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General => Archive => General Music Archives => Topic started by: Jaq on February 24, 2014, 09:53:09 AM
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It seems that the time has come for me to produce a top 50 list. Please hold your applause for the end. Assuming there is any. :lol
My selection criteria was simple: my top 50 studio albums. I came to this decision when I made my original list to whittle down to fifty, included live albums, and had over 150 albums on it. I decided then that it would be far easier for me to eliminate the live albums in one fell swoop and concentrate on studio albums, which reduced the list to under a more manageable 100 albums. :lol I'd also like to point out that an amazing amount of albums on this list are older albums, the music I grew up with and influenced me the most. A lot of my list is going to come across as standards, though there are the occasional surprise, a couple of "really? interesting choice there" and at least one "Didn't think he'd listen to that."
This list could have very easily been a top 100, and I'd like to point out that on my original list that I whittled down, the difference in my affection for the albums from 30-80 was so slight, if I did this list again in a year, half of it would be in an utterly different order and five albums would be removed to be replaced by others. Also, in defiance of tradition, there won't be album cover images until the top 10, because I'm a slacker and I don't feel like hotlinking the first image choice I find in Google. :lol
Also, Kev, there will be no albums by Europe on this list. Here we go!
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50. Edge of Sanity-Crimson
Released: April 2, 1996
Produced by Dan Swanö and Edge of Sanity
Track Listing:
1. Crimson (40:00)
Number 50 on my list is the insanely ambitious, single track album Crimson. 40 minutes of well realized, keenly delivered progressive melodic death metal that touches on several recurring musical themes with perfect structure, with guest vocals by Mikael Akerfeldt long, long before Opeth was a blip on the American metal radar. No one who hears this should be shocked by the progressive directions Dan Swanö took his music in after this.
49. Slayer-Reign In Blood
Released: October 7, 1986
Produced by Rick Rubin and Slayer
Track Listing:
1. Angel of Death 4:51
2. Piece by Piece 2:03
3. Necrophobic 1:40
4. Altar of Sacrifice 2:50
5. Jesus Saves 2:54
6. Criminally Insane 2:23
7. Reborn 2:12
8. Epidemic 2:23
9. Postmortem 3:27
10. Raining Blood 4:51
It is difficult to express to people who weren’t there in 1986 just how extreme this album was. At the time of its release, Reign In Blood was one of the few thrash metal albums to be released on a major label, albeit Rick Rubin’s primarily at that time rap label Def Jam (yes, that’s right, Slayer’s major label debut was on a rap label. Imagine that happening today.) Bookended by the longer, yet no less aggressive “Angel of Death” and “Raining Blood”, this album eschewed the longer, more complex approach of Metallica to offer up 30 minutes of hardcore punk influenced speed and anger that made most people who listened to this say “what the fuck is THIS?” I remember very well the look of disgust, flat out disgust that I was given from the girl who sold me this album. Slayer was out there in 1986. WAY out there. You didn't have death metal or black metal as we know them now, so when you walked into a mainstream record store and bought a Slayer album, people looked at you funny. I also realized as I went looking for the track lengths just how much of this album Jeff Hanneman wrote, and how much Slayer is going to miss him.
48. Helloween-Keeper of the Seven Keys Part One.
Released: May 23, 1987
Produced by: Tommy Newton and Tommy Hansen
Track Listing:
1. Initiation 1:20
2. I'm Alive 3:22
3. A Little Time 3:59
4. Twilight of the Gods 4:29
5. A Tale That Wasn't Right 4:42
6. Future World 4:02
7. Halloween 13:18
8. Follow the Sign 1:46
Welcome to the birth of power metal. While earlier Helloween releases owed as much to thrash metal as the traditional, twin guitar Maiden/Priest sound, the arrival of Michael Kiske and his insane range and vocal prowess moved Helloween away from their thrash-influenced beginnings and gave birth to a new subgenre of heavy metal in power metal. In 1987, people heard the guitar tandem of Kai Hansen and Michael Kiske doing the classic Maiden harmony guitars, only played roughly twice as fast, and freaked the fuck out. Familiarity with what power metal has become has dulled some of the edges of this album, but in 1987, this album’s sheer speed was amazing.
47. Gary Moore-After The War
Released: January 25, 1989
Produced by: Peter Collins
Track Listing:
1. Dunluce Pt. 1 1:17
2. After The War 4:17
3. Speak For Yourself 3:42
4. Livin’ On Dreams 4:14
5. Led Clones 6:07
6. The Messiah Will Come Again 7:29
7. Running From The Storm 4:45
8. This Thing Called Love 3:32
9. Ready For Love 5:39
10. Blood of Emeralds 8:19
11. Dunluce Pt 2 3:50
After The War was the late, great, criminally underrated guitarist Gary Moore’s last stab at being a hard rock/metal star before he released a series of fairly successful blues albums for the vast majority of his career before his death from a heart attack in 2011. In many ways, this album pretty much throws everything the man could do at the wall, from blazing fast metal to catchy hard rock to the Celtic influenced sound of the massive sounding tribute to Phil Lynott, Blood Of Emeralds. Led Clones is a tongue in cheek jab at the bands in the 1980s who sounded like Led Zeppelin, with vocals by Ozzy Osbourne, and it also earns the Jaq seal of approval for having Cozy Powell drum on it. But the must be heard track, which prefigured the rest of Moore’s career, is the stunning cover of Roy Buchanan’s The Messiah Will Come again, which is essentially seven minutes of Moore playing a blues guitar solo. As a swan song to Moore’s hard rock/metal career (though I always thought the blues albums started as a bit of an one off and became a career when they were more successful in the US than his rock albums) it’s hard to fault it. It's also worth noting that this was one of the earliest albums I personally recall where the format determined the songs: the listing above is the listing of the CD release. Both the cassette and vinyl releases had fewer tracks, which made this one of the first albums I bought where the "bonus tracks" were format based, unlike today's region or sales outlet based bonus tracks.
More coming later in the week, after I ice my fingers down from formatting these entries!
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This Keeper album is great.
I went to the wiki to check out who is Tommy Hansen and:
Filip Trojovský (born 16 March 1982 in Havířov, Czechoslovakia) is a Czech actor, model and television personality. He is also known by his stage name Tommy Hansen in gay pornography.
Apparently it's another guy. :lol
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Crimson is great! Are we going to see any other Swanö-related albums?
Never can truly get into Reign in Blood. I own it, have listed to it several times, but it just doesn't do it for me.
Just listened to that Helloween album for the first time a few weeks ago. Gonna have to take a few more listens . . .
Gary Moore . . . going to have to give this album a go soon. I keep seeing his name here and there on the boards.
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A lot of my list is going to come across as standards,
There is a reason that some albums are loved more than others. There is nothing wrong with this.
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Crimson is great! Are we going to see any other Swanö-related albums?
Moontower was in the high 50s on my last list before I whittled it down, and is one of the albums likely to make it into this list if I did it again next year. :lol
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I like the way this list has started. Looking forward to the rest of 46-1 now.
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Promising start - I can't say any of them are all time faves of mine (although a couple of the artists are) - and I'll certainly be following. Fogey top 50's that I can relate to don't come along every day ;D
No Europe though.......... (https://smileyshack.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/sangry_bat_100-100.gif?w=26&h=22)
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Wow, that is one of the best top 50 updates I've seen.
Crimson came in at the teens in my top 50, it's amazing.
Reign in Blood is the ultimate thrash album and was one that would sit around number 70 on my list.
Keepers Part one is a classic and would probably go at around number 65.
After the War is one of Gary's most underrated and heaviest. Always loved that one.
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First time I heard Angel of Death I think I bled from my eyes... :metal :metal :metal
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Give me Moore every time.
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Reign in Blood is just :metal
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Also, Kev, there will be no albums by Europe on this list.
Hey, there wasn't any on mine either! :lol
I do hope to see some ELO, however. :biggrin:
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There will be some ELO, Kev, but it'll be a while til we get there and I already told that story :rollin
Let's get at it again!
46. The Who-Who’s Next
Released: August 14, 1971
Produced by: The Who and Glyn Johns
Track listing:
1. Baba O'Riley 5:08
2. Bargain 5:34
3. Love Ain't for Keeping 5:10
4. My Wife 3:41
5. The Song Is Over 6:14
6. Getting in Tune 4:50
7. Going Mobile 3:42
8. Behind Blue Eyes 3:42
9. Won't Get Fooled Again 8:32
Remember what I said about standards? Yeah, here comes one at you. Of the three biggest albums by the Who-this, Tommy, and Quadrophenia-this wins out as my favorite by a hair because, despite the origins of some of the songs as part of another rock opera, Lifehouse, Who’s Next’s focus on the songs rather than an overarching concept means that the nine tracks here hit as hard as hell and are all immaculately crafted and part together and a great many are classics that a band would love to have across a career, let alone an album.
