Author: bigbadburch

Monster Magnet – Power Trip (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week8 Comments

Time to head back to 1998 and revisit what wound up being a breakout album for one of stoner rock’s foundational acts. It doesn’t actually require any mind-altering substances to enjoy this whale of an album, but it doesn’t hurt either.

Monster Magnet – Powertrip

Released June 16, 1998 via A&M Records

My Favorite Tracks – Power Trip, Space Lord, See You In Hell

Monster Magnet had a good run up to 1998, being an early herald of stoner rock and getting a bit of notice from their single Negasonic Teenage Warhead off their prior album Dopes To Infinity. The early “stoner” scene got a lot of bad press for being associated with what was considered a dangerous drug at the time, now a few decades later that all seems silly.

While hailing from New Jersey, the influence for Powertrip would come from the crown jewel of the Nevada desert. Singer/guitarist and main songwriter Dave Wyndorf took up residence outside Las Vegas for 21 days and wrote a song each day after spending the night on the Vegas Strip. This 1998 interview from the Las Vegas Sun provides more info on Wyndorf’s Vegas excursion and the background for the album.

Today’s album is a long one, with 13 tracks clocking in at an hour. Bonus tracks on different editions do exist but there is plenty to talk about here already.

Crop Circle

A bit of a trippy intro leads into a bright and heavy jaunt through a very strange set of experiences. I don’t know what the hell this song is about but I’m sure drugs are involved. Comprehension is not necessary as the song is excellent and sets the table nicely for the album. There is a badass guitar solo on this one too.

Powertrip

The title track was issued as a single and is probably the second best-known track. It uses the “quiet opening/sudden shift into heavy” dynamic that several songs here employ. This one is a pretty standard hard rock track and it works brilliantly in its simplicity. The chorus’ opening line “I’m never gonna work another day in my life” sums up the song well – this is about hitting it big, perhaps in the Vegas casinos, and not having to grind it out in the work force. It’s pretty well the true American Dream now, as prosperity through wage earning has become elusive and the choices are jackpot or destitution.

Space Lord

This is the song everyone knows Monster Magnet for. It has a similar vibe to Powertrip, with a quiet build into a very loud chorus, though this song keeps the throttle down a bit. The chorus of “space lord, mother mother” was changed from its original version, I’ll let everyone guess what the first draft might have said. A few recordings of the original version are out on various compilations released years after this album.

Space Lord is about exactly what the title would imply – a crazy cosmic tyrant comes to Earth and gets psycho. It’s a cool space rock vibe with ample drugs and base urges to sleaze it up. The single would hit number 3 on the Mainstream Rock chart. The pretty crazy music video has its own place in music trivia – it was the very first video played on MTV’s new show Total Request Live in 1998. Too bad TRL didn’t keep up that kind of energy.

Temple Of Your Dreams

Up next is pretty cool and trippy song. This stays at a constant and medium pace as it goes through this weird, time-travelling and psychedelic hook up song. The chorus is wordy and a bit mysterious at points but works out to be really cool. This one was also released as a single and got to 25 on the Mainstream Rock chart.

Bummer

This one is pretty long and heads on quite a journey, but starts on familiar ground. This is a hard and rather savage admonition of someone. Wyndorf states in this 1998 interview with Beermeolides.com that the song was inspired by his experiences in the US South and the women who are concerned with image and virtue, but not really.

Later on the song heads off onto a trippy interlude where Wyndorf goes into a whole other speel. Then the song comes back and rounds off its original message one more time. It took me a bit with this one but I got to where I dig it.

Baby Götterdämerung

This one is quiet and atmospheric. It is weird, but that’s the norm here. There’s a reference to the semi-obscure Marvel Comic villain MODOK, which threw me for a loop when I first heard it. This song doesn’t entirely move me, though I’ll give points for effort and doing something different.

19 Witches

It’s back to the boogie, this time with a total rockabilly riff. This one is a fun trip to the swamps, both musically and lyrically. In the 1998 Las Vegas Sun interview, Wyndorf discusses the song’s origins – he penned it after being basically a captive of some hardcore Louisiana goth girls for a few days. At least he made it out and we got this really cool song from it.

3rd Eye Landslide

This is a monster rock tune full of grit and attitude. It gets pretty dirty, both implicitly and explicitly. There’s not much room here to dig beneath the surface, everything is out in the open here and this sounds like Wyndorf’s statement song.

See You In Hell

This track scores big with me with its creepy keyboards and absolutely twisted tale. Wyndorf, in the previously mentioned Beerandmelodies.com interview, relays that he heard an old hippie talking about a crazy experience and based this song off what he heard. He took this to some pretty twisted places, this is like a drug-fueled horror movie in song. This one is a total winner.

Tractor

This one is a re-recorded song, it was originally on the band’s self-titled debut EP in 1990. It’s a short and fun song about drugs, not much more to get into.

Atomic Clock

Heading towards the close, this one keeps things mostly slow and simple. It might be too simple but it’s an ok song, just doesn’t build to a whole lot like the other songs. Not too sure what’s going on here, but there are nukes at the end and I’m all about nukes.

