YK's Classic Rock Music Project

[Kraken]

I don't think you've auditioned The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway yet. It's a double album with too much filler, if you're just listening to it. The filler contributed to the story in their stage show but is skippable without the visuals. The Lamb was a brilliant album-and-a-half that had to be either cut or padded to a double because album-and-a-halfs could not exist.

Will be interested to read your impressions now that I've thoroughly biased you.

[LordMortis]

I've heard so much about that show since I was a young teenager. You've inspired me to look for this



Now, we'll see what they sound quality is like when I have two hours to give.

[Jaymann]

The Lamb was a brilliant album-and-a-half that had to be either cut or padded to a double because album-and-a-halfs could not exist.

Johnny Winter would beg to differ:

The album was released as a "three-sided" LP, with a blank fourth side on the original vinyl.

[Exodor]

I have a weird relationship with Genesis. I had a buddy in high school who was super into 70's era ProgGenesis ("The Return of the Giant Hogweed" was a huge favorite for reasons I can't remember) but refused to listen to anything past the self-titled album. I persisted through Invisible Touch but only because of "Domino" and "The Brazilian" - the rest is borderline unlistenable to me). Looking at wikipedia it seems the songs on those albums that I love are almost all non-Collins tracks which makes sense to me. I don't think there's any argument he was the force pushing them towards pop and while he made some great music he veered toward cheesy too much for my taste.

When I discovered "alternative" in 1987 or so I abandoned Genesis until just a few years ago when I had a great time going back and listening to all the old albums. I'm a huge fan and sad that I never got a chance to see them live.

I will forever find "Illegal Alien" to be a truly awful song, though.

[Jeff V]

WXRT is doing a 12 hour block of 70's music today (after which they will rebroadcast a 1975 Bob Marley club concert). They did play The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Now, I've not been able to listen to every song they played, but in the category of prog, in addition to this they played ELP, The Moody Blues, Alan Parson's Project, Yes, and Jethro Tull. They also hit most of the major CBGB products: The Ramones, The Talking Heads, Blondie, Patti Smith (if they played Television I missed it). Glam the did Bowie (several times), Sweet and T-Rex. They just played Fins by Jimmy Buffett and now my daughter thinks I'm even weirder. They are playing Bob Marley now for at least the third time today.

It's fun when they do this.

Now that my MiL is no longer here and I can't work some nights, I'll go back to watching concert videos on You Tube -- I've not had the time. I'm a little behind on memorials -- I tried to spend an evening watching videos every time a notable musician passes -- I owe Christie McVie and David Crosby, probably a few others.

[YellowKing]

I recently got into early Moody Blues. I just picked up what many consider their 3 best albums, Days of Future Passed, Seventh Sojourn, and To Our Children's Children's Children. I'm not sure I totally get them, but they've been interesting listens.

[LordMortis]

I recently got into early Moody Blues. I just picked up what many consider their 3 best albums, Days of Future Passed, Seventh Sojourn, and To Our Children's Children's Children. I'm not sure I totally get them, but they've been interesting listens.

I really like The Present which wasn't early and the band kinda pretended it never existed. Not a single song was played from on their Other Side of Life tour which was the next album.

Not really sure what I would consider their best. They all have strength but honestly The Present is the only album I consistently would like end to end after a few listens. The rest of them all have songs that would eventually make hit skip to one two songs. (I never bought an album after The Other Side, they just seemed to be running on fumes at that point). I don't own their first album. It was impossible to find back in the day, but next ten were all solid enough to own, just not perfect. The Other Side, meh.

[TheMix]

I generally like the Moody Blues. But I'm not sure I love them. I agree that they can be a bit hard to grok at times. I think I have one of their albums, but I'm not sure. I've always been more partial to the Alan Parsons Project. They (he?) seem to sometimes do similar things (like going off on instrumentals), but have clicked much more.

[Rumpy]

I always get Moody Blues confused with Blues Traveler, for some reason.

[Pyperkub]

I always get Moody Blues confused with Blues Traveler, for some reason.

Probably when you are in a traveling mood...

Sent from my SM-S908U1 using Tapatalk

[YellowKing]

Shorter reviews today but the album batch this time was....meh.

106. Van Halen - Women and Children First (1980) - This third album by Van Halen was generally well reviewed. The band started to stretch their wings a bit creatively, and you get everything from hard blues rock to weird little offbeat numbers. And of course, throughout, David Lee Roth is having an absolute blast being David Lee Roth.

I liked this one quite a bit, even when it went into slightly strange territory. When I look at rankings over the entire discography it tends to fall in the middle to upper middle. While it may not land in the upper eschelon of Van Halen albums, I think it's important in that it was the first album where the band left their comfort zone behind, ditched the covers, and went into - if you'll pardon the expression - uncharted waters.