45. Dire Straits-Making Movies
Released: October 17, 1980
Produced by: Jimmy Iovine and Mark Knopfler
Track listing:
1. Tunnel of Love 8:11
2. Romeo and Juliet 6:00
3. Skateaway 6:40
4. Expresso Love 5:12
5. Hand in Hand 4:48
6. Solid Rock 3:19
7. Les Boys 4:07
It might shock people who had discerned my general tastes in music from my posting here to find out that I love Mark Knopfler as a guitarist and that Dire Straits is one of my favorite bands. Both are true, however, and Making Movies is the band’s finest album. The murderer’s row of the first three tracks, the first side of the vinyl, the long, dramatic Tunnel of Love, with the glorious build of the end guitar solo until it explodes, the sardonic yet emotional Romeo and Juliet, and the catchy chorus of Skateaway is enough to sell most albums, but the remainder of the album is (no pun intended with the title of track six) rock solid. The band introduced keyboards to their sound-played by Roy Bittan of Bruce Springsteen fame-and the music and lyrics are top notch. Great album.
44. Spiral Architect-A Sceptic’s Universe
Released: January 18, 2000
Produced by: Neil Kernon
Track Listing:
1. Spinning 3:23
2. Excessit 6:14
3. Moving Spirit 3:44
4. Occam's Razor 1:33
5. Insect 5:54
6. Cloud Constructor 5:25
7. Conjuring Collapse 6:31
8. Adaptability 4:34
9. Fountainhead 6:30
And then you go about as far from Dire Straits as you can get in the same list. The sole album by Norwegian technical metal band Spiral Architect is perhaps the most technically adept progressive metal album yours truly has ever heard. The band manages the neat trick of making five and six minute long songs seem far longer than they are with non-stop changes that also manage to be organic, the band locked together with the sort of precision that a robot would admire. The music is driven by the stellar bass playing of Lars K. Norberg, a criminally underrated talent and you should listen to him play now now now. Rumors of a follow up have floated around the progressive metal community for fourteen years now, but at least they gave us this masterpiece. I can’t imagine anyone who likes Dream Theater’s more technical leanings wouldn’t like this.
43. Black Sabbath-Heaven And Hell
Released: April 25, 1980
Produced by: Martin Birch
1. Neon Knights 3:53
2. Children of the Sea 5:34
3. Lady Evil 4:26
4. Heaven and Hell 6:59
5. Wishing Well 4:07
6. Die Young 4:45
7. Walk Away 4:25
8. Lonely Is the Word 5:51
On occasion as I whittled down one hundred and fifty albums to make this list, some oddities occurred. One of them will be dealt with as the first entry in the NEXT post. One of them was that, when the dust settled, there wasn’t a Judas Priest album in my top 50. (Stained Class and Screaming For Vengeance made my list in the 70-90 range.) And one of them was that Heaven And Hell wound up my highest rated Black Sabbath album, which I was certain wasn’t going to happen at all. And yet, here it is. To many people, it’s the title track and nothing else, others will cite Neon Knights (perhaps the best statement of intent for a new line up I’ve ever heard) or Children of the Sea. The entire album, though, is that good. One of the things forgotten in this day and age was that there was a bit of rivalry in the budding metal community, at least in my neck of the woods. Some people backed Ozzy, some people backed Dio’s Sabbath. Me, I reveled in the two albums Sabbath made with Dio in the 80s and the two albums Ozzy made with Randy Rhoads and chuckled at the early model scene kids.
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Man, I gotta check Spiral Architect now. I've seen a lot of good things written about them but never checked them out, I have to now. Heaven and Hell is of course classsic, and props to The Who and the awesome Dire Straits.
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Jaq, a fantastic start.
Keepers was Top 5 for me. It changed the way I listened to music. It's that important.
And a HELL YES for After The War. It's a fantastic album. Blood Of Emeralds is outstanding, and Cozy Powell FTW!
I remember walking into a record store to buy Slayer Tickets. This was for the Seasons Club Tour. I said I wanted two tickets, and the girl was like, you're kidding. She told me " You don't look like a Slayer fan." :lol
Just saw the latest update..
Who's Next is the only Who album I have ever bought.
And Heaven And Hell is Top 15 for me.
Will definitely be following.
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Another cool update - Dire Straits is the soundtrack to a fair part of my childhood..........one of 3 or 4 quality "wimpy" bands that my father got me into and which I've always liked.
Spiral Architect........need to check em out.
The Who were a touch before my time and didn't really get much airplay in Australia - they're a band I've got on my "work my way back to them" list. My biggest exposure to their music is via Van Halen who often played Won't Get Fooled Again live.
Heaven and Hell ..........love the title track, Neon Knights etc..... but much of the rest I find just okay. Wouldn't be my top pick from Sabbs.
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some awesome picks so far!
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The Who were a touch before my time and didn't really get much airplay in Australia - they're a band I've got on my "work my way back to them" list. My biggest exposure to their music is via Van Halen who often played Won't Get Fooled Again live.
I hear them all the time on triple m radio these days.
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I haven't listened to music on the radio since the early 90's...................unless it's been out of my control or to keep someone happy ;D The only reason I have a radio is to cater for people who might come over who like crap music :neverusethis:
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Man, I gotta check Spiral Architect now. I've seen a lot of good things written about them but never checked them out, I have to now.
Good luck finding a copy. It is a great album, somewhat ahead of it's time. black_floyd told me it is his favorite album of all time, so there are a few of us here who are fans of Spiral Architect.
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Man, I gotta check Spiral Architect now. I've seen a lot of good things written about them but never checked them out, I have to now.
Good luck finding a copy. It is a great album, somewhat ahead of it's time. black_floyd told me it is his favorite album of all time, so there are a few of us here who are fans of Spiral Architect.
I am not certain its time has come yet. :lol It is a fantastic album though. :metal
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Just checked out a couple of tracks from Spiral Architect - not likely to be my cup of tea but great for what it is. Reminds me a bit of Watchtower.
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Spiral Architect are technically amazing, but I really have to be in a certain mood to listen to them.
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Main reason why it's relatively low on my list-it's not something you can bring out every day and jam out to. It's the very definition of a mood album.
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Spiral Architect are technically amazing, but I really have to be in a certain mood to listen to them.
I've got one of their albums and this is what I think about it, too. Not something I listen to much at all.
Solid update regardless, though. :metal
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Heaven and Hell falls into the epic category for me.... :metal
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Gotta check out that Spiral Architect. Nice update as well.
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second mentions of Who's Next (lonestar), Making Movies (ReaperKK), and H&H (TAC) in top 50 lists. First mention for Spiral Architect in any list.
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Who's next is an absolute staple in Classic Rock. Top 5 album of all time in that genre.
Looking forward to this list (and of course, the stories).
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I just listened to the song Spinning from Spiral Architect and it was fucking awesome. Reminds me of a mix of Cynic, Gordian Knot, Watchtower and early Fates Warning. Definitely one that I need in my collection.
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I just listened to the song Spinning from Spiral Architect and it was fucking awesome. Reminds me of a mix of Cynic, Gordian Knot, Watchtower and early Fates Warning. Definitely one that I need in my collection.
:tup
Funny thing about that album is that, despite its relative obscurity even when I bought it, I found it in a local FYE. Go figure.
Next four will come tomorrow, as I am up to my ass in various things today.
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Just wanted to say it's always a pleasure to see some Dire Straits in those lists.
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no album art?! i. am. OUTTA HERE!
*notices Spiral Architect on the way out* .... okay, following. :metal
Spiral Architect are technically amazing, but I really have to be in a certain mood to listen to them.
I've got one of their albums and this is what I think about it, too. Not something I listen to much at all.
Solid update regardless, though. :metal
dude, youre a bigger fan than you realize; you own they is entire discography, yo!
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Okay, maybe tomorrow. Wasn't expecting to get slapped upside my head by my first spring cold on the last day of February :censored
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And here we go again with three that are obvious and one less so:
42. Rush-Permanent Waves
Released: January 1, 1980
Produced by: Rush and Terry Brown
Track Listing:
1. The Spirit of Radio 4:57
2. Freewill 5:24
3. Jacob's Ladder 7:26
4. Entre Nous 4:36
5. Different Strings 3:48
6. Natural Science 9:17
Here’s another one of those oddities of my list, which came about as I worked it up and down and occasionally re-evaluated where albums fell not only within my list but within the discographies of the individual bands. Not only did I expect a lot more Rush to make my top 50-Permanent Waves is the sole album by the band in my top 50, though a top 100 list would find Rush making more appearances than any other band-I wasn’t expecting this to be the highest ranking of my Rush albums. And yet here it is. I probably shouldn’t have to go into details here, but it’s a perfect distillation of the band’s 70s progressive era into a more compact, accessible style that remains wholly Rush, and it still sounds as ultra-modern as it did thirty four years ago. I think the word is “timeless.” I’d also point at the position of Rush on my overall list as a sign of how close things are on it, and a repeat of this list might find this album far higher and a lot more Rush in my top 50. For now, go figure.
