Top Ten - 1981

After his initial foray into jazz rock, Ian Gillan renamed his band to Gillan and returned to a hard rock sound. 1981 was a high point as he took the top two spots with the excellent Future Shock and Double Trouble albums. NWOBHM bands also started coming on strong, placing four bands placed in the top ten. I rated 67 albums from that year.



Top Ten - 1981
90.64 -- Gillan - Future Shock
90.57 -- Gillan - Double Trouble
90.48 -- Diamond Head - Lightning to the Nations
90.33 -- Kix - Kix
90.22 -- Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
89.60 -- Killer - Wall of Sound
88.46 -- More - Warhead
88.37 -- Gaskin - End of the World
86.00 -- Riot - Fire Down Under
85.84 -- Y&T - Earthshaker

Other 1981 releases:
85.32 -- Anvil - Hard'n'Heavy
85.30 -- Triumph - Allied Forces
85.28 -- Holocaust - The Nightcomers
84.66 -- Iron Maiden - Killers
84.23 -- April Wine - The Nature of the Beast
83.54 -- Tygers of Pan Tang - Spellbound
83.37 -- Rush - Moving Pictures
82.66 -- Rainbow - Difficult to Cure
82.62 -- Danny Joe Brown - Danny Joe Brown and the Danny Joe Brown Band
82.42 -- Robin Trower - B.L.T.
82.18 -- The Rods - The Rods
81.75 -- Mötley Crüe - Too Fast for Love
81.74 -- Peter Frampton - Breaking All the Rules
81.56 -- Saxon - Denim and Leather
81.31 -- Fist - Back with A Vengeance
80.60 -- Grand Funk - Grand Funk Lives!
80.52 -- Demon - Night of the Demon
80.43 -- Warning - Warning
80.29 -- Michael Schenker Group - MSG
80.05 -- Krokus - Hardware
79.25 -- Budgie - Nightflight
79.15 -- Lucifer's Friend - Mean Machine
79.05 -- Blackfoot - Marauder
78.59 -- Def Leppard - High 'n' Dry
78.30 -- Billy Squier - Don't Say No
77.95 -- Vardis - The World's Insane
77.89 -- Raven - Rock Until You Drop
77.63 -- Cirith Ungol - Frost and Fire
77.34 -- Venom - Welcome to Hell
77.12 -- UFO - The Wild, the Willing and the Innocent
77.09 -- Heavy Load - Metal Conquest
76.27 -- Molly Hatchet - Take No Prisoners
76.17 -- Neil Young - Re-ac-tor
76.17 -- Styx - Paradise Theater
75.47 -- Manilla Road - Mark of the Beast
75.34 -- Whitesnake - Come an' Get It
74.60 -- Pat Travers Band - Radio Active
74.34 -- Hawkwind - Sonic Attack
74.25 -- Graham Bonnet - Line Up
73.97 -- The Who - Face Dances
72.14 -- Praying Mantis - Time Tells No Lies
71.88 -- Samson - Shock Tactics
71.58 -- Blue Öyster Cult - Fire of Unknown Origin
71.30 -- Black Sabbath - Mob Rules
71.02 -- Van Halen - Fair Warning
69.74 -- ZZ Top - El Loco
69.53 -- Accept - Breaker
69.20 -- Judas Priest - Point of Entry
68.02 -- Cozy Powell - Tilt
67.29 -- Thin Lizzy - Renegade
65.20 -- Kiss - Music from "The Elder"
64.64 -- Foghat - Girls to Chat & Boys to Bounce
64.58 -- Moody Blues - Long Distance Voyager
64.20 -- Foreigner - 4
63.81 -- Bow Wow - Hard Dog
62.40 -- AC/DC - For Those About to Rock
56.07 -- Alice Cooper - Special Forces

Top Ten - 1982

1982 was a strong year in rock. The 67 albums below are a good mix of top acts and lesser known bands, of heavy metal and classic rock, of bands on their way in and bands on their way out. Oh, and while the top two albums are great, don't ignore the four behind them.