Top Track: "Everybody Wants Some!!" Favorite Track: "Could This Be Magic?" (Because it's so darn goofy)

107. Cheap Trick - Cheap Trick (1977) - Cheap Trick's debut album did nothing to help me pin this band down, but it was an enjoyable ride all the same. If there was any doubt about Cheap Trick's Beatles fascination, they were dispelled with "Taxman, Mr. Thief," a direct homage to the Beatles song.

This album is also surprisingly dark - not musically, but lyrically. There are songs about serial killers ("The Ballad of TV Violence (I'm Not the Only Boy)"), and suicide ("Oh, Candy"). It's also a touch heavier than later Cheap Trick albums. However, Cheap Trick takes the top prize for perhaps the most disturbing song of this entire project, "Daddy Should Have Stayed in High School" in which a man in his 30s stalks a high school girl before gagging, stripping, and (presumably) raping her. Yikes. I mean WTF.

Moving along from that track, the whole album kind of sounds like an alternate-universe in which the Beatles went the hard rock route instead of psychedelia. The last track, the aforementioned "The Ballad of TV Violence" is a powerfully creepy album closer.

Top Track: "He's a Whore" Favorite Track: "Taxman, Mr. Thief" (Because.....Beatles!)

108. Bad Company - Here Comes Trouble (1992) - This is Bad Company's tenth studio album, and quite honestly is little more than a blip in their discography. The single "How About That" performed fairly well on the rock charts, but critically the album was met with a resounding "meh." Incidentally the verse to "How About That" kind of sounds like Jesus Jones "Right Here, Right Now," which came out a year prior. Just sayin'.

I was really "meh" on this whole album. It just sounds like bland generic dad rock that would be playing behind a montage from some cheesy Lifetime channel movie.

Top Track: "How About That" Favorite Track: N/A

109. Aerosmith - Draw the Line (1977) - This is an Aerosmith album that you don't usually hear mentioned when talking about the band, and there's good reason for it. Recorded at a time when the band was consumed with drug use and burned out on touring, the odds were against it being a killer record.

This is another big "meh" for me. For one thing, the entire album sounds like the band is playing in an airplane hangar, and you're outside several feet away listening through the wall. It's muddy, the songs lack the typical Aerosmith hooks, and the whole thing comes off like a garage band that should have stayed in the garage.

Top Track: "Kings and Queens" Favorite Track: "Kings and Queens"

110. Bad Company - Stories Told & Untold (1996) - This one had me puzzled for a bit because it's not even on Spotify. Had to look it up on YouTube. This is the last album with lead vocalist Robert Hart, who had replaced Brian Howe as of their previous effort Company of Strangers).

This is the 12th studio album by Bad Company and is a mix of new songs and re-recordings of greatest hit tracks rearranged in more of a country rock style. These include such tracks as "Simple Man," "Shooting Star," and "Can't Get Enough."

I liked this album a bit more than Here Comes Trouble, even though that may be a case of damning with faint praise. At least it has some recognizable tunes, and while there wasn't any need to re-record these, I didn't mind the laid-back bluesy veneer they put on top of them.

These 90s albums are still a band that are past their prime. That sounds like a snarky insult, but I don't really mean it to sound as harsh as it does. If you're a fan of this band, I'm sure they were just fine. I wasn't offended by them or anything. They just weren't of the caliber of their early efforts.

Top Track: N/A Favorite Track: "Shooting Star"

[Jaymann]

105. The Who - Who's Next (1971) - At last we come to the final The Who album, which is perfectly fine by me. I have heard this album before; it was on my Rolling Stone Top 500 Albums project.

This fifth album by the band is widely considered their best. And considering it has three of the few The Who tracks I can actually stand ("Baba O'Riley" "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Behind Blue Eyes"), I'll go along with that assessment. I hope the Who fans reading this understand that my comments about disliking the band are all a bit tongue-in-cheek. There are very few artists of their caliber that I'm not at least a casual fan of, so when I get the opportunity to poke fun at one of them I have to take it.

All kidding aside, this is a good album. Most of the tracks here came from their abandoned rock-opera Lifehouse, so they all have either a really epic feel or the feel of a broadway solo ("Getting in Tune"). Still, if even their best album can't make me a Who fan, I don't think it was meant to be.

Top Track: "Baba O'Riley" Favorite Track: "Won't Get Fooled Again"

I woke up with the song My Wife in my head. I knew it was The Who, but I had no idea of the title or what album it is on. I finally found it from a snippit of remembered lyrics. I had no idea what it was about until I did. I'm not a big Who fan, but that is a catchy tune.

