Another one of those albums that teenagers at the turn of the century couldn't have avoided. 'Here To Stay' is among Korn's greatest songs, if not the greatest. And despite the fact that the then-approaching his 40's Jonathan Davis was still writing about school bully's may have been pretty sad, 'Thoughtless' is right there with it.
Best Songs: Here To Stay; Thoughtless; No One's There
143) Nightwish - Dark Passion Play (2007)
After firing Tarja Turunen at the end of the tour supporting 'Once', Nightwish began a search for a new singer which ended when they discovered the Swedish Anette Olzon who was formely of the band Alyson Avenue. Unlike the soprano Tarja, Anette is a mezzo-soprano, and the music has been brought down a notch accordingly. It isn't a complete drastic change, as the album still received an extremely grandiose production complete with accompaniment from the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The biggest difference is that Anette's vocals aren't soaring quite as high and it brings Nightwish more in line with the likes of their closest contemporaries, Within Temptation. This isn't a bad thing, however, as the band has become far more accessible. Marco Hietala is also more prominent that before on this album, even singing lead vocals on the acoustic ballad 'The Islander' with some beautiful melodies by Anette. Elsewhere, his chorus on 'Bye Bye Beautiful' is a not even thinly veiled attack on Tarja... "Did you ever hear what I told you? Did you ever read what I wrote you? Did you ever listen to what we played?", etc.
Best Songs: Bye Bye Beautiful; Eva; The Islander
142) Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible (1994)
If the lyrics on 'Gold Against The Soul' were far more personal than those found on 'Generation Terrorists', then 'The Holy Bible' is a heartbreaking, soul-wrenching snapshot into the increasingly fragile mental state of guitarist and lyricist Richey Edwards. It's definitely not for the faint of heart, as listening to the lyrics will drag you through the gutter and leave you depressed. But despite (or because of) that it's the greatest thing that the Manic Street Preachers have ever put on record. There are political lyrics as well, but it's the personal ones that will really stick with you. It's little wonder that the band wanted to do something almost completely 180 degrees from this for their follow-up, though.
Best Songs: Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart; Revol; P.C.P.
141) Soundgarden - King Animal (2012)
The long-awaited return of Soundgarden. And yes, it was very definitely worth the wait. Chris Cornell is one of the greatest singers of any genre currently living, and his post-Audioslave solo career (consisting of middling album 'Carry On', and complete misstep, Timbaland collaboration 'Scream') made me think that we'd never hear his voice over anything great again. Thank God for Kim Thayil, Ben Shephard and Matt Cameron for suggesting a reunion and putting Cornell back on the map doing what he does best. Musically, the album isn't the moody, sludgy-riffed metal of 'Badmotorfinger', but it's not the "we're running out of ideas" sound of 'Down On The Upside', either, resting more on the level of 'Superunknown'. They were great at Hyde Park last year, too (although when my wife thought about the fact that we'd now seen Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden live she got a bit upset about the one glaring omission that we'd never get to see).
Best Songs: Been Away Too Long; Taree; Worse Dreams
140) Rainbow - Rising (1976)
Rainbow's second, and best album. Featuring only guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and singer Ronnie James Dio from the first album, the rest of the band was filled out by drummer Cozy Powell, bassist Jimmy Bain and keyboard player Tony Carey.
Best Song: Stargazer
139) The Rolling Stones - Between The Buttons (US VERSION) (1967)
The last album to be completely produced by the band's original manager, Andrew Loog Oldham (the band fell out with him whilst recording the terrible 'Their Satanic Majesties Request', and only then found out that their contract gave him sole control over their entire catalogue between 1963 and 1967). This is also the best album of the Oldham era, with the band finally consolidating their sound that began to come to the fore with 'Aftermath'. Before that, they were mainly a covers band, and their greatest achievements came in the first few years after the band took control of their destiny.
