clivemurray.com

Dozing on the train to work this morning, and idly recalling my post of last week (or thereabouts) re Velvet Revolver’s “Libertad”, I tried to form a top 10 of hard rock albums and found it pretty much impossible.

Any top 10/20/1000 list is going to be one of two things: entirely subjective personal opinion, or some kind of voted-for system, and this being my personal website (I tire of the word “blog”, especially now that every company in the world wants one and wants it “monetized” in some way) I decided to knock together a chart and run it up the flagpole.

As I say, hewing it back to 10 was impossible, so I narrowed my search parameters (been watching lots of “24″ recently) down to the last 20 years, and obviously I can only include albums I know of and know well. Like I say, it’s my chart. That has enabled me to get it down to 15, though I’m sure there’s one or two gems that I’m leaving off even from my own personal collection. Additionally, what exactly is Hard Rock? How hard does it need to be? Where’s the line between Rock and Metal? Damned if I know, so I’m going to completely ignore the question and just go with my own fuzzy internal definition.

Anyway, enough babble, here’s the first version of Clive’s Top 15 Hard Rock Albums (1987-2007****). Although these are presented in the traditional reverse order so as to arrive at a shuddering sweaty climax, the order is pretty rough apart from the top 3 or so. (Warning: superlatives ahead…)

15. “Here Come The Brides” - Brides of Destruction (2004)

Tracii Guns has always, in my opinion anyway, been the nearly-man of hard rock. He was the “Guns” in the original lineup of Guns N’ Roses, but was replaced by Slash before the band even recorded anything. L.A. Guns were one of the original Sunset Strip bands that formed the sound, but for me they just weren’t as cool or as good as Mötley Crüe, GNR, Skid Row etc. But when he formed a band which included the songwriting genius of Nikki Sixx, that album just had to be a corker, and it is. Short and punchy, featuring only 9 songs, it gets in, gets out, and puts the kettle on in just 37 minutes, but every song is a winner. NB: skip the followup “Runaway Brides” - Sixx had quit to rejoin the Crue by that point, and it is fucking awful.

14. “The Real Thing” - Faith No More (1989)

Were FNM hard rock? Were they funk-metal? Were they progressive-pop-funk-jazz-death-ska? Get over it, it’s my chart and I say that this album counts. Now I know that Mike Patton would probably rather die than be associated with this album any more, but at the time it was a fucking landmark. Few of us who were into the scene at the time will forget the video for “Epic” (a regular on Raw Power) or hearing the live version of “From Out of Nowhere” kicking off with Patton yelling “OY OY OY” at the top of his considerable lungs. Momentous.

13. “No More Tears” - Ozzy Osbourne (1991)

Ozzy! (It’s all about Zakk Wylde, though, and that guitar sound.) Having spent three years away since his last outing “No Rest For The Wicked”, people were writing Ozzy off as washed up until he returned with this utter powerhouse of a record. Yes, it may have one or two too many mid-tempo ballady tracks on it, but wrap your ears around “Desire”, “Hellraiser”, “Mr. Tinkertrain” and the title track, and fucking testify. I’ve always been slightly mystified about how much of the actual writing is done by Ozzy, and as Rick has maintained about him his “singing” isn’t perhaps the most gifted in the world, but there is just something about Ozzy that rocks the fucking house.

12. “Pride & Glory” - Pride & Glory (1994)

Yee-fucking-haw, it’s Zakk again, and this time he’s singing too. This was perhaps the precursor to Zakk’s now huge Black Label Society in that this was the first time he was fronting the band and writing pretty much everything himself. I do dig some BLS stuff, but for my taste P&G was the shit. I remember first hearing this in my mate’s VW camper van and being blown out the window onto the hard shoulder by the combination of crushingly heavy southern-fried riffs and awesome banjo-riffic grooves.

