Albums for Eternity with Bottle, the Curmudgeon

I don't know about you, but i love Pat Benatar. Yes, that's also her debut album with the single most underrated song in the universe (My Clone Sleeps Alone) in the background, but that's just a generic non-self-titled debut album. We're jumping ahead to her 6th album, Seven The Hard Way, because that, ladies and gentle germs, is how you kalaidescope a concept. Not one, not two, not three, but 4 protien-packed layers to this metaphor. You don't really need to know the overly complicated rules of Craps to know that A) it's gambling, B) "the hard way" refers to rolling doubles, so good luck rolling two 3.5s, and C) you're going to lose, one way or another. It's a joke, but more importantly, it's Pat Benatar and the roll out is Sex As A Weapon, so the innuendo is not intended to be subtle. Wait wait wait, that's only 3, Bottle, where's 4? You're right, last but not least, side B opens with Seven Rooms of Gloom, a Holland-Dozier-Hol

What a bizarre feeling to hear an album you haven't heard in 30 years. Sure, the big hits from Facelift are fully in my brain out of context, but all the tracks are bathed in an impenetrable fog of pseudo deja vu. I go "oh yeah, i remember this little part," but i totally forgot how G'n'R on quaaludes with out of nowhere funk the album actually is. If that seems weird to you, you need to remember a few things. 1) Nevermind and the Use Your Illusions haven't come out yet, 2) early Alice In Chains wasn't trying to be different, they were trying to be Mainstream Hard Rock/Heavy Metal and there's more falsetto on Facelift than both Skid Row albums combined, and 3) Grunge is not a genre.  It sounds like early Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, and G'n'R, but it's practically New Orleans Sludge slow, and the guitar solos are decidedly more noise than melody. Sludge very much is a genre, it's a grungy offshoot of Black Sabbath style Doom, but t

Who wants a BLT for breakfast? Just me? Ok, fine, i didn't want to make you one anyway. I'm kidding, go ahead and save it for lunch. You'll thank me later. Most critics are going to complain about how terrible the cover art is, but i actually think it's perfect. Technically this is a Robin Trower solo album with Jack Bruce as the frontman and Bill Lordan banging the drooms, but i think the sandwich metaphor is perfect for what it really is: 3 simple ingredients that add up to something delicious. It doesn't pretend to be any more or less than what it is, 3 consummate Rock'n'Rollers making a kick ass Random Crap album from whatever ingredients they found in the fridge. No nasty mayo oozing out the sides, just meat, savory fruit, and vegetation stacked up like a Scooby Doo special. No cheese either, just straight ahead Rock songs at home in any Classic Rock block or dive bar juke box. There are a couple murky, haunting tangents in Won't Let You Down and Ca

How in the world do we tie this CD portion of our adventure together? Sex, gender, religion, war... i know! Let's check out Hanson's 2nd album! They're boys who look like girls and everyone loves to mmmHate them. I don't, i expect This Time Around to be great because contrary to what you might think, Hanson is awesome. I'm serious, without the trail they blazed the number of brothers allowed to be in a Rock band together would be limited to two. Chevelle and Greta Van Fleet wouldn't stand a chance without Hanson, 3 brothers forming a band together was literally part of their marketing strategy. All i'm saying is that mmmBop is literally the worst song Hanson ever wrote, of course it's terrible, they were literal real life children when they wrote it. Cringing through the first Hanson album is no different than cringing through the first couple Green Day EPs. This Time Around we get to hear songs about being an awkward teenager from actual awkward teenage

Speaking of knife wounds, here's what i consider the first Genesis album, Tresspass. It's not technically their first album, but From Genesis To Revelation was really just your standard singles collection culled from early demos that went nowhere and neither Decca nor the band cared to renew their contract. Tresspass is their first album conceived as an album after deciding to be a real professional band. It's also a pre Phil Collins album, because he was actually their 3rd drummer. The artwork depicts an actual knife slash through itself, and it specifically warns you that it contains tape hiss and other analog artifacts, so that's fun. Digital vs analog certainly fits our developing theme of all out nonsensical culture wars for prophet [snap] i mean profit. "Some of you are going to die...for the freedom that i will provide." Yep, that's totally not how freedom works. Violent revolutions merely result in different dictatorships. That's actually Marx

Speaking of smorgasbords and ladies' bathrooms, here's Live's Secret Samadhi. The title at least implies that the album is a meditation on reality, but it's Ed Kowalczyk so i have to keep a dictionary close because i don't have a clue who/what he's referring to half the time. Sure i know that Lakini is the goddess of the Manipura (solar plexus/navel) Chakra, but what does washing her feet with water from the women's bathroom toilet actually mean? Jesco White is a mildly famous folk dancer/entertainer, but he's not dead so how could you lay flowers at his grave? "The followers of Aldous are spinning with their mescaline," Aldous Huxley obviously, but what does that have to do with the secondary thematic concept of intellectual propery? I can't even begin to dissect the convoluted metaphors of Ghost, and we're not even halfway through the album. That's why nobody has anything to say about this album, nobody actually knows what the hel