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Continuing to share what I have in my music collection, today are the bands who begin with the letters K, M, and O. Any comments I make about a particular album will be in italic next to the album's title.
Kansas
- The Best of Kansas
The Killers
- Day & Age
- Hot Fuss - I picked this album up after playing Sam's Town to death. A lot of fans of The Killers who got into the band with this album (Sam's Town is their second major release after Hot Fuss) feel that Hot Fuss is a much better album than Sam's Town. I think Sam's Town is great, and after listening to Hot Fuss a few times I still think that Sam's Town is a better album, but I can understand why some fans would feel the other way. The sound on this album is very 80s new wave, which I like a lot. The difference between Hot Fuss and Sam's Town is night and day, but there are some really good tracks on here. As much as I feel that When You Were Young (from Sam's Town) sounds like it could be on this album, the song All These Things That I've Done sounds it could have been on Sam's Town. But that's as close as the two albums get to each other.
- Sam's Town - The song that got me into The Killers is on this album, but I first heard it on the game Guitar Hero III. The song is When You Were Young, and it is probably the one that sounds the most like a track off of their first album Hot Fuss. After repeatedly playing this song on Guitar Hero III, I decided to buy the album, and it has become one of my favorites. I have to admit that it took a little while to grow on me because The Killers have a sound that I would go so far as to call pretentious. There are some really good tracks on here like Read My Mind, My List, and Why Do I Keep Counting. I can see why bands are looking to get their songs on games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band (see my blog post on sales of Guitar Hero III and the effect it has had on bands who are featured on the game). I never would have bought a Killers album if I hadn't played the song on GHIII over and over again, and now I have gotten all three of their major releases.
King's X
- Faith, Hope, Love
- King's X
Metallica
- Black Album - Unbelievably, this is the first Metallica album I every bought. I was a sophomore in college, and I had heard all of their albums up to that point - my friends were listening to them all through high school. But, with the exception of Master of Puppets and And Justice for All, I just never was that much of a fan. Once I heard Enter Sandman, though, I just couldn't get it out of my head. After all these years, I still think this album is hit or miss. I know hardcore Metallica fans feel that they started their sellout phase here with the song Nothing Else Matters, but this album was absolutely huge.
- Garage Inc. (double album) - Includes the original Garage Days EP, but my favorite track on the whole thing is the cover of Thin Lizzy's Whiskey in the Jar (which is originally a traditional Irish song).
- Load
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
- Let's Face It
Ozzy Osbourne
- No More Tears - I've never been a huge Ozzy fan, but this album is simply awesome. Every song on here is a keeper. Blizzard of Oz was good, but I think this is his best album. And the fact that he co-wrote some of the songs with the totally beyond cool Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead... well no other words need to be said.
Continuing to share what I have in my music collection, today are the bands who begin with the letters G and J. My iPod groups individual artists alphabetically by their first name, so that is why, for example, Jimi Hendrix appears under J and not H. Since this is a series of posts about what's in my iPod, I thought I would use this method as well. Any comments I make about a particular album will be in italic next to the album's title.
Genesis
- Turn It on Again - A greatest hits album, and, while there are some classic songs on here, there are only two tracks from the Peter Gabriel era. It's clear to see how their sound went totally pop in their later years (which probably has a lot to do with the influence of Phil Collins).
Golden Earring
- The Continuing Story of Radar Love - When I bought this album, the only two Golden Earring songs that I knew were Radar Love and The Twilight Zone (and my first exposure to Radar Love was the cover the band White Lion did of it in the late 80s). Needless to say that if you like those two songs, you'll like the other tracks on this compilation.
Green Day
- Dookie
- Insomniac
Guns N' Roses
- Appetite for Destruction - One of the biggest albums of the 80s that introduced one of the biggest egos on the planet in the form of Axl Rose. There's no denying how good this album is, but Axl's attitude and antics quickly led to the band falling apart. Their newest release after 15 years, Chinese Democracy, shouldn't even be called a Guns N' Roses album. It's just Axl and a bunch of guest musicians.
- Use Your Illusion I - I really like both Use Your Illusion albums, and the one thing I'll give Axl Rose credit for is that he didn't want these two albums to be Appetite for Destruction parts 2 and 3. The sound on these albums, while still very much Guns N' Roses, is much more diverse than on their first album and shows that, with the right people around him, Axl can be a very good songwriter.
