#6
2009 - Kelly Clarkson - Already Gone
Album: All I Ever Wanted
I think that if you've been following these countdown throwbacks or know anything about me at all, it's that singers like Kelly Clarkson aren't exactly my cup o' tea. However, Miss Clarkson has the voice and the innate ability to really reach in and pull things out of you. Her jilted lover schtick got tired after a few albums, but in 2009 she had a massive comeback record in All I Ever Wanted, featuring the worlds greatest breakup song, "Already Gone". "My Life Would Suck Without You" is a pretty fun one as well, but these days Kelly has upped her sappiness and is basically intolerable. But "Already Gone" is just massive. Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic made a massive stamp on the song and shot it into the stratosphere. It sounds unlike anything else she did - in fact it sounds like a OneRepublic song featuring Kelly Clarkson. It's solid. I give myself a pop-pass on this one. Lol
2010 - Them Crooked Vultures - Mind Eraser, No Chaser
Album: Them Crooked Vultures
Josh Homme has his hands in so many projects that it's almost difficult to ascertain how he has any free time at all. But when he teamed up with Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones he basically announced that he was going to raze the rock world. Them Crooked Vultures lived up the the hype and while "Mind Eraser, No Chaser" wasn't the lead single, it was unquestionably one of the most memorable tracks to land in J1 history. "New Fang" and "Elephants" are my other favorites on a record that is solid from top to bottom. Grohl and Homme have their own massively successful bands in the Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age (and Grohl's many other side projects, of course) that TCV have become somewhat of an afterthought. Every few years the question bubbles up and the group says that it'll happen someday... but if the world ends with only one record from them, I might be somewhat disappointed. Although... it's such a great record. So freaking good.
2011 - Nine Lashes - Anthem of the Lonely
Album: World We View
Late in 2011 there was a song bubbling through Christian Rock and online rock stations that was catching a ton of attention. Nobody knew much about Nine Lashes except for a few pictures posted online and an enigmatic website promoting a release that would be coming "soon". I remember being quite frustrated at the lack of information coming from the band; you'd think that if your debut single was blowing up as big as it was at the time, that you'd want to go out and promote yourself a little better. The few promotional pictures out there made the band look like a bunch of kick-ass dudes ready to rock hard and fast and in your face. "Anthem of the Lonely" was a sonic scorcher, punching listeners in the face with its attitude and power.
Unfortunately, the band really doesn't sound much like the song other than that. There's a lot of keyboards and whiny vocals, but the rock element has been whittled away to where some of their more recent singles have essentially been straight up electronica. It's kind of a bummer, but the band isn't in any way bad, they're just not really rock oriented or exceptionally gifted at writing lyrics - two things that this song would make you think they had in plentiful amounts. The album finally dropped in 2012 but by then I had been burned out from "Anthem of the Lonely" and couldn't find much else to latch onto. If not for a late rush from #s 5 and 4 in 2011, this song was poised to crack the top 5.
2012 - Lamb of God - King Me
Album: Resolution
In 2009 Lamb of God dropped "Wrath", a largely disappointing album that strayed away from the formula the band had built with their 3 previous records that had catapulted them to the top of the America metal empire. In 2011 they just missed cracking the countdown with the in your face single "Hit The Wall", but in 2012 they released Resolution, with the lead single "Ghost Walking", an essential announcement that they were back and ready to re-ignite their machine. The album is colossal, with hits like "Insurrection", "The Undertown", and "Straight for the Sun", but it was the final track off of the record that really caught me. The song works around a softer guitar opening with Randy Blythe telling a spoken-word tale, similar to the opening of their previous hit "Omerta". Right around the 1:45 mark the guitars drop and Blythe unleashes one of his signature growls before the band just flat-out crushes anyone within listening distance. To think that this wasn't the biggest metal song or metal album of 2012 is almost mind blowing, but we'll talk more about that in a few weeks. In fact, we've got more LoG coming in this segment. Stay tuned!
