Big Red's Ten Best Album Purchases

10. Green Day – Warning
Well this album came out when I started college. I think when people look back at Green Day they will see Warning as the bands transition from the good little trio of rockers to one of the best of its generation. It’s not as politically important or stunningly conceptual as American Idiot, but the signs of the boys growing up are there. That’s why it struck a chord with me. I started growing up a little while this one was spinning in the CD player. While the title song is very much in the vein classic Green Day with some goofy images, songs like "Macy’s Day Parade" and "Waiting" are showing signs of new complexity.
9. Snow Patrol – Eyes Open
"It’s hard to argue, when you won’t stop making sense," is the line that opens "Hands Open" the first song of this album. It’s a quick diddy, but the lyrics are powerful, which is indicative of the entire album. Everyone knows the hit "Chasing Cars" from these guys, I am glad that I decided to take a deeper look and hear what else these guys had to offer. They mix fast, toe-tapping tunes with slower melodies. Plus, the lead singer has a unique voice, which is what makes this album continually sound fresh.
8. The Eagles – Hell Freezes Over
I spent a lot of late summer nights in my bedroom as a teenager listening to this one. It’s one of the first albums I ever bought and I’ve never had one regret about it. You can put this one on and think about life or let it be background noise. Or you can listen to the storytelling in the lyrics or you can try to figure out what the "Hotel California" is really about. It has a little something of everyone. I don’t listen to this one quite as much anymore, but there’s a lot of nostalgia when I do pop it in.
7. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication
I am not sure I ever quite so cool or with the times than when I bought this one. This album had a string of hits that most bands only dream of. It was probably the paramount effort for this band and I am not sure they’ve released anything since with quite the same level musicianship. "Scar Tissue" is a solid song with a great guitar riff. "Otherside" has a great hook. Actually the song I like the least from this effort is the title track. It gets a little long and preachy.
6. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Echo
There is probably little that separates this album for other Petty works, but for whatever reason it caught my ear. The title track is somber and I guess for some reason I like listening to sad things. "Swinging" is quicker, but not real happy. "A Room at the Top" is probably my favorite off this one. I like listening to this one in the fall when summer slowly slips away to the winter.
5. Death Cab for Cutie - Plans
This is a newer one to the collection and maybe in a year or two it will fall or go up on this list, but it’s too early to tell. All I know is that I could play this one in the car every time I get in the car and not get tired of it. "I’ll follow you into the dark," is a love song with a morbid touch. Everything is delivered soft and with at times some vivid lyrics. I am interested to get a few more of there albums to see if they hold to this success.
4. Bob Dylan – Greatest Hits
This was the first CD that I ever bought, which is sort of what puts it on this list. That’s something that I’ll never forget. I also remember my teenage mind getting distracted by the not so subtle innuendo of "Rainy Day Woman" but then being blown away by the genius that followed. This particular album is actually being replaced in my collection by other Dylan CDs with more songs, but this to some degree open my mind to a lot of things going on around me.
3. Johnny Cash – American IV: The Man Comes Around
This is more or less Cash performing covers, but his delivery is like no other and the first listen of this album is like a religious experience. It’s a memorial to a life really like no other. You can hear little things in track that you didn’t notice before or things that make you think about life in another way. "Hurt" is powerful. "In My Life" is the best rendition of this often reproduced songs. "Oh, Danny Boy" and "We’ll Meet Again" are homages to another time when music itself was different.
2. The Beatles – Let It Be
I bought this one on tape before I finally updated to CD awhile back. This album is so raw with the immense production and other things that played such a big part in other Beatle projects never really getting done before the band split and gave up on this one. The great flux of emotions rushing through the greatest band in the history of world and its members during its dying days drip off every song. Could you imagine the world with "Across the Universe", or "Let It Be" or "Get Back" if this one had never been released? The less popular tunes from this one are also a nice collection featuring the songwriting ability of the group and the variable kinds of songs it could craft.
1. The Wallflowers – Bringing Down the Horse
This tops the list for a few reasons. One, I am sure its probably the most played album in my collection. When I bought it, it went in the CD player non-stop for almost a year. Two, it made want to buy every CD this band made after, which I have. Finally, I can help but think of a lot of good and not so good times from the formative time of my life when I hear this. I bought this when I was a freshman in high school and it got me through that time when I think all of us sort of steer are life with only one headlight on.

Honorable mention
Buckcherry – self-titled
Boxcar Racer – Self-titled
The Beatles – Rubber Soul
Sublime – Greatest Hits
Jackson Browne – The Next Voice You Hear
Audioslave – Out of Exile
Nirvana – Unplugged
Neil Young – Harvest
The Wallflowers – Breach
Tom Petty – Wildflowers
The Dandy Warhols – 13 Tales of Urban Bohemia

Snakester's 10 BEST Album Purchases

10. Neil Young - Harvest: I didn't really know many Neil Young songs at the time I bought this. I think I bought this CD because it had Heart of Gold on it. It is a real gem from beginning to end. This is probably the saddest, most heartfelt album I have ever heard. Man Needs A Maid can still make me well up and feel so lonely in this world.