41. Savatage-Gutter Ballet
Released: December 1, 1989
Produced by: Paul O’Neill
Track Listing:
1. Of Rage and War 4:47
2. Gutter Ballet 6:20
3. Temptation Revelation 2:56
4. When the Crowds Are Gone 5:45
5. Silk and Steel 2:56
6. She's in Love 3:51
7. Hounds 6:27
8. The Unholy 4:37
9. Mentally Yours 5:19
10. Summer's Rain 4:33
11. Thorazine Shuffle 4:43
For me, back in the day, Savatage was one of those bands (for me the other two that fit this description were Fates Warning and Armored Saint) that you saw their albums in the record store, you picked them up and looked at them, and thought to yourself, “well, this looks cool” but then you put it down and moved on to something else. For Savatage, that changed for me when I saw the video on MTV for the title track of this album. (The Fates Warning album that changed that for me appears later in this list.) Gutter Ballet is the perfect balance between the band’s more straight up metal days and the more symphonic, progressive direction that Paul O’Neill drove the band in the 1990s. Gutter Ballet wins out for me over other Savatage albums because it bounces from the more straight up metal to the more progressive side with ease, each side being given equal weight (and it doesn’t hurt in my case that Gutter Ballet isn’t weighed down by one of Paul O’Neill's fairly ponderous concepts.) with the metal smacking you upside the head and the progressive elements making you say “wow.” For me, Savatage didn't manage to balance those two elements of their sound quite so well again until Poets and Madmen, and that didn't manage it quite as well, for my liking, as Gutter Ballet. A funny story about the title track: back in the day I used to tape videos I liked off of Headbanger's Ball to watch later. I was usually drinking at the time, which is why, eventually, my copy of Gutter Ballet, roughly two minutes in, found itself taped over by Alice Cooper's House of Fire. I can only assume I hit the REC button in a drunken stupor.
40. The Michael Schenker Group-MSG
Released: September 1981
Produced by: Ron Nevison.
Track Listing:
1. Are You Ready to Rock 3:26
2. Attack of the Mad Axeman 4:17
3. On and On 4:41
4. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie 5:21
5. But I Want More 6:56
6. Never Trust a Stranger 4:24
7. Looking for Love 4:03
8. Secondary Motion 3:42
Somewhere in the multiverse, there is a universe where the second album by the Michael Schenker Group, MSG, earned all the acclaim and success that it deserved to achieve based on the quality of the music. I hope someday to visit there. Michael Schenker’s finest achievement outside of UFO, and arguably the best example of UFO styled hard rock/metal outside of UFO, this is eight damn near perfect examples of hard rock/metal, driven by the best album worth of solos Schenker ever managed, classic vocals from Gary Barden, and the powerhouse drumming of Cozy Powell. True to Schenker’s sadly erratic form, nearly the entire line up that played on MSG wasn’t on the follow up, Assault Attack, and whatever momentum the Michael Schenker Group had was lost in the US at least. Somewhere there is a universe where “Never Trust A Stranger” was a top 40 hit with an MTV video, but until we find it, we’re left with this classic.
39. Queensryche-Operation: Mindcrime
Released: May 3, 1988
Produced by: Peter Collins
Track Listing:
1. I Remember Now 1:17
2. Anarchy-X 1:27
3. Revolution Calling 4:42
4. Operation: Mindcrime 4:43
5. Speak 3:42
6. Spreading the Disease 4:07
7. The Mission 5:45
8. Suite Sister Mary 10:41
9. The Needle Lies 3:08
10. Electric Requiem 1:22
11. Breaking the Silence 4:34
12. I Don't Believe in Love 4:23
13. Waiting for 22 1:05
14. My Empty Room 1:25
15. Eyes of a Stranger 6:39
A bit on the nose for a list of albums posted on a forum for a progressive metal band, isn’t it? One of the things, though, that time and everything that’s happened with Queensryche since this album (and how this album has become a bit overplayed and overexposed thanks to Geoff Tate and let’s pretend the sequel never happened shall we) was released had dulling was just how groundbreaking this album was. The announcement that Queensryche, a band that had already taken at least two stylistic shifts already and had metal heads scratching their heads at the band’s ambition, was going to do a rock opera (and yes, that’s what it was called back then, concept album took over as more and more bands started doing them), had many saying “what the fuck? Metal bands don’t do rock operas!” and wondering just what Queensryche was going to produce. And what they produced was-a monumental blend of metal and storytelling, of ambition and scope that few bands period were attempting back then that initially had people saying “what the fuck is THIS?” Later generations of prog metal fans have written history to say that Operation: Mindcrime was hailed as an instant classic and immediate hit, but the truth was, the initial reaction, both in terms of fan response and sales, was tepid. It took months, and the band recanting on a decision to not release videos from the album, for Eyes of A Stranger to take off and for people to finally wrap their heads around what Queensryche was doing. A factoid: I was sitting at home one Saturday night, drinking beer with my best friend, watching Headbanger’s Ball on MTV. At the top of the hour, the announcer proclaimed “coming up this hour, new videos from Queensryche-and METALLICA.” Yes, MTV premiered Eyes of A Stranger and One in the same hour of Headbanger’s Ball. What a night.
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Great update there Jaq. Gotta listen to that MSG, as he and UFO in general just flew under my radar back in the day. The other three all all Top 50 worthy. O:M is top 10 for me though. Savatage is great, but I only got into them a few years back, and tried digesting the whole discography at once. That was (and still is) quite a task, as I don't find myself going to them often enough.
Nice writeups.
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:hefdaddy :hefdaddy :hefdaddy for Queensryche and Savatage
:hefdaddy for MSG
Rush have never done much for me.
Overall - excellent update ;D
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Rush and the Ryche...nice :tup I honestly don't remember the overall reception Mindcrime initially got. I was hooked from the first listen though :metal
** EDIT - On further review, I don't remember it ever being called a "Rock Opera" (at least in the SoCal scene). I didn't find it strange at all for them to have a concept album. "The Warning" was one of my favorite's during that time, and it was definitely a "Themed" album if not concept oriented.
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Principally it was the metal mags that were calling it a rock opera. I can't quite pinpoint when concept album became the lingua franca for an album that told a story, but rock opera was the East Coast term for it at the time O:M came out. And yes, that was the initial reaction to it. I am not sure when the video came out, but initial release buzz for it was practically non-existent. Then the video came out and they landed the tour with Metallica (great show, let me tell you) and the album blew up.
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What tour was that?? Master of Puppets? I saw them for the Justice tour, with some band called "Faith no More" :hat Faith actually got boo'd off stage the first night, then the night I went James came out and jammed with them.
**EDIT - had to look. So QR was the support on the first US leg for Damaged Justice tour. I saw them on the second leg. It says on the wiki page that the Cult supported them on that leg, but when I look up FNM tour dates they played on that tour with Metallica when I saw them Sept '89. (Thought I was having an "Oldtimers" moment :lol
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amazing update. O:M gets the number one slot for me. A Rush pick always gets a thumbs up from me and Savatage and MSG are fantastic bands.
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This list in simply incredible so far.
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I'm reliving my youth in this thread!
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That MSG album was one of the most influential albums in my musical life. It really set my direction. I actually had it in my Top 10.
Jaq, Outstanding pick.
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What tour was that?? Master of Puppets? I saw them for the Justice tour, with some band called "Faith no More" :hat Faith actually got boo'd off stage the first night, then the night I went James came out and jammed with them.
**EDIT - had to look. So QR was the support on the first US leg for Damaged Justice tour. I saw them on the second leg. It says on the wiki page that the Cult supported them on that leg, but when I look up FNM tour dates they played on that tour with Metallica when I saw them Sept '89. (Thought I was having an "Oldtimers" moment :lol
I know FNM opened the GnR/Metallica Stadium tour. I saw QR open 3 shows on that tour, and when Metallica came back in the summer, The Cult opened.
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Yeah, the Cult opened for them for like 15 shows. At the same time they were doing solo shows. Last one I saw was 8/30/89. I saw them on 9/22/89 with FNM
https://www.songkick.com/artists/397363-cult/gigography?page=123
sorry for the thread-Jaq
:splodetard:
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And after another day of dealing with snowy weather in a region where snow normally happens once a year, I return, with some stuff that is proggy and some stuff that is deathy!