[YellowKing]

Arise thread! No, I haven't abandoned the project. I had actually planned on resuming it a few weeks ago but in the move to a new PC I couldn't find my master project sheet. The thought of trying to rebuild it based on my posts in this thread seemed...daunting. However, I happened to run across a cloud backup of it so we're back in business!

Quick refresher - I'm going through 20 big rock bands and listening to their complete studio album discographies. I'm posting in batches of 5 and the band/album is generated by random number so I never know what I'm going to cover in what order. I'm not an expert on any of these bands, so my thoughts are definitely first impressions and may or may not align with critical acclaim. For each album I give the "Top Track" which is the track most listened to based on Spotify streams, as well as my "Favorite Track" which is my personal favorite of the album.

As always, feel free to post in this thread with your thoughts on any of the bands or albums I cover. This project is designed to generate discussion and stimulate musical curiosity.

One more thing - I did change my random number strategy a bit to hopefully shake things up and keep the edges of the bell curve from getting neglected.

We've run through 110 albums so far, and we've got around 190 to go.

111. Queensryche - Take Cover (2007) - There may not be another band in the entire project I know *less* about than Queensryche. Other than "Silent Lucidity" I couldn't name a single song by them, a single band member, hell, I probably couldn't tell you what genre they are.

Take Cover is the band's tenth studio album and not one to give me much insight since it consists entirely of cover songs. It's an eclectic bunch, too, with tracks ranging from Pink Floyd ("Welcome to the Machine") to Jesus Christ Superstar "Heaven on Their Minds" to The Police "Synchronicity II" and U2 ("Bullet the Blue Sky").

On initial impressions, I'll be honest and say I'm not a big fan of Geoff Tate's vocals, so that may spell doom for me enjoying the rest of the band's early catalog. Then again, it could be I just don't like his vocals with these familiar songs. All that said, this album's fine - I at least appreciate that they took on some bold covers from a wide variety of genres instead of sticking to what was safe. Would I ever listen to these Queensryche covers over the originals? Not a chance.

Top Track: "Welcome to the Machine" Favorite Track: "Welcome to the Machine"

112. Pink Floyd - The Endless River (2014) - Heck, I didn't even know this album *existed.* I thought The Division Bell was their final album. I suppose in some ways it's understandable...this album is compromised mostly of music recorded during The Division Bell sessions, and is mostly ambient instrumentals. The couple of exceptions are one Gilmour vocal track and one that is made up of a Stephen Hawking voice, if you want to count that.

The album was met with mixed reviews, and I can understand why. It's *very* Pink Floyd, almost to a fault. By that I mean, it at times almost sounds redundant, like listening to snippets of old Pink Floyd instrumental sections that you've already heard dozens of times. However, I still enjoyed it quite a bit. I like ambient music and David Gilmour's guitar style, so I found the album pretty comforting and innocuous. I would definitely return to this one as background music for reading or for work.

Top Track: "Side 1, Pt. 1: Things Left Unsaid" Favorite Track: "Side 1, Pt. 4: Louder Than Words"

113. KISS - Hot in the Shade (1989) - This is the 15th KISS studio album and the last full album of Eric Carr before his passing. It was another bit of a reboot album, going for a stripped down raw rock sound, but failed to make a splash with critics. The album featured three singles, "Hide Your Heart," "Forever," and "Rise to It." Of those, "Forever" was a minor hit, reaching the Billboard charts Top 10. However, the album itself never hit Platinum and this remains just another footnote in KISS history.

There are some moments on here that are kind of cringe, like "Read My Body" which sounds like a blatant rip-off of "Pour Some Sugar On Me." And I really don't get the love for "Forever." It's like nails on a chalkboard bad. I will say I warmed to the album a bit more as it went on, but I suspect it's more because the songs sounded familiar-ish due to their similarity to other songs. Ex: The "Hey Man" phrasing in "The Street Giveth and the Street Taketh Away" sounds like the same phrase in Bowie's "Suffragette City."

Ultimately to me this album just felt like a band trying to sound like other, better bands. I think the only reason I didn't hate it is because each track sounded close enough to <insert generic classic rock song> to be moderately appealing.

Top Track: "Forever" Favorite Track: "Rise To It" (Only because I like KISS best when they're tossing out bad sexual innuendos like a high school freshman)

114. Fleetwood Mac - Future Games (1971) - Now we're really into some uncharted waters. I'm REALLY unfamiliar with pre-Buckingham/Nicks Fleetwood Mac, so albums like this were exactly why I created this challenge. This is the band's fifth studio album and the first with Christine McVie (who I adore - I heard a song by her I had never heard before a few days ago and it just reminded me what a tremendous loss her passing was).

Not much in the way of hits or singles on this album, however, and it made a brief appearance in the Billboard 200 before falling off. I went into this one with completely virgin ears. It's a pleasant little album, with a lot of lengthy tracks that represent that gap in time where everything didn't have to be a three-minute single. Christine doesn't get as much a chance to shine on her debut as I had hoped, but you can see the seeds being planted.

