Megadeth - Rust In Peace

Megadeth - Rust In Peace

Published in 1990

Wikipedia

First up, thanks to Zach for suggesting this album.  

MEEEEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTTTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!

Sorry, I had to get that out.  Fucking Megadeth is one of those bands that you just purely enjoy if you enjoy any part of metal.  The guitar solos are awesome, the drums are pounding, the vocals are a mix of insane fantasy and UFO lore, and you know you're in for an insane ride the whole time.

Another reason that I am glad that Zach picked this album is because it has Hangar 18 on it.  Hangar 18 is one of the most fucking awesome songs of all time, and should guarantee that all members of Megadeth have VIP seats in metal heaven, surrounded by groupie angels and free "water".

Seriously, go find Hangar 18.  Put it on.  I'm telling you, when I think of a metal song, this is the song I think of more than any other.  Given my tilting toward lists, let me describe how to make a great metal song.

1. Get a kick ass band together.  Make sure your guitarist hasn't gotten laid throughout high school, but practiced arpeggios until his fingers bled, bones broke, and his parents were sued by the people next door to take his amp stack away. The vocalist must be the least talented member of the group, but must be able to wail guitar like back at the guitar, write some crazy D&D vocals and shit, and be humble enough to get the fuck out of the way when solo time comes.  Give the drummer an insane kit, double bass is essential, and tell him that if he gets off time, he's fucking fired.  The bassist must be as technically proficient as the guitarist, but he must be the guy that no one recognizes and most likely make the best financial decisions of the whole band. Also, he will most likely be the one who owns all the equipment you're using, so be nice to him. Whoever's garage you practice in will be your first manager, but will quickly be fired when record companies come calling.

2.  Riffs.  Riffs must be repeated at least a dozen times, and must include as many notes as possible, without breaking strings.  Also, the more powerful the sound the better, and allowing the notes to fade into feedback is a plus.  Make sure the bassist is driving the thing forward the whole time, and the drummer is about to get fired the entire time.  Take whatever you did, and do it faster.  Then faster. Then louder. Then Faster.

3.  Vocals.  Vocals are the part of the song known as "between the solos".  Vocals must reference Tolkien, mythology, paranormal subjects or magic in general, and provide a backdrop against which the guitarist can shred.

4.  Drums.  Fire the drummer, get a new one who is faster.

5.  Solos. arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios, arpeggios.

6. End the song on a resolved power chord.

7. Get a bunch of money, blow it on insane stage props, then make the money back.

8. Don't die of an OD.

And you'll have a successful metal song.  It's just that easy.

This album is insanely good.  I've never listened to a full Megadeth album before today, and I have to say, if this is representative of the whole, the catalog will soon be on my iTunes.  Seriously, it's 10 songs long, and every one of them is well done metal.  It's fun to listen to, and you can seriously bang your head to it.  If you have a metal loving bone in your body, you should pick this album up, and give it a couple of good listens.  If you hear anything you like in Hangar 18, get the album, you'll love it.

"Grandspa's Guitars?"

Matt

PS. Phil. Five. Give.

Muse - Resistance

Muse - Resistance

Published in 2009

Wikipedia

iPod, so there.

First off, thanks to Lena for suggesting this album.

I don't know how to feel about Muse, but this might be my fault. You see, I am of two minds when it comes to them. One side, the sober side thinks that they play some really technical and clean rock, that is obviously appealing, but never really lights my fire. It's fun to sing to, fun to listen to, but I will get overwhelmed after a couple of tracks and have to esacpe from it. The songs I really like I enjoy throughly, but I have trouble paying attention.

The drunken me has two reactions to Muse. One is that this shitis tons of fun to sing, the lyrics are enjoyable and they encourage you to get involved and sing along. The second is to ascribe a certain deepness to their lyrics that the sober me would laugh at.   It's a disappointing dichotomy, but I must live with it.