38. Nile-In Their Darkened Shrines
Released: August 20, 2002
Produced by: Bob Moore
Track Listing:
1. The Blessed Dead 4:53
2. Execration Text 2:46
3. Sarcophagus 5:09
4. Kheftiu Asar Butchiu 3:52
5. Unas Slayer of the Gods 11:43
6. Churning the Maelstrom 3:07
7. I Whisper in the Ear of the Dead 5:10
8. Wind of Horus 3:47
9. In Their Darkened Shrines: I. Hall of Saurian Entombment 5:09
10. In Their Darkened Shrines: II. Invocation to Seditious Heresy 3:51
11. In Their Darkened Shrines: III. Destruction of the Temple of the Enemies of Ra 3:11
12. In Their Darkened Shrines: IV. Ruins 6:01
I will admit that death metal isn’t really one of my things. At least, traditional, blood and guts, old school Florida death metal isn’t my thing. Give me death metal that does something different, though, and I’m all over it like a cheap suit. Nile’s brand monumental, massive, death metal by way of Lovecraft, Egyptology, and Cecil B. DeMille certainly qualifies. These days, Nile’s mixture of crushing, technically adept death metal, Middle Eastern sounds, and immense cinematic storytelling has become not only accepted but imitated (and Nile themselves sound, on occasion, a little tired with their formula, their last did nothing for me) but anyone who heard the near 12 minute Unas, Slayer of the Gods back in 2002 had their mind blown. One of the most ambitious death metal albums ever.
37. Symphony X-The Divine Wings Of Tragedy
Released: Sometime in 1997 because Allmusic is being an ass about this
Produced by: Steve Evetts and Eric Rachel
Track Listing:
1. Of Sins and Shadows 4:58
2. Sea of Lies 4:18
3. Out of the Ashes 3:40
4. The Accolade 9:51
5. Pharaoh 5:28
6. The Eyes of Medusa 5:26
7. The Witching Hour 4:15
8. The Divine Wings of Tragedy 20:42
9. Candlelight Fantasia 6:45
I’ll always be fond of Symphony X for their being one of my gateway bands to the wider world of progressive metal beyond the more obvious suspects of Dream Theater and Fates Warning. I remember paying outrageous import prices for both Twilight In Olympus and this, my favorite Symphony X album. Divine Wings balances all of the various sides of Symphony X-the neo-classical metal, the progressive flair, the symphonic-perfectly, and while I will always say that Symphony X’s evolution into a more overtly metallic band isn’t as sudden and cut and dried as people think, I understand perfectly why people turned off by the last two would want them to go back to this album as an influence, it’s a masterpiece.
36. Kansas-Leftoverture
Released: October 1976
Produced by: Jeff Glixman and Kansas
Track Listing:
1. Carry On Wayward Son 5:23
2. The Wall 4:51
3. What's On My Mind 3:28
4. Miracles Out of Nowhere 6:28
5. Opus Insert 4:30
6. Questions of My Childhood 3:40
7. Cheyenne Anthem 6:55
8. Magnum Opus 8:25
Oh, 1976. You’ll be seeing that year a few more times as this list progresses towards the top, not shocking given the sheer number of stellar releases rock and roll saw in my favorite year of music ever. Kansas is frequently cited as being pretty much the only American progressive rock band, which is, of course, untrue-they were merely the most successful one. Leftoverture saw the band blend its mixture of straight up, bar band rock and lofty progressive ambition into a precise, compact, hard hitting album where no song, not even the sprawling eight minutes of Magnum Opus, overstays its welcome. The joys in this album aren’t the songs everyone knows, it’s underrated to forgotten tracks like Miracles Out of Nowhere and the haunting Cheyenne Anthem. Another timeless album.
35. Atheist-Unquestionable Presence
Released: August 30, 1991
Produced by: Scott Burns
Track Listing:
1. Mother Man 4:34
2. Unquestionable Presence 4:07
3. Your Life's Retribution 3:17
4. Enthralled in Essence 3:38
5. An Incarnation's Dream 4:53
6. The Formative Years 3:30
7. Brains 3:41
8. And the Psychic Saw 4:45
1991 was a good year for the growth of death metal, which itself was relatively in its infancy. It saw in October the release of Death’s Human (spoiler: you will be seeing that album a little later on this list) but it saw as well, a few months earlier, the release of Atheist’s Unquestionable Presence. An album fueled by tragedy-the death of bassist Roger Patterson in a car crash after writing the amazing bass lines that run through this album, which were played by Tony Choy-as much as it was fueled by innovation, Atheist threw virtually everything at the wall. Crazy, off kilter time changes, jazz influences, the whole nine yards, thirty-two minutes of some of the most exciting, technical, progressive music ever. Look, if you haven’t heard it, stop reading this and go find a way to hear it. Trust me. It’s that good.
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No idea about Atheist or Nile but the SX and Kansas are both favourites of mine.
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^ What he said. 1976 was indeed a great year for music (but not as good as 1971 IMO).
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1976 was the best year for music, and Leftoverture is arguably the best record from it. :coolio
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1976 was the best year for music, and Leftoverture is arguably the best record from it. :coolio
OpinionsShmopinions
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I have a couple of Nile albums, they are awesome, great band.
Athiest too I love and that album indeed is killer.
Kansas is good but not too familiar and of SX are amazing.
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1976 was the best year for music, and Leftoverture is arguably the best record from it. :coolio
My rough draft list of albums had something like fifteen from 1976. It's that good a year.
Athiest too I love and that album indeed is killer.
Atheist fans represent. I got into them with the Relapse re-issues and was stunned by how good they were in comparison to the scene I remembered from back then.
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And here we go again, after a little time off for sheer laziness. A very obvious choice, a couple of somewhat obvious ones, and one that may be a bit left field for some:
34. Cynic-Focus
Released: September 14, 1993
Produced by: Scott Burns and Cynic
Track Listing:
1. Veil of Maya 5:23
2. Celestial Voyage 3:40
3. The Eagle Nature 3:30
4. Sentiment 4:23
5. I'm But a Wave to... 5:30
6. Uroboric Forms 3:32
7. Textures 4:42
8. How Could I 5:29
Oh look, another seminal release in the field of technical death metal. Although, unlike some, I am less than shocked that Cynic went on to remove the death metal trappings of the band-compared to their more straight up death metal demos, Focus already found the band using death metal as one of the flavors the band used in their mix of progressive music and jazz-fusion, rather than being the, pardon the pun, focus. Focus didn’t sound like anything else out there when it came out, and it barely sounds like anything that followed it-few bands tried to overtly imitate Cynic in the aftermath of Focus, though many did grab onto the fusion influences (I’m thinking 90s Pestilence here.) My enduring memory of this album is how the CD stayed on the shelf of a local FYE for years, until I decided to buy it only to find it finally gone. I think it lasted four years before it disappeared.
33. Mastodon-Leviathan.
Released: August 31, 2004
Produced by: Matt Bayles and Mastodon
Track Listing:
1. Blood and Thunder 3:48
2. I Am Ahab 2:45
3. Seabeast 4:15
4. Ísland 3:26
5. Iron Tusk 3:03
6. Megalodon 4:22
7. Naked Burn 3:42
8. Aqua Dementia 4:10
9. Hearts Alive 13:39
10. Joseph Merrick 3:33
Rarely, if ever, has an album title been more appropriate. Leviathan, Mastodon’s second full length album, saw the band begin to move away from the more frantic direction that their debut EP and the crushing Remission had for a more focused, more progressive and yet immense sound. The band hasn’t quite dialed back the insanity to the point they would on later albums, but the music is more precise and works more on a balance of shades, such as the epic Hearts Alive, which veers from calm and quiet to the colossal riff that the sound ends on (and which remains to this day my favorite Mastodon track.) Mastodon was briefly my favorite band on the strength of Leviathan, though shortly after that I basically stopped having a favorite. Classic album.
32. Blue Oyster Cult-Secret Treaties
Released: April 1974
Produced by: Murray Krugman and Sandy Pearlman
Track Listing:
1. Career of Evil 3:59
2. Subhuman 4:39
3. Dominance and Submission 5:23
4. ME 262 4:48
5. Cagey Cretins 3:16
6. Harvester of Eyes 4:42
7. Flaming Telepaths 5:20
8. Astronomy 6:28
Blue Oyster Cult are known mainly these days for a couple of radio friendly singles in (Don’t Fear) The Reaper and Burnin’ For You (if they’re even known for the latter these days) and maybe for being the band that did the song about Godzilla. They’re a safe classic rock band. And anyone who has heard Secret Treaties knows that BOC is about as far from safe as you can get. BOC at their best fueled high octane straight up rock via the MC5 and Steppenwolf with a downright bizarre lyrical sense. Blue Oyster Cult didn’t sing about sex and drugs and rock and roll, they sang about piloting German jet fighters and bizarre alien conspiracies and seemed to be a rock band from the Twilight Zone. Anything who thinks they know BOC and haven’t heard Secret Treaties needs to hear it and find out just how little they really know about BOC.