One of the highlights of this challenge is finding albums I really like and then being able to go track them down on vinyl. There's just something so satisfying about holding the actual album in your hands from the '70s and having it on the shelf. I've gone back and grabbed tons of old Billy Joel, Elton John, Jim Croce, Paul Simon, etc. records - artists I listened to a lot but never actually *owned."

This album will go on that wish list to own. I'm patient - on rare occasions if I want it bad enough I'll actually hunt it down and order it online. But most times I just wait to come across it at the record store or during an online used sale.

Top Track: "Forever Games" Favorite Track: "Show Me a Smile" (due to the Christine McVie lead vocal)

115. Bad Company - Holy Water (1990) - This is the last Bad Company album I had to cover. It was the band's ninth studio album, third with Brian Howe, and managed some nice chart success thanks to singles "Holy Water," "If You Needed Somebody," and "Walk Through Fire."

I liked a lot of Bad Company's early albums but this one just never grabbed me. I don't know if it just leaned too hard into that late 80s cheese rock sound or if I was just getting burned out at this point, but even the singles failed to make much of a splash. I don't think it's a bad album, I just wasn't in the right frame of mind.

Top Track: "If You Needed Somebody" Favorite Track: "100 Miles"

[Jaymann]

At one point I owned the vinyl of Future Games. Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer (the slide guitar specialist) had left the group so they brought in Bob Welch, and Danny Kirwan played a more prominent role. I think Kirwan is one of the most underrated guitarists of all time, and I love his distinctive sound. Too bad he soon failed to conquer his demons and was fired when he showed up to a gig too drunk to play. To Welch's credit, he was able to handle Kirwan's parts and finished the show.

[JCC]

111. Queensryche - Take Cover (2007) -
....

On initial impressions, I'll be honest and say I'm not a big fan of Geoff Tate's vocals, so that may spell doom for me enjoying the rest of the band's early catalog.

That's a pretty controversial take. He has long been regarded as one of the greatest metal vocalists ever - particularly by fans of Queensryche. On a related note, I am NOT a big fan of Q myself. On paper they are right in my wheelhouse (and I do think GT is great) but with a few exceptions always let me cold. (shrugs)

112. Pink Floyd - The Endless River (2014)

I finally got around to trying this in the last year or so, after hearing the same sorts of feedback on this you heard. I was pleasantly surprised. It's certainly not anything amazing or essential, but I enjoyed it much more than I expected. It was good enough to make feel sad all over again that we only got 2 studio albums (and this) from the Guilmor led era of Pink Floyd.

[RunningMn9]

What a terrible set of random selections from Queensryche and Pink Floyd. Oof.

Modern day GT is not anything near the vocalist that he used to be, back in their prog metal yesteryears. I should point out that “Operation: Mindcrime” is probably my favorite non-Pink Floyd album of all time. Prime GT’s voice is absurd, and IIRC it was legendary because of how well it held up during live performances. It’s not the kind of voice that is going to last decades though. Mid-80s? Exceptional. 20 years will degrade that though.

Chris DeGarmo is also a very, very good guitarist. O:M and Empire are a great combo. The first is one of the best metal concept albums of all-time, but Empire was much more of a commercial album.

As for Pink Floyd, their final album was The Wall, so I don’t know what you are referring to with this selection.

[hitbyambulance]

As for Pink Floyd, their final album was The Wall, so I don’t know what you are referring to with this selection.

i'll _The Final Cut_ you (aka this is the path 80's Pink Floyd should have taken)

[JCC]

I love the Final Cut, but it's really Roger Waters' first (and best) solo album much more than it's a Pink Floyd abum. In fact the first "official" Waters solo album ("The Pros and Cons of hitchhiking") sounds very similar to me to The Final Cut musically.

I can't fathom anyone not considering "The Division Bell" a Pink Floyd album. It's magnificent.To me, it's much more musically similar to old Meddle/Obscured by Clouds/Dark Side Pink Floyd. It's the first album since "Wish you were Here" that sounds like multiple band members made meaningful songwriting contributions. Animals and The Wall are magnificent, but it's much more Waters pulling most of the songwriting strings on those albums (particularly The Wall, obviously).

[LordMortis]

I love the Final Cut, but it's really Roger Waters' first (and best) solo album much more than it's a Pink Floyd abum. In fact the first "official" Waters solo album ("The Pros and Cons of hitchhiking") sounds very similar to me to The Final Cut musically.

But then so does The Wall

I can't fathom anyone not considering "The Division Bell" a Pink Floyd album. It's magnificent.To me, it's much more musically similar to old Meddle/Obscured by Clouds/Dark Side Pink Floyd.

