise and fall of Grunge.

Not that I liked it right away.  I spent most of the late 80s listening to thrash metal.  I was obsessed with Megadeth early on, and by 1989 I was well into second, third or fourth-tier bands like Sacred Reich, Death, and Seattle's own Metal Church.

At that point in my life "easy listening" amounted to Hard Rock bands like Van Halen or AC/DC.  I wasn't a huge fan of what we then called "Van Hagar" (Van Halen + Sammy Hagar), but Alex and Eddie's talent was beyond question.  OU812?  Not awesome, but if you ignored the stupidity of Hagar's lyrics there were enough hooks to make it good.

About the same time, when I was 16 years old, I clued into the fact that a local band, Alice in Chains, was accompanying Van Hagar on the Monsters of Rock tour.  Soon after that I saw the video for "Man in the Box" on MTV, and I liked it well enough to buy the album.

Of course back then I thought of Alice in Chains as a metal band.  The term "Grunge" hadn't been coined yet, and to my ears Alice in Chains wasn't all that different from other, local metal bands I'd been hearing around Seattle.  At the time I probably thought they'd learn how to "polish" their sound, and more closely resemble local favorites Queensryche.  Local music history will show this attitude to be wrong, but it's what many of us thought at the time.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Puget Sound's* pre-Grunge music scene followed a rough trajectory from Bing Crosby (really!), to The Sonics (remembered for "The Witch"), to Jimi Hendrix, to Heart, to Queensryche, and then to the loose association of musicians who eventually formed bands like Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Mudhoney and Soundgarden.  Most people associate Seattle with Grunge (or vice versa), but there's also a whole hazy backstory of bands that paved the way.

With the result that when bands like Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and (especially) Nirvana finally made it big, there was a whole reservoir of talent built up behind them.  This only helped grow the scene later, once record producers got wise to what was happening.  Suddenly these local musicians - most of them having kicked around for years - had a shot at the big time.  Even now it's hard to explain the sense of excitement this turn of events generated in a place as overlooked as the city where I grew up.  Bands sprung into existence overnight, friends decided they were going to be rock stars, and some of us - years later - even succeeded in doing so.

But back in 1990, around the time I bought my copy of Facelift, most of that was still on the horizon.  In 1990 we were still a backwater known for making airplanes (hence Queensryche's "Jet City Woman"), and Alice in Chains was more a curiosity than anything else.

Until, as you might expect, the massive success of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and their album Nevermind.  This was followed closely by Pearl Jam's Ten and then Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger.  Almost before anyone knew what was happening, we had FOUR Seattle bands in the charts, and the term Grunge - whatever that means - was born.

My first concert?  Alice in Chains, the Dirt Tour, Seattle Arena.  The Supersuckers (another local band) and Eugenius (from Ireland) were the opening acts.  I missed Nirvana at the height of their popularity, I missed Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, but yeah, I can claim that one badge of honor.  After I saw dozens of other local bands that have come and gone, and I have many good memories of attending concerts during that time.  As friends and I followed the scene Grunge mutated into Post Grunge, which may or may not have been the same as Alternative.  Who knew what it really was?  Who cared?  What mattered was that it all sounded good, or at least interestingly adventurous, and we were always eager to hear more.

Looking back at that time and those bands, it's funny to think of how my opinion has changed over time.  I was and I remain a lifelong fan of Alice in Chains up until Layne Staley's suicide.  However these days I can't stand Pearl Jam, who I worshiped around the time Ten was released.  Nirvana I liked from the beginning, but it took me a while to appreciate the simplicity of their music.  Soundgarden?  In the beginning I thought I hated them, but I was really equating them with earlier, more amateurish efforts.  When I finally sat down and listened to Badmortorfinger - probably around the time Superunkown came out - I was in awe of it.  Soundgarden is now, I have to say, is my favorite of the Grunge bands.

