LithoJazzoSphere Top "50" Albums - surprise #22 - way before lonestar...

[Indiscipline]

Good trio there, Jazzo.

Jimi was in fact both a live singularity and a legit studio pioneer.

[SoundscapeMN]

1 of my favorite Hendrix releases

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Hmm, I don't think I've heard that one, I'll have to check it out. 

[twosuitsluke]

Catching up on some of these 'Roots and Influences' songs. I never played the full game of Descent II, but I've heard you talk about its impact on you a few times. I did have a demo of it on the PlayStation, though, I think. I can't say I remember any music from it, but I was personally influenced by a ton of PS1 era game music, so I can totally relate to that.

Those three Christian rock songs are not my bag at all. I'm personally not religious in any way, shape, or form, although I did grow up with my mum being quite religious, and I went to a few Roman Catholic schools. I think knowing a song is going to be based on religious ideology, going into it, I will (unfairly) make a judgement and give it less of a chance than I otherwise would.

Onto the most recent three. I'm not much more than a very casual fan of VH, but I did like this tune. I don't remember it from Twister, but I probably haven't seen this film since the 90s. I'd actually revisit Respect the Wind, it was pretty good.

Jimi Hendrix is not an artist I ever seek out, but I respect the influence.

Not much I haven't already said about Metallica tbh. I didn't get into Reload in real time and my Metallica influence came between like '91-'94 or something (the height of my older brothers obsession).

Fuel is a GREAT tune. That's a dreadful album though. Just dreadful. It's literally the only good song on it.

Hold on there chief, your version of the album was obviously missing The Unforgiven II and Low Man's Lyric! Reload has it's faults, there is no denying, but the high points on this record are better than anything the band have released on their last two records.

[TAC]

Fuel is a GREAT tune. That's a dreadful album though. Just dreadful. It's literally the only good song on it.

Hold on there chief, your version of the album was obviously missing The Unforgiven II and Low Man's Lyric! Reload has it's faults, there is no denying, but the high points on this record are better than anything the band have released on their last two records.

No, just Fuel. That album blows chunks.

[twosuitsluke]

Fuel is a GREAT tune. That's a dreadful album though. Just dreadful. It's literally the only good song on it.

Hold on there chief, your version of the album was obviously missing The Unforgiven II and Low Man's Lyric! Reload has it's faults, there is no denying, but the high points on this record are better than anything the band have released on their last two records.

No, just Fuel. That album blows chunks.

You hurdy gurdy hater.

[HOF]

Roots and Influences:

J - Hard rock/metal:

Edward & Alex Van Halen - "Respect the Wind"

May of 1996, I was in the theater with my parents watching Twister, which had just come out.  There were dashes of Van Halen throughout the film, with EVH's playing over the orchestral suite for the film segueing into excerpts of "Humans Being", another resplendent tune of theirs.  But it was the end credits that metaphorically left my jaw on the floor.  Eddie's command of nuance and timbre throughout this instrumental piece was truly spellbinding, and I had fading bits of it stuck in my head for weeks afterwards, until we could rent it some months later, whereupon I taped it on cassette and rewound it endlessly.  Along with Steve Stevens' "Top Gun Anthem" from a number of sections ago, this is the singular moment and piece that made me want to learn to play the guitar.  Guitarists older than me often point to "Eruption", but no, this is what I heard first.  The phrasing, the dynamics, leading to differences in gain and saturation, the volume swells, the subtle bends, how fluidly notes transition into harmonics, the whammy dips and raises, I know what I'm hearing now, but back then I did not - this might as well have come from outer space. 

The story of Ed and Alex swapping instruments via guitar and drums early on is well-known.  However, somewhat less known, or at least discussed, is that both had classical piano training.  Yet while EVH played keyboards a decent amount on VH albums, this track is one of the rare opportunities to hear Al's keyboard accompaniment.  I don't believe I've ever thought of it this way before, but it's actually not that distant from some of Yanni's work, to call back an earlier chapter in this thread.  Who knew that hard rock and new age work so well together?