31. Metallica-Ride The Lightning
Released: July 27, 1984
Produced by: Fleming Rassmusen and Metallica
Track Listing:
1. Fight Fire with Fire 4:45
2. Ride the Lightning 6:36
3. For Whom the Bell Tolls 5:09
4. Fade to Black 6:57
5. Trapped Under Ice 4:04
6. Escape 4:23
7. Creeping Death 6:36
8. The Call of Ktulu 8:53
I remember it well. It was the fall of 1984. I was a young metal head, favorite band Iron Maiden, living in suburban Virginia, where there was one local record store that had import albums in their metal section (and oddly, had Marillion albums in that section, go figure) which meant that I had some knowledge of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. I knew about Diamond Head and Angel Witch and I actually owned Venom’s At War With Satan. But oddly enough, the earliest releases of the thrash metal movement slipped right by that record store, which means it wasn’t until that fall night in 1984, on a local radio station’s midnight metal show, that I heard a song, a song that began with the most crushingly HEAVY riff I had ever heard, a “what the fuck is this?” moment as the song pounded its mid-tempo way to conclusion. The DJ then said something that changed my life as a fan of heavy metal. “And that was For Whom The Bell Tolls by Metallica.” I fucking HAD to have this album, and a few weeks later, it finally wound up at my local record store. Bought it, took it home, and had my head punched off by the sheer speed, velocity, and volume of it. While I was far more conversant than most with the metal underground, Ride the Lightning dragged me fully into it, and it deserves its rating for that if nothing else. The fact that it is also a load of amazing riffs and songs and just classic after classic doesn’t hurt it either.
Coming up, the top 30!
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never heard Cynic, but the Mastodon and Metallica albums are stellar. I think the only song I've heard on that BOC album is Astronomy, but it is a great one. I should probably check out the whole thing sometime.
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My friends and I, (3 of us) got as graduation presents to go to Ft. Lauderdale for the week. We played Dominance and Submission every night before we hit the town as our theme song. We were nerds. :lol
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My friends and I, (3 of us) got as graduation presents to go to Ft. Lauderdale for the week. We played Dominance and Submission every night before we hit the town as our theme song. We were nerds. :lol
:rollin
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Ah, Secret Treaties. Probably not surprisingly, I have a million memories associated with this album, BoC and Tyranny and Mvtation.
One that's probably the most relevant to this discussion is I was cleaning my bedroom on a Saturday morning and I had my Garrard turntable, Yamaha amplifier and JBL Studio Monitors blasting out Secret Treaties. I wanted to keep my energy up and annoy my Mother some too. I was singing along at full throat with Career of Evil and when I got this lyric I'd like your blue eyed horseshoe, I'd like your emerald horny toad, I'd like to do it to your daughter on a dirt road. :lol
Mom burst in the bedroom (she had to be listening at the door) and told me to go outside. I could, finish up later.
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Leviathan and Ride the Lightning are awesome! :tup
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Jesus, this could be the best top 50 yet. Focus, Lightning, Leviathan :metal :metal :metal
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I was up with pretty much everything to this point but I've dropped off the bandwagon a little bit here :D I've only dabbled in Mastodon and Cynic but neither seem to be up my alley .
BOC I need to check out - having said that I've noticed the further back into the 70's I go the less I tend to like.
Ride The Lightning - I can relate to what you say there but for me it was Master of Puppets. I'm guessing I'm a touch younger ).......I was 10yo when RTL was released so just a tad before I was really into metal.
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B.O.C. is great, and Secret Treaties is one of their very best. :coolio
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Agreed... great to see some BOC!! :hat
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Plan on picking this up tomorrow or so-the sun is out here for the first time all week so I'm going to go observe, indirectly, this glowing yellow orb in the sky-and will crank it up to five entries per post, in the hopes of getting done sometime before 2015. Thanks to all who have followed so far.
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And we're back to work, with a couple of non-metal albums, a couple of classic metal albums, and an underrated as hell prog metal album:
30. Power of Omens-Rooms of Anguish
Released: February 2003
Produced by: Power of Omens
Track Listing:
1. Welcome to My World 2:26
2. With These Words 6:15
3. My Best to Be... 7:14
4. A Toast to Mankind 7:33
5. As Winter Falls 8:32
6. The Calm Before the Storm 6:30
7. In the End 20:15
8. Only a Dream 06:00
9. Rooms of Anguish 10:57
Oh, this album. This album. Power of Omens only released two albums in their career. Both were excellent, neither were on anything remotely approaching a small label, let alone one of the major prog labels like Inside Out. And both were bloody fantastic. Rooms of Anguish is one of the most criminally underrated progressive metal albums ever. To a certain extent I can understand why-Power of Omens played progressive metal with the sort of precision and stop start changes that marks more technical metal, and the drumming is essentially one long series of fills (even I on occasion will say “HIT THE SNARE ON THE DOWNBEAT!” while listening to it)-but if you like demanding progressive metal, give this a listen. In that alternate universe where the Michael Schenker Group ruled the early 80s, I like to think that Power of Omens survived and went on to do the first Prog Nation tour. This album is actually not that hard to get these days-there’s a few sellers on Amazon selling it, and tracks off it are on Youtube-so I can’t express it enough: if you like prog metal, at least TRY it.
29. Pink Floyd-A Momentary Lapse Of Reason.
Released: September 7, 1987
Produced by: Bob Ezrin and David Gilmour
Track Listing:
1. Signs of Life 4:24
2. Learning to Fly 4:53
3. The Dogs of War 6:05
4. One Slip 5:10
5. On the Turning Away 5:42
6. Yet Another Movie / Round and Around 7:28
7. A New Machine (Part 1) 1:46
8. Terminal Frost 6:17
9. A New Machine (Part 2) :38
10. Sorrow 8:46
Bob Ezrin, beyond the shadow of a doubt, is my favorite producer ever. From Alice Cooper to Kiss to Peter Gabriel’s debut solo album to, of course, Pink Floyd, everything he produced sounded otherworldly for the time frame. Hell, I proudly own Kiss’ Music From The Elder (which came in around number 65 on my list) mainly because Ezrin produced it, and the only reason I ever heard a note of music by Lee Aaron is because Ezrin produced a track on her third album. I like Bob Ezrin. So when I heard that David Gilmour was going to soldier on without Roger Waters with Pink Floyd, with Ezrin producing, I wasn’t 100% dismissive of it. (I was probably 65% dismissive. The other 35% was “eh, Ezrin is there, and he did Gilmour’s last solo album and I liked it a lot”.) Boy, did I turn out to be wrong. Even if you don’t judge it as a Pink Floyd album and compare it to Gilmour’s previous solo effort About Face, A Momentary Lapse of Reason was a triumphant, amazing album, a quantum leap forward for Gilmour and his collaborators. And while these days it sounds 80s dated, in 1987 it sounded IMMENSE. Cinematic, in fact, which is why, in consideration of the time it was released, this album has my favorite production ever. Bob Ezrin, man, what can I say?
28. Marillion-Afraid of Sunlight
Released: June 24, 1995
Produced by Marillion and Dave Meegan
Track Listing:
1. Gazpacho 7:28
2. Cannibal Surf Babe 5:25
3. Beautiful 5:12
4. Afraid of Sunrise 5:01
5. Out of This World 7:54
6. Afraid of Sunlight 6:49
7. Beyond You 6:10
8. King 7:03
Marillion spent the early 90’s basically finding themselves. Season’s End was basically Steve Hogarth welded to songs the band wrote with Fish before his departure, Holidays In Eden was a bit of a turn towards more glossy pop-rock, and Brave was a sprawling, massive full on concept album…that sank basically without a trace. I submit to you that the band didn’t really figure out who they were with Steve Hogarth, and more importantly, who they were going to be for the rest of their careers, until Afraid of Sunlight. Afraid of Sunlight’s eight musing on celebrity and fame featured the band cutting away at the excesses of prog rock while managing to remain interesting and complex at the same time. Every song does its job-yes, even the oddity of Cannibal Surf Babe, which won the title of oddest Marillion song title until Built In Bastard Radar came along a few years later. The best way I can describe this album is, it’s precise. It isn’t overthought and overwritten like Brave was, and it’s not overly commercial as Holidays In Eden. It’s honestly who Marillion was at the time.