Goliath And The Vampires

This is an instrumental. It’s a vibe song and it’s pretty cool to check out.

Your Lies Become You

The final track is a trippy ballad, sounds like something that could have been in a Tarantino movie. It’s not a song I’m really into, I don’t mind listening to it for the overall atmosphere but it’s not one I give a lot of spins to.

Powertrip would be Monster Magnet’s peak of success. The album charted in several countries and found itself at the top of the US Billboard Heatseekers chart. A gold certification would come in January 1999. Space Lord was a hit and was played all over the place, and can still be heard today. It and other songs were used in a variety of films and still get picked up for TV shows and video games decades later.

This was a magnificent album for its time. It might be a bit long and could dump a few tracks, but the songs that are worthwhile are plentiful and they’re home runs. Rock had totally transformed by ’98, the alt-rock revolution was complete and the old school styles of rock were almost forgotten. Wyndorf and Monster Magnet brought back the attitude, the vibes and the sounds of years past in a cosmic orgy and put the good stuff back on the map.

Different World – The Iron Maiden Singles Series

On By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Singles Series33 Comments

The Iron Maiden singles series is now truly headed to the home stretch. Today marks one of two from the epic album A Matter Of Life And Death. I have both from this release, stands to reason as the album is one of my favorites.

I am also, once again and thankfully for the last time this series, out of order. Today’s single was the second from the album. It doesn’t make a huge difference, though next week’s does have quite a pre-release story behind it.

But for today I’ll tackle the second single since that’s how Discogs presented the list to me. This one has a handful of versions and honestly each on has different stuff on it. I have the US CD and it has 2 of the band’s best tracks recorded for a BBC Radio One session.

Since it’s Iron Maiden I’ll talk about the cover – it’s a shot of Eddie holding the Earth. It’s fine, by all means, but it’s pretty nondescript for Iron Maiden art. The still was pulled from the computer animated music video for the song we’ll get into in a minute.

Different World

The feature song was the opening track from the AMOLAD album. It is a fairly bare-bones track that hangs a bit lower in the register as a whole, a bit of contrast to the higher tones Maiden had been messing with in the early reunion years.

There was intent on the lower register thing, especially from Bruce Dickinson – the song is, in part a tribute to Thin Lizzy and Bruce did his singing a few steps off from his usual air raid siren stuff as homage to Phil Lynott.

I’ll admit this song doesn’t do too awful much for me. It’s ok but certainly not their best. If this were on a different album I might think a bit more of it, but being on AMOLAD this song kind of pales compared to the near buffet of masterpieces the rest of the album has. I’m even a bit shocked that they released this one as a single, when heavyweight songs like The Longest Day or For The Greater Good Of God were lurking as potential singles. The latter one might be long for a single, but Maiden do whatever they want anyway so I don’t see the problem.

There are two music videos for the song. The main one is a computer animated thing that shows Bruce stealing a vial of something, then he gets chased around by some machines for awhile. Eventually Eddie comes along and holds the world in his hands. The video looks fairly dated today and maybe it even was back then but it’s fairly impressive to put that kind of animation together for a music video on a song that wasn’t going to be a mega-hit. The second music video is simply a clip of the band playing the song in studio, bits of that video are seen in the animated one.

Hallowed Be Thy Name

Both B-sides come from a live in studio performance at the BBC Radio One in September 2005. First up is Iron Maiden’s magnum opus, the song hailed by many as their greatest work. This rendition sounds really good, everything sounds studio clear but it’s also obvious the band are playing it live. This version doesn’t go quite as fast as some live cuts of the song do, this one was kept at a more even pace. I’ve always enjoyed the “balls out” live versions but this one is a really good cut.

Hallowed Be Thy Name was a prior feature of my S-Tier songs series, that post can be found here.

The Trooper

This is the same deal as Hallowed Be Thy Name and from the same session. This also sounds good and does retain a bit more of a live feel, it still sounds clear but is rough in the parts that The Trooper is on stage. If you’re unsure about this version of The Trooper you have a week to think about it, as the very same song is a B-side to the other single.

That does it for this single, not a triumph of a lead single but some pretty nice B-sides. Next week there will be quite a story behind what was the lead single from AMOLAD. And yes, this series is nearing its bedtime.

The Iron Maiden Singles Series

Live! + One

Running Free

Sanctuary

Women In Uniform

Maiden Japan

Purgatory

Twilight Zone/Wrathchild

Run To The Hills

The Number Of The Beast

Flight Of Icarus

The Trooper

2 Minutes To Midnight

Aces High

Run To The Hills (live)

Running Free (live)

Stranger In A Strange Land

Wasted Years

The Clairvoyant

Infinite Dreams

Bring Your Daughter … To The Slaughter

Holy Smoke

Be Quick Or Be Dead

From Here To Eternity

Virus

Out Of The Silent Planet

Rainmaker

Different World (you are here)

The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg

Empire Of The Clouds

Motörhead – Killed By Death (Song of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week7 Comments

My schedule is off because mid-week holidays are kind of a pain. But with all the Happy Birthday America stuff out of the way I can get to the Song of the Week a day late. And since it’s not the 4th of July now I’ll skip the patriotic stuff and go with some Motörhead.