I gradually got into their other music, always dazzled by Ed's sonic sorcery, though I've never fully connected with it as much as I'd like to because their vocalists never really resonated with me.  The closest is Van Halen III, possibly the most misunderstood and unfairly criticized album in rock history.  It would have gone over so much better as an EVH solo album, with Gary Cherone of Extreme guesting (who I would also get into a bit later on - Pornograffitti is a great album).  It has some of Eddie's best guitar work (which is really saying something given the historicity of what he did earlier), with "Fire in the Hole", "Once", and "Neworld/Without You" being personal highlights.  Of course, there are countless classic tunes everywhere else, particularly on the debut. 

We have many things in common (I think you are a year younger than me maybe), but you and I are totally in line on VH III. Unbelievably underrated (and Respect the Wind is very cool too).

[LithoJazzoSphere]

I never played the full game of Descent II, but I've heard you talk about its impact on you a few times. I did have a demo of it on the PlayStation, though, I think. I can't say I remember any music from it, but I was personally influenced by a ton of PS1 era game music, so I can totally relate to that.

There were so many different versions of the game on different platforms, some with varying combinations of the score and/or soundtrack for it, so it's hard to say what you might have heard.  Even the MIDI music for the first two games in particular is excellent though. 

Those three Christian rock songs are not my bag at all. I'm personally not religious in any way, shape, or form, although I did grow up with my mum being quite religious, and I went to a few Roman Catholic schools. I think knowing a song is going to be based on religious ideology, going into it, I will (unfairly) make a judgement and give it less of a chance than I otherwise would.

My view is that there is outstanding music made by Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Satanists, atheists, agnostics, pagans, occultists, Wiccans, etc., and I try not to cut myself off of benefiting from it musically, even if I don't share their beliefs.

[Buddyhunter1]

I never played the full game of Descent II, but I've heard you talk about its impact on you a few times. I did have a demo of it on the PlayStation, though, I think. I can't say I remember any music from it, but I was personally influenced by a ton of PS1 era game music, so I can totally relate to that.

There were so many different versions of the game on different platforms, some with varying combinations of the score and/or soundtrack for it, so it's hard to say what you might have heard.  Even the MIDI music for the first two games in particular is excellent though. 

The MIDI soundtrack from the first game is excellent. Maybe I'm too used to the CD soundtrack for the second game, but from what I've heard of the MIDI soundtrack, I thought it was pretty dogshit by comparison.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

I think it's perfectly fine, it's just that they didn't compose nearly as many tracks because the focus was on the Redbook score.  It depended a lot on which sound card you had though.  Certain songs sound better on particular cards depending on the types of sounds the tracks used.  Here's the SC-55. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ssdRaicklo

The AWE-32/64 ones don't always sound right to me especially when it uses the fake distortion electric sound. The OPL3 is probably a bit closer to what more people were using for D1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7_X9rH7kk0

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Roots and Influences:

K - alt rock/grunge/nu-metal:

I've technically hinted at it already with the Alice In Chains vibes of parts of Bride's Oddities, but my youth was essentially a clash of two worlds in particular.  The younger me really liked ostentatious guitar solos and the feel of the supercharged 80s influences in rock music.  But fledgling teenage me was exposed in every which direction to the grittier, angstier, more contemporary sounds of mainstream rock/metal circa the late 90s and couldn't resist the appeal.  Later on I would try and synthesize these influences, but here we're looking at them more independently. 

No Doubt - "Don't Speak"

There are three key early moments in my life where I can remember turning on the radio on my own and it revealing new worlds to me.  The first was the smooth jazz station (WJZW) I talked about in a previous chapter.  I'll get to the third shortly, but this was the second.  I randomly tuned into the local top 40 station (unfortunately I don't recall which one it was now, it might have been Mix 107.3, but I'm not sure, I didn't really come back to it later on), and while I assembled a small collection of other interesting tunes I taped onto cassette then (The Cardigans' "Lovefool" also being quite prominent), this was by leaps and bounds my favorite.  It remain one of my all-time favorite songs, and Tragic Kingdom is a stealth honorable mention album.  They have other good albums, but none at that level.  Gwen Stefani's solo career was mostly a miss for me, but here, it was magic. 

