Essential Studio Albums

[wease]

Gregg hated Nobody Knows. Felt it was just a Whipping Post redo, which I think Dickie pretty much said it was. But yeah, it’s a monster.

[liebzz]

Gregg hated Nobody Knows. Felt it was just a Whipping Post redo, which I think Dickie pretty much said it was. But yeah, it’s a monster.

Gregg also made an album with Cher that is one of the worst albums of all time, so he’s not always on the mark.

You can also do worse than a Whipping Post rehash.

[wease]

Gregg hated Nobody Knows. Felt it was just a Whipping Post redo, which I think Dickie pretty much said it was. But yeah, it’s a monster.

Gregg also made an album with Cher that is one of the worst albums of all time, so he’s not always on the mark.

You can also do worse than a Whipping Post rehash.

Haha! Got him there!

[liebzz]

Van Halen - For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge

I don’t know that there’s anything more Eddie Van Halen than opening this album with intro where he’s playing guitar with a power drill. That’s precisely the stuff 13 year old me thought was bad ass. What follows is probably the hardest rock of the Hagar era - songs that sonically sound like they could have been on Fair Warning, but with Sammy throwing out the double entendres. Poundcake, Top of the World, and Right Now are the most classic here, but don’t sleep on Judgment Day, or In N’ Out, which are both real solid. And 316 is a nice little guitar solo instrumental as well. I find this to be the most solid of the Hagar era even still…and the last gasp of this brand of rock hitting before Nirvana blows into town.

The Essential Track: Right Now (I’ve always loved this song no apologies)

Up Next: Skid Row - Slave to the Grind

[liebzz]

Skid Row - Slave to the Grind

I really only ever heard Skid Row’s first album. This one is new to me, and actually much better than I expected. Sure they are playing off the same cliches and sound of a Guns N’ Roses, but they are also timely modernizing their sound. The title track, Quicksand Jesus, and Creepshow stuck out for me, but I never felt any fatigue with them listening to this. Certainly solid enough when your head is in this exact space.

The Essential Track: Slave to the Grind

Up Next: Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears

[wease]

Skid Row - Slave to the Grind

I really only ever heard Skid Row’s first album. This one is new to me, and actually much better than I expected. Sure they are playing off the same cliches and sound of a Guns N’ Roses, but they are also timely modernizing their sound. The title track, Quicksand Jesus, and Creepshow stuck out for me, but I never felt any fatigue with them listening to this. Certainly solid enough when your head is in this exact space.

The Essential Track: Slave to the Grind

Up Next: Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears

Good assessment.

[wease]

Van Halen - For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge

I don’t know that there’s anything more Eddie Van Halen than opening this album with intro where he’s playing guitar with a power drill. That’s precisely the stuff 13 year old me thought was bad ass. What follows is probably the hardest rock of the Hagar era - songs that sonically sound like they could have been on Fair Warning, but with Sammy throwing out the double entendres. Poundcake, Top of the World, and Right Now are the most classic here, but don’t sleep on Judgment Day, or In N’ Out, which are both real solid. And 316 is a nice little guitar solo instrumental as well. I find this to be the most solid of the Hagar era even still…and the last gasp of this brand of rock hitting before Nirvana blows into town.

The Essential Track: Right Now (I’ve always loved this song no apologies)

Up Next: Skid Row - Slave to the Grind

The best Sammy album. Judgement Day, Runaround and Pleasure Dome are my top picks. But solid from start to finish. Good comparison to Fair Warning although the songwriting itself has advanced at least somewhat in the 10 years between them.

Sammy saw what was happening with rock music, tho, and brought Alice In Chains onboard for the supporting tour. First time seeing VH and only time I’ve seen AiC. People were booing them and I was transfixed by them. Couldn’t understand the vitriol at all.