The early 90s.  Not a bad time to be alive.  Or at least that was the case for me.  And when it wasn't a good time at least I had great tunes to rock out to, and great concerts in my future.

Related Entries:

Albums That Changed My Life 7: "Rust in Peace" and Other Thrash Albums
Albums That Changed My Life 6: Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast"
Albums That Changed My Life 5: Rush's First Album and "Power Windows"
Albums That Changed My Life 4: The Top Gun Soundtrack

*For those not from the area, the Puget Sound is a huge inlet west of Seattle.  Seattle and the other cities around the Puget Sound are often referred to as the Puget Sound region or the greater Puget Sound.

Albums That Changed My Life 6: Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast"

I knew about Iron Maiden before hearing their music.  In the second grade (I think) my friend Peter had a poster of the Powerslave cover on his bedroom wall.  Eddy, in all his monumental Egyptian glory, squinted at me from the poster, daring me to give them a listen.

I should add that my parents never had an opinion about the music I listened to.  I wasn't raised in a strict and/or religious household, and I was given freedom to explore my interests.  Even so there was a feeling of transgression around Iron Maiden, as if it was something slightly evil.  Of course as I got older this sense of evil only made their music more attractive.

A few years later I finally heard them on the radio.  It was late at night in Seattle.  It was probably cold and dark outside.  KISW's Metal Shop was on the air, and as I sat there alone in my bedroom the DJ solemnly announced that the next song up was "Number of the Beast," by a band called Iron Maiden.

It was the most evil thing I'd ever heard and I immediately loved it.  It was dark, it was loud, and it was full of the most delightful screaming I'd ever heard.

Soon after I went out and bought a copy of Number of the Beast from the local Fred Meyer.  I can't remember the exact year, but I think their newest album at the time was either Seventh Son of a Seventh Son or Somewhere in Time.  After Number of the Beast I used my allowance to buy the rest of their studio albums  - the self-titled debut, Killers, Piece of Mind, and so on.  My favorite album at that time was probably Powerslave.

"2 Minutes to Midnight."  Yeah.

But you know what?  As with Rush a lot of that band's catalog hasn't aged well for me.  The videos, the spandex, the operatic vocals, and the memories thrash bands that came soon after put them on a lower tier.  They were definitely revolutionary for their time, but you could also say that they were working from a formula established early on.  Seeing or hearing Iron Maiden now always give me a certain sense of nostalgia, but the profundity I once found in them is gone, never to return.

This said, I do still enjoy their first album.  "Remember Tomorrow," "Iron Maiden," and all that.  Paul Di'anno might not be the singer Bruce Dickinson is, but the songs he did with Iron Maiden now seem less cartoonish, less fixated on the theatrical.

Related Entries:

Albums That Changed My Life 5: Rush's first album and "Power Windows"
Albums That Changed My Life 4: The Top Gun Soundtrack
Albums That Changed My Life 3: Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band's "Trout Mask Replica"
Albums That Changed My Life 2: Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come's "Journey"

Albums That Changed My Life 5: Rush's First Album and "Power Windows"

I believe these were the first albums I ever bought with my own money.  I was staying with my grandma in Oregon that summer, and I bought the two albums on cassette in the Astoria Fred Meyer.

As I recall, Power Windows was the most recent album by Rush that year.  This means that it couldn't have been any later than 1985.  I remember buying Hold Your Fire when I was in junior high school, so yeah, it was 1985 at the latest.  This also means that I would have been in the fifth or sixth grade.

I bought the first, self-titled Rush album because it was cheap.  Back then the "Nice Price" cassettes went for four or five dollars, and buying two Rush albums instead of one seemed like a good way to start my tape collection.  I don't believe I'd heard a single song off the first Rush album, though I remember being familiar with the song "Big Money" on Power Windows.

After buying my cassette tapes my grandma and I went back to her house in Bay City, Oregon.  Bay City is just north of Tillamook, where they make the cheese.  It was about an hour drive past foggy, tree-lined beaches, through several tunnels, and over bridges that spanned small streams.  The Oregon Coast was a lot less developed back then, though some of towns closer to Tillamook look just as they did when I was little.