I didn't buy it, but for my ears Momentary... sounded like a David Gilmore solo project follow up to About Face

[RunningMn9]

The Final Cut was effectively a solo album by Waters. A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell are Gilmore/Wright collaborations. They get labeled as Pink Floyd albums, but none of these projects are capable of being what Pink Floyd was with all of them in the room.

I don’t hate AMLoR or TDB, but they feel like a different band. I do find them to be a bit lyrically vapid.

[YellowKing]

116. AC/DC - Flick of the Switch (1983) - In rankings this album typically falls somewhere in the middle to lower middle of the pack. It's the band's ninth studio album and was really a slapdash affair that even the band admits was not a great effort. Heck, even the album art looks like some garage band's first-time effort. The album's mediocrity is reflective of a lot of behind-the-scenes drama, including the firing of their drummer, engineer, manager, and even their photographer.

I actually heard most of this album fairly recently on a Twitch stream I listen to. I didn't find it all that bad, but then again I've always said AC/DC albums are like pizza - some are better than others, but they're all good to me at some level. I mean there are plenty of uninspired AC/DC tracks, but are any of them actually *bad*?

Top Track: "Guns for Hire" Favorite Track: "Guns for Hire"

117. Queensryche - American Soldier (2009) - This is a really tough band for me to review as I'm just SO unfamiliar with their stuff. And to be quite honest, it's not in my lane at all musically. I've just never been into this particular style of prog metal stuff, so if this is your jam then apologies beforehand.

This is the band's eleventh studio album, a concept album around the story of the American soldier through various conflicts throughout history. I do applaud the messaging of respect for veterans, but like the music, it's an area outside of my realm of experience and expertise. I'm not really into military history or any of that.

I guess the good news is that I didn't mind Geoff Tate's vocals on this as much as I did with that last covers album I reviewed. That theatrical style is still not my cup of tea, really, but it didn't make me want to claw my ears out or anything. Long story short, this album didn't do much to sway me in either direction. Jury's still out on Queensryche. Really looking forward to getting to their earlier stuff, as I feel like this latter stuff may be souring me on the band unfairly.

Top Track: "Home Again" Favorite Track: "Hundred Mile Stare"

118. The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers (1971) - Well here's a classic. Tons of great tracks on here including the problematic (but still dang catchy) "Brown Sugar," one of my favorites "Wild Horses," and the Guitar Hero staple "Can't You Hear Me Knocking." But of course this is considered one of their all-time best so even the tracks that didn't make the greatest hits compilation cuts are fantastic. Of those I've always liked "Sway," "Bitch," and "Dead Flowers."

The original LP is a lot of fun when you come across it in the record stores/shows, as it famously featured a working zipper. Copies in great condition with zipper intact (and undamaged vinyl) are usually pretty hard to find and pricey. Not much more to say about this one. Has a ridiculously killer A side, and a very solid B side. I'll be the first to admit I'm not the world's biggest Stones fan, but I do really enjoy this album.

Top Track: "Wild Horses" Favorite Track: "Wild Horses"

119. Pink Floyd - The Division Bell (1994) - The release of this fourteenth studio album was, as I recall, a very big deal. It had been seven years since A Momentary Lapse of Reason, and I remember the hype levels were off the charts. As it happened, the release of the album also coincided with me going through a very big 60s/early 70s music phase so I had already been listening to a lot of early Pink Floyd. I bought this immediately and I think listened to it once or twice before it just wound up collecting dust in my CD case. I honestly think listening to it for this project was the first time I had heard it since 1994. Ouch.

The album, the second without Roger Waters, was met with predictably mixed reviews. Roger Waters himself called it "rubbish," though I could say the same about his weird Dark Side of the Moon reimagining. But I digress.

All that to say I was really looking forward to revisiting this one with fresh (adult) ears to see what kind of impression it made. So I cranked it WAY up and took it for a spin. As soon as the first notes of "What Do You Want From Me" landed I was just hit with a flood of nostalgia. 1994 was a truly pivotal time in my life, as it was my transition from high school to college, so anything from in and around that time period just hits hard. Not every track landed the same; "Poles Apart" wore thin by the end of its 7+ minute run-time. And I agree about the comments on the lyrics - I almost wish this one had just leaned more into the instrumentals like Endless River. I think most of the tracks were too long, which I may have not minded as much had they been without vocals. I enjoyed the trip down memory lane, but this is not an album I see myself revisiting a lot.