[liebzz]

Van Halen - For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge

I don’t know that there’s anything more Eddie Van Halen than opening this album with intro where he’s playing guitar with a power drill. That’s precisely the stuff 13 year old me thought was bad ass. What follows is probably the hardest rock of the Hagar era - songs that sonically sound like they could have been on Fair Warning, but with Sammy throwing out the double entendres. Poundcake, Top of the World, and Right Now are the most classic here, but don’t sleep on Judgment Day, or In N’ Out, which are both real solid. And 316 is a nice little guitar solo instrumental as well. I find this to be the most solid of the Hagar era even still…and the last gasp of this brand of rock hitting before Nirvana blows into town.

The Essential Track: Right Now (I’ve always loved this song no apologies)

Up Next: Skid Row - Slave to the Grind

The best Sammy album. Judgement Day, Runaround and Pleasure Dome are my top picks. But solid from start to finish. Good comparison to Fair Warning although the songwriting itself has advanced at least somewhat in the 10 years between them.

Sammy saw what was happening with rock music, tho, and brought Alice In Chains onboard for the supporting tour. First time seeing VH and only time I’ve seen AiC. People were booing them and I was transfixed by them. Couldn’t understand the vitriol at all.

Agreed, and will note that perhaps some of that knowing where rock music was going ended up being reflected in pieces of the album since it is heavier than anything they’d done since the DLR era.

[liebzz]

Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears

Ozzy’s 6th solo album seems incredibly straightforward. All of it is consistently well done, and though a little less on the demon motif, this slides nicely in with his first two solo albums. Mr. Tinkertrain, No More Tears, and Won’t Be Coming Home seemed like the best of the bunch for me, but I will say there’s something of a switch in impact on Mama I’m Coming Home. Sometimes events or moments add more meaning to a song, and Ozzy closing his final show with this on the near eve of his passing adds a weight to it that brings it new and additional meaning - hits you like a brick. It’s now the song you have to stop and pay attention to on this one.

The Essential Track: Mama I’m Coming Home

Up Next: Metallica

[liebzz]

Metallica

The Black Album is one of the more divisive albums in my direct memory. Some people were introduced to Metallica through this album and all the promotion it got and think of it as a masterpiece, while others saw it as a sell out album of a band looking to cash in at the expense of the hardcore fans. I wasn’t introduced to Metallica through this album, but I do lean closer to the former. They may have toned down the thrash for a heavier melodic sound, but bands evolve, even the mighty Metallica, and this is more than a transitional album - its own beast, full of more personal turmoil. And while I have to take the moment later on to see where this goes, in its own universe, it is a great album full of nonstop highlights featuring some of the same drama they are known for but delivered more succinctly - and this is a damn heavy album.

The Essential Track: The Unforgiven

Up Next: Guns N’ Roses - Use Your Illusion I

[liebzz]

Guns N’ Roses - Use Your Illusion I

I do frequently go back to Appetite for Destruction, but I don’t think I have heard this album in almost 35 years. As a 13 year old, this and the next one were probably my last rock albums for quite a while. I remember being overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of music these two albums had in them. Long albums where it seemed like it went on forever. Despite this being their third album and really only their second of fully realized studio material, it’s an incredibly ambitious undertaking - trying to exist both as the band that produced the classic debut (Perfect Crime, Back Off Bitch, Garden of Eden), Stones/Faces like classic rock (Dust N’ Bones, the Live and Let Die cover, Bad Obsession, Bad Apples), and massive overwrought epics (Don’t Cry, November Rain, Coma) all in a single package. Now, is this one of the most overwrought overdone albums that define terms like self-indulgent when it comes to rock albums? Sure. But it also, in this volume, brings all the goods of a rock album as well to keep it somewhat grounded. It’s not Exile on Main Street by any stretch, but it is consistently very good with some real great moments. The next volume comes on the commute home…

The Essential Track: Bad Apples

Up Next: Guns N’ Roses - Use Your Illusion II

[liebzz]