In my grandma's house I had a cassette player which I used to play my tapes.  The walls in that house were very thin, so my initial acquaintance with Rush was punctuated by my grandma's banging on the door and insisting that I turn the music down.  To this day I have no idea what kind of music my grandma favored, but whatever kind it was she must have favored it in exceedingly small amounts.

At ten or eleven years old I favored Power Windows over the first Rush album.  Power Windows was full of synthesizers, I thought the lyrics were "deep," and it seemed more "modern" to me.  These elements are, of course, the very things that date that album now.  Whereas the first album - if you knew very little about hard rock - could have been produced in any decade from the 70s onward, Power Windows is very much a product of the 80s, in both good and bad ways.

The first album was also a product of its decade, but you'd have to know a bit more about the band to understand this.  At 44 years of age, I know all about how Zeppelin and Cream influenced that band, and yeah, it's very much in the vein of other albums released during the mid to late 70s.  In some ways it wasn't quite as on top of things as Power Windows, but it definitely belongs to that era.

Over time, my appreciation of both albums has gone in opposite directions.  In 2019 I'd have to say that I love the first album's purity, its energy, and its lack of pretension.  Yes, the lyrics to songs like "In the Mood" are ridiculous, but that's part of the fun.  It's cock rock, and Geddy Lee was always about as far from the archetypical rock screamer as you could get.  This incongruity only adds to the music's charm.  

Power Windows, however, hasn't aged well for me.  I'm not fond of the way Geddy Lee sang at that stage in their career, and the earnestness/pretentiousness of Neil Peart's lyrics is downright embarrassing.  That, and it's sequenced to death - to the point where you don't know who's playing what.  It's certainly an album that tries very hard - Rush always put everything they had into every album they did - but in 2019 it sounds pretty old fashioned.

A lot of stuff is like that though.  Some bands - and some albums -age like wine, while others turn to vinegar.  There are still albums from the 80s that I've enjoyed for decades, but Power Windows isn't one of them.  In 2019 it just doesn't convince me the way it once did, even though it blew my mind back in 1985.

Related Entries:

Albums That Changed My Life 4: The Top Gun Soundtrack
Albums That Changed My Life 3: Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band's "Trout Mask Replica"
Albums That Changed My Life 2: Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come's "Journey"
Albums That Changed My Life 1: Conan the Barbarian

Why I Don't Write for This Blog So Much Lately

Hey, I've been on vacation.  And hey, I kind of forgot about it for a while.  But if you can be patient with me I'll have some more stuff up here soon.  In the meantime I'm writing this.

Have a good day.

The Greatest Heavy Metal Bands of All Time

What is heavy metal?  Is Led Zeppelin heavy metal?  Is Linkin Park?  Is Pelican?  Any genre of music is hard to pin down, and there are always bands that bring the best (or worst) parts of genres together.  My idea of heavy metal might also be different from yours, depending on what elements we consider "essential" to a heavy metal band.

And which band started heavy metal?  Is it Steppenwolf?  Is it Black Sabbath?  Is it Blue Cheer?  Is it Judas Priest?  All of these bands could claim to have originated heavy metal, and they could all be wrong.  Again, it all depends on what elements are essential.  Is it enough to sound like heavy metal?  Or do you also need to dress the part?  Is the answer in your album cover?  In your devotion to dark themes?

And how to we define "greatest"?  Is it the heavy metal band that sold the most albums?  Is it the most influential band?  Is it the most inventive band?  Some bands were truly ahead of their time, while others were following a trend to its logical conclusion.  Certainly all of these elements go toward making a band "the greatest," though some may predominate over others.

With all of this in mind I offer my own list of "Greatest Heavy Metal Bands of All Time," excluding some because I think they exist too far outside the genre, and others because I don't think they merit the adjective "great."  Take it for what it's worth.  If you disagree with me, I'd be happy to know why.