Top Ten - 1982
91.79 -- Michael Schenker Group - Assault Attack
91.40 -- Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast
90.51 -- Anvil - Metal On Metal
90.36 -- Riot - Restless Breed
90.27 -- More - Blood & Thunder
88.44 -- Winterhawk - Revival
87.33 -- Triumph - Never Surrender
86.39 -- Baron Rojo - Volumen Brutal (english version)
86.27 -- Rainbow - Straight Between the Eyes
86.17 -- Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance

Other 1982 releases:
85.47 -- Diamond Head - Borrowed Time
85.12 -- Vandenberg - Vandenberg
84.83 -- Scorpions - Blackout
84.21 -- Picture - Diamond Dreamer
83.95 -- Demon - The Unexpected Guest
83.48 -- The Rods - Wild Dogs
83.28 -- E.F. Band - Deep Cut
83.26 -- Manowar - Battle Hymns
82.95 -- Pat Travers Band - Black Pearl
82.80 -- Raven - Wiped Out
82.79 -- Gary Moore - Cooridors of Power
82.78 -- Gillan - Magic
81.76 -- Uriah Heep - Abominog
81.47 -- Asia - Asia
80.18 -- Plasmatics - Coup d'Etat
79.47 -- Motörhead - Iron Fist
79.41 -- Y&T - Black Tiger
78.91 -- Whitesnake - Saints & Sinners
78.84 -- Bow Wow - Warning from Stardust
78.62 -- Axe - Offering
78.46 -- Rush - Signals
78.41 -- Nightwing - Black Summer
77.86 -- Aerosmith - Rock in a Hard Place
77.78 -- Bow Wow - Asian Volcano
76.12 -- Viva - Dealers of the Night
75.75 -- Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Somewhere in Afrika
75.72 -- Santers - Racing Time
75.66 -- Kiss - Creatures of the Night
75.62 -- Night Ranger - Dawn Patrol
74.91 -- Riff Raff - Robot Stud
74.80 -- Gaskin - No Way Out
74.22 -- Ted Nugent - Nugent
74.18 -- Heavy Load - Death Or Glory
73.80 -- Kim Mitchell - Kim Mitchell
72.32 -- UFO - Mechanix
72.31 -- Witchfinder General - Death Penalty
72.17 -- Billy Squier - Emotions in Motion
71.31 -- Jethro Tull - The Broadsword and the Beast
71.08 -- Talas - Sink Your Teeth into That
70.75 -- The Who - It's Hard
70.51 -- Manilla Road - Metal
70.46 -- Sweet - Identity Crisis
70.09 -- Robin Trower - Truce
69.63 -- Samson - Before the Storm
69.54 -- Hawkwind - Choose Your Masques
69.23 -- Budgie - Deliver Us from Evil
68.51 -- Golden Earring - Cut
65.33 -- Krokus - One Vice At A Time
65.00 -- Twisted Sister - Under the Blade
64.06 -- Tygers of Pan Tang - Crazy Nights
62.80 -- Hawkwind - Church of Hawkwind
62.50 -- Van Halen - Diver Down
61.10 -- Venom - Black Metal
59.50 -- Pete Townshend - All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes
55.66 -- Alice Cooper - Zipper Catches Skin
52.96 -- Foghat - In the Mood for Something Rude
50.14 -- Queen - Hot Space

With a Little Help from My Friends...

I have a bit of a problem here. Take a look at the numbers below and see if you can figure it out:
1960s - 170
1970s - 604
1980s - 586
1990s - 387
2000s - 534

The left column is a decade in music. The right column is the number of albums I've reviewed/rated from that decade. I expected the 1960s to be on the low side, and I'm working on them, but I don't ever think the numbers will rival those of the other decades.

The 1990s, on the other hand, are unexpectedly low. I believe this is due to the popularity of certain musical genres prevalent during the decade, such as grunge, alternative metal, nu metal, and alternative rock. As I've explained, I generally don't like these genres and have few, if any albums by those bands. Just to be perfectly clear, don't expect to see much of the following bands rated here:

Alice in Chains, Bush, Hole, L7, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Biohazard, Godsmack, Kid Rock, Korn, Limp Bizkit, P.O.D., Rage Against the Machine, Sepultura, Slipknot, Soulfly, Staind, System of a Down, Therapy?, Tool, Type O Negative, White Zombie, Candlebox, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Incubus, Live, Nine Inch Nails, Offspring, Primus, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer

This is where you come in. I'd like to find new (to me) bands and albums from the 90s that fall into my musical comfort zone; that is hard rock, traditional heavy metal, and prog and power metal. If you have any thoughts or suggestions, post a comment here or in the chat box.

Living In the Past...

As posts are added, we get further and further from the raison d'être (look at me, getting all fancy!) for this blog, which was explained in the first post, From the Beginning....

For those of you who missed it, which as far as I can tell is everyone, I want to provide a brief summary of what I'm doing here, and also invite you to check out the full-blown (but not long-winded -- does that sound odd to you too?) original post. 