27. Death-Human
Released: October 22, 1991
Produced by: Scott Burns and Chuck Schuldiner
Track Listing:
1. Flattening of Emotions 4:28
2. Suicide Machine 4:23
3. Together as One 4:10
4. Secret Face 4:39
5. Lack of Comprehension 3:43
6. See Through Dreams 4:39
7. Cosmic Sea 4:27
8. Vacant Planets 3:52
All right, let’s face it: a list with both Unquestionable Presence and Focus on it simply had to have a Death album on it, didn’t it? Death metal was still a fairly young genre when Atheist, and then Death, turned it on its head. The first thing you have to say about Human is: that fucking line up. Chuck Schuldiner, Paul Masvidal, Steve DiGiorgio, and Sean Reinert? I say goddamn. Then you take that frankly superhuman line up and marry it to the technically demanding, complex songwriting that Schuldiner delivered and you have not just one of the best death metal albums ever, you have one of the best metal albums period. While Death went on to create masterpiece after masterpiece (and this album’s predecessor, Spiritual Healing, is pretty damn good), Human remains my favorite album by Death for its ambition and for how hard it smacked me upside my head in 1991.
26. Iron Maiden-The Number of the Beast
Released: March 22, 1982
Produced by: Martin Birch
Track Listing:
1. Invaders 3:24
2. Children of the Damned 4:35
3. The Prisoner 6:03
4. 22 Acacia Avenue 6:37
5. The Number of the Beast 4:51
6. Run to the Hills 3:54
7. Gangland 3:49
8. Hallowed Be Thy Name 7:12
Do I have to talk about this one? Really? Okay, fine, here it is, The Number of the Beast. You all likely know OF it, even if you haven’t listened to it. It’s the album where Iron Maiden went from up and comer to already here, at least in America. It’s when Bruce Dickinson arrived and when the songwriting moved away from the more frantic, punkish direction of the Di’Anno days towards the more complex work the band would have in later years. It’s not quite perfect-Invaders is kind of messy, and Gangland is dull-but the rest of Number of the Beast is classic. Here’s a story (not that kind, Kev) about the time this album came out. One leg of Judas Priest’s tour for Screaming For Vengeance had as the opener-Iron Maiden. There was a local date scheduled here. I was going to go. It was going to be my first concert. AND IT GOT POSTPONED. And when Priest did come around, the opener was Heaven and I wound up not going. Of course, the next year I got to see Maiden headlining on the Piece of Mind tour, but still. What a fucking first concert Priest and Maiden would have been! (My first concert, by the by, was Def Leppard, Krokus, and Gary Moore. Not too shabby, but not Priest and Maiden.)
Next, we start working on the top half!
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Nice update, great to see Death there :tup
But as a heads up, Spiritual Healing was the album before Human, Individual Thought Patterns was the following album. I'd also argue Death were really the first to turn the scene up on it's head, partially because they were there before Atheist.
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Didn't I say Spirtual Healing was the predecessor to Human? :lol Whatever, that's what I meant. I have all three albums, including Individual Thought Patterns. Killer run, there.
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As I think you are aware of, I am more a fan of Eyes of the Oracle - but really any Power of Omens album is a good one. Rooms of Anguish does seem to be the more affordable of the two. That one seems to command about $20, whereas Eyes seems to go for between $75 and $100.
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I paid like $35 for Eyes of the Oracle ten years ago, so I can't say I am shocked its commanding that much. And I love both albums, Rooms of Anguish just feels more...together? They're both amazing at any rate :lol
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I have Eyes of the Oracle only - cannot even remember if I like it cos it's been that long since I played it.
AMLOR is the Floyd album I grew up with and so , like many similar situations where bands moved on without key members around the time I first heard them , the fact that Waters wan't there meant nothing to me at the time. I definitely rate that album highly.
I'm not a Maiden fan in general but I really enjoy 3 or 4 tracks off Number of the Beast and it'd be my "go to" album of theirs along with Powerslave on the odd occasion I feel like some Maiden.
Death/Marillion.........never done much for me I'm afraid but I'll check those albums out just in case :).
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Didn't I say Spirtual Healing was the predecessor to Human? :lol Whatever, that's what I meant. I have all three albums, including Individual Thought Patterns. Killer run, there.
My bad :lol I misread that.
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Man, a Maiden/Priest show would have been off the charts!!
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One leg of Judas Priest’s tour for Screaming For Vengeance had as the opener-Iron Maiden. There was a local date scheduled here. I was going to go. It was going to be my first concert. AND IT GOT POSTPONED. And when Priest did come around, the opener was Heaven and I wound up not going. Of course, the next year I got to see Maiden headlining on the Piece of Mind tour, but still. What a fucking first concert Priest and Maiden would have been! (My first concert, by the by, was Def Leppard, Krokus, and Gary Moore. Not too shabby, but not Priest and Maiden.)
Now that update is more like it, Jaq!
I remember the Priest Maiden tour. It would still be a year or so before I started going, in fact, Def Lep/Krokus/Gary Moore (6/25/83 Cape Cod Coliseum) was my first concert too!!!!!!
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Some more greatness there.
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What Brent said about AMLOR is pretty much spot on for me. Don't know if it was my first Floyd album (I probably had The Wall and DSOTM), but it was certainly my first PF album 'as it was released'. "Cinematic" is a great way to describe it. Love this album. Even the filler/transitional pieces have their place and meaning.
Number of the Beast made my Top 20. Arguably one of the finest metal albums ever.
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I like AMLOR more than most as well, so, while I wouldn't put it this high on my own list, I am thrilled to see it on yours, Jaq!! :tup :tup
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List will continue after I defeat the sinus infection that the cold I had earlier evolved into. >:( :censored
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Glad to see Momentary Lapse. One Slip is criminally underrated if you ask me, even with it's 80s pop sensibilities. It's a much more interesting song than Learning to Fly, in any event. It still has that PF je ne sai quois (I'm sure I misspelled it) that makes it so much better than an average song. I think the album sounds more like classic PF than The Division Bell as well. I take this album over The Wall any day.
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When I was first getting into Pink Floyd as a teenager (about 14 or 15), Terminal Frost was probably my most played song. :loser: It was all burned mix CDs back then for me, when a CD burner was a luxury and I used to burn discs for my classmates for $5. Every time I made a new Pink Floyd disk for myself to change the tracklist, Terminal Frost was always the first track.
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*gives his sinus infection the finger* :censored
Will be back at it tomorrow.
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After a prolonged break due to the most stubborn cold/sinus infection ever and a couple of days of distraction by the release of the Diablo 3 expansion, back at it again! Hold your applause until the end.
25. Fates Warning-No Exit.
Released: 1988 (oh thanks heaps Wiki)
Produced by: Max Norman and Roger Probert
Track Listing:
1. No Exit 0:41
2. Anarchy Divine 3:46
3. Silent Cries 3:17
4. In a Word 4:25
5. Shades of Heavenly Death 5:57
6. The Ivory Gate of Dreams 21:58
“They sound like Rush.” In the days before someone coined progressive metal as a term to describe bands that blended progressive leanings with metal, this tended to be the critical descriptor for this sort of band. (Note that the critics usually meant 70’s Rush, as by the 80s Rush was in their wall of synths era.) Generally, though, said bands didn’t sound like Rush, and no band slapped with this label sounded, at the time, less like Rush than Fates Warning. No Exit is the band fusing progressive ambition with heavy metal riffing. A metal band doing a side long song wasn’t utterly unheard of (yes, back then it was all of a side) but Fates Warning presented the best realized one in the early prog metal days. While FW would go on to greater heights in terms of progressive music, No Exit is the best album of the band’s full on metal era, though Awaken The Guardian is a close second.
24. Rainbow-Rising.
Released: May 17, 1976
Produced by: Martin Birch
Track Listing:
1. Tarot Woman 6:01
2. Run with the Wolf 3:41
3. Starstruck 4:06
4. Do You Close Your Eyes 3:00
5. Stargazer 8:26
6. A Light in the Black 8:12
Hello again, 1976. So nice to see you. The first “proper” Rainbow album (the debut was basically a Ritchie Blackmore solo album, with Ronnie James Dio and Elf serving as the backing band, released before Blackmore left Deep Purple), Rising is a masterpiece of 70s hard rock. Proto-speed metal songs like Tarot Woman and A Light In The Black, catchy hard rockers, the monumental progressive epic Stargazer…Rising is 33 minutes of pure awesome. Oddly, though, Rising rarely made a dent on the band’s live set list (it took forever for a live version of Stargazer to surface) but it’s easily the best album Rainbow did and one of the best rock albums of the 1970s.