11. “Move” - Freak Kitchen (2002)

Speaking of being blown away by an album, the impact of FK’s “Move” on my musical psyche was such that it factored on the Richter scale. London police were initially scared that some kind of terrorist activity had taken place, but no, it was just me being knocked sideways by Mattias Eklundh’s guitar playing. Where does he get those notes from? I think he has a few extra strings hidden away on the back of the neck or something. Having checked out all of FK’s catalogue by now, I really think that this is their best and most cohesive album, and it is certainly much more than just a showcase for a flash guitarist - these guys write great songs too. Shoot yourself up with “Razor Flowers” and “Heroin Breakfast” for starters, then chow down on the best thing ever in 5/4, “Nobody’s Laughing”. Sublime.

10. “Skid Row” - Skid Row (1989)

Now we’re going way back! This was one of the defining albums of my early rock days (along with #1 and #3, to which we will come in due course), and I still love every note of it. Yeah, we’ve all heard “Youth Gone Wild” and “18 & Life” a few too many times now, but check out such other awesome and oft-overlooked tracks as “Making A Mess”, “Piece of Me” and “Midnight”. This was hair-metal at its best.

9. “Time Bomb” - Buckcherry (2001)

God* bless Buckcherry. In the late 90s rock was dying, and they have been one of best bands around in recent years keeping it alive. I was actually torn as to which album of theirs to include here, since their latest “15″ is absolutely excellent as well, but I feel it has to be “Time Bomb” purely for the impact it had on me. You have to realise that I’d spent 6 or 7 years listening to Extreme, GNR, Skid Row, Motley Crue, etc believing that rock was pretty much dead and all I had was archive material to keep me going for the rest of my life. Then one day I heard the opening track “Frontside” and knew that there was still life in the old genre yet. God* bless Buckcherry.

8. “Pornograffitti” - Extreme (1990)

Now then, now then. Extreme were one of the first bands to successfully cross technical virtuoso guitarists with hard rock sensibilities and produce something new (other examples being Winger and Mr. Big), and this was without a doubt their finest hour. Glossing over “More Than Words” - which unless you missed the 90s entirely, you will have heard on local radio or at karaoke a million times - this album delivers some of the best rock guitar playing ever committed to tape, and some damn fine rock songs. See “Decadence Dance”, “Li’l Jack Horny”, “Suzi” and “He-Man Woman Hater” for details. “Hole Hearted” is a much better song than “More Than Words”, anyway.

7. “Lean Into It” - Mr. Big (1991)

But of course, in my opinion, whatever Nuno could do, Paul Gilbert could do it better, and with humour. In a musical landscape dominated by concerns of who could play the hardest and fastest, it was Mr. Big (and not Eddie Van Halen, thanks) who first took an electric drill to the guitar in a total pisstake of the “who can play fastest” debate. This is a quality album from start to finish, and there’s not a bad song on there. Got power-ballad? “Just Take My Heart”. Got awesome technical-sounding fast rocker? “Daddy, Brother, Lover, Little Boy”. Got radio-friendly acoustic song? “To Be With You”. It has it all, and they’re all great.

6. “Skyscraper” - David Lee Roth (1988)

Still to the minds of many (me included) the best work of Steve Vai’s career, this album is… undiluted Summer for the ears. Now I’m referring to the original tape/vinyl release here, which did not feature the two latterly included tracks “California Girls” and “Just A Gigolo”. The correct version of this album has 10 tracks, and begins with the… damn, I’ve said sublime too many times already… uh… ah, the exquisite “Knucklebones”. I mean, “Damn Good” alone is enough to make this album indispensable, but when you add tracks like “Hot Dog And A Shake”, “Hina”, “Just Like Paradise” and the title track to the list, it transcends description. Fuck, this is a good album. I need a thesaurus.

5. “Pump” - Aerosmith (1989)

We’re in top 5 country now, and here come the big hitters. Aerosmith are one of the longest enduring bands of the entire genre, and while many will point to “Permanent Vacation” as the pinnacle of their achievements, for me it is the 1989 follow-up. Incidentally, Aerosmith formed in 1970, and four of the five original members are still in the band 37 years later. How’s that for job security? I recently saw Aerosmith live in Hyde Park, and they rocked the place like the consummate professionals they are.

