90) Tool - 10,000 Days (2006)
Tool's follow-up to 'Lateralus', in which Maynard writes some of the most personal lyrics of hi career. The two part 'Wings For Marie'/'10,000 Days' is written for his late mother, who spent approximately ten thousand days of her life paralysed. 'Jambi' is written for his son, Devo, in which he admits to regretting some of the topics of his previous work - "the devil and his had me down, in love with the dark side I'd found, dabblin' all the way down, up to my neck soon to drown. But you changed that all for me, lifted me up, turned me around". There is some of the usual cutting social satire often found on Tool albums, though, most notably on the first single 'Vicarious' which takes aim at humanities hypocrisy, watching real life death and destruction on the news as if it's entertainment... "I need to watch things die, from a distance, vicariously I live while the whole world dies, you all need it too, don't lie". It's not the strongest Tool album, but that's forgivable.
Best Songs: Jambi; The Pot
89) Weezer - Pinkerton (1996)
Weezer's second album saw Rivers Cuomo briefly turn away from the light-hearted pop-rock of their debut for a far heavier, more abrasive sound. To say it alienated people at the time is an understatement, with Rolling Stone famously labelling it one of the worst albums ever recorded. Nowadays, though, it's most often considered the best album of Weezer's career. Rolling Stone issued a retroactive review years later, in which they recognised the album's brilliance. Ironically, Rivers Cuomo now considers it to be one of the worst albums ever recorded and refuses to play any of the songs from it live. Can't please some people.
Best Songs: El Scorcho; Pink Triangle
88) Metallica - Reload (1996)
Can't please some people... probably the sentence that best sums up the reaction from Metallica fans to their entire post-'Master Of Puppets' career. 'Reload' was recorded alongside 'Load', and released later the same year. As such, the album's stylistic deviations are just as prevalent here as they were on that previous album. Of the two, this is the stronger, though.
Best Songs: Fuel; The Unforgiven II; Low Man's Lyric
87) Bumblefoot - Normal (2005)
A kind of a concept album based upon the guitarist's actual experiences. Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal has been plagued by bipolar disorder all his life, and this deals with his struggle with medication. Whilst medicated, he found himself completely unable to be creative, which ultimately led him to conclude that he'd much rather deal with being miserable some times than spend a life without the ability to write music. The lyric "It was so nice to be normal, to be normal for a change" is a direct reference to this. A few months after the release of this album, Ron made his debut as a member of Guns N' Roses, replacing the departed Buckethead (yes... you read that correctly).
Best Songs: Real; Rockstar For A Day; The Colour Of Justice
86) Queen - Jazz (1978)
Some people say it's 'Queen II'. Others say either 'A Day At The Races', or more likely 'A Night At The Opera'. But I firmly believe that this is the best album in Queen's catalogue.
Best Songs: Fat Bottomed Girls; Bicycle Race; Don't Stop Me Now
85) Nightwish - Imaginaeurm (2011)
Nightwish returned in 2011 with 'Imaginaerum'. This was something I never expected to hear from this band... a few of the tracks retain the symphonic metal sound the band had become known for, but the majority of the album delves into other sounds that sound like nothing the band had ever done before. For example, 'Slow Love Slow' is a jazzy track, and 'Scaretale' is kind of a dark cabaret track as written by Danny Elfman for a Tim Burton movie. In fact, Danny Elfman's work with Burton is an influence that can be heard all over this album. This all may have something to do with the fact that it was written as a soundtrack/companion piece to a movie of the same name, co-written by keyboardist and Nightwish's lead songwriter, Tuomas Holopainen. The movie was released in Finland last December, and has received positive reviews from what I have seen. I look forward to seeing it.
Unfortunately, this will be the last album to feature singer Anette Olzon, who amicably split from the band late last year.
Best Songs: I Want My Tears Back; Scaretale; The Crow, The Owl, And The Dove
84) Soundgarden - Screaming Life (1987)
The first release from Soundgarden (this is before Ben Shepherd had joined the band, with bass instead being played by Hiro Yamamoto) gives listeners a general idea of what to expect from the band's future. One of the most impressive early "grunge" records. Unfortunately, when it came to releasing their debut full-length album, they delivered the almost unbearable 'Ultramega OK', but this was soon rectified.
Best Song: Hunted Down
83) Smashing Pumpkins - Machina/The Machines Of God (2000)
The final conventionally released album from the original version of the Smashing Pumpkins (although bassist D'Arcy Wretzky left the band halfway through recording). It's still the object of unbridled hatred among many music fans to this day for some reason. It combines the more raw material from their early period with the electronic/industrial music they'd been dabbling with since the release of 'Mellon Collie', and as far as I'm concerned it does it extremely well. I can understand Billy Corgan's problems with it, though, as this pretty much signalled the end of the Pumpkins as they were, with the band breaking up at the end of that year.
Best Songs: The Everlasting Gaze; Stand Inside Your Love; The Crying Tree Of Mercury
82) Motorhead - Ace Of Spades (1980)
Motorhead are one of those band's that are definitely an acquired taste. If you can forgive the fact that they're still exactly the same now as they were in 1977, with absolutely zero progression then you can love them. I've been entertained by their live performances, but I can't really decide whether I love them or hate them. But I can tell you that this album is a brilliant slice of heavy metal.