23. Between The Buried And Me-Colors
Released: September 18, 2007
Produced by: Jamie King and Between The Buried And Me
Track Listing:
1. Foam Born (A) the Backtrack 2:13
2. (B) the Decade of Statues 5:20
3. Informal Gluttony 6:47
4. Sun of Nothing 10:59
5. Ants of the Sky 13:10
6. Prequel to the Sequel 8:36
7. Viridian 2:51
8. White Walls 14:13
In 2007, Between The Buried And Me was “that band that did that cool Selkies song.” They were also the band that had gotten some hilarious copy from Victory Records about Alaska, desperately comparing the band to acts like System of A Down trying to get some attention, which always made me chuckle. Alaska had gotten a lot of hype, but for me, it was missing something. (It has grown on me in later years, though, as has the rest of BTBAM’s pre-Colors work.) Colors, the album where the band fully embraced the progressive side of their music and truly transitioned away from the metalcore label they’d been slapped with to full on progressive metal, found it for me. I had become a little bored and dare I say jaded by the state of progressive metal when Colors came out, and for me, it was an album that walked up to the giants of prog metal, kicked them collectively in the shins, and said “up your game, boys, we’re here.” I have to mention Ants In The Sky, and particularly the last few minutes, where the band suddenly takes a left turn into a full on hoe down, I’m going “what the fuck is this?” and then BOOM, it reprises that glorious guitar line from earlier in the song, Tommy Rogers starts ROARING, and you have my favorite two minutes of music ever. I caught BTBAM on the first Prog Nation tour, and remember how so many people spent the 30 minutes of their set looking utterly perplexed. A guy next to me wondered aloud how many songs they had done. “Two,” I told him. Seeing BTBAM play Ants of the Sky and White Walls to a fairly perplexed crowd remains one of my concert going highlights.
22. Yes-Close To The Edge
Released: September 13, 1972
Produced by: Yes and Eddie Offord.
Track Listing:
1. Close To The Edge 18:43
2. And You And I 10:08
3. Siberian Khatru 8:55
I half-expect Orbert to come running into this thread, saying “Did someone mention Yes?!” :lol I told this story in his thread on the Yes discography, but Close to the Edge was a crucial step in the early days of my growth as a fan of music, before I ever heard a note of it. I would go to record stores and would flip through albums by bands I had heard of or sounded interesting as a younger Jaq, and I remember very clearly the day I picked up this green album cover by Yes, turning in over, and realizing “this album only has THREE songs? You can do that?!” Without hearing a note, Close to the Edge taught me, before any other album, that rock music didn’t have to be married to the verse-chorus-verse, done in four minutes template, that it could be ambitious and huge and mindbending. And when I finally heard it, I was impressed by it being three perfectly realized, positively amazing songs, full of sheer fantastic performances. I can’t imagine what this must have sounded like to people in 1972 when it was new. There are a handful of prog rock albums I recommend to people to try to “get” prog rock, and Close to the Edge is always the one I recommend by Yes.
21. Pink Floyd-Animals
Released: January 23, 1977
Produced by: Pink Floyd.
Track Listing:
1. Pigs on the Wing Part 1 1:25
2. Dogs 17:03
3. Pigs (Three Different Ones) 11:25
4. Sheep 10:25
5. Pigs on the Wing Part 2 1:23
The second Pink Floyd album on my list-spoilers: there’s one more coming!-is a fond memory of mine because of nights where I’d come home after a night of the sort of misadventures that I spoke of in Kev’s various threads and I’d put on Animals and fall asleep to it, usually not making it to the ambient keyboard section of Dogs. I bought a murderer’s row of Pink Floyd albums with my second paycheck ever-this, Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and The Wall-and at that time, Animals was the one that got the most play. Dogs features easily the best guitar playing David Gilmour ever did in my opinion-it’s wave after wave of great solos, and that song is reason enough for it to make this list, but the rest of the album is equally glorious. I always liked how it was bookended by the relative calm of the two parts of Pigs on the Wing, and it’s a brilliant case of a concept album that isn’t overwhelmed by the concept. Fantastic album.
Coming up, hopefully before May, the Top 20. How many albums from 1976 will make it? (hint: several.) :rollin
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Sounds about right, since you always pimp up 1976 as much as I do! :tup :tup
Best year for music ever? Yes. Yes it is.
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If memory serves, my top 100 had something on the order of 15 albums from 1976 on it. The thing about 1976 is there were multiple bands who put out more than ONE classic to very good albums in 1976!
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That is as solid as any 5 albums I've seen someone other than myself (for obvious reasons) string together outside of a top 20.
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Sounds about right, since you always pimp up 1976 as much as I do! :tup :tup
Best year for music ever? Yes. Yes it is.
1976 was great, but I'll place my chips on 1971 any day of the week.
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I put my money on 1972. Close to the Edge and 666. Nuf' said.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_in_music#Albums_released
It isn't just the quality of a few albums, it's the staggering amount of albums that were either the best the band ever did or one of their best. This is a year where a shitload of eternal classic albums that have songs still being played today came out. 1976 is the best year in rock music simply because of top to bottom quality. I mean look at that damn list!
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I got no beef with 1976 at all. But with albums like Zeppelin IV, Who's Next, Sticky Fingers, Meddle, LA Woman, Imagine, Fragile, Aqualung, Master of Reality, The Yes Album, Nursery Cryme, and Fireball... like I said, I'll lay my chips down with those.
Not to turn this into a debate on which year is better but I stumbled across this website that tried to take an analytical approach to evaluating the best albums of a given period - https://www.besteveralbums.com/yearstats.php?y=197
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Two epics in Rainbow Rising and Animals.... :tup
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Animals :tup
Colors :tup
Close to the Edge :tup
No Exit is not my thing and I haven't heard Rising in full.
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I got no beef with 1976 at all. But with albums like Zeppelin IV, Who's Next, Sticky Fingers, Meddle, LA Woman, Imagine, Fragile, Aqualung, Master of Reality, The Yes Album, Nursery Cryme, and Fireball... like I said, I'll lay my chips down with those.
Not to turn this into a debate on which year is better but I stumbled across this website that tried to take an analytical approach to evaluating the best albums of a given period - https://www.besteveralbums.com/yearstats.php?y=197
Pretty cool that they did that. Suffice to say, the '70's was bustling with gems.
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Pretty cool that they did that. Suffice to say, the '70's was bustling with gems.
Funny thing was, at the beginning of the 80's it was widely considered that the 70's sucked musically. :lol
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bumping the current crop of top 50 lists to hopefully get some updates soon. If you need to take a prolonged break, let me know and I'll get some other lists started. We've got people waiting in line ready to go.
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Yeah, hurry up! I'm in line dammit! :biggrin:
Nah, take your time :tup
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I actually didn't realize it'd had been this long, wow. I'll see what I can bang out tomorrow. :lol
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Okay, no excuses this time, I just plain lost track of time playing the Diablo 3 expansion. Yes I lost days doing that, hush. :lol
20. Genesis-Foxtrot
Released: October 6, 1972
Produced by: David Hitchcock and Genesis
Track Listing:
1. Watcher of the Skies 7:23
2. Time Table 4:45
3. Get 'Em Out by Friday 8:36
4. Can-Utility and the Coastliners 5:44
5. Horizons 1:41
6. Supper's Ready 22:58
You can blame Orbert for this one. For years, if you asked me what my favorite Genesis albums were divided by the usual eras, I would have cited one that (spoiler alert) is coming up later and Selling England by the Pound. But in listening to the Genesis discography during Orbert’s thread, Foxtrot opened up to me. I realized at last that I had approached it at a distance because of my long preference for the Seconds Out version of Supper’s Ready, but the album as a whole is magnificent. When you create a mellotron intro as timeless as the one for Watcher of the Skies that the company who makes the mellotron sells a “Watcher mix”, you did something right. Genesis had been putting pieces together on their first three albums: this is where they became Genesis as we knew them in the Gabriel era.
