Tag: album

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The Collection – Ugly Kid Joe

Wavy guitars!

That’s how Rich described the sound of Ugly Kid Joe many years ago and I argued against it for about a year. Eventually we asked a Mossad agent and he agreed with Rich. So, wavy guitars it is!

“I Hate Everything About You” was my first UKJ song and a brilliant little song of teenage angst and annoyance it is. Then they released “Neighbour” although they probably spelt it “Neighbor”! I bought some albums on vinyl, I think, you can check on my older websites. Much like Dan Reed Network, when I went digital I decided to get a best of. I really like this collection of songs. UKJ really were / are a good band.

When I saw Bon Jovi at Wembley Stadium there were two support bands. Van Halen and Ugly Kid Joe. Actually, I think there was a third band but they were rubbish. Ugly Kid Joe were brilliant and blew away Van Halen and were pretty close to dumping on Bon Jovi. I would say that BJ and UKJ were about even!

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The Collection – Dan Reed Network

I saw this band without having heard of their stuff when they supported Bon Jovi in about 1990 at Wembley Arena. It was a good concert overall and BJ were pretty much on form. The support band was Dan Reed Network. I thought they were pretty good and so I bought “Slam” and “Heat” when that eventually came out. When I went digital as the previous albums were on music cassette I just bought a “best of”.

Now, every song on here is worth listening to. The sound is a weird rock-funk crossover thing. It sometimes sounds very 80s, but I kinda like that. My highlights are:

  • Baby Now I
  • Rainbow Child
  • Stronger Than Steel
  • Tiger in a Dress

Now, I can remember being with my dad in the car driving along Gilden Way in Harlow. I had put “Slam” in the tape player and we had heard the first side and the player reversed direction for the start of side two (check that out you digital freaks, two sides of TAPE for an album). The start of the second side starts with police sirens. There was a moment of panic as both dad and I thought there were police chasing us or coming up and we’d need to move over. Once the music cut-in it was a bit more clear what was happening. Fools!

I’m not sure I can let you know just how highly I think of the song “Rainbow Child”. It is just rather beautiful. I originally bought this on a YELLOW vinyl 12 inch single. I love the old days. There aren’t many songs that can reduce me into an emotional wreck but this one comes extremely close. I just can’t rate it highly enough. “Rainbow Child” along with “White Wine In The Sun” crumble me!

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The Collection – Anthrax

Look, this is a collection of the best songs by Anthrax. If you like Anthrax then this should be brilliant. I can now confirm that it is.

All the songs on this album are great. It’s pretty hard to choose the songs I should highlight. I’ve already mentioned “Anti-Social” in a previous review so I can skip that. There’s something special about the music produced by bands at the start of a new movement. It really does affect how you think and move. Anthrax were, and still are, one of the big four, so the recognition amongst metal fans is great. It’s a shame that only Metallica have really penetrated the main market, but then they had to sell out to do so.

My favourites are:

  • Armed and Dangerous
  • Bring The Noise
  • Make Me Laugh
  • Got The Time

If you don’t know anything by Anthrax then get this. It’s a great introduction although I think the songs sound better in their original homes on the proper albums in the chain of songs and time where they were put [Not sure if that scans well, I’ll re-write if it’s poor].

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Close To Human – Aesthetic Perfection

This album is quite clearly the product of a band who are finding their ground. It’s good but unfortunately it’s not as good as their later stuff. This was the last album by this band that I downloaded and probably just as well. Had I got this one first I wouldn’t have carried on. As it is I consider Combichrist and Aesthetic Perfection to be at the peak of their music genre.

As this is a recent purchase and I’ve only really listened to it on runs I can’t be sure about stand out tracks. Just having a look at the titles doesn’t help apart from noticing that the second song on the album is missing. How does that happen?

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Burning Red – Machine Head

This was the first Machine Head album I bought and I can remember driving in a car somewhere with Andy Smith with this on in the background. I think it was about the time I lived in Brentwood. Much like the previous review it’s a very good heavy album. Well worth listening. On first play I got confused by song number 8 as I knew the lyrics and melody of the vocals! somewhat worrying for an album I hadn’t heard before. Only when the chorus came in did I realise it was a cover version of “Message in a Bottle”.