The chord changes in the bridge - wow.  The switch of the Bb chord from major in the verse to minor in the chorus - brilliant.  Tom Dumont's dual clean guitar in the intro was also perfection, and along with the classical guitar solo in the middle, was possibly the first song that made me discover OLGA (the Online Guitar Archive) to find tabs to try and learn them (quite unsuccessfully at first).  We didn't have cable at this time, but I remember watching MTV at my uncle's at a few points and catching the music video for the song.  Tom's Hamer Standard in it, combined with James Hetfield's ESPs in some guitar catalogs, are likely what triggered my enduring interest in Z-shaped (Gibson Explorer-style) guitars. 

Foo Fighters - "My Hero"

So when I mentioned in the previous day's section that one of my uncommon early radio sessions yielded a couple Metalica songs, that there was another conspicuous song I heard then - it was this one.  I don't know if it was on DC 101, WHFS, or 98 Rock (the three local stations I could get from the house), but I just loved everything about it.  Beefy ringing guitar tones, massive-sounding drums, especially the toms, Dave's passionate vocals.  Until late junior high I didn't really have anyone in my circle of friends who was that into music, so this was one of my first exposures to more alternate music styles.  It would take a number of years before I would get the album this was on, The Colour and the Shape, but it's another stealth honorable mention.  "Everlong" is another rightfully iconic tune on it, but at least half the album is chock-full of great work.  Apparently it's a gateway to pop-punk and emo, though those didn't really take off for me so much.  They remain one of those one-album wonder bands for me, but I really should probably give their others a chance (or a second one for a few of them).  One of the first moments I remember feeling "old" though was when I heard a local "oldies" station playing "Learn To Fly", around the early 10s.  Come on, that was only 10-15 years earlier, when I was in high school.  Ugh. 

Linkin Park - "Runaway"

"Nu-metal" is still looked down upon in a lot of music circles, though it seems to be experiencing some revival and incorporation into other more modern styles, and rose glass-reevaluation as the prime demographics for it have started aging and becoming nostalgic.  They certainly weren't the first band I heard in the style (in particular, I briefly mentioned an infatuation with Rage Against The Machine in an earlier reply), but their first two albums have had much more staying power than almost all of the other vaguely similar artists.  It was the perfect mixture of heavy guitars, electronic elements, and enough hip-hop influence to give variety but not overwhelm everything else, and I still find Chester Bennington's voice sublime.  RIP.  Hybrid Theory is another stealth honorable mention.  They lost me when they shifted styles on Minutes To Midnight and my interest in anything later never recovered, but I'm probably long overdue giving some of those albums a try - if nothing else there have to be a few good tunes even if the full albums are unimpressive. 

Slipknot - "Wait and Bleed"

I don't believe I properly understood this until much, much later, but this is really the pivotal seed for getting into extreme metal later on.  I'd heard some snippets of more intense musical styles earlier, like Cannibal Corpse's scene in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, and a few Christian death metal songs I'd sampled for shits and giggles, but those didn't really stick at the time.  This is quite possibly the first song I was obsessed with that bordered harsher styles, with the gruffer vocals in numerous sections, the super-downtuned guitars, the double bass drumming, and the sheer aggression of it all.  I've never gotten into Slipknot as a band per se, though I do enjoy many scattered songs of theirs over the years, and I've come to respect them even more over time for the stealth influence they've had on me.  The contrast of the more melodic vocals with the more intense ones is also a mainstay of some of my later stylistic interests, and this is probably the first time I'd heard that idea explored.  I think it also drove my fascination with the importance of rhythmic propulsion and arrangement as an underrated concept in heavy music. 

Tracks #34-#37:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0T4IGrbCzG3ZV4128ZKOl5
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLISicXPLSax9twb8XnAQzmWSaoESqHpUc

No Doubt - "Don't Speak"
Foo Fighers - "My Hero"
Linkin Park - "Runaway"
Slipknot - "Wait and Bleed"

---

Now technically none of these albums are grunge, and the album in the previous surprise reveal which did have grunge influences came out of a section that didn't otherwise explicitly mention them.  What is this shenanigans?  I assure you, there's a reason behind it, and it will be abundantly evident in the surprise top 60 album reveal soon enough, easily one of the most important releases of my youth. 

[LithoJazzoSphere]

There will be something of interest for you for sure in the next section.