4. “Ain’t Life Grand?” - Slash’s Snakepit (2000)

Now this is a rock album. The second studio effort from Slash after the GNR meltdown, the line-up (aside from the top-hatted marvel) is completely different from the first album “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere”, and to my way of thinking sounds better for it. While the first album is a good rock record, this is outstanding, and a large part of that is down to the vocal stylings of Rod Jackson. Whack this on the stereo and crank it up and you’ll be laying flat-out in the kitchen with a half-empty bottle of Jack dangling out of your sweaty mitt in 20 minutes flat. FACT.

3. “Dr. Feelgood” - Mötley Crüe (1989)

Yes, yes, yes. You can’t make this kind of a chart without an entry from the Crüe - it’s the law - and this is the best and most consistent album they ever made, before things went bad. Mick Mars is not a great guitarist, but the man can riff, though an associate assures me that 99.7% of the process is 100% attributed to Nikki Sixx, so there you go. Still, Mick’s a great showma… hang on. Well, at least he can wai… um. He has some nice hats. This is a truly great party album - just miss “Without You” and “Time For Change” off the cassette**, and turn it up.

2. “Libertad” - Velvet Revolver (2007)

Holy fuck. No, really. I mean, “Contraband” was good, but Jesus, I wasn’t expecting this. Slash turns in a barnstorming effort on “Libertad” - his 2nd appearance in the top 5 (and not his last, which should give you a clue what’s at #1) and as I have previously opined, the best hard rock album in 20 years. And the rest of the band*** aren’t exactly phoning it in either. Songs like “Get Out The Door”, “Pills, Demons, etc.”, “She Mine”, “Mary Mary” and the mystifyingly titled “She Builds Quick Machines” are so death-defyingly good that I’m not sure they’re 100% legal. Even the filler songs (”Spay”, “Can’t Get It Out Of My Head”) are good enough to be on most of the albums in this chart and stand out - they’re only filler because they’re alongside such great tunes. Scott Weiland is clearly having a fucking ball on this album, and the whole band are going to be a riot on tour - that’s one show I positively refuse to miss.

1. “Appetite For Destruction” - Guns N’ Roses (1987)

The perfect album. The one true way. Crafted over the course of centuries in a top-secret rocktight chamber deep under Sunset Strip using industrial laser-Gibsons and deep-earth UltraMarshalls, it has still to be bettered. Every single one of the 12 songs is a journey, every guitar track a masterpiece worthy of any lesser rocker’s entire career, every bassline a rolling undulating landscape, every vocal a visceral primal shriek from the depths of a man’s whisky cabinet, every drumbeat a double-fisted punch on the side of the head of rock itself. Watch yourself, I may descend into hyperbole here. But really, this defined the fucking genre in 1987 and it still does. Regardless of what madness Axl strays into nowadays, and regardless of how crushingly disappointing Chinese Democracy will doubtless be when it eventually sees the light, this is how he - and the rest of the band, VR notwithstanding - should always be remembered: right at the top of the game, smashing out the best tunes in the world and punching the photographers.

Thank you for your time, I’ll be at the bar.

–c.

* As a non-religious man, I mean this entirely as an idiom, and not an endorsement of any deity, Judeo-Christian or otherwise. Please substitute the deity, deceased personage, or mythical being of your personal preference.

** OK, point taken - playlist, CDR, whatever. But it would have been a TDK, back in the day.

*** In some ways, wouldn’t you just hate to be Dave Kushner? I mean, yeah, he’s in VR which is pretty fucking awesome, but the thing is, VR are usually described in terms like, “Yeah, it’s three-fifths of GNR’s best ever line-up, plus Scott the singer from Stone Temple Pilots… and some other guy.” Wait, who am I kidding? I would murder - even mass-murder - to be in Velvet Revolver.

**** Added after the event…