That might be the real problem. This record sounds like the band really, really, really wants to be liked, and whatever you like, they'll try to do it for you. Like electronic music? Here you go! Like ballads? Here, sample this. Like classic rock? Here you are! It's such a buffet that I don't really know what I like about Muse.

Which sucks, actually. I like them, but I can't tell why, and if this blog indicates anything, I'll devote hundreds of words to why I like something, and figuring out why, but when a band tries to make me like them, I get gun-shy?

Muse seems like a good example of this eternal problem of taste. Why do we like some things and hate others? What is it that make our brains love one thing and hate another? Why are we subject to these whims?

The drunk me, in objection to what I wrote above would slur something like the following:

If you like something, but you can't understand why you like it, you must like it for surface reasons, the sound, the feel of the music is more important to your primitive brain than the deeper signifiers. Knowing that you like it has given you insight, but to understand that insight is what your brain has been programmed to do, and it is in that confusion that comes with justifying your taste that you lose the enigmatic part that you liked in the first place.

Sober me, then retorts:

But as this blog proves, breaking things down into peices and trying to understand them is something that my brain does with everything. While it does not always lead to full satisfactory understanding, the joy that I take in writing these is partly related to the act of breaking things down to figure them out. As we've seen, the ones that confuse me most run the gamut from most loved to most hated, so I disagree.

Drunk me:

And yet, you agreed that you like this album at some level. The difficulty only comes with the breaking down of the album, so just talk about what you like in general and hope that clarifies it for you.

Sober me:

Okay, I'll try that.

I think the song writin on display is some of the more clever that I've heard on an anthemy rock album like this. I find the lyrics to ironically wink at the source material, while still treating it gravely enough that it isn't annoying.

I think the performances are spectacular, however I don't enjoy some of the more electronic style choices, because I feel it detracts from the image presented. But, of course, the musicians are all spectacularly competent and the music is produced with flair, vim and even vigor.

I think United States of Eurasia is one of the most fun to sing along songs with in history, behind 1. Seal - Kiss from a Rose 2. The Eagles - Hotel California and 3. Weezer  - Say It Ain't So.  Obviously, it is in good company.  I also think that Resistance and Uprising are good, if not great, and Breaking Through is pretty damn okay too.  The rest of the album, I am not as entranced with.

I want to like them so bad.  Maybe this problem would be solved if I listened to a non-concept album by Muse, but I have no idea.  I just have this one to write about, Jeez, get off my back.

But of course, if you love Muse, and want to tell me why I am a jackass, and why drunk me is right, please do so in the comments, and get us ever closer to the goal of Bequeathing Phillip Half of a Hamilton.

"Five Four Three Nose One"
Matt

PS.  More albums please, I'm devouring these!

The Presidents of the United States of America - The Presidents of the United States of America

The Presidents of the United States of America - The Presidents of the United States of America

Published in 1995

Wikipedia

Dear Paul O., this one is for you.

Take a big whiff right now.  You smell that?  Yessir, there is a bumper crop of nostalgia over yonder, and we're about to get to harvesting it.  It's going to be a long process, but at that first feel and taste of it, you'll be whisked back to your youth.  Indeed, it is time for us to talk about our childhoods, and make sure that everyone knows about this album.

You see, round these parts, in Album Country, we only know a few things for sure.  Why old man Johnson once whittled us up a sign with all them on it.  It went something like this.
1. Don't fuck with bears.
2. Sharks are bears of the sea.
3. Cee Lo Green does no wrong.
4. Fuck Cousin Jerry.
5. Nostalgia is a powerful thing, and it is addictive as fuck.
That sign has gone the way of the dodo, but the ideas remain true.  Especially the bear parts.

When we all get together and sing those old songs that we remember from our youth, we know that we are carrying on a tradition that goes back literally years.  Almost impossible to imagine that Albums were made that long ago, I know, but of course, you aren't from these parts.

Presidents of the United States of America is one of the base ingredients for my nostalgia pie.  I'll tell you why.  This shit is cut with pure awesomeness, and if you sprinkle a little listening on it, it is sweet and tasty, never leaving a residue.  You give it a try, you're bound to like it.