Killed By Death is one of a handful of new songs recorded for the compilation album No Remorse in 1984. This one was chosen as a single, though it didn’t perform terribly well. It would cement itself as one of Motörhead’s most-beloved tracks as time went on despite its lack of commercial appeal.

The Motörhead line-up was a four piece set at the time, with Lemmy obviously in his place as bassist and singer. Phil Campbell and Michael “Würzel” Burston were the guitarists and Pete Gill was on drums.

Killed By Death is a prototypical Motörhead anthem, loaded with noise and sleaze. Lemmy oozes attitude (and makes references to his junk being a lizard and snake) and is a no-good son of a bitch to deal with up until he is “killed by death.” The song’s premise is simple and the execution is sound, as was usual for Motörhead. The song is silly in respects but brings enough sonic firepower to be taken seriously, also a general summation of Motörhead as a whole.

The song got a music video which was banned from MTV for excessive violence. The video is pretty goofy, with Lemmy riding a motorcycle through a wall in the beginning, but winds up being a bit of an ’80’s action scene with the band running from some kind of SWAT team sort of guys. Lemmy gets shot and then is put in the electric chair. His funeral is held and the scene spends a minute or so foreshadowing that Lemmy will ride his motorcycle out of his grave, which is exactly what happens.

Killed By Death didn’t light the singles charts on fire, something Lemmy seemed bothered by. But the song worked its way into the Motörhead setlists and stayed there, finishing out at number 4 in terms of the band’s most-played songs with over 1,200 noted live appearances. It wasn’t a commercial darling but it was well accepted by Motörhead fans.

While Lemmy is an immortal name in rock and metal lore, sadly he would be killed by death, or more specifically cancer, in 2015. But the legacy of Lemmy and Motörhead live on in heavy metal infamy, and Killed By Death was a large part of that legacy.

Dust (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week8 Comments

It’s hidden gem time this week, I’m digging up an old rock album that had some banging tunes but didn’t quite get the love it should have gotten, at least until the band’s members went on to other things.

Dust – self-titled

Released January 1971 via Kama Sutra Records

My Favorite Tracks – Often Shadows Felt, From A Dry Camel, Love Me Hard

Dust was formed in New York in 1969. Richie Wise was the band’s guitarist and frontman, while Kenny Aaronson provided bass and Marc Bell the drums. The band’s manager was Kenny Kerner, who also wrote many of the lyrics and produced the band’s albums along with Aaronson. Many of these names probably sound familiar, I’ll cover their post-Dust exploits after going over the album.

Dust were signed to Kama Sutra Records, a smaller California label who had its initial run from 1964 through 1976. It is perhaps most notable as the early home of the Charlie Daniels Band, though as we’ll see later both an executive from Kama Sutra and a member of Dust would play a huge part in rock history.

Today’s album is a lean one with 7 songs at 36 minutes, and one song taking up nearly 10 minutes of that time. Let’s head into one of the early “lost” albums of American rock and heavy metal.

Stone Woman

The opener is a very interesting track, a fairly fast psychedelic rocker with some steel guitar provided by Aaronson on top of everything. The song kind of feels like it could go off the rails but it holds together with Bell’s drumming and Wise’s electric guitar and singing about hooking up with a nice sounding gal.

Chasin’ Ladies

While the intro might lead someone to think they are listening to Mississippi Queen by Mountain, they are in fact listening to Chasin’ Ladies by Dust. While certainly inspired by Leslie West, Dust do take the track into their own territory. There is a lot of worthy guitar to take in on this tale of a man and a woman apparently splitting up and the man wishing to go find his next hook up.

Goin’ Easy

This one has a blues feel to it though the twang in the beginning does push it for a second into country. This doesn’t have a whole hell of a lot to it but it’s a decent song to check out as Wise laments the loss of a lady friend.

Love Me Hard

This one really picks things back up and gets itself into early heavy metal grounds with its riffing and drum-bashing. The song’s subject is looking for a new woman to “love him hard” after he discovers his current lady is loving other people hard. There’s a bit of an interlude where the band lays up for a moment before building back into the pounding. It’s a pretty remarkable bit of arrangement on this and other songs here from a group of teenagers who were just getting started.

From A Dry Camel

Get comfortable because we’re gonna be here for the next 9 minutes and 49 seconds. This is quite the turn, going for a dark psychedelic groove that wouldn’t be out of place on a Black Sabbath record. The song goes slow for a few minutes while it delivers its lyrical message, then it hits a very nice jam passage that’s a few minutes long and goes some really crazy places. The verses then reprise again before closing out with a bang in the final minute.

Oh, and that lyrical message? If your woman “dries up,” just hop on a camel and ride somewhere. Yeah, that’s about it.

Often Shadows Felt

This one gives off a “High Plains Drifter” or desert vibe, very gritty and sad sounding stuff to trudge through a hot and shitty landscape with. Despite the song’s more “quiet” nature, there’s a hell of a lot going on both with Aaronson’s bass and Bell’s drumming. This one comes out to a very nice track with its sweet, sad vibes.

Loose Goose

The final song is an instrumental. It’s a “rockabilly on steroids” sort of thing that could start a mosh pit.

Dust would release without any chart positions, notable sales figures or a lot of fanfare. The band would make their mark as a live draw through the Midwest US during 1971. They would record their second and final album Hard Attack and release it in 1972. After failing to gain momentum that year, Richie Wise chose to go into production and Dust would split up.

Richie Wise along with band manager Kenny Kerner were noted for their production skills by Kama Sutra exec Neil Bogart. Bogart got both into studios to kick off their production careers in earnest. Bogart wound up starting Casablanca records, and Wise and Kerner were the knob-turners for the first two Kiss albums. Wise retired from production several years ago and Kerner died in 2014.

Kenny Aaronson would go on to develop a resume that would require a book to print. He spent time with Rick Derringer and Joan Jett for awhile. He would also do stints with Bob Dylan, Billy Idol, Hall and Oates, and many others. He was part of the New York Dolls’ final line-up and was also involved with The Yardbirds in the past decade.

The name Marc Bell may not ring a bell (…), but the name Marky Ramone should. Bell/Ramone did two stints with the legendary punk outfit, playing on 10 albums and at over 1,700 live shows until The Ramones’ dissolution in 1996. Bell has since kept buys with podcasts and radio hosting, guest drumming spots and interviews.

Dust remained an obscure group, though as interest in rock and heavy metal developed through the US in the 1970s, their two albums became sought after by die-hard collectors. The albums were pretty scarce until 2013 when they were re-issued as a two-in-one package.

Dust would wind up with a legacy as one of America’s first heavy metal acts, though they didn’t get their due back in their time. Each member turned out no worse for the wear, going on to storied careers in music, and eventually the music of Dust would get out to more ears in the world once the true history of metal began being traced beyond its obvious English roots. Both Dust albums are easily worth a visit to hear some excellent rock and metal from way back when.

Emperor – Thus Spake The Nightspirit

On By bigbadburchIn S-Tier Songs1 Comment

This post was part of a series that I called S-Tier Songs. I later decided to abandon the series in favor of a simpler Song of the Week format. I am keeping these posts as I wrote them but removing the old page that linked to the list of S-Tier Songs. This final post in the series explains my decision to change up how I do it so I’ll leave the introductory stuff. Enjoy.

And now, a word about the series as a whole. I didn’t really think about it much when I started my new series last month, but honestly the Song of the Week thing sort of makes this S-Tier songs deal a bit obsolete. Or at least I feel like I’m running too much common ground between the two, it feels like this series doesn’t serve much of its own purpose with the new one going.

So, with this 25th entry, I’ll be putting S-Tier songs on ice. I’m not going to wipe it out or anything, I’m just going to stop doing them. I may find an occasion to start this up again the in future, who knows? But for the time being this will be the final entry in the series. Just too much here I can do already anyway with Song of the Week.

For the last one for awhile, or perhaps forever, I’m going back to one of black metal’s greatest moments, a song that helped establish black metal as something more than lo-fi noise a bunch of insane idiots were making.

Emperor – Thus Spake The Nightspirit

Today’s song is from Emperor’s second proper album Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk, released in 1997. The album took a bit to record, due in part to bassist Samoth’s conviction and sentence for arsons committed alongside the more infamous names in black metal during 1992.

At any rate, Emperor finally got back on the music train and their new push would help push black metal in new artistic directions. This wasn’t just noisy slop – there was true instrumentation, arrangement and above all else, majesty.

Thus Spake The Nightspirit is the album’s third track and guitarist/vocalist Ihsahn is credited as the song’s sole writer. The song jumps pretty well right in to some fast-moving black metal for its first few minutes. There are a few orchestral flourishes to round out the proceedings. The last few minutes shift gears into a slower, more atmospheric passage and that’s how the song closes out.

Lyrically the song is a call to power and to the night. The institution of religion, never a friend of black metal, is called out in cryptic phrases like “liars in thorns” and “the broken seal,” the latter most likely referring to the Book of Revelations. The final passage begs the “nightspirit” to “embrace my soul,” perhaps one giving themselves totally to the dark, or maybe a more abstract meaning not entirely clear to an outsider listening.

The song’s title does bring to mind a work from famed philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche – Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Metal bands have a long history of pilfering Nietzsche’s book titles and sayings for song and album titles, often without context. Perhaps there is a connection between the song and the book, but honestly I’m not well read on Nietzsche so I’m not qualified to discuss it.

Thus Spake The Nightspirit has become a standard for Emperor. It has been a part of many live sets since release and stands as the band’s fourth most-played song, though in fairness it’s worth considering the band have very few live shows compared to many other acts. The song was one of two chosen to highlight the band’s reunion sets and those albums’ retail release in the late 2000’s. In fact, I discussed that single quite awhile ago here.

Why is this an S-tier song?