- Use Your Illusion II - The first time I heard the song Get in the Ring I was speechless. I had never heard anyone so blatantly call out and trash others in a song before. Trust me, there are no subtleties or misunderstandings regarding Axl's feelings.
Jimi Hendrix
- The Ultimate Experience - If there is a term I would use to describe Jimi Hendrix's sound it would be "Acid Blues." This is a great collection of songs (yes, another greatest hits album) including some true gems like Manic Depression and Crosstown Traffic.
Joe Satriani
- Surfing with the Alien
John Lennon
- Lennon Legend: The Very Best of John Lennon - My favorite member of the Beatles and the one who I feel was the most gifted songwriter. Still, the team of Lennon and McCartney just played off each other so perfectly that I don't think any of their solo efforts could touch the work that they did together.
Journey
- Journey's Greatest Hits
Continuing to share what I have in my music collection, today are the bands who begin with the letters C, D, and F. There are actually very few bands in my collection that begin with these letters, and there are no bands in there that begin with E. So I thought I would combine them in this post. Today's list clearly illustrates my penchant for buying greatest hits collections for bands whose music I like but am not familiar enough with to choose individual albums from their entire catalog. I have noticed that I do this mostly with artists who I heard a lot of when I was a kid. Only in rare instances do I actually try to track down an entire catalog as opposed to just getting a collection of the most well known stuff. But it does happen (as I will point out when I get to Peter Gabriel). Any comments I make about a particular album will be in italic next to the album's title.
Cheap Trick
- Greatest Hits - Robin Zander has one of the best voices in rock music, and Rick Nielsen writes really good songs. Plus, when your drummer's name is Carlos E. Bun, well, you just know your band rocks.
Creed
- Human Clay
Def Leppard
- Adrenalize - This is the last Def Leppard album that I ever bought. The ridiculously over-produced sound that began to rear it's ugly head on Hysteria is in full force here. However, the tracks on Hysteria (for the most part) were much better.
- Hysteria - A whopping 9 of the 12 tracks on this album were released as singles, but the best song on the album, Run Riot, got no airplay at all while groaners like Love Bites were played to death.
- Pyromania
The Doors
- Greatest Hits
Fleetwood Mac
- Greatest Hits
Foo Fighters
- The Colour and the Shape - This was the album that got me into Foo Fighters. I always liked the title of the band. My brother and I were UFO buffs when we were younger, and the term "foo-fighter" was used by Allied aircraft pilots in World War II to describe UFOs and other strange lights they saw in the skies. Only being a so-so fan of Nirvana, I was thinking that this band would be more of the same since it was founded by Dave Grohl, who played drums for Nirvana. Interestingly enough, Grohl is Foo Fighters' lead guitarist, lead vocalist, and primary song writer (though he played all the instruments on the demo tape he sent to record companies). Once I heard the song Monkeywrench, however, I couldn't get it out of my head. My Hero and Everlong are two other awesome tracks here.
- Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace
- Foo Fighters
- In Your Honor (double album) - The first album has electric guitars and a fast beat, whereas the second one is mostly acoustic and much more mellow. I like them both, and each album has one of what I consider to be two of the best Foo Fighter songs in their entire catalog - DOA (on the first album) and Cold Day in the Sun (on the second album).
- One by One
- There Is Nothing Left to Lose - My favorite Foo Fighters album and what I consider to be, song for song, one of my favorite albums of all time. There is a three song stretch in the middle of the track list that is just perfect - Aurora, Live-In Skin, and Next Year (with Live-In Skin being my favorite song in the entire Foo Fighters catalog). The sound of the band really began to mature during this album, and I think Dave Grohl really started to become an awesome songwriter here.
Continuing to share what I have in my music collection, today are the bands who begin with the letter B. Any comments I make about a particular album will be in italic next to the album's title.
The Beatles
- Abbey Road
- Help! - The transition from the early pop to the more progressive sound of The Beatles can be heard on this and the Rubber Soul albums. One of my favorite Beatles songs of all time is on here as well - You've Got to Hide Your Love Away.