2013 - Tegan and Sara - Closer
Album: Heartthrob
One of music's great mysteries - why are Tegan and Sara so popular and held in such high regard? Is it because they're identical twins? Canadian? Lesbians? Is it because you'll never meet someone named Tegan? Or is it really as simple as that The White Stripes covered one of their songs and everyone got caught up in the rest of the fuzz? "Walking with a Ghost" isn't even a catchy song, but sure enough they're everywhere and every time they put out a record, the alternative world collectively freaks out.
"Closer", however, is a really great song. Lightning in a bottle, for sure. Heartthrob is an utterly boring record, and it's nice that they decided to put the best song first so people wouldn't have to skip through other ones before getting there. It's just a hot, sexy, catchy anthem about hooking up (or wanting to hook up) that cannot be overlooked. The girls did contribute "Everything is Awesome" to the Lego Movie soundtrack, so I cannot completely write them off, but I don't think anything they release going forward will catch the J1 chart off-guard.
2014 - Lo-Fang - When We're Fire
Album: Blue Film
You want to talk about a song that absolutely shattered my world in 2014? There are a few years on this countdown where this song could have been #2, maybe even #1. Heck, if the song came out this year I'm pretty sure it'd be #1 now. 2014 was just an exceptionally heavy year, and all of the songs that ended up in front of "When We're Fire" are deservedly there in hindsight, so there's no crying on that topic. Blue Film is a deep, passionate record with pangs of anguish and torture throughout. Lo-Fang has such a great voice and NEEDS TO GET ON TO RECORDING ANOTHER ALBUM, DAMMIT. As it is, there are hits like "Light Year" and "Blue Film", as well as a wickedly twisted cover of "You're The One That I Want" that I have to hold while I wait. There was even a cello version of the song released shortly after this record dropped, as if you needed your heartstrings to be pulled any tighter.
2015 - Lamb of God - 512
Album: VII: Sturm und Drang
Here's the thing - I've been listening to Lamb of God for a long time, and even I don't think they could release a song that tops "512". The song deals with singer Randy Blythe's time in solitary confinement in a Czech prison, as if Blythe needed any more inspiration to write exceptionally dark lyrics. Give credit to the rest of the fellas in the group for laying down the perfect musical structure for Blythe to tell his story through. The question in 2015 was whether it would be Lamb of God, August Burns Red, or Slipknot's comeback record that ended up higher on the chart. Metal's last stand, if you will, as in 2016 the highest metal track was #11, and even then it was more of an industrial song. Sturm und Drang featured other hits like "Still Echoes" and "Footprints", but it was "512" that crushed my eardrums the hardest that year.
2016 - Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown - Loaded Dice and Buried Money
Album: The Wayside EP
Thank goodness for internet radio. At the moment I cannot recall what the TuneIn station was that I found Tyler Bryant on, but "Loaded Dice and Buried Money" was a refreshing rock and roll kick that hearkened back to rock's youth, with an infusion of heavier grooves. I think it had some generic name like "Rock Now" or "New Rock!" or something lame like that. The station disappeared less than a year after I found it, but it gave me some great tracks to jam to in the meantime (although it seemed like Motorhead's cover of "Sympathy for the Devil" was played twice an hour on there). Anyways, I haven't listened to a lot of Tyler & Co after this EP; not because it was bad music or anything, but it just didn't catch me as well as "Loaded Dice..." did. The song tells a good tale and had a chance to make it to #1 in 2016 before fading away late.
2017 - Assemblage 23 - Bravery
Album: Endure
Both Lamb of God and Assemblage 23 are bands I'd consider in my top 15 all-time favorites. In 2010 "Smoke" almost made its way into the 2nd J1 countdown, but in 2012 they released what is probably my least favorite album in Bruise, which did not come even near to making it. It was a long couple of years between that release and Endure, which dropped late in 2016. I had the pleasure of seeing A23 live a few months later, and it cemented this song as a heavyweight coasting through 2017. If the song had been released later in the year it probably would have carried itself to the top of the mountain, but as it stands it fell behind 5 other titanic jams and landed at #6. I would absolutely love to see them again live, but right now I'll settle for the fantastic memories I made two years ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment