As life has seen fit to be throwing near constant distractions at me, and knowing others have waited ages to do theirs, I'm gonna pull a Zook and just give you the rest of my list at once. Apologies for all the distractions, just how life is around these parts.
15. Kiss-Destroyer
While this album is more Bob Ezrin's triumph than it is Kiss, that doesn't make it any less a consummate hard rock album with the single best production 70s hard rock had. Destroyer sounded like it came from another planet when it came out in 1976, and it still sounded otherworldly ten years later.
14. Electric Light Orchestra-El Dorado.
Probably a bit of a shock that this is so high, but El Dorado is the perfect bridge between Jeff Lynne's earlier, more progressive leanings and the full on pop-rock hit machine the band became afterwards. Having one of my five favorite songs in Can't Get It Out Of My Head doesn't hurt it either.
13. The Beatles-Abbey Road.
The Beatles were the first band a very, very young Jaq loved, and while my introduction to the band was, of course, Sgt. Pepper, Abbey Road is my favorite album of theirs by far. It is one of a handful of albums that I have owned on vinyl, on cassette, and on CD. The sixteen minutes of the second side's medley ranks among my favorite moments in music ever.
12. Ozzy Osbourne-Blizzard of Ozz.
Given the abbreviated nature of these reviews, I could basically just say "Randy Rhoads" and be done with it. Rhoads' playing on this album was so eye opening and stunning at the time it came out that just about anyone who heard him play had their jaw drop, and Mr. Crowley tended to make it stay dropped. Diary of a Madman is arguably a more complete album, but Blizzard of Ozz gets the nod for how I reacted to Randy Rhoads at the time.
11. Stevie Ray Vaughn-Texas Flood.
For all the shredders and speed demons and metal guitarists I love with a passion, Stevie Ray Vaughn is, and likely always will be, my favorite guitar player. I didn't always think so-young Jaq saw the video for Love Struck Baby and basically shrugged at it-but that changed big time when I got into the blues about eight years ago. Stevie Ray Vaughn could fucking WAIL.
10. Pink Floyd-Wish You Were Here.
I'm not certain if this is how it goes for everyone who likes Pink Floyd, but it feels like it should. You start out young and thinking The Wall is the best thing ever. You grow older and it's Dark Side of the Moon. You get a little older and suddenly you realize how good Animals and Wish You Were Here are. Though I admit to infrequently playing the REST of Shine On You Crazy Diamond, that doesn't make my love for this album any less.
9. Genesis-Wind And Wuthering.
Another one of the albums I came to re-evaluate as I made this list, another 1976 album, and the Genesis album with my single favorite Genesis song in One For The Vine. Sure, it has the drawback of Steve Hackett barely seeming to be on it, but the songs are exceptional and it's the perfect balance between the band's full out prog and quirky pop eras, for me at any rate.
8. Iron Maiden-Piece of Mind.
Each of Iron Maiden's 80s albums was a leap in terms of songwriting, performances, and production. Piece of Mind was the biggest leap, with the arrival of Nicko McBrain giving Steve Harris a drummer that could go toe to toe with him, Bruce Dickinson becoming fully active as a songwriter, and the Murray/Smith team developing their telepathic guitar link. I remember at the time being hugely into Def Leppard's Pyromania, seeing the video for Flight of Icarus, and suddenly I simply couldn't give Def Leppard the time of day.
7. Opeth-Morningrise.
Someone likes Morningrise? Someone put it in their top ten? ALERT THE MEDIA. Opeth's first two albums are considered (if they are considered at all) the red headed stepchildren of Opeth's discography, with the band properly coming into existence with My Arms Your Hearse, but fuck that noise, they're brilliant. Morningrise was the first Opeth album I ever heard, and I fell in love with it and played it endlessly for months. Magnificent.
6. Boston-self titled.
1976 strikes again. It can be argued, convincingly, that Boston was largely a musical one trick pony-what you got on Boston is what you got for the rest of their careers, though I submit that anyone who says that never really listened to A Man I'll Never Be-but given how damned good Boston's debut album was, that's a hell of a trick to have. This album deserves to be in my top 10 for a lot of reasons, but given the brevity of my reviews I'll simply cite the fact that More Than A Feeling has been my favorite song for thirty three years now, and leave it at that.
5. Marillion-Misplaced Childhood.
The early Fish albums of Marillion, oddly enough, were found in the heavy metal imports section of a local record store, which was where I found Misplaced Childhood on the day a modestly hung over Jaq took his first paycheck ever and bought an armload of prog rock albums. I bought Misplaced Childhood on an utter whim, took it home, fell in love with it, and proceeded to annoy everyone I knew by telling them they needed to buy it now. Essentially a single 45 minute long song in terms of structure, with brilliant recurring themes and call backs and melodies, it's one of the finest concept albums ever.
4. Iron Maiden-Powerslave
The only band with two albums in my top ten, Iron Maiden was at their best when they dropped Powerslave on the world, and in my humble opinion were the best heavy metal band ever at that point. The leap in quality between Piece of Mind and Powerslave was a quantum leap, just a never ending assault of metal masterpieces, with some of the lesser known tracks being really brilliant and the well known being masterpieces.
3. Thin Lizzy-Jailbreak.
Yet another 1976 album, which by now should come as no shock to you. The debt that hard rock and heavy metal owes Thin Lizzy is enormous-their twin guitar sound can be found influencing more bands than I can cite now. It was one of the earliest albums that young Jaq looked at and realized that a band wasn't married to having a lead guitarist and a strictly rhythm guitarist, that they could have more than one guitarist playing solos! A simple revelation, an obvious one, really, but one I had. Throw away the two songs everyone knows and this album is STILL a classic hard rock album.
2. Dream Theater-Scenes From A Memory.
Not going to discuss the musical merits of this one, given where we are, but instead, going to tell you a story. In 1999 I was profoundly let down by Dream Theater. Falling Into Infinity was a colossal let down, the live album that followed was a hot mess, and the band seemed to have become one of those ones I liked for a bit and then moved on from. And then a local FYE suddenly started selling the Liquid Tension Experiment albums, and I saw them, and saw who was in them, and bought them both. And in reading the liner notes for the second album, I discovered that Jordan Rudess was now in Dream Theater. "Well, hello," I remarked, utterly excited at that notion. Around this time, I finally got around to entering the world of the internet (slow adopter, I am) and I headed to Dream Theater's website where I discovered that SFAM was a mere two weeks awake from being released. Thankfully, the album was worth the two weeks of musical anticipation I went through.
And the number one, favorite album of Jaq.
1. Roger Waters-Amused To Death.
Probably a left field choice, but it's mine and I'm sticking to it. It might have a lot to do with the fact that, when it came out, I was unemployed, having lost my job during the recession of '92, so I was spending a lot of time watching TV and channel surfing, so it felt a lot like the soundtrack to my life, but Amused to Death's observations on media resonated with me, and interestingly enough, with a few dated references removed, still fit today. (Especially the song The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range, which was written about cruise missile attacks in the Persian Gulf War and are just as applicable to modern day drone attacks.) It's a dark album, with Waters' wit set to barbed, but it's also a little hopeful at times, very cynical, and helped along with the best collection of songs Roger Waters wrote outside of Pink Floyd and some tasty Jeff Beck guitar playing.
And there you have it, the oft delayed, rushed to completion, top 50 of Jaq. I thank whoever is left for their attention.
Topic: Jaq's Top 50 v. Massive Infodump (15-1!) (Read 9788 times)