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Burn My Eyes – Machine Head

This is one of two Machine Head albums I bought while I was living in Brentwood. The sound is rather more industrial and heavy than a lot of the other stuff I listen to. It’s good stuff, somewhere on the way to Nine Inch Nails and Slipknot.

The guitars are heavy, the drumming pumps and the vocals are dark. It’s very good winter music. I do suffer a little with Old Dog syndrome with this album. Not to take anything away from the album, it’s just a bit too new for proper song selection. I listened to it this morning in the car and remembered all the songs. It’s good.

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BTO’s Greatest – Bachman-Turner Overdrive

If I have to be honest this is not the greatest of that wonderess of bands Bachman-Turner Overdrive. If you want to hear their best stuff then just get the Not Fragile album and remove “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet”.

However, as a start this is good. It does contain some stuttering song about blue eyes and it’s a shame as although it is their most well-known song it is not one of the best. My personal highlights are:

  • Hey You
  • Roll On Down The Highway
  • Freeways
  • Let It Ride
  • Rock and Roll Nights

I guess it is hard to create a “Best” album. Music taste is so subjective. I do not think this ranks anywhere high. See my review of Not Fragile in about six months time to get an idea of what I think of a great album. This album doesn’t even have “She’s a Devil” because as we all know: “Her hair is the colour of fire”.

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Broken – Nine Inch Nails

The first NIN album in this list. I’ve seen them twice but never really got into them around university time. So, The Downward Spiral wasn’t my first Nine Inch Nails album. This one, along with Fixed, was my first NIN album. A friend was giving away some music as he had just got a new girlfriend and needed the space in the house to put her stuff. I got some NIN and Rammstein.

This is a very good album. It has that raw, industrial sound that I really liked for about 15 years. NIN along with Ministry really broke new ground and paved the way for bands like Slipknot.

Highlights:

  • Pinion
  • Wish
  • Last
  • Happiness in Slavery

I do happen to think that the Fixed album has better versions but this is still great. Well worth putting on at any time but mostly an autumn album. Definitely not for the summer time!

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Brave New World – Iron Maiden

This is probably the last “new” album by Iron Maiden that I bought. There were some duff ones from “Fear of the Dark” and I gave up for a while. I’m not really sure why I got this but it may have been to do with seeing them at Earl’s Court Arena.

This album opens with “The Wicker Man” which is a good song and classic, it has nice pace and rocks along. “Ghost of the Navigator”, “Brave New World”, “Blood Brothers” are all good songs. After that I start to lose interest in the album. I think that, perhaps, the Maiden sound only takes me so far now.

Overall, this is a good album. It’s not like the first seven studio albums but it is good. My main issue with Maiden at the moment is Jannick Gers. The band doesn’t need three guitarists. Mind you, I’m very much looking forward to seeing them at Download this year [probably because they are playing all the old stuff].

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Boys In Heat – Britny Fox

This album was originally bought on vinyl, I can’t remember why but it was probably in the rock/metal section and the cover looked good. It’s very much an album of cockrock and a good one at that. All the songs are good and well constructed.

Every now and then I find that I’m humming a tune and it happens to be Britny Fox. I wasn’t aware that the song “Hair Of the Dog” was a cover version until I bought the Spaghetti Incident by Guns’n’Roses.

My highlights:

  • In Motion
  • Standing in the Shadows
  • Dream On [lovely song]
  • Long Way From Home
  • Shine On
  • Angel In My Heart

On further listening it turns out that there isn’t a bad song on the album!

If it’s a classic LA rock style that you want then this is a great album.

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Boston – Boston

There’s something about the energy and flair of a first album that normally shocks you awake. I’d only really known “More Than A Feeling” from this album for years because it’s on every bloody rock compilation collection.

However, I started playing Rock Band about 5 years ago and the song “Foreplay, Long Time” was on the game. I found this to be a genius song. It’s brilliant and operatic and full of riffs that make you want to dance. So, it was time to check out the whole album. To be honest I kinda started on a Boston freak time trying to get all their music, which was a bit harder than you might think.

There are eight songs on this album. They are all brilliant. They all deserve special mention but I won’t because of my old age / new song thing. Every one is a classic. I love how easy and great to listen to it is. I also think the songs are pretty predictable but the thing is there that before this band and some others around the same time this sort of song didn’t exist. It’s predictable because this band wrote this stuff in the first place.