I have no doubt.

Don't speak, I know just what you're sayin'.

Did you two somehow hack my notes?   

[HOF]

There will be something of interest for you for sure in the next section.

I have no doubt.

Don't speak, I know just what you're sayin'.

Did you two somehow hack my notes?   

Ha! I can't say I'm really a fan of No Doubt, but I have always liked Don't Speak. Really lovely guitar solo in the middle. Heard it the other day on the radio, and it struck me how similar it is to the solo on Hollow Years.

My Hero is also a great song. I'm pretty much only knowledgeable of the radio hits by Foo Fighters, but I do enjoy a bunch of them.

Never had any interest in Linkin Park or Slipknot.

[twosuitsluke]

I'll post a bit more later, but this is a set of influences I can really get on board with.

[ReaperKK]

No Doubt - "Don't Speak"

I remember this song being everywhere when I was young. My parents who largely spent their time listening to ABBA, Kiss, and Dire Straits went out and bought Tragic Kingdom the week it came out. I loved this track when I first heard it but the oversaturation moved it from the "love this song" category to "I don't ever want to hear this again" space. Now that I think about it I don't think I've consciously heard this song start to finish in a decade+. While reading your post I put on 'Don't Speak' and I can safely say it's back in the "love this song" space.

Foo Fighters - "My Hero"

One of my favorite FF songs. I remember it being everywhere when I was a kid but unlike 'Don't Speak' I never got to the point where it was overplayed. I wonder if it's solely because there were so many great songs to come off The Colour And The Shape.

Linkin Park - "Runaway"

Linkin Park is a huge gap for me. I was in High School when LP became huge but by that point I was deep into Dream Theater and thought I was too cool for Linkin Park (I cringe at my snobbiness in high school). It's funny because almost everything I've heard from Linkin Park I've enjoyed, I do want to listen through their discography sometime soon and give them a fair shake.

Slipknot - "Wait and Bleed"

I don't believe I properly understood this until much, much later, but this is really the pivotal seed for getting into extreme metal later on.

I can completely relate with you here. I was deep in my pop-punk fandom with my bleached hair and studded belts but when a buddy played this song for me it clicked in a way no other music had before. I didn't immediately check out Slipknot until Vol. 3 came out, which I loved, but this song was the catalyst for getting into heavier music. I got into Dream Theater around the same time I heard this song and while Six Degrees was the newest album from them they didn't really scratch that itch the way Slipknot, and other metal bands did.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Really lovely guitar solo in the middle. Heard it the other day on the radio, and it struck me how similar it is to the solo on Hollow Years.

Hmm, that's an intriguing comparison.  I don't know if they're structurally or functionally that similar, but they do fit in terms of mostly electric players who surprisingly grab a classical on occasion. 

No Doubt - "Don't Speak"

I remember this song being everywhere when I was young. My parents who largely spent their time listening to ABBA, Kiss, and Dire Straits went out and bought Tragic Kingdom the week it came out. I loved this track when I first heard it but the oversaturation moved it from the "love this song" category to "I don't ever want to hear this again" space. Now that I think about it I don't think I've consciously heard this song start to finish in a decade+. While reading your post I put on 'Don't Speak' and I can safely say it's back in the "love this song" space.

Yeah, it's interesting how that overexposure effect works.  In my case I heard it a number of times in public spaces as well at the time, enough to attach quite salient memories to them, though I don't think I heard it quite enough to ever grow tired of it (albeit if you love a song enough I suppose that threshold is a bit higher).  And I definitely haven't heard it nearly as much in the last couple decades, unlike say, "Don't Stop Believing" or "Africa", which are my go-to songs I don't really ever need to hear again anytime soon. 

One of my favorite FF songs. I remember it being everywhere when I was a kid but unlike 'Don't Speak' I never got to the point where it was overplayed. I wonder if it's solely because there were so many great songs to come off The Colour And The Shape.

Ah, so that's kind of your version of it.  That is one of the stronger front halves of an album I can think of - besides the one I listed, "Monkey Wrench", "Hey, Johnny Park!" "My Poor Brain", and "Wind Up" are favorites.  The former especially is what I wish more pop-punk sounded like. 