From Kitty to Naked and famous, the sounds of this album are like an incredible cornucopia of fucking wonderfulness.  This album is one of those albums that takes a little bit of investment, but the instant you like one song, you have found the album.  Every fucking song is good.  Every one.  Seriously. Every. Damn. Song. Is. Essential.

Okay, let's get real, and stop talking crazy.  This is a nostalgic album for me because it's one of the few that I remember listening to on my first CD player.  Yeah, I know, an actual musical disc based transportation device.  Little will my younger readers know, but once upon a time, you couldn't just steal all the music you wanted from the internet, you actually had to possess it.  If you are young enough that this is shocking, why are you reading this?  Seriously.  What the fuck are you doing on here, you gotta be what, 6 years old?  Fuck is a bad word and I am addressing it to you, you prepubescent monster.  I hate that guy.

I remember lying down on my mom's old wooden floor, reading a book and playing this album on repeat.  It's a great one for just sitting around and enjoying.  From the first track, it has a sound of it's own.  They sound different from almost anything else you can hear.  It's fucking awesome.  The vocalists are good, the drums are pounding, and the basitar and the guitbass are sweet as fuck.

You seriously should pick up this album and give it a listen.  It's spectacular.  You have to have some sort of rock in your heart place for you not to love this album.  For serious.  Literally.  Truly. For sure.

Listen to it, jerk.  And no six year olds on the blog.  That's number 6 now.

"I CAN SPEAK FRENCH, VERY LOUDLY!"
Matt

PS. Give Phil Five!  Your God demands it!

Tool - Lateralus

Tool - Lateralus

Published in 2001

Wikipedia

First off, thanks to Paul for recommending this album.  I actually have a ton to say about Tool, so this should be an interesting one.

I have several friends who are big Tool fans.  I try not to hold this against them.  It's one of those strange things that I have a problem with, but I think one of them clarified it for me.

You see, even Tool doesn't like Tool fans.  I know this for a fact, because Mr. Keenan beats the ever living shit out of his fans if they try to get close to him. I hope that video is up on Youtube, because it serves a warning about what everyone thinks about Tool fans.  So thank you Mr. Cooney for teaching me that I can like Tool and not be an asshole.

Not that I really like Tool, even to this day.  I've had a long and complicated history of loving some of their stuff and haaating other parts of it.  It is with this mindset that I get down to writing about Lateralus.

This is a great album by a band that is incredibly accessible to the wrong kind of people to be listening to this music.  The ideas of the album are deep and the music is incredibly complex, and these things make people feel like they are just like the person writing it.  The problem is, the people who are feeling that are not as deep as the people making the album.  They are just a bunch of drunken assholes in shirts, who tell you that just because you don't think that Tool is the greatest band in history, you are a fucking asshole.

I don't mean to keep writing about Tool fans, but it's one of those groups of musical snobs that I cannot get over.  As is obvious by my blog, I attempt to have a diverse taste in music.  I really enjoy listening to things that are different, and I love finding something new that intrigues me.  So anyone who latches onto one band to the exclusion of great music elsewhere is doing themselves a terrible disservice, and they are doing the band a disservice.  If you are going to try to get people to like your favorite band, the best way is not to say, "this is a pile of shit that you are listening to, you need to listen to this and this alone."  People seem to be turned off by that.

Okay, Matt, it's time to focus on the album.  Please let these assholes get out of the way of you enjoying the album, so that we can all go home and feel good about ourselves.

Because of the asshole quotient of their fans, I have never actually listened to a Tool album all the way through, and I rolled my eyes at doing so when I heard this suggestion.  But because I love my readers and people who suggest things, I've been trying to open my mind to it, and I have to say, I'm incredibly impressed.

The music is driving, meaningful and deep. It has incredibly good song structures, and it always leaves you guessing where it is going.  The lyrics deserve to be singled out, because they inspire the perfect amount of pathos and rage, showing how well the band understands the lonelyness and anger that lie under isolation.  

