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Well fuck my old boots, it’s been a truly incredible year for rock music.

Who could have possibly imagined, back in the wilderness years from ’94 to even 2003 or so that I could be writing an end-of-year rock review here in 2008 which encompasses storming brand new albums from Extreme, Whitesnake, AC/DC, Metallica, The Quireboys, Mötley Crüe, and even… yes, who would have dared to even dream it, Guns N’ Roses. What is this, 1991 again? Seems so, and I love it.

What follows here, then, is my rundown of all the decent rock and metal albums to have graced my ears and collection from 2008 - that is albums released in 2008, which is why Airbourne’s “Runnin’ Wild”, Crashdiet’s “The Unattractive Revolution” and VR’s “Libertad” don’t make the list, awesome though they are. (There are 17 mini-reviews coming at you, so you may want to fetch a beer or such before you dig in – this is going to be a long post.)

Some might think I’ve been pretty generous with my ratings, but bear in mind all these albums are here because I like them, or else I wouldn’t be reviewing them. I’m not doing this for a job, or being sent things to review, so you’re unlikely to see any 1 or 2 star ratings. All albums are marked out of 5 stars (though I reserve the right to use half stars) and I can tell you that out of them all, there is only one to which I have awarded the full 5. (I guess I’ll save that one for last, actually. If you don’t like suspense you can happily scroll down…)

I shall take the rest in alphabetical order by band/artist, which brings me first of all to…

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This is the 500th post here on clivemurray.com.

It’s not the one with an id of 500, that went long ago, but lots of posts have been deleted or whatever, so the numbering system is out of whack there, and according to WordPress this one right here what you are currently reading of the nowtime, is #500 Fo Real.

Thrilling, huh?

The archive goes right back to March 2003, and covers posts produced by least three blogging engines. Greymatter and Pivot were useful at times when my hosting situation dictated certain constraints, but now with the emergence and dominance of the mighty mighty WordPress, everything is handled by that. EVERYTHING, mark you.

We’ve covered my solo gigs, the joining of Claytown Troupe (and recent discovery that I’m no longer in the band), and the emergence of Little Monkeys through to their transformation into Crashstars and almost immediate shelving. I’ve changed jobs a couple of times, I’ve dyed my hair, broken a tooth, grown a few beards and taches, moved house, got engaged, been on a few holidays, bought a car, sold it, Flickr’d several thousand photos, posted a buttload of YouTube videos, embraced the LOLCat phenomenon, balanced cans, I’ve told you about my books, my CDs, my movies, my friends, my original music, my cat, my code, my inner self, I’ve bought guitars and sold them, I’ve cast pods, I’ve ranted, I’ve raved, I’ve Opened Letters, I’ve kicked faces, I’ve shuddered, I’ve gone NNNNNG and Errrrr…, I have rocked and I have been rocked, London has burned and the sun has set on Camden.

Thank you all for reading, and coming back for more even when I’m being hateful. I’ve had a personal website full of stuff for over 9 years now, since before the word “web” got glued to the word “log”, since the place was wild and free and not driven by advertising revenue and clickthrough rates.

I’m not going anywhere, so settle in for another 500 posts, why don’t you?

Cheers,
–c.

Dear Ms Mills,

PLEASE FUCK OFF AND DIE.

Yours sincerely,
–c.

Dear Netvibes,

I am a long-time hitherto satisfied user of your DHTML/Ajaxian dynamic homepage product. I enjoy it’s customisability, the ease of adding new feeds, the tabbed navigation and of course the core functionality of pulling all my RSS feeds and services into one place for me to read and manage.

However, two things have come to my attention in the last couple of weeks.

1. There are now a number of other competing services out there, and
2. Yours is starting to FUCKING BREAK.

When I open one of my feed boxes and read all the new stories in there, I would like them to stay marked as read, thanks. Also, please to be remembering when I have closed the feed boxes so that next time I return, they aren’t randomly sprung open again.

If I don’t notice any improvement in the next week or two, you can shove your homepage and I’ll go look at Google’s offering, or perhaps just install PC Safari.

Savvy?
–c.

Dear Mr. Michaels,

The English words “ten” and “sin” do not rhyme.

Kthxbai.
–c.

Sell The Ranch – an open letter to President George W. Bush.

Fuck-knuckle.

–c.