I started this because I don't believe standard rating systems (1 - 10, 10 - 100, etc.) are very accurate, or that a perfect score is possible. I've never found an album that I love from beginning to end. Even my favorite albums have fillers or maybe part of a song that isn't fantastic, like a weak intro, bad solo, etc.

So I came up with something a little different. I not only rate each song on an abum, but I also take into account song length*. As a result, my ratings don't reflect how much I like the album; instead, they reflect how much of the album I like.

*I explain the importance of considering song length, as well as provide an example, in the From the Beginning... post.

For now, I'm limiting my ratings to studio albums only. Also, although I like a lot of styles of genres of rock and metal, there are some I don't care for (such as Grunge, Nu Metal, Black Metal, Death Metal and others) and will not generally collect. Therefore, it wouldn't be fair to rate these types of albums as they would most likely receive low ratings.

As always, if you have any questions, comments, thoughts, suggestions, requests, etc., post a comment here or in the chatbox.

Rainbow Discography

In 1974, Ritchie Blackmore, frustrated with the funk/soul direction of Deep Purple's Stormbringer, as well as the band's rejection of his desire to record a cover tune, decided to record the song as a solo single track. He brought in the band Elf (minus their guitarist), who had supported Deep Purple on previous tours, as his backing musicians. However, Blackmore and singer Ronnie James Dio quickly discovered a musical chemistry, which prompted Blackmore to leave Deep Purple and form Rainbow.

From 1975 - 1984, and again from 1994 - 1997, the band included a staggering 24 musicians (featuring seven bassists, six drummers, six keyboardists, four singers, and one very tempermental guitarist). The early recordings with Dio are fan favorites, and were influential in the development of many of today's progressive and power metal bands.

Rising (1976) - 97.98
Well, it doesn't get much better than this. This is actually my second-highest rated album, and needless to say, there's not a bad song to be found. Side two of the original LP may be the best album side in rock and metal history, with two tracks (Stargazer and A Light In the Black) totalling almost 17 minutes of sheer musical bliss. Recommendation: Buy immediately!

Favorite tracks: Stargazer, A Light In the Black, Tarot Woman, Starstruck

Stranger In Us All (1995) - 88.10
Ritchie Blackmore reforms Rainbow after a tumultuous 10 year stint with the reformed Deep Purple. The album features an all-new lineup (including future wife and Blackmore's Night founding partner Candice Night as songwriter and off-stage background singer) and is an excellent conclusion to the Rainbow studio discography. Recommendation: Worth buying.

Favorite tracks: Ariel, Hall of the Mountain King

Straight Between the Eyes (1982) - 86.27
Rainbow finally achieve commercial success (not a bad thing, by the way) with power ballad Stone Cold leading the way. The album title allegedly came from Jeff Beck, who used the phrase when describing Jimi Hendrix to Blackmore. Blackmore tucked it away for years, finally deciding this was the time to use it. It's hard to disagree. Recommendation: Worth buying.

Favorite tracks: Death Alley Driver, Stone Cold, Eyes of Fire

Down to Earth (1979) - 86.00
Graham Bonnett replaces Dio on vocals, and not surprisingly, the band starts to pull away from the fantasy motif of the previous albums. Rainbow finally hit the radio airwaves (and MTV!) with All Night Long and Since You Been Gone, but Eyes of the World and Lost In Hollywood are the real gems on this album. Recommendation: Worth buying.

Favorite tracks: All Night Long, Eyes of the World, Lost In Hollywood

Long Live Rock 'n' Roll (1978) - 84.44
Rock anthems, speed metal, fantasy themes, ballads... this album has it all. Unfortunately, the lengthy mediocre ballad Rainbow Eyes had a rather large impact on the rating. Were it just a little better, the album rating would have been almost five points higher. Recommendation: Worth buying.

Favorite tracks: Long Live Rock 'n' Roll, Gates of Babylon, Kill the King

Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow (1975) - 84.01
The first Rainbow album is a mix of great and not-so-great songs, but standout tracks Man on the Silver Mountain and Sixteenth Century Greensleeves hint at future excellence. Plus, there's a cool instrumental cover of The Yardbird's Still I'm Sad. Recommendation: Worth buying.

Favorite tracks: Man on the Silver Mountain, Sixteenth Century Greensleeves, Still I'm Sad

Difficult to Cure (1981) - 82.66
Joe Lynn Turner takes over vocal duties. The band, turning ever more commercial, continues producing radio- and MTV-friendly tunes. Mostly good stuff here, but ironically, the non-radio-friendly self-titled instrumental is the only standout track. Recommendation: Worth buying.