Top Track: "High Hopes" Favorite Track: "What Do You Want From Me"

120. Fleetwood Mac - Heroes Are Hard to Find (1974) - Well this one should be interesting. It definitely goes on my list of cringiest album covers, featuring a Mick Fleetwood in lace underwear holding a naked kid (his own, thankfully). This ninth studio album was met with mixed reviews, and it didn't even produce any singles. These days it's not looked at nearly as harshly, as the hindsight of history allows us to see what a transitional album it was. The departure of Bob Welch, Christine McVie coming into her own, and the precursor to a masterpiece.

This album is really all over the place, and unlike Future Games which I covered last time, it doesn't even have the benefit of sounding like it still had one foot in the previous decade. This one definitely lets some 70s pop influence creep in around the edges, which at the time probably annoyed the critics. However I must say I really enjoyed the unpredictability, and felt like the variety was a positive rather than a negative. Plus I'm a sucker for the Christine McVie showcases. I also really liked all the Bob Welch tracks like "Bermuda Triangle," "Born Enchanter," etc.

Top Track: "Prove Your Love" Favorite Track: "Prove Your Love"

[hitbyambulance]

Pink Floyd - The Division Bell (1994)

out of alllll the UK rock-bands-big-before-the-late-70s, Pink Floyd is definitely my favorite*, but i don't even own _Momentary Lapse of Reason_ or _The Endless River_... and i only have _The Division Bell_ because a friend of a friend died a few years ago and i inherited most of his Pink Floyd album collection. (included with that was most of the _Shine On_ box set [minus the box itself and _The Wall_], as well as the _More_ soundtrack and _Obscured By Clouds_, which i didn't own before, and bootleg CD-Rs of unreleased tracks and a Roger Waters concert.)

i don't think i even have any of Gilmour's solo albums, but i do own everything Waters releases.


* i'm walking that statement back a bit. forgot about Hawkwind and the first two Roxy Music albums are also up there. side note for YK: there are also too many good and interesting German bands from the late 60s/early 70s (Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Neu!, CAN, Amon Düül II, Faust, etc)

[YellowKing]

Sometimes the random algorithm just gets obsessed. I literally had 180+ albums in a random order, then randomly picked 5 from that random list. And still managed to get 3 Iron Maiden albums. So this is an Iron Maiden batch (with more Pink Floyd!)

121. Iron Maiden - Powerslave (1984) - OK, I hope everyone here will cut me a little slack when covering these metal albums. I've never been a metal head and while I have absolutely nothing against it and enjoy a lot of it, I'd definitely say it's one of my weaker genres in terms of knowledge and experience. I just never grew up listening to a lot of it because my interests were elsewhere, and I didn't have a friend base that listened to it either.

This was the band's fifth studio album recorded after coming off a highly successful tour. I confess when it first started I was pretty much unphased - sounded like generic 80s metal and I settled in for an unremarkable experience. But something clicked around the second or third track and all of a sudden I started really digging this album. By the time the title track rolled around with its heavy Egyptian theming, I was 100% on board with what Iron Maiden was laying down.

So it wasn't a big surprise when I looked up some Iron Maiden album rankings and Powerslave was right at the top. I always love when I know absolutely nothing about a band's discography and how they rank, listen to an album one time and feel there's something special there, and then find out after the fact that it's a classic. This one's going on the "must own on vinyl" list. I really had a great time with it and I don't even know why. It just hit right.

Top Track: "2 Minutes to Midnight" Favorite Track: "Powerslave"

122. Iron Maiden - The Book of Souls (2015) - I was interested to see if I could tell a huge difference between 1984 Iron Maiden and 2015 Iron Maiden, and it just showcased what a newbie I am with this band because it sounded about the same to me. Which is to say, pretty darn good.

This was the band's 16th studio album and was received positively by most critics. This album falls into the "second Bruce Dickinson" phase, and damned if I could tell that the guy had aged a day. There's some epic stuff on here. I particularly enjoyed "The Red and the Black" and the massive 18-minute epic "Empire of the Clouds."

I can't explain to you why the theatrics of Bruce Dickinson have so far appealed to me over the theatrics of Geoff Tate, but the heart wants what it wants I guess. Geoff Tate has a chance to win me over. As it stands right now, I'm kind of becoming an Iron Maiden fan.

Top Track: "Speed of Light" Favorite Track: "The Red and the Black"

123. Aerosmith - Honkin' on Bobo (2004) - I wasn't particularly looking forward to this one. I'm a casual Aerosmith fan, but they lost me after "Get a Grip." I think I did buy Push to Play, but didn't particularly like it, and after that I only listened to greatest hits. Compounding this trepidation, it's just a cover album of old blues songs. I like some blues stuff, but it's not at the top of my favorite genres. I went through a heavy blues phase during college and I pretty much had my fill back then.