Thus Spake The Nightspirit is a majestic and triumphant work of art that transcended a lot of what was on the surface for black metal in the mid-1990’s. Emperor was one of a handful of black metal bands who showcased the musical potential of the genre and sent it into orbit as extreme metal’s primary interest of the late 1990’s. Still today the song remains an integral part of Emperor’s brief yet massively influential catalog.

Well, that will just about do it for this series, or at least its first run. While it was fun to do, it’s kind of outmoded by the Song of the Week feature now and it’s time let this thing sit for a while. Perhaps it will return and the tome of great songs will add new entries to the list at some point down the road.

Rainmaker – The Iron Maiden Singles Series

On By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Singles Series38 Comments

Today’s single is one of three from the 2003 Dance Of Death album. Technically one of the others is an EP as opposed to a single, but a three-song EP is pretty much just a single. I don’t have it anyway so this three-song single will have to do.

The cover art is simply a shot from the music video. The video itself is, uh …. we’ll get to it in a minute. This is kind of a cool cover even though it’s not the most creative design choice. It was a far more daring choice than the cover of the Dance Of Death album, which I won’t stop complaining about until I leave this mortal realm.

There are several versions of this one, I’ll be going over the European CD release. There is a Japanese CD with two extra B-sides which would be cool to have but of course those go for a bit of a premium. This was also put on on 7-inch vinyl and, of all things, a mini CD. There’s even a DVD issue as well.

Rainmaker

First things first, just behold this music video. That is certainly something. There’s a lot going on there and, well, I don’t know what any of it really is. It does create a striking image and also it’s kind of a pile of shit. I honestly can’t make up my mind all the way on it, sometimes I dig it and other times I want to turn my eyes away from it.

The song though is a pretty good cut from the album. It’s a bit “meat and potatoes” Iron Maiden fare but there’s nothing wrong with a simple and effective song. The guitars come off with a “ringtone” vibe that puts some people off but I was never concerned with it. Dave Murray handles the solo on this one.

Lyrically the song is about rain as a symbol for washing away the grit of the past and renewing one’s self. To be truthful it’s just Bruce singing about rain for nearly four minutes, it’s not that deep.

Dance Of Death – Orchestra Version

The first B-side is a super cool one, it is the title track from the album done with an orchestra. It isn’t radically different from the actual album recording, it is the full song just done with a bit more accompaniment than the original. It’s not a total re-imagining like some metal-meets-orchestra versions are.

The song is nothing short of amazing and the orchestra only enhances it. This song was a Janick Gers contribution, along with Steve Harris. Gers seems especially keen to take a title track and turn it into gold, he did so both on here and The Book Of Souls. This B-side is absolutely worth the price of admission to this single, which in fairness isn’t that hard to get a hold of.

More Tea Vicar

It’s a good thing the single is good and the first B-side is awesome, because this turd also exists. It’s another Maiden joke track, which by this point in their career they’d done plenty of. There’s another one on the first single for this album but again I don’t have it, maybe someday later I’ll get to spin prose about that “masterpiece.” But for today I can have a go at its spiritual sequel.

The song is a some odd jam session where Bruce makes what might be a half-assed attempt at rapping. The lyrics are nonsense, the song isn’t great and Bruce isn’t getting any calls to make a hip-hop record. I don’t mind joke tracks, Maiden have had a few funny ones over the years, but honestly this one just stinks the place up.

That wraps up this one and the presence of Dance Of Death for this initial run of the series. Just three left now and everyone gets a bit of a break from Iron Maiden (maybe) before I get into the live albums.

The Iron Maiden Singles Series

Live! + One

Running Free

Sanctuary

Women In Uniform

Maiden Japan

Purgatory

Twilight Zone/Wrathchild

Run To The Hills

The Number Of The Beast

Flight Of Icarus

The Trooper

2 Minutes To Midnight

Aces High

Run To The Hills (live)

Running Free (live)

Stranger In A Strange Land

Wasted Years

The Clairvoyant

Infinite Dreams

Bring Your Daughter … To The Slaughter

Holy Smoke

Be Quick Or Be Dead

From Here To Eternity

Virus

Out Of The Silent Planet

Rainmaker (you are here)

Different World

The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg

Empire Of The Clouds

Muse – Uprising (Song of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week7 Comments

This week’s song is the biggest single hit from the British stadium rock outfit. This is easily Muse’s most recognizable song, if by chance a person reading hasn’t heard it, just watch a sporting event or go out in public somewhere – odds are you’ll hear it at some point.

Uprising was the lead single from the 2009 album The Resistance. The album is a bit of a “space rock opera” that overall is a fair tip of the hat to Queen. Much of the album was influenced by George Orwell’s novel 1984, a sentence I just typed yesterday for the Album of the Week. The Resistance would become Muse’s best-performing album and Uprising their best-moving single.

Uprising is nothing complex at all, in fact it follows the “keep it simple, stupid” formula very well. It’s an effective rhythm with a keyboard line thrown in and some handclaps and a bit of riffing here and there. That’s really all there is to it, yet it all feels and sound pretty expertly crafted. Muse had been on an “electro-stadium rock” path for awhile and Uprising feels like the culmination of those efforts.