The songs are well performed, and tight.  There are no wasted minutes, because this is an album of feeling, not an album of songs.  The music is designed to be listened to from one edge to the other.  The songs are spaced by intros and outros, letting the album flow from one place to another.

Schism, the big hit of this album is the closest thing that this album has to a popular song, but that is only because the rest of the album desires to be exclusive.  Schism is a great song.  It's one of the few songs that I heard on the radio and purely wanted to sing along to, because it just fucking speaks to people.  It's brilliantly written, and I can remember getting totally into it on trips and in cars all the time.

Parabola is an amazing fucking song too.  If you don't believe me, get this album, really get into it, sing along to Schism, and then wait for the moment when Parabola comes along.  You cannot miss it.  It's like a groundswell of immense sound after a quiet moment on the album.  Seriously, the album is worth it just for that moment.

The length of songs is actually one of the things that I think this album has going for it.  This band would be terrible at writing a three minute pop song, but given a canvas wide enough, they can create Last Supper like music.  Building complexity is only possible given the space to grow and change songs.  There is a bit of Dreamtheater in there, where the music is fantastically complex and requires multiple listens to get into, but of course, that is part of the appeal of the album.

It is a long fucking album though.  Clocking in at 79 minutes, it's something you really need to devote yourself to listening through.  Unless you get hooked early, you are going to be in for a long trudge.  It took me one or two listens before I was locked in and could really get into it, too.  The thing is, the mood that you have to be in is actually much more introspective (at least for me) than I thought it would be.

It's incredibly strange to me that these guys are known as a hard rock group, because all I hear is a fantastically emotional pleading group, looking for acceptance in a unforgiving and strange world.  Their purity in emotion is just hyper clear to me, and I love that they do this.  The musical contrast to this emotional tone creates a dissonance between the raw emotion and the rage that people feel under it.

And that is the space in which their fans lie.  When I think of the proto-tool fan, I think of the teenage kid who seems to desire to be a non-conformist (I was one of these as a teenager, so I can talk about them).  He thinks that the people around him are stupid and don't understand, and that they are against him.  He retreats into music and videogames because these are the places that have rules and make sense to him.  He finds peace in these things, and slowly understands that everyone else is going through the same thing, and finds his way out of his shell, or doesn't, retreating further, and not understanding why everyone doesn't understand him.  

So, Tool fans, the next time you are at a Tool concert, or buying Keenan's wine or whatever, please look around you, and recognize that there are people there with you, enjoying what you enjoy, and feeling your feelings.  Make it into a beautiful moment of collective catharsis, not a bunch of drunk assholes complaining about how no one understand them before they punch the guy in the same shirt as them right next to them in the face for something retarded.  Treat the women at the concert, not as objects, but as members of your tribe.  You'll find that you actually have a ton of friends.  And maybe, just maybe, if I hear you are doing better, I'll come to one of their concerts and hang out with you guys, and you can tell me why Tool is even better than I said here.

Look, I'm trying to keep writing, because this album is still on it's third play through, but seriously, this motherfucker is fucking 79 minutes long.  It would take a fucking book for me to write anything nearly as long as this.  It's one of those insane albums that I actually have less to say about than time it takes to listen to it.  This is my third time through, which means that I have spent a total of four hours listening to this album, and I could only start writing after two.

It's good.  Go get it. Listen to it (once), and if you like it (and I think you will), become a sane fan of Tool.  Thanks to Paul and Michael for getting me into them, just a little bit.  I know that I was hyper critical of your co-fans, but I think you guys are some of the sane ones.  Please make more fans like you, and we can go see the "amazing" shows that I hear about.  I just don't want sweaty assholes in my face the whole time for wearing the wrong color or liking the wrong album or something.

"Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown."

Matt

PS. Comment x 100 = Give Phil 5!  Matt - 5lbs. = Give Phil 5! Comment x 100 = Matt - 1Beer = Matt - lbs = Matt - 1Beer = Matt - lbs = Give Phil 5!