Diesel 11
As you scream into the web of silence...
I always like reading the 'best of' threads from each passing year, but never have much to contribute myself because I don't listen to all that much new music personally. A lot of my time is spent digging through artists across the decades, and I thought it would be fun to start a thread to talk about the albums (and artists and songs) that defined your year. Anything is fair game, whether these are new records that came out this year or old ones released a long time ago. What have you been listening to as the year progressed?
Just a few of mine off the top of my head:
Gordon Lightfoot - Complete Greatest Hits (2002)
A compilation that I kind of bought on a whim. I've always loved the iconic "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" and expected to hear some good music throughout the disc. I was not expecting the treasure trove of folk (with some country, pop, and rock influence) that I was stumbling into! Ended up buying all of his albums and it has been so much fun going through them all. Gord has this amazing, calming voice, and his knack for melodies is unmatched. This album really takes a lot of the highlights of his career, including the constant evolutions, and gives you a nice overview of the man as a whole, leaving you to do further exploration on your own time. Great stuff.
Stone Temple Pilots - Core (1992) and Purple (1994)
I've always liked STP, but I played the shit out of these two albums this year. Core is a brilliant hard rock record, heavy yet measured, impeccable flow and a delightful knack for variety that transcends the rest of the grunge movement. Purple isn't quite as good, but it's even more varied and a great addition to the already awesome songs from the first album. Crazy to think that everyone called them rip-offs back in the day, because while the music here is definitely grunge, or at least grunge-adjacent, they have such a vast range of influences, from traditional rock bands like Led Zeppelin to folk and country artists like... Gordon Lightfoot lol. Great stuff.
Ahab - The Boats of the Glen Carrig (2015)
Ahab is releasing a new record next year and thus I've been going back through their other albums. The last one rivals The Call of the Wretched Sea in terms of quality. Boats is an awesome doom record with such a lovely palette of sound, shifting between harsh and quiet vocals, showcasing the band at their most energized ("Like Red Foam") and their most sluggish ("The Weedmen"). The mix - done with analogue - is their best yet, a wall of sound that lets all the album's colors fully mix through. Every song here is a modern classic. Great stuff.
Yes - Yessongs (1973)
My last album I only played through one time, but I did dive into some of Yes's work throughout the year. I bought an old copy of this triple album from an antique shop and I love the look of it, with the incredibly expansive pictures in a four fold cover. One of the records is warped, but in spite of the shit having been kicked out of this thing, it still plays and I have no complaints with the audio. The performances are strong and it's something that I want to dig deeper into when I have the time. I've been getting into live albums a lot more as time has gone on (from Peter Frampton to Maiden's Rock in Rio and Bruce's Scream for Me Brazil) and this one highlights what's great about these kinds of albums. Great stuff.
Just a few of mine off the top of my head:
Gordon Lightfoot - Complete Greatest Hits (2002)
A compilation that I kind of bought on a whim. I've always loved the iconic "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" and expected to hear some good music throughout the disc. I was not expecting the treasure trove of folk (with some country, pop, and rock influence) that I was stumbling into! Ended up buying all of his albums and it has been so much fun going through them all. Gord has this amazing, calming voice, and his knack for melodies is unmatched. This album really takes a lot of the highlights of his career, including the constant evolutions, and gives you a nice overview of the man as a whole, leaving you to do further exploration on your own time. Great stuff.
Stone Temple Pilots - Core (1992) and Purple (1994)
I've always liked STP, but I played the shit out of these two albums this year. Core is a brilliant hard rock record, heavy yet measured, impeccable flow and a delightful knack for variety that transcends the rest of the grunge movement. Purple isn't quite as good, but it's even more varied and a great addition to the already awesome songs from the first album. Crazy to think that everyone called them rip-offs back in the day, because while the music here is definitely grunge, or at least grunge-adjacent, they have such a vast range of influences, from traditional rock bands like Led Zeppelin to folk and country artists like... Gordon Lightfoot lol. Great stuff.
Ahab - The Boats of the Glen Carrig (2015)
Ahab is releasing a new record next year and thus I've been going back through their other albums. The last one rivals The Call of the Wretched Sea in terms of quality. Boats is an awesome doom record with such a lovely palette of sound, shifting between harsh and quiet vocals, showcasing the band at their most energized ("Like Red Foam") and their most sluggish ("The Weedmen"). The mix - done with analogue - is their best yet, a wall of sound that lets all the album's colors fully mix through. Every song here is a modern classic. Great stuff.
Yes - Yessongs (1973)
My last album I only played through one time, but I did dive into some of Yes's work throughout the year. I bought an old copy of this triple album from an antique shop and I love the look of it, with the incredibly expansive pictures in a four fold cover. One of the records is warped, but in spite of the shit having been kicked out of this thing, it still plays and I have no complaints with the audio. The performances are strong and it's something that I want to dig deeper into when I have the time. I've been getting into live albums a lot more as time has gone on (from Peter Frampton to Maiden's Rock in Rio and Bruce's Scream for Me Brazil) and this one highlights what's great about these kinds of albums. Great stuff.
but it’s fantastic to enjoy lots of 90’s music now, with alternative rock, black metal and power metal, and many of my favorites from my teenage years are coming up.