1. The 1970s: Origins of Heavy Metal

Black Sabbath

If you ask me, the first heavy metal album was the first Black Sabbath album.  They had the look, they had the riff-heavy sound, and they had the satanic album covers.  They were also a great band.  In my opinion, every album the original lineup did with Ozzy was classic, and to those albums I would add the three albums they did with Dio (Mob Rules, Heaven and Hell, and Dehumanizer).  I think that Vol. 4 is the best Sabbath album, though of course it's hard to pick a #1 out of that particular discography.

Judas Priest

God damn Rob Halford can sing.  Judas Priest were almost metal too early.  Parts of both Rocka Rolla and Sad Wings of Destiny must have put people off at the time, but by the time this band recorded British Steel they had cemented their reputation as one of the all-time greatest heavy metal bands.  Sad Wings is probably my favorite Priest album, just because it's so unusual.

Rainbow

Rainbow was formed out of the ashes of Elf, Dio's band, and one of the many Deep Purple lineups.  The three albums they did with Dio are all classic, and Rainbow really brought a level of virtuosity that the genre hadn't seen before.  Of these three albums, Rainbow Rising has got to be my favorite.

AC/DC

You could argue that AC/DC isn't a heavy metal band, and you might be right.  Their sound was never far removed from the blues greats that inspired them, but they definitely had a big influence on the genre.  In my opinion Back in Black will always be the definitive AC/DC album, but I have since grown into the earlier Bon Scott albums.

Motorhead

You only need one Motorhead album, and this would be Ace of Spades.  The rest of their output is fairly similar, but Ace of Spades casts a long shadow.

2. The 1980s: The NWOBHM and Thrash

Iron Maiden

Iron Maiden is the band that launched a thousand imitators.  Back in the early 80s their sound was so new, and their look was so striking that many people didn't even know what to make of them.  Pretty much everything they did up until the departure of Bruce Dickinson is great, and some of their recent albums have also been surprisingly good.  I think that most would pinpoint either Number of the Beast or Powerslave as their best album.

Metallica

Metallica continues to be one of the most visible bands on the planet.  This visibility has been both bad and good for the band.  The albums they did with with Cliff Burton are their best, though I have a fondness for ...And Justice for All.  These guys invented shredding.  Or Dave Mustaine did.  Depends on who you ask.

Megadeth

Dave Mustaine, guiding force within Megadeth, started his career as the lead guitarist for Metallica.  He is something of an asshole in real life, but he made some great music.  Everything Megadeth did up until Countdown to Exctinction is great, and Rust in Peace might just be my favorite metal album of all time.

Slayer 

Slayer has made so many great albums that I wouldn't know where to start.  They tended to be more "underground" than either Metallica or Megadeth for most of the 80s, but their popularity has surpassed Megadeth's since then.  Reign in Blood still gets me riled up, though Seasons in the Abyss is probably my favorite Slayer album.

3. The 1990s: Cross-Pollination

Soundgarden

Whatever people say, Soundgarden were a heavy metal band in the best sense of the term.  I've never really understood "grunge" as an appellation... and I'm from Seattle.  Their cover of "Into the Void" should settle the argument by itself.  Everyone should own a copy of Badmotorfinger.

Alice in Chains

Another band grouped under the grunge banner, but they were even more metal than Soundgarden.  They're not quite as prominent as they once were, but Facelift, Dirt, and the self-titled Alice in Chains remain classic.  Layne Staley will be missed.

Faith No More

Where grunge didn't suffice, many people in the 90s took to using the term "alternative."  Faith No More weren't from Seattle, so that was they label they were stuck with.  This band never got the credit it deserved, but their Mike Patton-era albums continue to influence a lot of people.  King For a Day, Fool for a Lifetime and Angel Dust should have been much bigger hits than they were.