Best Songs: Ace Of Spades; (We Are) The Road Crew; Jailbait
81) Foo Fighters - Foo Fighters (1995)
Following the suicide of Kurt Cobain, Nirvana's drummer Dave Grohl entered the studio to record an album as a brief distraction before he decided what he was going to do next. Playing everything himself (except for a couple of guest appearances from Barrett Jones and Greg Dulli), this was the logical progression of his former project, Late!
Releasing the album under the name Foo Fighters, Grohl quickly formed a band to tour... by the time they played the second stage at the Reading Festival in a tent that was surrounded by a huge crowd of people who couldn't fit into, he must have realised that this was what he was going to do next.
Best Songs: This Is A Call; Big Me; Alone + Easy Target
80) Aerosmith - Toys In The Attic (1975)
Aerosmith's first album was when they really started to live up to their potential.
Best Songs: Toys In The Attic; Sweet Emotion
79) Aerosmith - Permanent Vacation (1987)
The early to mid-80's weren't kind to Aerosmith. Internal strife and drug addiction combined with increasingly dwindling sales had almost destroyed the band. However, after the breakthrough of re-recording 'Walk This Way' with Run-DMC, the band returned with a more commercial sound in 1987 with 'Permanent Vacation' and found a new lease of life. It didn't come easy, as on the tour promoting this album people would turn up to watch the opening act (Guns N' Roses) and then leave before Aerosmith hit the stage. I think Axl Rose threatening to wait outside the venue and beat the shit out of anyone leaving before Aerosmith started after he got annoyed at this may have helped a little bit...
Best Songs: Heart's Done Time; Hangman Jury; Permanent Vacation
78) Slash - Slash (2010)
Slash's first proper solo album (Slash's Snakepit doesn't actually count) saw him taking a leaf out of Carlos Santana's book and bringing in a group of guest singers. Some of the people involved were quite obvious (Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop), others were more surprising but inspired (Andrew Stockdale, M. Shadows), and others raised a few skeptical eyebrows (Fergie of the Black-Eyed Peas, Maroon 5's Adam Levine).
And the big surprise was that each and every track worked! Fergie's track 'Beautiful Dangerous' convinced me that she should quit that Black-Eyed Peas lark and become a full-time hard rock singer. Adam Levine's track sounded a little bit like Maroon 5, but it also sounded unmistakably like Slash. One of the highlights though was actually an instrumental featuring Duff McKagan on bass, and Dave Grohl on drums called 'Watch This'. My only real criticisms are Myles Kennedy's voice on 'Starlight' which in the chorus sounds horrible, and the subject matter of 'Crucify The Dead'. The lyrics were written by Ozzy Osbourne about "what I'd say to Axl if I were Slash"... I just don't think that has anything to do with Ozzy, and he should have kept out of it.
Best Songs: Beautiful Dangerous; By The Sword; Watch This
77) The Dead Boys - Young, Loud And Snotty (1977)
A brilliant punk rock album from the US. 'Sonic Reducer' is one of the genre's greatest songs.
Best Songs: Sonic Reducer; All This And More
76) Tommy Stinson - One Man Mutiny (2011)
Tommy Stinson's second solo album was written and recorded in gaps between touring with Guns N' Roses (who have actually been pretty active since 2006, with hardly any gaps in touring). This is a great straight-up rock 'n' roll record which features contributions from fellow Guns N' Roses members Dizzy Reed, Richard Fortus and Frank Ferrer, as well as his wife Emily Roberts. It was also supposed to feature a duet with former Replacements bandmate Paul Westerberg, but Westerberg recorded his parts using the wrong file format, so it had to be re-recorded by Emily. The song was 'Match Made In Hell', which would have been appropriate for the Westerberg/Stinson relationship. Hopefully not so appropriate for his relationship with Emily.
Best Songs: Destroy Me; One Man Mutiny
75) A Perfect Circle - Thirteenth Step (2011)
The second album by A Perfect Circle sees Billy Howerdel, Maynard James Keenan, Josh Freese and new member Jeordie White take a turn away from the "alternative metal" found on their debut, as they found it to be too similar to Maynard's work with Tool. Instead this is album is more in the tradition of The Cure. Perhaps for the first time, for the entirety of the album Maynard's voice is at the forefront, really driving home how great a singer he really is.
Best Songs: The Package; Weak And Powerless; Pet
74) Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking (1988)
the first studio album from 'Nothing's Shocking' (somewhat confusingly, their first release was actually a live album), features the band on the top of their game. It's a shame that they never again released a full album as great as this.
Best Songs: Ted, Just Admit It...; Mountain Song
73) The Rolling Stones - Beggars Banquet (1968)
The golden period of the Stones' career officially began here. From this point until the mid-70's The Rolling Stones were the greatest rock band in the world, and actually did no wrong (well... not musically). It's quite amazing that a band can release so much classic material in such a short space of time. And it all started with the opening chords of 'Sympathy For The Devil'.
Best Songs: Sympathy For The Devil; Jigsaw Puzzle
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