Best Songs: Let's Spend The Night Together; Ruby Tuesday; Connection
138) Puscifer - Conditions Of My Parole (2011)
Second full-length album from Maynard James Keenan's solo project. As opposed to previous releases, this is much more along the lines of the industrial-style work Puscifer provided to the soundtracks to the first two Underworld movies (with the project only becoming a full-time endeavour in 2007. There isn't really a "Puscifer sound" as such, as he uses it as a general melting pot of ideas that wouldn't work with Tool or A Perfect Circle.
Best Songs: Tiny Monsters; Conditions Of My Parole; Tumbleweed
137) Return To Earth - Automata (2010)
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The second album from Ron Scalzo, Brett Aveni and former Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Chris Pennie. 'Automata' features such a wide range of ideas that it was ever going to be great, or all fall apart in a mess. Luckily it is the former, and has been described as a mix of Ministry, Fear Factory and Nine Inch Nails, though there are also little unique elements there. As I said about their previous album, it's a shame that one of the most exciting metal bands of recent years is never going to get its due.
Ron Scalzo seems to be full speed ahead on rebuilding his life after losing every single one of his possessions in Hurricane Sandy last year, by the way. It's going to take a while, but he seems to be coping with it a lot better than most people would.
Best Songs: Back Of My Hand; Snakeface; The Altercation Of Man
136) Radiohead - The Bends (1995)
No matter how far away from music I'd actually want to listen to Radiohead get, I can rest easy knowing that I'll always have this 50 minutes of excellence to listen to. 'The Bends' is among the albums where it's really difficult to find a low point, because almost every second is filled with greatness.
Best Songs: The Bends; Just; Street Spirit (Fade Out)
135) Stereophonics - Word Gets Around (1997)
The debut album from the Stereophonics is made up of songs based on observations about living in the small Welsh town of Cwmaman. The title of course refers to the spreading of rumours - as does the album's opener, 'A Thousand Trees' - and the stories on display here are by turns infuriating (the aforementioned 'A Thousand Trees'), amusing ('Last Of The Big Time Drinkers', 'More Life In A Tramp's Vest') and heartbreaking ('Local Boy In The Photograph', 'Billy Davey's Daughter'). It's a fantastic debut from a band that we'd later learn has a very varied quality level over their career.
Best Songs: More Life In A Tramp's Vest; Local Boy In The Photograph; Too Many Sandwiches
134) Loaded - Dark Days (2001)
In 1999, Duff McKagan recorded 'Beautiful Disease' - his second solo album, and first since sobering up and leaving Guns N' Roses. In all actuality, that album belongs in this list, and the only reason it isn't is because the record label, Geffen, was taken over by Interscope Records that year and immediately started dropping artists that hadn't made them enough money, and on the day the album was due to be released, they decided that McKagan would be one of them, and abruptly canceled its release (bearing in mind this man was in the label's biggest ever moneymakers, this is probably the most stupid thing that Interscope had done up until this point).
Because the label had retained the rights to the recordings, Duff went back into the studio to re-record tracks from the album the following year with producer/keyboard player Martin Feveyear, guitarist Dave Dederer (of PUSA), and drummer Geoff Reading. However, out of those sessions came new songs, and so only three re-recordings were included on the finished album, with 9 completely new tracks. Instead of releasing the album under his own name, he decided to release it under the name of the band he'd originally formed to tour behind 'Beautiful Disease', Loaded.
The band was consolidated with the departure of Dederer, when Duff recruited Mike Squires (who had played some guitar parts on the record), and bass player Jeff Rouse (Duff played all bass on the album) to tour behind the album, which is often mistakenly referred to as a punk record. There's always going to be punk elements to anything written by McKagan, because that's his background, but there's a lot more to that in 'Dark Days', with some tracks I'd say bordering very closely to gothic rock. Unfortunately for Loaded, touring abruptly halted when Duff was invited to form a new band with Slash and Matt Sorum, and in spite of a few gigs a year for a little while, the band was effectively put on ice until 2008.