However, damned if this one doesn't come out of the gate swinging. Super high energy album with the kind of Steven Tyler zaniness that reminded me of peak David Lee Roth. There's nothing "blue" about these blues - everything's fast-paced, happy, and rockin'. While that may not make for faithful blues covers, it certainly makes for an extremely interesting album. The only real stumbles for me were the couple of tracks where Joe Perry took over lead vocals.

This isn't an album I'd take out and listen to with any regularity, but credit where credit's due - Aerosmith surprised me with this one. If you're going to do a covers album, hell, this is the way to do it.

Top Track: "Stop Messin' Around' Favorite Track: "Road Runner"

124. Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother (1970) - As iconic as this album cover is, I was pretty sure I'd never heard this album. Even during my big Pink Floyd phase in college, never got around to this one. It's probably for the best; not considered one of the band's best, and one that even they look down on.

I have to agree. Didn't care at all for the 23-minute title track. And while I found the middle tracks "If," "Summer '68," and "Fat Old Sun" far more accessible and fairly pleasing, they constitute only about 15 minutes of a 52 minute album.

I can respect the experimentation from a rock history perspective, but this one was a little too out there for me.

Top Track: "Summer '68" Favorite Track: "Summer '68"

125. Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark (1992) - Man I've really been dancing around Iron Maiden's slump period of the mid-90s, haven't I? I just missed the cutoff with this one, as it's the final album released before Bruce Dickinson would leave the band (prior to his return in 1999). The album got mixed reviews with some critics comparing it unfavorably to the band's '80s work. It would still spawn three singles, "Be Quick or Be Dead," "From Here to Eternity," and "Wasting Love."

From my standpoint being new to the band, it was fine. However, I didn't find it as instantly captivating as the previous albums I covered in this batch. Not that there was anything wrong with it, it just sounded a little uninspired. I've seen other bands around this time period that got influenced (however slightly) by the grunge movement. I don't know if that was what softened the edge on this one, but songs like "Wasting Love" kind of gave me that impression.

I read on one list that picking your least favorite Iron Maiden album was sort of like picking your least favorite b***job and now I'm starting to see why. I'm kind of digging all of these at least to some extent.

Top Track: "Fear of the Dark" Favorite Track: "Fear of the Dark"

[JCC]

Most old metal farts like me go with the axiom that 80's Maiden is much, much MUCH better than post 80's Maiden. That's not to say there is no good stuff after the 80's but there definitley is a lot less of the great stuff. Probably my favorite post 80's Maiden output is Bruce Dickinson's solo albums Accident Of Birth, Chemical Wedding, and Tyranny of Souls. They are fantastic though also quite old in their own right.

[hitbyambulance]

I was 100% on board with what Iron Maiden was laying down.

you really have to try the Iron Maiden pinball machine if you ever see one in the wild. you can select what song is playing per ball...

124. Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother (1970) - As iconic as this album cover is, I was pretty sure I'd never heard this album. Even during my big Pink Floyd phase in college, never got around to this one. It's probably for the best; not considered one of the band's best, and one that even they look down on.

I have to agree. Didn't care at all for the 23-minute title track. And while I found the middle tracks "If," "Summer '68," and "Fat Old Sun" far more accessible and fairly pleasing, they constitute only about 15 minutes of a 52 minute album.

I can respect the experimentation from a rock history perspective, but this one was a little too out there for me.

this is the only Pink Floyd album i have on vinyl - and it was given to me for free.

[YellowKing]

126. Genesis - A Trick of the Tail (1976) - I started getting heavily into Genesis due to this project, so I've picked up a few albums by them since I last covered a Genesis record. This album is particularly notable as it was the first one after Peter Gabriel left and Phil Collins took over lead vocal duties. Despite that massive shakeup, the album was critically acclaimed and proved to the band that there was life after Gabriel. Phil Collins wasn't happy about the new spotlight, as he preferred to stay drummer. Lucky for us he got used to the new role.

This album lands firmly in Genesis' prog rock days, an era I've come to greatly appreciate in a way I never could when I was younger. I think I've stated it before, but I used to have very little patience for songs topping five minutes so this genre just never appealed to me. Heck, I can still sometimes get annoyed with longer songs depending on the genre. However, I think switching over to the vinyl format has taught me a great deal of patience and appreciate for the journey of an album side.

I really, really enjoyed this album. Particular standouts were the first three tracks, "Dance on a Volcano," "Entangled" "Squonk," and the title track. This one is going on the vinyl wish list.

Top Track: "Ripples" Favorite Track: "Squonk"

127. Fleetwood Mac - Mystery to Me (1973) - This is the band's eighth studio album and showcased the killer pop combo of Bob Welch and Christine McVie. The album was a moderate success, spending 26 weeks on the charts (albeit not very high), and being certified gold.