Linkin Park is a huge gap for me. I was in High School when LP became huge but by that point I was deep into Dream Theater and thought I was too cool for Linkin Park (I cringe at my snobbiness in high school).

Yeah, being both a DT and an LP fan in the early-mid 00s especially was kind of rough with the animosity between the fanbases (though mostly just ignorance on the LP side), although the chorus of "Endless Sacrifice" to me always felt kind of LP-like. 

[Indiscipline]

Don't Speak is dangerously close to perfectly cooked pop song status.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

#22

Artist:  Drain S.T.H.
Album:  Freaks of Nature
Genre(s):  alt metal/grunge
Release date:  1999
From:  Sweden

Terrestrial radio is brought up a fair amount in this section, since it's going to almost completely disappear in the near future in my listening.  But in high school I did spend a fair bit of time listening to the local current rock stations.  By far and away my best discovery was this little gem.  The closer stations never touched this band to my recollection, but 98 Rock (which was a Baltimore station that I could just barely get some days) played this song a pitifully infrequent number of times, but just enough for me to catch the artist and song. 

This was completely out of my universe at this point.  I'd never heard anything that was simultaneously this heavy, and yet, so melodic.  And while I'd loved various rock songs with female vocals ("Zombie" from The Cranberries, "Celebrity Skin" from Hole, "Volcano Girls" from Veruca Salt, for example), this was a whole magnitude darker and heavier, as far as non-extreme music goes.  This was also my very first step down the rabbit hole of the Nordic metal scene.  I would on occasion periodically browse Guitar World magazine at the time in stores, and they had a brief feature on them, which I just had to buy. 

I'm still a bit surprised this group is not more well-known than they are.  They toured with Black Sabbath at one point, Tony Iommi eventually married their vocalist Maria Sjöholm, and he contributes some additional guitar parts to the song "Black" on the album, which is a track absolutely worth hearing.  I'm sure Tony was not used to not having the heaviest riffs on a track.  They also toured at various points with Type O Negative (which ties my burgeoning top 50 together), Megadeth, Machine Head and others. 

This is one of those albums I've heard so many times that every single song has been stuck in my head at some point or another.  The weakest track is easily "Simon Says".  Most of the song is fine, but the chorus reeks of studio meddling.  The record label brought in Über-producer Max Martin for that one song, and it has a completely unnecessary guest rapper alongside Maria in the chorus.  I'm sure that afterwards Max was mad that the marketplace wasn't ready for this idea just yet (it would take four years for Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life" to capitalize on the notion and mislead a whole generation of people again as to what a band actually sounds like). 

Still, the template of this album set up numerous future and ongoing interests of mine.  The low guitar tuning and heavy riffing, the melodic vocals and harmonies, the melancholic feel, the doomier tempos, this was way ahead of its time for me.  I wouldn't discover bands like Lacuna Coil and The Gathering 'til a few years later, and they're still much lighter and brighter than this is.  There's something I find endlessly intoxicating about the juxtaposition of lower-tuned guitars and female vocals, even though Maria sings in more of an alto range.  This is essentially ground zero for that enduring facet of my taste. 

I haven't even yet mentioned one of the more obvious things about the album, which is that they're clearly building from the Alice In Chains sound.  This is surely blasphemous, but for me they execute the sound even better than AIC does.  Although arguably their prior album, Horror Wrestling, is even more indebted to AIC sonically.  There is nothing particularly fancy about the playing on this album, it is all about melodies, arrangements, timbre, and mood.  On tracks like "I Wish" and "The Bubble Song", the acoustic guitars or effect-laden clean electrics add to that aura.  On other tracks the subtle electronics enhance it, particularly on the engrossing and otherworldly closer "I Will Follow", with an eerie descending chromatic chord progression. 

Sadly, they only have two albums, and a few scattered extra tracks, which did make choosing an album quite easy.  Their debut Horror Wrestling is excellent, but on Freaks of Nature the guitars are meatier, the production value is higher, and the hooks are stronger, so there was no waffling about it at all.  Though HW does have one of their best songs in "Stench", with an odd time signature verse and beefier production than most of the other tracks. 