19. Moon Safari-Blomljud
Released: 2008 (If anyone can find the date, I’d appreciate it)
Produced by: Moon Safari
Track Listing:
Disc One:
1. Constant Bloom 1:27
2. Methuselah's Children 15:43
3. In the Countryside 5:43
4. Moonwalk 8:49
5. Bluebells 10:11
6. The Ghost of Flowers Past 9:46
Disc Two:
1. Yasgur's Farm 8:06
2. Lady of the Woodlands 3:37
3. A Tale of Three and Tree 3:28
4. Other Half of the Sky 31:44
5. To Sail Beyond the Sunset 5:18
Pretty sure everyone at DTF has a story about how a thread on a band resulted in them finding a band (or more) that they never would have heard of otherwise. Moon Safari is mine. My favorite modern progressive rock band, Blomljud is two CDs worth of the most endlessly catchy, earworm worthy progressive rock you’ll ever heard, with the finest collection of vocal melodies and harmony singing you will ever hear, accessible enough to recommend to a prog newcomer but with enough going on to keep a prog veteran happy. The recurring musical motifs, call backs, the perfectly structured epics, the vocals-this is just a glorious, wonderful, perfect album. Get it if you like prog in the least.
18. Emerson, Lake & Palmer-Brain Salad Surgery
Released: November 19, 1973
Produced by: Greg Lake
Track Listing:
1. Jerusalem 2:41
2. Toccata 7:16
3. Still...You Turn Me On 2:50
4. Benny the Bouncer 2:15
5. Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Pt. 1 8:39
6. Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Pt. 2 4:43
7. Karn Evil 9: 2nd Impression 7:05
8. Karn Evil 9: 3rd Impression 9:05
I described ELP’s monument to progressive rock excess, Brain Salad Surgery, in Orbert’s thread about ELP as being my all-time favorite progressive rock album. That has been slightly re-assessed for this list, but that takes nothing away from it, or my love of it. Brain Salad Surgery is an album by a band aiming for nothing less than 110% over the top in everything from the music to the presentation (that fuckin’ COVER) to presenting a song so long at the time that it sprawled across two sides of the vinyl. Hearing about this as a younger Jaq, I was convinced that Karn Evil 9 had to be the best thing ever if it needed that fucking much SPACE. And I wasn’t far off.
17. Dream Theater-Images and Words
Released: July 7, 1992
Produced by: David Prater
Track Listing:
1. Pull Me Under 8:14
2. Another Day 4:23
3. Take the Time 8:21
4. Surrounded 5:30
5. Metropolis—Part I: "The Miracle and the Sleeper" 9:32
6. Under a Glass Moon 7:03
7. Wait for Sleep 2:31
8. Learning to Live 11:30
I will resist the urge to make my write up of this be a simple “ugh, that triggered snare” and instead tell a story about just why I love this album and Dream Theater so much. In my teens and into my early 20s, I had ambitions of writing and playing music. I was hampered by being a mediocre drummer, a merely competent singer who had the bad luck of sounding just like Paul Stanley when he sang, and a lyricist who had a penchant for overly long and melodramatic lyrics. Needless to say, the music career never happened. But in my head, oh, in my head, I knew precisely what I was wanting to play. I wanted music that blended the thunder of heavy metal with the technical skill of progressive rock. It was why I was drawn to Rush, why I liked Maiden’s longer numbers and loved Queensryche, and why Fates Warning made me say “this is ALMOST what I want to play, but not quite.” And then there came that day when I was watching MTV and saw the video for Pull Me Under, and when the guitar came in, a voice in my head-a frustrated Jaq in his late teens-shouted “THAT’S HOW IT WOULD HAVE SOUNDED!” Needless to say, I am not suggesting that young me thought he was capable of writing and playing anything as timeless or amazing as Images and Words, but that’s why it spoke to me so, and still does to this day. Dream Theater remains the ideal for the music that moves me most, and it began with Images and Words. The album I wish I had been good enough to come up with.
16. Metallica-Master of Puppets
Released: February 24, 1986
Produced by: Flemming Rassmussen and Metallica
Track Listing:
1. Battery 5:12
2. Master of Puppets 8:36
3. The Thing That Should Not Be 6:37
4. Welcome Home (Sanitarium) 6:27
5. Disposable Heroes 8:17
6. Leper Messiah 5:40
7. Orion 8:28
8. Damage, Inc. 5:29
Back in the 80s, without the internet, you were largely at the mercy of metal magazines to find out just when a band had an album coming out, so all too often the first you heard of it was when it hit your local record store. In the case of Master of Puppets, though, I had the good fortune to have a friend who went away for college, in a town where Kerrang was sold, and he would mail me copies of it. So it was a mere eleven days before it came out that I got the issue of Kerrang that had a preview of Metallica’s Master of Puppets, including the release date. Longest eleven days of my musical life. Master of Puppets is the template the band laid down on Ride The Lightning executed to perfection, a game changing shot across the bow of heavy metal that to this day still sounds as amazing as it did to me when it came out. There isn’t a note out of place or a riff wasted, a front to back masterpiece.
Nose to the grindstone time. Hope to have the top fifteen in as soon as possible!
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Some stellar choices here.
I predict either Nursery Cryme or The Lamb further on in your list? :biggrin: I understand why many love Foxtrot, and I like it as well, but it's never really totally clicked with me on the level NC and Selling England have. Supper's Ready never struck me as one of prog's finer epics honestly, but Watcher of the Skies is a standout track for me. That mellotron intro is awe-inspiring.
Nothing more to be said about I&W. It's timeless.
Master of Puppets :metal Defined metal for me when I was getting into it. Still one of the best.
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Good write up for Images and Words. Top 5 for me, pure music perfection.
MoP is one of the best metal albums and easily my favorite Metallica disc.
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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.
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A very fine pick for number 1 Mr Jaq. You won't find me disagreeing with you about Roger Waters' finest solo album (and probably any album he's worked on)
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A fine finish. :tup
And Powerslave :hifive:
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Great seeing Lizzy so high.
Maiden of course are perfect.
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Nice writeups. I'll dispute that Powerslave was a monumental leap over PoM. Pound for pound, I think PoM is Maiden's most solid album. Not anything even remotely close to stinky there. Boston :hefdaddy: of course, and nice to see WYWH so high. It's my 2nd fave behind The Wall (of all time), but nowadays I probably enjoy WYWH more.
Great dump Jaq.
Wait. Wut?!?!
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Of course you know... this means war.
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Great seeing Lizzy so high.
Maiden of course are perfect.
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:tup :tup
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Of course you know... this means war.
:lol
If you hadn't dropped the rest of your list at once I probably wouldn't have finished mine so there's that.
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Some great albums in there Jaq. Too much prog for me but :tup for rainbow Rising (a Lowdz Top 5).
Maiden are awesome - no shock there.
Misplaced Childhood is the classic you say it is.
DT :heart
KISS, Ozzy (I'm one who prefers Diary...), all win. And SRV is :hefdaddy
Nice job.
But for me... 1987 was the year. Still, 76 was pretty awesome.
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Well done Jaq!! Well done! I have the same dilemma as others with PoM and Powerslave.. Depends on my mood as too which one is stronger. Thanks for the awesome list. :hat
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And some random factoids about my list to wrap this up:
The most brutal battle in this list: the one for #50. Crimson by Edge of Sanity won it over a coin flip over...Transatlantic's debut album. If I made this list again, they'd probably swap.
Rush only had a single album in my top 50. 2112, Moving Pictures, Hemispheres, A Farewell to Kings, and Power Windows made my top 100.
The only other Dream Theater album in my top 100 was Awake at number 57.
The album in my top 100 most unlike the taste in music I display generally here: Kind of Blue by Miles Davis at number 60.
Other 1976 gems that made my top 100: Presence by Led Zeppelin (#95), Hotel California by the Eagles (#74), A Trick of the Tail by Genesis (#68), Agents of Fortune by Blue Oyster Cult (#91), and the previously mentioned 2112 (#65.)
And finally, the album that, in my last iteration of my top 100 to make this top 50 list, came in #100: Foreigner's self-titled debut album.
Thanks again guys. Maybe if I do some sort of list DT-side I'll smartly write most of it up BEFORE I start.
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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.
:hearts:
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:lol
Yeah, when anyone needs back up for the case that early Opeth doesn't suck, give me a call.
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I'm with you guys, I love both Orchid and Morningrose... though neither would make my Top 10 of all time.
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I'm just gonna leave this cookie between the three of us and see what happens...
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Great seeing Lizzy so high.
Maiden of course are perfect.
Yes.
Also Jaq, I'm not a Floyd/Waters guy though I do have a couple PF albums that I love. I've always been curious about Amused To Death and have found the whole concept truly fascinating. After 20 years of wondering, I will definitely make it part of my Fathers Day haul in a few weeks. Your #1 pick is the official tipping point.
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Great seeing Lizzy so high.
Maiden of course are perfect.
Yes.
Also Jaq, I'm not a Floyd/Waters guy though I do have a couple PF albums that I love. I've always been curious about Amused To Death and have found the whole concept truly fascinating. After 20 years of wondering, I will definitely make it part of my Fathers Day haul in a few weeks. Your #1 pick is the official tipping point.
:tup