I liked this one much more than the follow-up which I covered recently, Heroes Are Hard to Find. It's got the great track "Hypnotized" which they'd perform again over the years and proved pretty popular. And even though the rest of the tracks weren't anything with a lot of radio play, they all have the really easy-going pop sensibility that Fleetwood Mac would later become so well-known for. I really liked Christine McVie's vocals on "The Way I Feel" and the killer cover of The Yardbirds' "For Your Love."

Top Track: "Hypnotized" Favorite Track: "Hypnotized"

128. Cheap Trick - In Color (1977) - I was looking forward to this one as I have had mixed feelings about this band based on the albums I've already covered. But this is just their second album, and I had every anticipation it would be great based on tracks like "Hello There," "Southern Girls," and their huge hit "I Want You to Want Me" (though the latter reached is greatest success as a live track from their At Budokan album).

I quite liked this one, but that tends to be the trend with these bands in their '70s eras. I'm just a big fan of '70s music and films in general. So it's rare that I come across stuff from that time period that I don't like (with the exeption, perhaps, of disco).

Top Track: "I Want You to Want Me" Favorite Track: "I Want You to Want Me"

129. Iron Maiden - No Prayer for the Dying (1990) - This was the band's eighth studio album, producing one hit single, "Bring Your Daughter...To the Slaughter." However, outside that track the album received mostly negative to mediocre reviews and is generally considered among their worst albums. It was also the first to feature Janick Gers on guitar, who replaced Adrian Smith.

The album is a bit weird for an Iron Maiden record in that all the songs clock in under five minutes except for the final track, the longest at 5:32. Overall this one just felt kind of "meh" so I get where people are coming from. I did enjoy "Run Silent Run Deep" quite a bit because I have a buddy who is a submariner.

Top Track: "Bring Your Daughter...To the Slaughter" Favorite Track: "Bring Your Daughter...To the Slaughter"

130. Aerosmith - Nine Lives (1997) - This is the band's 12th studio album and one I wasn't expecting much out of since I recently saw it pop up on a "Albums That Were Huge Disappointments" video on YouTube. It did contain a whopping five singles, "Falling in Love (Is Hard on the Knees)," "Hole in My Soul," "Pink," "Full Circle," and "Taste of India." "Pink" even won the band a Best Rock Performance Grammy. However, the album just failed to spawn the catchy pop hits the band was cranking out just a few years prior.

This one reminded me of listening to an Aerosmith album generated by AI. Like you gave it "Get a Grip" and then it spit out some weird fascimile that wasn't as good. It's an album played extremely safe, to the point it feels like a diluted self-parody of their earlier work. I feel like there's some parallel universe out there where Aerosmith never made Get a Grip, and this was their big 90s album. That sounds really negative, but honestly I didn't find this album to be bad at all. Its biggest flaw is that it's just not as good as their previous two great albums. I think they could have also dropped 2 or 3 forgettable tracks to tighten it up from its bloated run time.

Top Track: "Pink" Favorite Track: "Pink"

[Jaymann]

I also owned a vinyl copy of Mystery to Me. I liked "The City" which was, shall we say, a "tribute" to Going Down by Freddie King, though the group later disowned the song since it dissed New York and I suppose they did not want to lose that market share.

I recently added "Somebody," "Just Crazy Love" and "For Your Love" to my playlist. Overall a strong post-Green album.

[Pyperkub]

Amazon has been shuffling songs from a Cheap Trick Christmas Album I had never heard of before into my Christmas Playlist.

Wondering if YK stumbled upon the Cheap Trick Holiday album as part of his Project, or if he is doing a seasonal special!

[YellowKing]

Oh it's on the list! I will have to ditch the randomness for one album and throw that one in before the holidays.

Speaking of weird Christmas albums, I mentioned in another thread that I found out just this year that Hall & Oates did a Christmas album back in 2009. I bought it last week and it's actually really, really good.

I'll be getting back to the challenge soon enough, work has just been crazy.

[Pyperkub]

Oh it's on the list! I will have to ditch the randomness for one album and throw that one in before the holidays.

Speaking of weird Christmas albums, I mentioned in another thread that I found out just this year that Hall & Oates did a Christmas album back in 2009. I bought it last week and it's actually really, really good.

I'll be getting back to the challenge soon enough, work has just been crazy.

Yeah, Children, Go where I send thee from Hall & Oates has been spinning up/thrust into my playlist by Amazon this week too. (tho Amazon has seriously enshittified Amazon Music lately - not only are they forcefully inserting unskippable songs into playlists of music I have bought, but now they are ignoring most of the playlist, saying it's got too many songs - gee, it wasn't too many songs last year... seems like you are holding the music I paid for hostage...).

I REALLY need to make the time to set up Jellyfin in a Docker Container on my Synology so I can stream the music I OWN to my devices without this crap.

And, in the spirit of the holidays and crazy work.. peace be unto you!