The whole album:
https://open.spotify.com/album/7eYser9D3Jc47xB95i8vYC

Song highlight:  "Enter My Mind"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gBqSRVDdEI

Thousands of albums later, I've still never heard a rhythm guitar tone quite like Flavia Canel's in the chorus of this song.  It is immense, thunderous, and sludgy in a way that is apparently not duplicatable.  I really love the build from the industrial-ish electronics and simple but effective clean riff in the verse, to the band drop out with just Maria's vocals, and then the chorus hits like an aircraft carrier. 

Another flavor:  "I Wish"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOOqyAX3h1s

One of only two tracks without crushing guitars, it is a pretty rock not-quite-ballad with a beautiful solo. 

In action:  "Crack the Liar's Smile"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVtBRO_FxYQ

Normally I try and put something from the album itself here, but they didn't film any music videos for the album, and unless I'm overlooking something all the live footage is of shoddy visual/audio quality, so let's go with a music video from one of my favorite songs on the previous album, Horror Wrestling.  They also cover Motörhead's "Ace of Spades", but at a way more suffocating pace, if that intrigues you. 

---

The ongoing top 60 album highlights playlists:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1iz6CsS0htUVpMPhV28kkR
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLISicXPLSax_vL9waPRPoqhwURuIICm2T

---

I could technically do a double top 60 surprise reveal here, but I'm going to save it for now. 

[hefdaddy42]

I have never heard of this album or artist.

[twosuitsluke]

I have never heard of this album or artist.

Yep, same here. I'll try and give it a spin though.

[TAC]

I've heard the name Drain STH, but I had no idea it was a girl band.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

I'll post a bit more later, but this is a set of influences I can really get on board with.

No pressure, but...

[twosuitsluke]

Alright, jeez.

I'll put pen to paper shortly 

[lonestar]

Lol why am I mentioned in the thread title?

[twosuitsluke]

OK, let's hit these 4 songs from your recent post...

No Doubt - "Don't Speak"
Foo Fighers - "My Hero"
Linkin Park - "Runaway"
Slipknot - "Wait and Bleed"

Even though I'm a couple of years older than you, I came to all these songs/bands late, and was not into them at the time they came out. Foo Fighters and Slipknot in particular though, have always been on semi regular rotation since I discovered them.

Let's dive in.

In hindsight No Doubt probably should've hit harder in the 90s for me. One of my favourite genres is ska punk and No Doubt have plenty of ska punk songs. Hearing some of their radio hits may actually have been my first exposure to ska punk, as even though my parents and siblings are all pretty into music, none of them have ever ventured into the genre. I don't really remember digging this song in real time, but I've come to love it over the years. The first song of theirs I do really remember liking was Hella Good, but that was 2001 by that point, so a good bit later. But yea, these guys are my least favourite out of the 4.

Foo Fighters are pretty much the perfect radio friendly rock band for me. I have been aware of the band almost since their inception, as my older sister was a huge Nirvana fan and had the first Foos album upon release (I think). I remember most of their hits from the late 90s and early 00s, but I didn't really sit up and take notice until I heard All My Life in the summer of '02. 2002 was a huge year for me, with events in my life, friendships I made, girls I fell in love with, and musical discoveries. Up until late 2001 I'd really only been into hip hop and rap, but then I started getting into rock and punk. One of the first "heavy" albums I got was Hybrid Theory, but we'll get to that. All My Life was my anthem that summer, along with lots of Green Day and Blink-182. I bought One By One and that led onto The Colour and the Shape, shortly after. Holy shit, what an album. It has always been my #1 Foos record, and for good reason, it is packed full of solid gold hits. Initially it was all about Monkey Wrench, then it was Everlong that were my faves, but nowadays it's the deeper cuts like Hey, Johnny Park! (top 5 Foos song) and Up In Arms that I love the most. My Hero was a favourite somewhere between those other songs. I remember reading somewhere that it was Dave's tribute to Kurt Cobain, but I don't know if that is fact or not. Either way it is a mini masterpiece and could spin it any time, any place. Just to circle back to Everlong, it's one of my friends all time favourite songs, and even though we have shared many a favourite song over the years (although he's not really a metal fan), it holds a truly special place in my heart and always makes me think of him. I'll probably go and tell him that now