Lyrically the song does go several shades deeper, it tackles the issue of governments and corporate powers controlling things and using misinformation, fear and paranoia to keep the general populace misinformed and in line. The song urges the rank and file citizen to recognize the charade and take power back. Something certainly born of both world events and the 1984 novel, though in both it would seem the powers that be won’t be swayed by popular rebellion.

As society has become more bitterly political and polarized over the years, Uprising has become an anthem for those that feel oppressed. The odd part of it all is that apparently everyone feels oppressed. I’ll refrain from going too hard into the political stuff but it would stand to reason that persecution and oppression are not visiting every person in the world. And not every dissenting viewpoint equals oppression, though in today’s political and social discourse it’s clear that many feel that way. As a note, Muse frontman Matt Bellamy disavowed the song’s use by right wing groups in the 2010’s.

While Uprising does offer bridges to these deeper, sometimes troubling and usually frustrating lines of thought, at its core it is really just a simple stadium anthem. It works extremely well over the PA at a sporting event and it catchy enough to easily earworm its way into someone’s head. No shock that this became a hit single.

Uprising did a tap-dance all over international charts, hitting singles charts in 20 countries and landing top 10’s in 7 of those, including their native UK. The song hit number 37 on the US Billboard Hot 100, marking Muse’s highest performance on that chart and in some technical sense actually garnering them “one hit wonder” status. It sold over 2 million in the US and has a host of gold and platinum certifications in 10 other countries.

But Uprising’s US fortunes can’t be summed up by just the pop chart. At the time Billboard also ran an Alternative Airplay chart and Uprising did an absolute number on that one. The song spent 17 weeks at number 1 and 52 weeks total on the chart, which at the time based on chart rules forced the song off for a week. Then it re-entered the chart the very next week. The 17 weeks at number 1 is good for fourth all time in the history of the chart, and one of the songs above it is also a Muse song.

Uprising was Muse’s call to power and also their apex in the mainstream music scene. The group has gone on to record and tour the world several times over, but their simple act of rebellion has continued to ring out across speakers everywhere. Perhaps a deeper message was lost, but the beat is pretty infectious.

Queensrÿche – The Warning (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week6 Comments

This week the offering is the debut full-length from Seattle’s metal institution. While the recording and process of releasing the record didn’t go the way the band wanted, in the end a worthy album was still delivered.

Queensrÿche – The Warning

Released September 7, 1984 via EMI Records

My Favorite Tracks – Take Hold Of The Flame, Roads To Madness, The Warning

Queensrÿche had landed a major label record deal off the strength of their self-titled demo, which was widely released as an EP and gained the band a fair bit of traction before playing a show. Now the group were armed and ready with their first full album and a new legacy was now underway.

The band’s line-up was the same as from the EP and would also remain the same for many years afterward. Geoff Tate handled vocals, while Chris DeGarmo and Michael Wilton were the guitarists. Eddie Jackson was on bass and Scott Rockenfield was the drummer. The album was produced by James Guthrie, well known for producing Pink Floyd.

It’s worth noting that the album didn’t quite measure up to what the band wanted. The recording process went over budget and EMI turned mixing over to a cheaper option, resulting in a mix that the band was not happy with. The track sequence was also not what the band wanted, it was changed while the group were out on tour without their input. This doesn’t really “affect” the album and there is no official re-done version that matched the band’s wishes but it’s album trivia worth having a look at.

There are 9 songs in 48 minutes on the original version of The Warning. Many of the songs here were inspired by George Orwell’s infamous novel 1984. The mythos of this album has its own feel, not quite a concept album but definitely an invented theme running throughout and certainly far beyond a pale copy and paste of the novel used to inspire.

The Warning

The opener and title track gets the pace set with a straightforward metal song. The song is pretty standard metal fare, though it’s also evident that Queensrÿche have some arrangement ideas that go beyond the usual stuff. The song has to do with a “child of centuries” who warns the world that time is about up. The simple chorus of “Warning” along with some nice riffs make for some good listening.

En Force

The first four minutes serve as another standard yet also excellent metal track, this time offering up the apparent leader or tyrant who is controlling things and some kind of quest to unseat them. A few bells work their way into the song’s intro, it seems Queensrÿche were keen to add to their music even very early on. The last minute of the song is a different sort of thing, with a quiet outro that seems to lament the tyrant’s iron grip on people.

Deliverance

This one might feel “simple” in comparison to what Queensrÿche would go on to create, but in all honesty this is a very well put together track especially for someone’s debut album. The band insert a few things into the song to freshen it up a bit. Also, the bass line on this one is very much worth a listen.

No Sanctuary

Here we have one that starts out as a ballad but then shifts over into a bit heavier fare, though still perhaps a ballad. It seems to be about someone looking to fight those in control, but the song’s sad backdrop indicates it might all be for naught. It’s a display that the band were not going to be a one-dimensional metal act.

NM 156

Up next is a more “upbeat” song, at least musically. This one works up into its very wordy chorus at a pretty quick pace. The song gets into 1984’s themes of thought control, though here it seems machines are tasked with executing citizens who aren’t in line. Queensrÿche were very into the concept of computers and machines running things, as evidenced from this track as well as Queen Of The Reich from the EP and Screaming In Digital on Rage For Order. As our current society becomes enveloped in AI, it seems perhaps Queensrÿche were prophetic.