Death 

Yes, Venom had a song by the name of "Death Metal," but Death are just as often credited with creating the genre.  They hailed from Florida, and never saw widespread success during their classic period, but their albums Human, Individual Thought Patterns, and Symbolic will rock your world.

Tool 

Undertow, Aenima, and Lateralus are among the best metal albums ever made, and singer Maynard James Keenan is still one of the most unique vocalists ever.  I wish I could say I liked this band at the height of their popularity, but it took me a while.  I can remember seeing them on the second stage of a Lollapalooza, but I wasn't able to hear them.

Meshuggah

I'm sure a lot of people find this band headache-inducing, but I have been a fan since the late nineties.  I think Destroy Erase Improve is their best album, but I also like Obzen.  If there is such a genre as Mathcore, no one is more Mathcore than Sweden's Meshuggah.

4: The 2000s: Metal Goes Global

Gojira

Excellent band from France.  Most of their lyrics touch on environmental themes, and their music comes on like a sledgehammer.  I've owned all of their albums, and I think The Way of All Flesh is the best.

Opeth

From Sweden, the country where metal often goes to get better.  Opeth is a very eclectic, very technically proficient band, and some of their music can wear a bit thin.  I didn't like their last album all that much, but Blackwater Park and Watershed are excellent.

Mastodon

Mastodon are an American band with progressive leanings.  Their last album seemed a bit uninspired, but Remission and Leviathan are HEAVY.  I sometimes wish they would stop emulating King Crimson and just play what comes naturally.

Dillinger Escape Plan

This is the band most often associated with the "math rock" label.  In tone they are very similar to Meshuggah, and they've been around for about the same length of time.  Miss Machine is a fantastic album.  They are probably the only band that can truly sound "poppy" and evil at the same time.

5. The 2010s: Searching for the Next Big Thing

I haven't heard it yet, not to say it's not out there.  Here's hoping something good surfaces soon...

In Praise of Rush

Spent a couple hours watching the Rush documentary, "Beyond the Lighted Stage" on YouTube.  You can watch it here:

Not sure how you feel about Rush.  Maybe you love them.  Maybe you hate them.  Maybe you've never even heard of them.  If you love them I can understand why.  If you hate them I can sympathize.  If you've never heard of them, you really ought to check them out.

Rush is indisputably the most famous band from Canada.  They released their first album in 1974, and they are (according to the RIAA) the 79th best selling artists in the States.  Even now, after more than 40 years, they are still touring and making great music.

Rush's third album, "Power Windows" was the first album I ever purchased, way back in 1985, when I was ten years old.  Shortly thereafter I purchased their third album, "Caress of Steel," and I have been a fan ever since.

But I can understand people who don't like Rush.  Geddy Lee's voice can be annoying, and Neil Peart's "literary" lyrics can rub me the wrong way.  I often miss the hard rock kind of singing that Lee used on the earliest Rush albums, and there are times when I grow tired of songs with earnest, heartfelt messages.  Sometimes I just get tired of Rush.

This said, I think they are a great band.  I favor the period from 1974-1978, when they more closely resembled other progressive rock bands of the day.  "Caress of Steel" is probably my favorite Rush album, perhaps followed by "Hemispheres" or their debut album.  Their 70s output was very much in the vein of other 70s power trios, though of course their sound was always distinctive.  There is no mistaking any other band for Rush.

I've never been a huge fan of their 80s albums, though "Power Windows" and "Moving Pictures" have some great songs.  I'm not overly fond of synthesizers in anyone's music.  "Tom Sawyer" is of course an epic song, and I like tracks from every album up until "Roll the Bones."  But for every great song on those albums there are at least three or four that make me cringe.

My interest in hearing new Rush albums probably ended with 1993's "Counterparts," which was an album much closer in both spirit and execution to their 70s efforts.  After "Counterparts" I really lost interest in Rush, and I moved on to louder, less fussy music.  1993 was also the year I graduated from high school, so I was ripe for exposure to Seattle's grunge scene.  The grunge bands were/are about as far from Rush as you can get.