- Let It Be
- Magical Mystery Tour - My favorite Beatles album. The tracks on here read like a greatest hits collection - Magical Mystery Tour, I am the Walrus, Hello, Goodbye, Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane, All You Need Is Love
- Past Masters Volume 2
- Revolver - Probably my second favorite Beatles album. Just like on Magical Mystery Tour, the tracks on here read like a greatest hits collection - Eleanor Rigby, Yellow Submarine, Good Day Sunshine, Got to Get You into My Life
- Rubber Soul
- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The definitive Beatles album to many. Just don't watch the god-awful 1980's movie starring Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees (although Steve Martin was in it and sang Maxwell's Silver Hammer).
- The White Album (double album)
Black Sabbath
- Paranoid
Blue Oyster Cult
- Don't Fear the Reaper: The Best of Blue Oyster Cult - I've always been a fan of their music, but I wasn't sure which album of theirs to get because they have a large collection. So, as I do in most cases like this, I went for a greatest hits album. There are some awesome tracks on here like (Don't Fear) The Reaper, Goin' Through the Motions, The Marshall Plan, Joan Crawford, Burnin' for You, and Shooting Shark.
- Some Enchanted Evening (live album)
Boston
- Boston
Brother Cane
- Brother Cane
Buckcherry
- 15
- Black Butterfly
- Buckcherry - The first thing I heard from Buckcherry was the song Lit Up, and I thought they sounded like the second coming of Guns N Roses. The lead singer, Josh Todd, is covered with tattoos including one across his stomach that says "Chaos." So you just knew these guys were the real deal and not posers. Their music is what rock is supposed to sound like.
I thought I would share what I have in my music collection on a daily basis beginning with all the bands who begin with the letter A. Any comments I make about a particular album will be in italic next to the album's title.
- '74 Jailbreak
- AC/DC Live (double album)
- Back in Black - Brian Johnson's voice on this album is just awesome. It's a shame how bad it has deteriorated over the years, but that's what smoking a ton of cigarettes and 30 years of screaming your lungs out on world tours will do to your vocal chords.
- Ballbreaker
- Big Gun - Single from "The Last Action Hero" movie soundtrack, and the best thing about the film.
- Black Ice - Their first album in 8 years, and one of the best ones in the Brian Johnson era. Brendan O'Brien, who is a great record producer and has worked with bands like Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam, and Velvet Revolver, produced this album as well.
- Blow Up Your Video
- Bonfire: Live from the Atlantic Studios - Bonfire is a boxed set tribute to the late Bon Scott who passed away in 1980.
- Bonfire: Live in Paris (double album)
- Bonfire: Volts
- Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
- Flick of the Switch
- Fly on the Wall
- For Those about to Rock... We Salute You
- High Voltage
- Highway to Hell - Bon Scott's final album with the band, and perhaps the best AC/DC album of them all. The track Night Prowler became infamous due to the fact that Richard Ramirez, who was the serial killer known as the Night Stalker, was an AC/DC fan and obsessed with the song.
- If You Want Blood You Got It (live album)
- Let There be Rock - This is a great album with gritty, raw guitar riffs on classic tracks like Whole Lotta Rosie and Bad Boy Boogie.
- Powerage - Another of my favorite AC/DC albums. Down Payment Blues and What's Next to the Moon are two of the best AC/DC songs you've never heard.
- The Razor's Edge
- Stiff Upper Lip
- Who Made Who - The soundtrack to the Stephen King movie "Maximum Overdrive." Not only did King write the screenplay based on his 8 page short story "Trucks," he made his feature film directorial debut here as well. Needless to say, Who Made Who was the best thing about the film (which seems to be the case with most of the movies that AC/DC lends their music to).
Alice in Chains
- Dirt
- Jar of Flies - Contains one of my favorite Alice in Chains songs, Whale and Wasp, which just happens to have no lyrics.
Andrew Lloyd Webber
- Jesus Christ Superstar - I have loved this music since I was a kid, especially King Herod's Song (Try It and See). I am actually going to see this play tonight at Eisenhower Auditorium, and Ted Neeley, who played Jesus in the 1973 film, is portraying Jesus in the play tonight. However, I have the original album and not the movie soundtrack, and I prefer the singers on the original album. No offense to Neeley, but Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan, who portrayed Jesus on the original album, is a much better singer and the songs sound much better with his vocals.
Animal Logic
- Animal Logic - A three piece group consisting of Stewart Copeland from The Police on drums, bass legend Stanley Clarke, and vocalist Deborah Holland. My brother turned me onto this group, but I only have one of their two albums.
Audioslave
- Audioslave
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