Guns N’ Roses - Use Your Illusion II

Similar to the first volume here, this is highly ambitious and really over the top. Sometimes it works here, and sometimes less so. I’d say if the first was more consistent, this one takes bigger risks - I mean whistle solos, thunderstorms, and intros and outros that don’t at all match the rest of the song…and we’re just talking about the opening Civil War. The run though of 14 Years, Yesterdays, and Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door is pretty great. Add Pretty Tied Up, Locomotive, and You Could Be Mine (Terminator 2 in the summer of ‘91 really come back here). Then again, there are massive bombs here - tracks that either get real boring real fast (Estranged, Breakdown), go off the rails (Get in the Ring, My World), or have no real reason for being there (Don’t Cry with alternate lyrics). I’d probably take a best of both, but if I had to choose one, I’d probably pick the first since there’s a bit less lurching from one sound to the next…but more tracks of a beat of would be from this one.

The Essential Track: Pretty Tied Up

Up Next: The KLF - The White Room

[liebzz]

The KLF - The White Room

I thought this transition was going to be awkward, but somehow the travesty that is My World starts the momentary shift away from pure rock, and we come upon this dance duo. This would on its face seem to come way outside my wheelhouse, but I have to note that there’s a grounded base to this that is not unlike a classic rock record, though I can’t quite put my fingers on exactly what that is. I am just a fan without any sort of scientific analytical chops. I listened to the Directors Cut here frankly because that’s what is on Spotify. Madrugada Eterna, Last Train to Trancentral, No More Tears, The Lover’s Side, and Justified & Ancient all stuck out as highlights to me. Perhaps as an antidote, this album just hit the right spot I never expected.

The Essential Track: Last Train to Trancentral

Up Next: Michael Jackson - Dangerous

[liebzz]

Michael Jackson - Dangerous

4 years after Bad, MJ returns with a mixed bag of an album. Yes, he is working to modernize his sound and continue to push Pop boundaries, and really those are the most successful moments on this album. Jam, She Drives Me Wild, Can’t Let Her Get Away, Dangerous, and even Black or White are solid additions here - but the overwrought ballads here kill the vibe…basically all of the second half of the album save for Dangerous. In a year with a few overdone albums, it would be the next one that does some course correcting in knocking this off the top of the charts - at least for a week.

The Essential Track: Jam

Up Next: Nirvana - Nevermind

[VinylGuy]

Guns N’ Roses - Use Your Illusion II

Similar to the first volume here, this is highly ambitious and really over the top. Sometimes it works here, and sometimes less so. I’d say if the first was more consistent, this one takes bigger risks - I mean whistle solos, thunderstorms, and intros and outros that don’t at all match the rest of the song…and we’re just talking about the opening Civil War. The run though of 14 Years, Yesterdays, and Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door is pretty great. Add Pretty Tied Up, Locomotive, and You Could Be Mine (Terminator 2 in the summer of ‘91 really come back here). Then again, there are massive bombs here - tracks that either get real boring real fast (Estranged, Breakdown), go off the rails (Get in the Ring, My World), or have no real reason for being there (Don’t Cry with alternate lyrics). I’d probably take a best of both, but if I had to choose one, I’d probably pick the first since there’s a bit less lurching from one sound to the next…but more tracks of a beat of would be from this one.

The Essential Track: Pretty Tied Up

Up Next: The KLF - The White Room

I got this one first and ive learnt the alt lyrics of Dont Cry as the official ones, for quite a bit. Thats probably why this one is still my favorite, feels more adventurous and fun while the first is pure straight rock and roll. But both of them are masterpieces, untouchables really and Axl is so fucking good on both.