Linkin Park, they are a band whose first two albums I enjoy, but I have had no interest in anything they have released subsequently. Luckily this song is from an album I love, but it wasn't always that way. In 2000 I moved to live with my Dad (my parents had divorced 4 years prior and I'd been living up north with my mum and younger siblings), and was able to reconnect with school friends I'd lost touch with. As I mentioned earlier, I was basically into hip hop and rap at this juncture, but my mate Pelé (yes, nicknamed after the footballer, but because he was shit at football, not because he was good) had picked up Hybrid Theory when it came out, and used to play it in his car all the time. Man, I couldn't stand this band in 2000. I just kept thinking "why the fuck has he got to keep screaming for fucks sake?". It's hilarious to think now that these vocals were at one time too extreme for my delicate ears. Anyway, at some point, I started to warm to the band, possibly due to the amount of airplay In the End was receiving in the UK. I actually ended up trading Hybrid Theory with Pelé for something like Dre 2001. I. Played. The. Shit. Out. Of. This. Album! Runaway was never one of my absolute favourites, but then, I loved the whole album. Actually, thinking back, this may have been the first album I owned where I had no "skips". Before with music I'd be about the hits, or songs I loved, but I don't think I ever had an album that I'd consistently listen to front to back, over and over, with never the urge to skip a song. Interesting, they were probably my first 'album band'. I've never thought about that before.

Lastly, Slipknot. Well, if you thought it sounds like I was repulsed by Chester Bennington's vocals, you don't know shit. When Slipknot's self titled debut came out I just heard about this band of freaks that wore masks and screamed. I was like, "fuck that, that's not even music, zero talent, fucking waste of space". Basically, everything you hear Chad say about good old extreme metal. I knew in '99, that I would never be a fan of Slipknot. Well 16 year old me was full of shit, but it took a while. Even when I started getting into heavier music, with Metallica, all the thrash gods, Pantera etc, I held a sort of prejudice (unfairly) towards the 'Knot. I remember in late 2005 I got my first 20gb mp3 player, and took it round to my friends (with whom I shared a similar taste for metal) and asked him to fill it up. I think I had actually asked him not to put Slipknot on it, but he put some songs from Subliminal Verses on there anyway. I begrudgingly came to enjoy them, then let go of my prejudice and went all in on the band. This was early to mid 2006 by this point, so I was very late to the band, as I mentioned earlier. I got into the self titled at this time and wanted to go back in time and slap 16 year old me. The beginning of this album cemented itself as legendary to me. That run from the intro > (sic) > Eyeless > Wait and Bleed > Surfacing > Spit it Out was about as visceral as I'd ever heard. I devoured it and would just listen to that run of songs over and over. There was a period of time where I used to drive my friends (who were pretty much all into heavier music) at the time mad. We'd all go to the pub and pile back to my flat, that I shared with the same friend who got me into Slipknot, and for a few months I would go straight to the stereo and blast Eyeless every single time   Corey's vocal onslaught at the start of that song was just pure adrenaline, and I craved it. I lived for that shit, and especially those first 5 songs. Wait and Bleed (I got there in the end) will always be special to me, and take me away to a simpler time. I fucking love it.

Hope that suffices Litho   I fully endorse this selection of songs, good luck topping them (for my tastes). Right, I'm off to listen to Slipknot's debut at volume.

[nick_z]

I absolutely remember seeing/hearing something from Drain STH, most likely from the Horror Wrestling album...although I don't actually remember it  I'll have to check this out...

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Lol why am I mentioned in the thread title?

You could always scroll up a few posts...

The first song of theirs I do really remember liking was Hella Good

Great song.

2002 was a huge year for me, with events in my life, friendships I made, girls I fell in love with, and musical discoveries.

Wow, this is the sort of cosmic coincidence I've been hoping to find.  I think '02 might be the most important year of my life, and the one I've had the most nostalgia for, for an enormous range of reasons. 

Up until late 2001 I'd really only been into hip hop and rap

Despite you being a bit older than me, it seems I was earlier on a lot of things, but that wasn't really one of them.  I'd listened to a handful of things before then, but didn't really have a full-blown phase of it until the mid-00s. 

