I don’t know much about Grand Funk Railroad. I’ve heard the title track and a few other hits, but most of what I know of them consists of jokes about them from The Simpsons and other places, so I have kind of always dismissed them without giving it a second thought. And, since it’s been …
Tag: Hard Rock
Never Turn Your Back on a Friend (1973) by Budgie
My memory of Budgie’s self-titled debut album is that it is fast; Budgie play faster than just about any of the original metal bands (with the exception of Deep Purple on occasion). And so, putting everything else aside, that record is important as it points towards the New Wave of British Heavy Metal well over …
Vivid (1988) by Living Colour
This is a pretty great, albeit over-produced, fusion of funk and soul music with mainstream metal, with some extremely political lyrics.
Holy Diver (1983) by Dio
I have only heard one Dio-era Sabbath album, and I can’t say I loved it. But it was a few years ago and I can’t really tell you specifically what it was that rubbed me the wrong way; maybe it just seemed out of step with the time.
Van Halen (1978)
The first time I ever heard “Eruption” my mind was blown. I had never heard anyone play guitar like that (though that was because I hadn’t heard so many guitarists). It was my gold standard in virtuoso (masturbatory?) guitar showmanship until I heard “Spanish Fly,” which seemed so much more impressive for being played on …
Tyranny and Mutation (1973) by Blue Oyster Cult
I didn’t quite grow up with early British metal but when I started listening to music other than oldies in my late teens, Zeppelin, Purple and Sabbath played a pretty big part of my listening. On my second Blue Oyster Cult record I find myself thinking that it was all those years of worshiping those …
Billion Dollar Babies (1973) by Alice Cooper
Though I have known of Alice Cooper the man for most of my life, this is my first Alice Cooper album (band or man). As you might imagine, I’m a bit surprised.
Pyromania (1983) by Def Leppard
I struggled with just giving Hysteria my usual three listens and so I was not looking forward to this record. The good news is that it is better than Hysteria. The bad news is that claiming anything is better than Hysteria is damning with faint praise.
Inside (1973) by Eloy
A band I wanted to listen to a lot when I was much younger; finally got around to it.
Restless and Wild (1982) by Accept
I didn’t know what to think of this band with a hilariously un-metal band name, which was a good thing, as this record surprised me.
Under the Blade (1982) by Twisted Sister
If you grew up in the 80s as I did, you were inundated by certain music videos and two of them were “I Wanna Rock” and “We’re Not Gonna Take it.” And through my entire life this is all I’ve known of this band, aside from Dee Snyder testifying before congress, which definitely upped my …
Vol 4 (1972) by Black Sabbath
Round about the time the piano opens “Changes,” we start wondering what is going on. Prior to this moment (or, perhaps, prior to “The Straightener”), Black Sabbath was the heaviest band in the entire world. There was no band louder or lower than Sabbath. And then we get a piano ballad backed with a fucking …
Hysteria (1987) by Def Leppard
I have had a hard time finding this album online; Google Play doesn’t have a license for the early Def Leppard stuff (just their later, better stuff!!) and YouTube is missing a bunch of songs. So I probably shouldn’t review it. But I can and I will.
My Own Prison (1997) by Creed
I thought this was their big record until I listened to it. It was still (sadly) a pretty big record, but the big hits I was expecting are not here. That means I don’t know these songs. But that doesn’t make it any better.
Danzig III: How the Gods Kill (1992)
I have never heard Danzig before and, to the best of my knowledge, never heard Glenn Danzig before (except maybe on some Misfits song, but I think the only version of the band I’ve heard is one without him in it). And there’s something I am having a hard time shaking, which will likely infuriate …
Screaming for Vengeance (1982) by Judas Priest
Every time I listen to Priest I get a different feeling than I do with their NWOBHM contemporaries (I am not saying Priest is NWOBHM), and that is that they are a little more concerned with selling records. Maybe that’s because Priest were always interested in doing that (I have never heard any of their …
Love Gun (1977) by KISS
I absolutely hated Destroyer, KISS’s most famous and ostensibly best record, so I had really low expectations for this record. Maybe that’s why I don’t hate it, but I think there are other reasons.