Take Hold Of The Flame

The album’s second single has also become the standard-bearer for the record and the band’s most popular early song. In terms of tempo and arrangement it fits right in with everything else on the record. Geoff Tate does stand out on this one with his unreal voice, but otherwise the song doesn’t really “do” anything out of the ordinary.

Where this one does diverge is with its theme. The song is simply about going for it – many sit and waste away without taking a chance on something, so take hold of the flame and have at it. Stuff like a child of centuries or a human-terminating AI might be a bit opaque and far-off to really identify with (for now, anyway) but this song is universally applicable. Everyone can get it and a lot of people did. It is unsurprisingly the band’s fourth most-played live song according to setlist.fm.

Before The Storm

The metal spirit keeps up here on this one. The storm seems to reference a feared nuclear bomb scenario, though this is really only picked up from the words “atom split” in the second verse. This is a really good song that keeps its tempo up until the last minute, where again the band goes out on a different outro note which flows straight into the next song.

Child Of Fire

Heading towards the end with another barnburner of a song that keeps the pace up until a quiet interlude in the middle. This seems to be about some kind of malevolent conquering leader and a duel with a hero to settle the world’s fate once and for all. There’s a nice guitar solo at the end of the interlude before the song closes out the same way it came in.

Roads To Madness

The album closes with a whale of a song at nearly 10 minutes. The first half of the song is pretty standard fare, verse-chorus with nothing unusual going on. Then a quiet interlude hits for a bit, followed by a soaring end piece that takes the song to its conclusion. This is wonderfully arranged and played and is one that truly hints at what Queensrÿche would be getting up to on future releases.

This one is a bit tough to make out theme-wise, though it’s clear that someone is attempting to access some forbidden knowledge and they make their mortal exit as a result of their investigations. I probably never will know what the hell they’re talking about but I still absolutely love this song.

The Warning was a solid debut for Queensrÿche after the hype from their demo/EP. The album would not make huge moves on sales charts but did quietly earn a US gold record for half a million copies sold. Queensrÿche would open for Kiss, Iron Maiden, Dio and Accept while on tour for the record, offering their brand of metal to a variety of audiences.

This album is honesty pretty unique in the Queensrÿche catalog as it is a fairly standard metal record. The group would not remain long in this territory, choosing to explore different soundscapes on Rage For Order before crafting their magnum opus concept record Operation: Mindcrime. But here on the Warning we can hear their early sound, certainly with a bit of a Judas Priest vibe throughout but also a uniquely Queensrÿche offering. While the band would go on to some unique expressions in their creative prime, this first album should not be discounted, it is filled to the brim with quality heavy metal.

I do have an extra special version of this album, it’s a Japanese pressing in phenomenal condition. Have a gander at that below.

Out Of The Silent Planet – The Iron Maiden Singles Series

On By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Singles Series32 Comments

This week in the Iron Maiden singles series it’s on to the album Brave New World from 2000. It’s a big one for what are obvious reasons to most, for those unaware I’ll catch you up in a second. Note that I don’t currently have The Wicker Man in my collection, it was the first single from BNW and I’m only covering the stuff currently in my collection.

The big news? The line-up shuffle hit Iron Maiden for the next and perhaps last (?) time. Blaze Bayley was excused from the group and in his place returned the band’s iconic frontman Bruce Dickinson. It was a reunion that Maiden heads had been clamoring for basically since Bruce left the band and the Blaze stuff fell flat with a lot of the supporters. While Iron Maiden have been an exceptionally talented band in several areas, there’s little doubt that their calling card was the Human Air Raid Siren Bruce Dickinson, and now he was back home to stay.

But Bruce didn’t come alone. He had been joined on his past two excellent solo albums by former Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith, who left the band in 1990. Adrian’s return did not displace anyone – the band decided to retain a three guitar line-up of Smith, original gangster Dave Murray and Janick Gers, Smith’s replacement in 1990. The three guitar attack has worked well for Maiden and the band’s roster remains unchanged 24 years on from the reunion.

Maiden had truly gotten the band back together, had toured and then recorded, then were out to unleash their new creation on the world. Today’s single is a 12-inch record picture disc with the lead track and two live B-sides from the actual reunion tour. There are different covers for the various versions, though each version of the single does contain the same tracks (one missing from the 7-inch due to science). The cover art was done by Mark Wilkinson, who has done extensive work with Marillion and Judas Priest, and was also the artist behind the past few Maiden album covers.

Out Of The Silent Planet

The single draws its inspiration from the 1965 sci-fi film Forbidden Planet (starring Leslie Nielsen!). In that film an alien planet was found in ruins. It turns out that the beings had created machines that could simply produce whatever the people thought of. As it happens, one thing people thought of were horrible monsters and so the monsters were created and tore everything apart.

While the film is a highly rated classic, the song doesn’t get such lofty praise. It is very repetitive, even for Maiden, and in parts it’s kind of shrill. I don’t mind the song at all, it’s not something I skip when I play the album, but I wouldn’t call this a highlight of the catalog either. I like the story behind it and all that.