Green Day and Blink-182.

Bands like those were sort of my guilty pleasures in high school.  I didn't like most of them enough to get into full albums, but I did enjoy a few songs here and there more than I would publicly admit at the time.  It took 'til late college for more of them to start sinking in. 

The Colour and the Shape...Monkey Wrench...Everlong...Hey, Johnny Park! (top 5 Foos song) and Up In Arms that I love the most.

Interesting, so we have pretty similar favorites from it. 

I remember reading somewhere that it was Dave's tribute to Kurt Cobain, but I don't know if that is fact or not.

I think he's said it's not about anyone in particular, though I don't know if he's the type to be coy about that sort of attribution.  I've never really gotten into Nirvana outside of a few songs, but a number of artists I really like are huge fans, so I should probably run through their albums again at some point. 

Linkin Park, they are a band whose first two albums I enjoy, but I have had no interest in anything they have released subsequently.

It's fascinating how common this is. 

I was like, "fuck that, that's not even music, zero talent, fucking waste of space". Basically, everything you hear Chad say about good old extreme metal.

Strays launched and detonated!

I knew in '99, that I would never be a fan of Slipknot.  Well 16 year old me was full of shit, but it took a while.

I had similar thoughts that I would never get into extreme metal.  So glad to be wrong.

I remember in late 2005 I got my first 20gb mp3 player

All hail the 20gb MP3 player!  I had a Creative Labs Nomad first.  The idea of holding thousands of songs in my pocket was mindblowing. 

That run from the intro > (sic) > Eyeless > Wait and Bleed > Surfacing > Spit it Out was about as visceral as I'd ever heard.

"Surfacing" is definitely another favorite.  Really iconic intro, and I love those stomp beats they do like at 0:35.  For all the hate they've received from the metal purists over the years, there's a certain type of catharsis the chorus achieves that you just can't duplicate even in the most extreme of more conventional death/black metal. 

for a few months I would go straight to the stereo and blast Eyeless every single time   Corey's vocal onslaught at the start of that song was just pure adrenaline, and I craved it.

Funny story about that, I was intensely concentrating on studying for an exam one time, had just finished listening to a Sonata Arctica album, and for some reason Slipknot had come up next in the queue with "Eyeless".  I think I didn't have it fully tagged for some reason, didn't even notice at first, but a couple minutes into the song I started to feel like something sounded off - all I saw was that the song was called "Eyeless", and wondered how the heck had Sonata Arctica gotten so much more intense, and didn't remember SA having a song by that name.  Took me a minute to figure it out then. 

I fully endorse this selection of songs, good luck topping them (for my tastes).

I'm half-tempted at the end of this whole section to run a poll to have people vote for the best chapter, but I already have a pretty good idea which ones would perform better.  Actually, it'll be literally unfair later on, but that's another story for another day. 

[nick_z]

Linkin Park, they are a band whose first two albums I enjoy, but I have had no interest in anything they have released subsequently.

It's fascinating how common this is. 

The first two records are great and, incidentally I don't generally view Meteora as just a "repeat" of Hybrid Theory...I vaguely remember that was the general sentiment then from the, um, critics, although I might be wrong. Anyway, there are definitely new things and experiments on that one. I always loved Breaking the Habit - how you can be real "epic" with barely any distortion. I enjoy Minutes to Midnight too, though. Some nice variety on that one. Then, save for the occasional song here and there, they lost me a bit.

I remember in late 2005 I got my first 20gb mp3 player

All hail the 20gb MP3 player!  I had a Creative Labs Nomad first.  The idea of holding thousands of songs in my pocket was mindblowing. 

Oh man, yes, that was my first too. And I absolutely agree, the feeling was absolutely mindblowing. Being able to travel and bring with me THAT much music?!

[LithoJazzoSphere]

I enjoy Minutes to Midnight too, though. Some nice variety on that one.

It's one of those albums that annoyed me so much on release that I've never come back to it.  But with the passage of a lot of time and a different mindset I could see myself feeling differently.  I'm just not sure I can summon the motivation.  After writing the initial post I listened to The Hunting Party to see if their newer sound has grown on me, and it was alright, but just didn't do much for me, so I lack the impetus to go further.