9. Buckethead & Friends - Enter The Chicken: This was a big risk for me. I only knew Buckethead from his one performance with Axle Rose pretending to be the new GNR. This was produced by Serj Tankian (SOAD) and is a real mix from a guitar virtuoso. I would consider Buckethead to be this generation's Jeff Beck, with slightly better hair. It only took a preview of the first song to give me the gusto to buy the album. Most people probably would not find the album very accessible, but for anyone who likes the guitar, this guy can sling it.


8. Motley Crue - Too Fast For Love: I knew the popular Crue songs from their later albums but I really like the song Live Wire. So I decided to buy this album, their first. This is basically a demo tape and that is what gives it charm. I enjoy this one up and down, especially the bonus tracks on the reissue I bought. I still can not understand how Toast of the Town did not make it onto their original cut. A little grittier than their later releases with still a good sense of the showmanship Crue would become known for.


7. The Darkness - Permission To Land: I saw the video for I Believe In A Thing Called Love and I was hooked. I ran out and bought this album without really knowing anything about The Darkness. They bring back the classic styles of the 80's metal with big guitars, big hair and some really high notes. This one is a good time the whole way through. No song is too serious and no love song too sappy. Just a rebirth of the good old days hair bands.


6. Carrie Underwood - Some Hearts: Yes, this is on my list. I have watched American Idol since the 3rd season. I've like the contestants but no one ever seemed like they could make an album that would appeal to anyone other than 15 year old girls. Then came this one. I bought it cause my wife wanted it but after 1 listen I couldn't help myself. This one makes my list because we bought it before it became the hit that it is. Some Hearts is classic country with some new attitudes and an outstanding voice powering the whole thing. Even in some of my biggest rock/metal moods, I can always stop for a little country with this album.


5. Queens of the Stoneage - Songs For The Deaf: I only knew Lost Art of Keeping a Secret (which I thought was OK) by Queens when I saw this CD sitting on the new release shelf at Borders. I was just browsing so I listened to the first track and knew I had to have it. I own some of their other albums now but this is still by far their best. They use the sounds of tuning a radio and fake DJs to give the album a flow. Their dark hard rock style is different but feels familiar. It is as if I used to know this band but yet just heard them for the first time. I wore this CD out almost every day on my trips to DeKalb.

4. The Rolling Stones - Bridges to Babylon: You read this and think, how could buying a Rolling Stones CD be a risk? Well probably anything they put out after 1980 is a risk. I bought this for the single Anybody Seen My Baby and found a whole album of fresh music from the Stones, in 1997! From Flip the Switch, Low Down to Saint of Me, Gun Face & You Don't Have to Mean It, I fell in love with this album. It is a good mix of pace and voices with Keith taking the lead on a few classics. It showed me how great they really where and that maybe they had some gas left in the tank after all. Maybe they didn't just put out an album as an excuse to tour and make millions.

3. The Dandy Warhols - Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia: I had no idea who the Dandy Warhols were when I saw the video Bohemian Like You. I loved that song and decided I needed to buy the CD just because. Listening to the album straight through takes you on this amazing journey. All the songs are very different and yet somehow flow together. It draws heavily on classic rock influences but really spans the whole genre. They even blatant ripoff the Stones, The Beatles & The Velvet Underground at times, but yet it all seems to be in tribute. The album become a lesson in what rock is and should be. It is a great CD for a car ride, it really makes the time pass by.

2. System of a Down - Mesmerize/Hypnotize: I had been let down by SOAD in the past with Toxicity, it just didn't appeal to me. B.Y.O.B. was their lead single and made me think I needed to give them another chance. This is two halves of a double album that were released seperately about 5 months apart (good move on their part). This masterpiece is full of meaningful lyrics shouting out against war, the government and the famous. It is a wild ride with so much difference between each song in their styles and tones. Heck, you could say that just within one song. For a metal band, they harmonize extremely well and really push the limits of their music. The biggest thing is that the album sounds similar to Toxicity, which I didn't like, but is somehow much more accessible. The rage in songs like Attack, melancholy wit of B.Y.O.B., the heartfelt messages of Soldier's Side, Loneliest Day and the statements in between leave me very satisfied. These two are mainstays on my IPod.

1. Iron Maiden - A Read Dead One: This one represents a personal discovery for me. I was just getting into hard rock/metal once I hit high school. I had heard the name Iron Maiden in conversations about classic metal bands but couldn't say that I knew what they sounded like. I went to a used CD store and there was a copy of A Real Dead One. It was a complication live album of several performances across Europe in 1993. The first song was Number of the Beast. Listening to the opening with the bible verse then hearing them slam into that riff and the amazing dual guitar solo in the middle of the song, I was hooked! There is nothing overall special about this album other than it was my first Maiden experience. There are several great albums that I would recommend over this one but it will always hold a special place with me. It was a risky purchase that lead to an awakening. I know follow them very closely, own all their albums and have yet to hear something come from them that I did not enjoy.


Honorable Mention:

The Vines - Highly Evolved
Twisted Sister - Stay Hungry
The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
The Killers - Hot Fuss