It was curious that this song got picked as a single when a song like Blood Brothers was sitting right there. It got a music video and everything, yet Maiden did not play it out a whole lot on a tour where they played songs from Brave New World heavily. But it wasn’t all that important in the end, Iron Maiden were back and everyone was happy.

Wasted Years

The first B-side is from a September 1999 concert in Milan, Italy. This was on the Ed Hunter tour which was Maiden’s big reunion shindig. None of this stuff was ever put on to one of the band’s many live albums so these B-sides are pretty cool to have. This Maiden classic is played a bit fast and loose, which honestly is kind of nice to hear. The essence of the song comes off just fine with this rendition.

Aces High

Same scenario as the prior B-side, though this song is from a set in Madrid, Spain on the same tour. Also a signature Maiden song, complete with Churchill’s speech for the intro. This one is also played very fast and loose, in fact it does nearly go off the rails a time or two. But the band keep it together and this one also works out pretty well in the end.

That does it for the first reunion single. This series is headed into the home stretch, four more after this and it’s all done. Again, I’ll revisit this series in a year or so when I’ve aqcuired more of the singles I don’t have right now. And after a two week or so break once this is done, I’ll kick off a look at the Maiden live albums, which will take to close to the end of the year to get through.

The Iron Maiden Singles Series

Live! + One

Running Free

Sanctuary

Women In Uniform

Maiden Japan

Purgatory

Twilight Zone/Wrathchild

Run To The Hills

The Number Of The Beast

Flight Of Icarus

The Trooper

2 Minutes To Midnight

Aces High

Run To The Hills (live)

Running Free (live)

Stranger In A Strange Land

Wasted Years

The Clairvoyant

Infinite Dreams

Bring Your Daughter … To The Slaughter

Holy Smoke

Be Quick Or Be Dead

From Here To Eternity

Virus

Out Of The Silent Planet (you are here)

Rainmaker

Different World

The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg

Empire Of The Clouds

AC/DC – Thunderstruck (Song of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week6 Comments

Before I start, I’ll address the missing Album of the Week yesterday. Simply put I ran out of time and there won’t be one this week. I had a bit of a temporary change to my work schedule this week that will result in a nice, long weekend for me this coming weekend, but I was too dumb/lazy to plan beforehand and didn’t get my intended AotW finished. I’ll just let the absence roll and pick things up again next week.

I’ve also punted today’s planned Song of the Week to next week as it has similar inspiration in theme to the AotW so it works nice to keep the two together, despite being two very different artists. But that means I can pick whatever in the hell I want for this week.

And today I’m going with a signature track from a band I haven’t talked about much at all to date on this site. AC/DC are one of rock’s biggest and boldest acts, and today I’m going with the lead track from their 1990 Razor’s Edge record that was a bit of a comeback for the group from Down Under. I don’t actually know if you’re supposed to capitalize Down Under but I did it anyway.

Thunderstruck was both the lead single and lead track from the full-length record and was a blatantly obvious choice for both such honors. The calling card of the song is the guitar that opens the proceedings. It is something Angus Young was messing around with and he and brother Malcom decided to run with it. Over time the song took shape around the brothers’ guitar work.

And there is no mistaking what is about to happen when that riff hits. It can’t be confused with anything else, at least that I know of. The song itself is a basic but banging rock track, in keeping with AC/DC’s long legacy of crafting that exact fare. The results on Thunderstruck work on a level beyond the general niceties of rock music, this song absolutely goes to 11.

Typically I like to get at least a little into a song’s meaning. But, this is an AC/DC song, that’s pretty much what it means. No hidden philosophy or sly digs at the establishment in here, just thunder and looking for women and having a good time.

Thunderstruck did reasonably well for itself on release, charting in a host of countries. In the US it landed on the Mainstream Rock Chart at number 5 and instantly became a staple of rock radio and it still sits in heavy rotation to this day. Somehow the song did not seem to even chart on the Billboard Hot 100, no issue in and of itself but there is a curious case about AC/DC and their performance on that particular chart, but I’ll save that topic for another time. It is odd that this of all of their songs didn’t break on that chart.

The album Razor’s Edge did massive business, going 5 times platinum in the US and also selling gobs in other countries. AC/DC had been flagging a bit in the late ’80’s, the prior effort Blow Up Your Video was perhaps not a critical success or fan favorite, though it did start the band back on a good sales track. But Razor’s Edge totally demolished sales figures and put AC/DC back on top of the rock mountain, and Thunderstruck was a huge part of that success.

Thunderstruck has remained a staple of AC/DC’s venerated live set since it release 33 years ago. I don’t have sources for this claim, but several websites report that the song has been a part of every concert since release. That does sound right, I don’t know why AC/DC wouldn’t play it. It ranks toward the top of many fan and journalist polls of the best AC/DC songs and is simply beloved by a lot of the fanbase as well as rock fans in general.

There’s not much more to say here. AC/DC truly caught lightning in a bottle with Thunderstruck.