Estranged remains a top 20 of the 90s for me to be honest. and i looove Get In The Ring because they used it here to promote 90210 and i loved that series and also how insane is the fact that Axl was badmouthing all those journalists from the 90s

[liebzz]

Nirvana - Nevermind

This is of course one of the handful of albums that changed the way I thought about and consumed music in the early-to-mid 90s. I have heard this album hundreds upon hundreds of times, and from around ‘93 to ‘96 considered Nirvana my favorite band (one Pearl Jam show quickly changed my focus, and Pearl Jam’s been my favorite since). Nevermind kind of fits like a comfort blanket - an album that blends elements of pop with the catharsis of punk rock, while also bringing an element of noise, feedback, and Kurt Cobain’s howl, all of which combine to create this cocktail that to this day just feels like a statement of truth and authenticity piercing through. They surely didn’t invent these sounds and dynamics - you could almost dismissively point to Sonic Youth, Pixies, Flipper, Mudhoney, the Melvin’s, and a host of other bands of the time and remind us all that this is merely an album where those sounds finally broke through to mainstream audiences. You can also take note that no other band melded that cocktail so effectively in a single moment, producing an album that becomes singular in its power to suck you
In on feel alone. To outlandishly reject the rock principles of the Boomer generation on Territorial Pissings in a way that makes you throw out all your records and start over.

As for the songs themselves, everything on here for me is a solid A to A+. The initial run of Smells Like Teen Spirit, In Bloom, and Come As You Are is my teenage boombox being brought back to life. Breed, Stay Away, and the aforementioned Territorial Pissings are cathartic blasts of raw aggression I can still feel burning out my soul as a teenager. Lithium, Drain You, On a Plain and yes Lounge Act all fit my definition of a perfect song back then, and I can’t say I disagree with that sentiment still. Polly and Something in the Way both perfectly creating an eerie atmosphere like something’s gonna blow and holds that tension without exploding so well.

This album is deservedly a true classic. That folks provide any sort of backlash by thumbing their nose at its production or a demand that there’s better Nirvana albums out there might speak to a sort of rebellion against the common knowledge thrust upon the world, and hell, I felt that way at a time too, but hearing this now lends an appreciation to their ability to sound both completely comforting and accessible while still changing the energy of the music world in one unintentional statement. In listening and trying to divorce oneself from context, this album is still one of my favorites, even after years of thinking otherwise. Its claws will never escape me again.

The Essential Track: Drain You

Up Next: Hole - Pretty on the Inside

[wease]

Breed

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Hole - Pretty on the Inside

This album was produced in part at least by Kim Gordon and is supposedly influenced by what was happening in the LA punk scene - though there are many sonic similarities to what was going on in Seattle as well - granted without some of the melodic hooks that anchor those bands’ development. Despite Courtney Love’s obvious magnetism as a front woman - she dominates this album with her sing/scream approach - this album is a challenging listen due to the lack of hooks here. It feels almost random in spots due to the lack of structure. This is one of those albums you need time with to fully get, to be able to discern the noise rock from Courtney’s vocals.

The Essential Track: Clouds

Up Next: The Melvins - Bullhead

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The Melvins - Bullhead

Nirvana would quickly become the poster boys for the music referred to as “grunge,” but The Melvins probably do more to define what that entails in my head - distorted guitars that are the audio equivalent to wallowing in mud, colossal drums, and a bass/drum combo that can slow punk rock down to a crawl. Boris here is a definite track for that sound, and Your Blessened is not far behind that. Admittedly, I need just a little more pace, like on It’s Shoved and Zodiac, but I recognize the important tracks here for what they bring to the table.

The Essential Track: Boris

Up Next: The Melvins - Eggnog

[VinylGuy]

Nevermind is one of those albums it was impossible not to listen or have back then, it was everywhere ( i could add Aerosmith Get A Grip probably as one that if you had 12 you were going to have it)

I didnt quite liked Nirvana back then, it was too loud, too desperate but there were a few songs that grabbed me, specially Come As You Are and In Bloom.

But once i moved a bit from classic rock and went more into grunge and a more heavy setting, i was hooked. I loved it even if i never got Nirvana as i got Pearl Jam or Soundgarden.