Best Songs: Seattle Head; Then & Now; Queen Jonasophina
133) Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (2007)
The sixth album from the Foo Fighters, for the first time incorporates piano into a few tracks ('Summer's End', 'Statues', and 'Home'). Other than that, though, it's exactly what people had come to expect from a Foo Fighters record, with lots of catchy rock songs just crying out to be heard in stadiums... which is exactly what they did. I was lucky enough to see their Wembley Stadium show in support of this record.
Best Songs: The Pretender; Long Road To Ruin; Cheer Up Boys (Your Make Up Is Running)
132) Wolfmother - Cosmic Egg (2009)
I wasn't a fan of the first Wolfmother album, but 'Cosmic Egg' is a fantastic early-Sabbath style throwback to 70's hard rock. As ever, Andrew Stockdale's vocals are a love it or hate it affair, but I've found that with a lot of things like that, I tend to love them.
Best Songs: New Moon Rising; Cosmic Egg; Violence Of The Sun
131) Audioslave - Revelations (2006)
The third album from Audioslave is often considered their worst album, but I found it to be a vast improvement on their debut album, and definitely an improvement on their not very good at all second album, 'Out Of Exile'. Producer Brendan O'Brien replaces Rick Rubin, and the result is album with a far fuller sound, with more emphasis on the almost funk-like basslines of the highly underrated Tim Commerford. It's a shame that the album's release was almost completely overshadowed by Chris Cornell's sudden announcement that he was leaving the band (the rest of the band found out when they saw it on the internet).
Best Songs: Revelations; Wide Awake; Moth
130) Stone Sour - Stone Sour (2002)
A lot of people don't realise this, but Corey Taylor and Jim Root were both members of Stone Sour before they even met the rest of Slipknot. The band was put on hold after that band hit it big with their debut album. So this debut album is actually from the reformed band. The noticable difference is of course the fact that Corey and Jim were seen unmasked for the first time, and that the band was far more melodic than Slipknot. That's not to say that this isn't a heavy album, though. Far from it... other than the vocals, there aren't many band's that you can say they're more melodic than at this point.
Best Songs: Get Inside; Blotter; Bother
129) Chris Cornell - Euphoria Morning (1999)
Despite what I said above about Chris Cornell's post-Audioslave solo career, this solo album - released between the break-up of Soundgarden and his joining Audioslave - is absolutely fantastic. 'Euphoria Morning' sees Cornell taking a much slower, more acoustic almost folky sound than what his fans had grown accustomed to. The result means that you can focus much more on his voice than any of his previous records (except maybe 'Temple Of The Dog'), and when your voice is as great as this, that can only be a good thing. Other band members for this album include Alain Johannes and the late Natasha Schneider of Eleven (and later Queens Of The Stone Age), Ric Markmann, and drummer Josh Freese.
Best Songs: Preaching The End Of The World; Mission; Disappearing One
128) Lacuna Coil - Lacuna Coil EP (1998)
Lacuna Coil's debut EP, showcasing their unique brand of atmospheric gothic metal. By the time of the following year's full-length 'In A Reverie', guitarists Raffaele Zagaria and Claudio Leo (who sadly died earlier this year) and drummer Leonardo Forti had left the band to be replaced by Cristiano Migliore and Cristiano Mozzati.
Best Song: Falling
127) Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown (2009)
The sequel to 'American Idiot' manages to build upon the stadium-filling sound of that last album, and successfully better it. This is possibly the heaviest album in Green Day's catalogue, at points bordering on hard rock, whilst at the same time retaining the delicate moments that got 'American Idiot' so much airtime five years previously. As great as that record was, they just sound far more confident in this big "punk rock opera" direction than they did previously. Whilst not as commercially successful, it still managed to become a huge hit, despite the band refusing to record a censored version in order for certain shops to agree to stock it.
Best Songs: Christian's Inferno; East Jesus Nowhere; Restless Heart Syndrome
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