Once every three months I list the best of what I heard in albums/songs/remixes for the quarter. I do this to personally keep up with all the awesome music I hear, as it ultimately helps me at the end of the year when I do my overall listing for the previous twelve months. I also do it to introduce you cool cats to tunes you may have missed independently.
Once every three months I list the best of what I heard in albums/songs/remixes for the quarter. I do this to personally keep up with all the awesome music I hear, as it ultimately helps me at the end of the year when I do my overall listing for the previous twelve months. I also do it to introduce you cool cats to tunes you may have missed independently.
This marks the second Friday in a row I’ll be rocking out at Stubb’s. Last week I was blown away by the synth-y goodness of M83 and tonight I plan to be wowed in an incredibly different fashion. The 80’s glam rock prowess of the Darkness, a band I’ve been dying to see for some time now, is sure to be an excellent show. I hope they play “Hazel Eyes!”
After seven long years, not only are the Darkness reuniting, they’re making new music! Take a listen to the first track from the band since 2005’s One Way Ticket. I was a freshmen in college then! The track is accompanied by an animated, completely over-the-top and awesome promotional video. No word on a new album just yet, but you can bet the festival circuit this summer will be believin’ in a thing called love.
Today I continue a series of posts dedicated to the best albums of the last decade, posting analysis of one album at a time.
You’ve gotta be crazy not to love this. There are a select few albums out there that are perfect, absolutely front to back, for road trips. The karaoke staple that literally no one but frontman Justin Hawkins can sing, “I Believe In a Thing Called Love,” is the highlight, sure, but there are plenty of gems here to keep your fist pumping until your arm falls off. “Growing On Me,” a subtle-at-first ode to sexually transmitted diseases, is a tongue-in-cheek classic. The incredible “Love Is Only a Feeling” is the best ballad from the 1980’s that wasn’t really from the 1980’s. “Get Your Hands Off Of My Woman” is a comically vulgar screech-along from beginning to end.
Yes, it’s derivative. Yes, it’s in on the joke. But to write off the Darkness and Permission to Land as novelty is simply myopic. If a band is going to completely channel the glory days of guitar rock, the glam, the sexuality, the….hair, well, they’ve gotta have the chops to pull it off. And they do. This album rules. Hawkins has undeniable pipes. The guitar SHREDS. The melodies are infectious. Your face melts in 40 minutes.
And sure, their next album was a little more late-Zeppelin and not as good, and then they broke up, and the reunion isn’t really going anywhere thus far, so, yeah, you could argue the Darkness were a bit one-note. That after Permission to Land, there wasn’t much to offer. That they burned out just as quick, that they showed us all their tricks on their first effort.
But man….that was one hell of a first effort.
Today I continue my ongoing feature showcasing my personal picks for the best songs of the past decade, posting ten songs at a time.
30. Johnny Cash – Hurt
Some artists are so talented they have the capability to make a cover song sound like their very own creation. Â The Beatles, Tom Waits, and, most recently, Lissie, come to mind. Â But no one did it like the Man In Black. Â Johnny took Soundgarden’s grunge-ridden “Rusty Cage” and made it a Wild West, gun slinging, outlaw affair. Â And then he took Nine Inch Nails’ haunting, spooky “Hurt” and turned it into a somber deathbed lamentation.
Today I continue my ongoing feature showcasing my personal picks for the best songs of the past decade, posting ten songs at a time.
110. Queens of the Stone Age – No One Knows
This band has always been awesome. Go back in time and take a listen to the self-titled debut or Rated R if you don’t believe. But I suppose it was this song (and video, and album Songs For the Deaf) that put Josh Homme’s brilliant stoner/stripper rock concoction on everybody’s map. Probably because everybody recognized the temporary drummer (isn’t he in Foo Fighters?!). But still, these guys bring the rock.
Today I continue my ongoing feature showcasing my personal picks for the best songs of the past decade, posting ten songs at a time.
250. Rage Against the Machine – How I Could Just Kill a Man
For most of the decade, 3/4 of Rage were in shitty solo projects or the inevitably dreadful Audioslave. The other 1/4 released a new song every once in a while and lived off his earnings from the 90’s (that one is Zach). There were a few reunion shows – most of which sent people to the hospital – but overall the boys weren’t really raging much in the 2000’s. But at the turn of the century, before the nasty breakup, Rage put out their final studio album Renegades, a pretty kickass covers album. And although this Cypress Hill remake is a pretty straightforward take on the original, it still hits hard, the way these guys always knew how to.