Get it, play it. LOUD. In the car.

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Bonfire – AC/DC

There comes a time when all bands sell-out. I think they have to, it maintains their income and produces the goods for the record company. Metallica have done it loads and I find a lot of their stuff nauseating. AC/DC by all measures have done it too. Branded Monopoly and anything else that you want but I don’t see it as selling-out. I see it as giving the fans what they want. For some reason it’s different for AC/DC [there’s cognitive dissonance for you!].

Bonfire is a collection of music from the Bon Scott days of AC/DC [when they were at their best]. The discs are split up into the following:

  • Back In Black [not Bon but it’s there]
  • Atlantic Studios
  • Paris I and II
  • Volts

The Atlantic Studio recording is of them live in the early days. It’s great. Really raw and lovely. The Paris CDs is just the CD version of the video “Let There Be Rock”. Volts is a collection of rare recordings from the early days.

I bought the Let There Be Rock video in about 1989, over an Easter break. I remember watching it. Videos were new to me and this was AC/DC live. At the end after the concert when the screen goes black and “To Bon” is written on the screen I cried. It’s hard not to. The world lost an extreme talent the night he died. On my return to school after the break Steven, who was the other AC/DC nut in my year group, had also watched the video. He had shed a tear too. The soundtrack is lovely. It’s nice to hear slightly different versions of the songs.

Volts is good but it freaks me out hearing classic songs with different lyrics.

If you are a Bon Scott fan then this is grade A merchandise.

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Body Count – Body Count

I’m sorry. Who?
Ice-T?
Singing metal?
What?

That’s right. Ice-T has a band called Body Count and they play metal. Ice-T “sings” his stuff. This is a great album. It makes me laugh and slightly sad at the same time. Ice-T definitely has a message to portray and it seems to be one about the desperation of black people in society and getting laid. It’s funny how these things fit the music but when written down they just don’t scan very well.

My favourites:

  • Body Count’s in the House
  • Body Count
  • KKK Bitch
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Blood Sugar Sex Magik – Red Hot Chilli Peppers

I have a feeling the Chilli Peppers along with some other bands mentioned before are somewhat over-rated. I bought the album What Hits? and I really liked it. The songs were fast and raw.

I bought this album. Now, I can recognise it is a good album and I can almost see why people rave about it and the Chillis but they just don’t do it for me and so are over-rated.

“Suck My Kiss” and “Give It Away” are my favourites. The rest don’t bother me. I really disliked the Chillis when they became super popular (it’s in my psyche to dislike popular stuff) and stuff like “Dani California” etc just makes me want to puke.

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Blade Runner – Vangelis

Every now and then you need a bit of chill-out music. Where would someone like me turn for that?

Films.

Most of my classical and easy listening knowledge comes from music in films. Blade Runner is an excellent film made atmospheric by the music contained within.

This is that music. Simple.

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Blackout – Scorpions

In the late 80s those cheeky Scorpions had a massive hit with “Winds Of Change” from the Crazy World album. I bought that album – no bad songs there just classic straight talking rock.

After a while I bought this on music cassette. The cover has a man screaming with his eyes being impaled with eating forks. Just sayin’!

Look, this was released in 1982 and I listen to it still. The songs are really good and catchy. It’s not ground breaking rock, in fact it’s rather derivative, but it is a very well constructed album and brilliant. How many great German bands are there? [quite a few in these pages].

There isn’t a bad song. My personal favourites are:

  • Blackout
  • Can’t Live Without You
  • Now!
  • Arizona
  • China White

There you have it. I’m a fan of the Scorpions. Not enough to have a tattoo but a fan.

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Black Ice – AC/DC

This album proved to be a return to greatness for the grandfathers of rock. This band have been around for so long and made some less-than-brilliant albums that all hope had been given up. I heard about this album while listening to the Bruce Dickinson rock show on BBC Radio 6 Music. He was raving about how good he thought it was and what a return to form it showed. I was curious. Bruce is a big AC/DC fan and so he couldn’t be wrong.

This is a complete wonder of an album. It doesn’t have the gritty rawness of the Bon Scott albums but it is crafted and written brilliantly. It has everything you could want. Blockbusting riffs, brilliant drums, good lyrics and thundering bass. It’s great.

All the songs are good. Well worth putting on in the car for a summer drive. It’ll cheer you up.

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