Favorite track: Difficult to Cure (Beethoven's Ninth)

Bent Out of Shape (1983) - 79.91
Their most radio-friendly album was also their weakest. This is not a condemnation of the album; after all, it still received an 80 rating (if you round up). It's just that there are no "holy shit" moments. On the other hand, there are no "vomit-a-little-in-your-mouth" moments either. There is something to be said for consistency, even if only reaches the level of very good. Recommendation: Worth buying.

Favorite tracks: none

Caught In A Web...

I designed this blog on Internet Explorer, and through that browser everything looks fine. But I recently discovered that Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari don't display the blog the same way as IE. Originally, I thought I'd need to resize the album cover graphics, but in fact all I needed to do was make small edit to the layout template and delete some HTML code in the posts that contain album covers. It took less time than I thought, and now everything displays as intended on all browsers.

Top Ten - 1983

Here we go... the best year in rock and roll! Nine of the top ten albums topped a 90.00 rating (rounding up, of course), and 36 of the 68 albums listed topped an 80.00 rating. And just look at the top six: each and every one a classic metal album! It was good to be a metalhead in '83.



Top Ten - 1983
96.37 -- Queensrÿche - Queensrÿche (EP)
93.73 -- Black Sabbath - Born Again
91.90 -- Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind
91.78 -- Krokus - Headhunter
91.46 -- Fastway - Fastway
90.45 -- Saxon - Power and the Glory
89.81 -- Acid - Maniac
89.71 -- Jaguar - Power Games
89.64 -- Anvil - Forged In Fire
89.28 -- Silver Mountain - Shakin' Brains

Other 1983 releases:
88.91 -- Motörhead - Another Perfect Day
87.21 -- Savatage - Sirens
86.95 -- Metallica - Kill 'Em All
86.60 -- Oz - Fire in the Brain
86.55 -- Pretty Maids - Pretty Maids
85.90 -- Robin Trower - Back It Up
85.55 -- Savage - Loose 'n' Lethal
85.54 -- Blackfoot - Siogo
85.22 -- Zebra - Zebra
84.41 -- Killer Dwarfs - The Killer Dwarfs
84.29 -- Accept - Restless and Wild
83.86 -- Mercyful Fate - Melissa
83.43 -- Manilla Road - Crystal Logic
83.41 -- Kiss - Lick It Up
83.38 -- The Rods - In the Raw
83.30 -- Y&T - Mean Streak
83.28 -- Thin Lizzy - Thunder and Lightning
82.25 -- Mötley Crüe - Shout at the Devil
82.10 -- Chateaux - Chained and Desperate
82.00 -- Dio - Holy Diver
81.47 -- ZZ Top - Eliminator
80.49 -- Twisted Sister - You Can't Stop Rock 'n' Roll
80.09 -- Molly Hatchet - No Guts No Glory
79.91 -- Rainbow - Bent Out of Shape
79.84 -- Ozzy Osbourne - Bark at the Moon
78.85 -- Quiet Riot - Metal Health
78.41 -- UFO - Making Contact
77.92 -- Michael Schenker Group - Built to Destroy
77.22 -- Manowar - Into Glory Ride
77.02 -- Witchfinder General - Friends of Hell
76.81 -- Axe - Nemesis
75.93 -- Highway Chile - Storybook Heroes
75.66 -- Raven - All for One
73.94 -- Waysted - Vices
73.37 -- Dokken - Breaking the Chains
73.12 -- Def Leppard - Pyromania
73.05 -- Alcatrazz - No Parole From Rock 'N Roll
72.84 -- Demon - The Plague
72.35 -- Vandenberg - Heading for a Storm
72.04 -- Torch - Torch
71.93 -- Stevie Ray Vaughan - Texas Flood
71.13 -- Quartz - Against All Odds
70.75 -- Axewitch - The Lord of Flies
69.00 -- Alice Cooper - Dada
67.53 -- Styx - Kilroy Was Here
67.45 -- Cozy Powell - Octopuss
67.42 -- AC/DC - Flick of the Switch
66.16 -- Diamond Head - Canterbury
65.58 -- Grand Funk - What's Funk?
63.62 -- Moody Blues - The Present
63.40 -- Uriah Heep - Head First
62.91 -- Heavy Load - Stronger than Evil
62.78 -- Blue Öyster Cult - The Revolution by Night
58.10 -- Kix - Cool Kids
55.98 -- Atomic Rooster - Headline News
51.57 -- Venom - At War with Satan
47.06 -- Pink Floyd - The Final Cut
45.39 -- Foghat - Zig-Zag Walk