Just the same, I have an abiding love for Rush.  They are one of the first bands I ever liked, and they have been with me for many important moments in my existence.  I can remember listening to them on an old boombox in my grandmother's house, on a walkman on the way to junior high school, and on a CD player in my parents' house.  They were always around, somewhere, for most of my childhood.

I've yet to see them live.  With all the concerts I've been to, I've never been to a Rush show.  It was usually the ticket price that scared me off, but I have also been put off by certain albums, and these albums seemed to be the ones that Rush was touring behind when they passed through town.  I had no desire to see the "Roll the Bones" tour, or the "Presto" tour, or the "Vapor Trails" tour.  I'm sure that seeing them play some of their classic songs would be great, but then again there are the not-so-classic songs, and (sigh) the synthesizers.  I'm really not a fan of overly orchestrated rock music.

Still, I think some people need to give Rush another listen.  If you think you hate them, you might have only heard the wrong song or album.  They've made some unquestionably great music, though they are in some ways less accessible than bands like Zeppelin, the Beatles, or the Stones.

Rush is a great band.  Definitely one of the greatest ever.

Music on My Mind

Been listening to a lot of The Move lately, especially their last album, "Message From the Country."  Roy Wood is/was a surprisingly good bass player, and this album was definitely the most "progressive" they ever got.

Also been listening to a lot of Priest.  I find myself humming "The Ripper" at odd hours of the day, and I've also been listening to a lot of "British Steel."  "Sad Wings of Destiny" is my all-time favorite Priest album, but I like their later stuff as well.

As strange as it may seem, I've also been listening to Lil' Wayne's "I Am Not a Human Being."  The guy definitely has a way with lyrics.  I spent most of last month absorbing "Tha Carter IV," and even though I don't like "Human Being" quite as much, it's still good.  The song below, "Abortion," is my favorite track on "IV."

In quieter moments I listen to Tchaikovsky.  And no, I'm not trying to be ecclectic.  I've never been a huge fan of Mr. Nutcracker, but his music is soothing at times.  I am a much bigger fan of other Russian composers, Mussorgsky most of all.

And that's what I'm listening to.  What about you?

Happy Year of the Dragon!! 新年快樂!!

I'll be taking a break from this blog until February.  Here's wishing you a happy 2012, and a happy Year of the Dragon!  I'll be in Taoyuan 桃園, Yunlin 雲林, or Taitung 台東 this vacation, probably wasting money and definitely eating too much.  Have a great one!

Best Of (Fall/Winter 2011)

 Best 5 books I read this fall/winter:

1. "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov
2. "Life, the Universe, and Everything" by Douglas Adams
3. "Beyond Oil" by Kenneth S. Deffeyes
4. "Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates
5. "Light in August" by William Faulkner

Best 5 comic books I read this fall/winter:

1. "Essential Hulk Volume Three" by Stan Lee, Herb Trimpe, and Others
2. "Crisis on Multiple Earths Volume Three" by Len Wein and Others
3. "World War Hulk" by Greg Pak and John Romita Jr.
4. "All Star Superman" by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
5. "52 Volume One" by Grant Morrison and a Bunch of Other Guys
:

Best 5 albums I heard this fall/winter

See: "5 Great Metal Albums."

5 Great Metal Albums

This is Gojira, from "The Way of All Flesh."  They hail from France.  I saw them on tour for this one.  Great show!

This is Decapitated, from "The Negation."  No Polish jokes please, as they are Polish.  The drummer on this album died not long ago.  He is fondly remembered.

This is Obscura, from Germany.  This track is the best one on "Cosmogenesis."

Revocation, from the States.  This is from "Existence is Futile," their newest.

And some good 'ol Dillinger Escape Plan, just to slow things down a bit.  This is from "Ire Works."