America Must be Destroyed
I must admit that my idea of GWAR and what they actually sound like were very far apart. In some ways they remind me of KISS, in the sense that they look significantly harder than they sound.
Filth Hounds of Hades (1982) by Tank
The opening of “Shellshock” made me think I was in for a crazy, crazy record. The chanting seemed so far outside of what I was expecting from metal from 1982, that suddenly I had all these expectations.
Generation Terrorists (1992) by Manic Street Preachers
What do we do with a record like this? It’s called Generation Terrorists but sounds like it was produced by Mutt Lange or Bob Rock or someone like that. (Well, the production is maybe not that bad.) We have the bizarre amalgam of 80s hard rock (or “cock rock” as some call it) with extremely …
Fireball (1971) by Deep Purple
I feel like Fireball perfectly illustrates why Purple are known less than Zeppelin and Sabbath: the playing is excellent (it feels like Blackmore and Lord just keep trying to push each other), Gillan is doing his insane over-singing thing and the record is actually more diverse than you might guess, but the songs aren’t great …
The Runaways (1976)
I understand why this is an important record to a lot of people: it’s an all-woman rock band, with a bit of a punky attitude and very much behaving like men (or, at least, not like women were supposed to behave). And I’m sure it’s been hugely influential. But the music isn’t all that great: …
Budgie (1971)
If you watch [i]Metal Evolution[/i] or other documentaries, you will see various major NWOBHM figures claiming they weren’t influenced by punk at all, claiming they hated punk and that punk had literally nothing to do with NWOBHM. That’s not entirely true, but listening to Budgie it’s clearer as to where NWOBHM came from if it …
Nothing’s Shocking (1988) by Jane’s Addiction
Unlike the follow up, I really like this one. The production’s better, even if the song’s aren’t. (Everything’s a little more raw and unhinged.) Whether you think of this as hard rock or some kind of metal, there was nothing really like this being made in the late ’80s; funkier and way weirder than the …
Rising (1976) by Rainbow
For some reason, when I first listened to this record, I felt like the keyboards completely dominated it and Blackmore was reduced to a sideman. That’s not true at all, and I have no idea why I had just a hard time hearing Blackmore’s solos when I was casually listening, as they are as great …
Agents of Fortune (1976) by Blue Öyster Cult
This is my first exposure to BOC. They’re a weird band. They try to walk a line between almost an Alice Cooper Light kind of ghoulish arena rock and a more serious hard rock band. They’re impressive musicians (I like the lead guitarist particularly, who sometimes sounds like he should be another band) but honestly …
Rocks (1976) by Aerosmith
The first time through this, I didn’t like it as much as Toys in the Attic. Aside from the opening track, there are fewer hits and the songs sounded weaker on the whole. But this is a dirty, perhaps deliberately poorly sounding record. (Listen to the piano on the last track – that piano sounds …
High Voltage (1976) by AC/DC
AC/DC’s first international release is actually a compilation of music from their first two records, released only in Australia. (Oh, the days when music was that regionalized…) I haven’t heard either of those records, so I don’t know if they did a good job of compiling this, but my guess is they did. This record …
Destroyer (1976) by KISS
I think you can regard Bob Ezrin as the “Phil Spector of the ’70s”; a man who focused on creating a dense wall of sound. And, though I don’t like this production style, I think it suits certain things. When Ezrin’s style matches the artist’s material, it works wonders (see, for instance, Berlin or The …
Vincebus Eruptum (1968) by Blue Cheer
For years and years I have been telling everyone who would listen that Jeff Beck’s Truth is the first heavy metal album of All Time. If people mentioned Blue Cheer, I dismissed them outright (despite only ever hearing their cover of “Summertime Blues” once or twice) or assumed that The Jeff Beck Group beat them …