27. Queen / A Night At The Opera. 1975. 5/5

Leading up to the release of their fourth album in the closing months of 1975, the individuals that made up the band named Queen were far from the financially well-off persons that they became in the years following. There were no yachts and cars and luxurious homes. The band had made a commercial breakthrough with the single “Killer Queen” from their third album “Sheer Heart Attack”, which had made #2 in the UK and #20 in the US. This didn’t flow through to the band, whose contract they had signed with Trident Studios meant that each was on a retainer of £60 a week. Brian May was living in a bedsit in Earls Court and Freddie Mercury lived in a flat in Kensington with rising damp. The contract situation reached its inevitable impasse when recently married John Deacon was denied a cash advance of £4,000 by manager Norman Sheffield to put a deposit on a house. This led to a decision by the band to find a way to break their contract and find new management in order to regain control of their own finances. As it turns out, not an easy thing to do without some financial cost to yourself. The band was eventually able to release itself from its restrictive contract after nine months of negotiations, though within that agreement they had to spend £100,000 to buy out of their contracts, as well as offer 1% of the royalties of their next six albums to Trident. The band then signed to EMI, and took on new management with John Reid, who was also the manager of Elton John. Upon his appointment, he has been quoted as saying "I'll take care of the business; you make the best record you can". The band took him at his word.
Writing and recording and production of the new album went over a period of four months, at several different venues and studios. Roy Thomas Baker, who had also split from Trident Studios, again came on board to produce the album. Because of the sheer volume of vocal overlays and recording of instruments, the band utilised a 24-track rather than the 16-track they had used for their first three albums, the results of which could be heard from the first songs produced in the studio. The time in the studio was spent meticulously arranging and recording the vocal dubs and overlays for the tracks that required them, and for the complexity of recording techniques the band was utilising to get the sound that they wanted for their album. In many ways, each of the three preceding Queen albums had all been building to this, the album that brought together everything that they had learned from writing, singing and playing in the studio, all of the ways they had brought together to record and interpret and build their songs into more than just songs, but into soundscapes. Tracks that portrayed their piece of the story, and sewing it all together to become the masterpiece of creation that would eventually take on the name of “A Night at the Opera”. It became a great deal more than that.

I am not even going to attempt to break down this album for you like I tend to try to do on most episodes. And the reason for that is, it has been done so many times over the past fifty years that anything I might say in any respect has already been said before, by far more intelligent and knowledgeable people about that kind of thing than I am. I am a fan, I love music and I love Queen, but going through each song and explaining how they did it, that’s not going to be my go. There are several excellent documentaries out there on the band and this period of their career, and of course there is the wonderful Classic Albums episode on the album with Brian and Roger that pretty much tells you everything you need to know on the technical aspects and the stories behind the songs. So I would certainly recommend that if you haven’t already seen it. What I CAN offer you here is my thoughts on the songs, what works and what isn’t quite my style.
The opening three song stanza that is more or less one song in three acts is just fantastic. Each part has aits own unique style, and yet in recording them as the band does, with almost no break between each track, does give off the impression of one track. “Death on Two Legs” is uniquely incredible in its own right, a song that musically sounds a bit like the way Queen had occasionally produced heavy songs, but lyrically is a new concept. Those heavy songs were, in the main, the domain of Brian May, but here Freddie Mercury offers us a very clear reason why no one should ever cross him, never ever do anything to wrong his friends. Will he come for you with a gun or knives or his fists to seek retribution and retaliation? No. He will come at you with the most vitriolic and hate anger spewing that you could ever imagine possible. He will put it into song, he will open his new album with it prominently position as the opening track, and it will be played for eternity as a reminder of the wrong you have perpetrated upon him and them. THAT’S the way to fight back. “Death on Two Legs” never mentions the band’s former manager in its lyrics. The closest anything comes to pass is on the band’s live album released a couple of years later “Live Killers”, when Freddie introduces the song with ‘this is about a real motherfucker of a gentleman, we call him ‘Death on Two Legs!’ On hearing the song, their now ex-manager sued the band and the record label for defamation, which was settled out of court, but it did go to prove that Norman Sheffield was the centre of the song’s vitriol. (And how could that be proven by the lyrics? The law just doesn’t work most of the time). There were reservations from the record company about putting it on the album, but it is proof of both Freddie’s personality and aura that it not only made the album, it leads it off. I mean, the beautiful piano opening into Brian’s wonderful guitar gives you no idea of what is to come once Freddie starts singing. It is still one of my favourite Queen songs, because nothing is left in the tank here. It is a ripper. And then to segue immediately into Freddie’s next piece, ”Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon” is so off putting, so off centre, like being on a roundabout as a kid in the playground, and somebody suddenly grinds it to a halt, and because you haven’t been holding on you go soaring off it into the dirt. I love the way Freddie has recorded his vocals here – apparently produced through a microphone recording the vocals that were coming through headphones in a tin bucket elsewhere in the studio. And from this crashing straight into the drums and guitars and piano booming for the start of Roger Taylor’s dream piece, “I’m in Love with My Car”. Roger's songs always have something special about them, they have a take on a subject that is unusual but also strangely close to home. The value of being in love with your car, of polishing and cleaning it to within an inch of its life, of driving it around town proudly but then rushing home to the garage at the merest sign of rain or dust, definitely takes in a certain piece of the population. Beyond that, it is a great song, and Roger sings it with passion. It did of course cause some friction with sections of the band when it became the B side to the single release of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, and thus Roger received the same credits and money because of that. Ah the problems when money is not the universal commodity it became for all of them eventually.
Speaking of which, John Deacon’s second ever song writing credit on a Queen album is next, and what a song it is, the second single released from the album, “You’re My Best Friend”. Written for his new wife, it is its own love letter from John to her, and must surely have been used by millions of people all over the world for that reason as a result since its release. The Wurlitzer electric piano her uses in the song is so immediately beautiful, it's hard to believe Freddie hated it being used, because it is the very distinctive aspect of the track. It has been used on the soundtracks of so many TV shows and movies, for me most memorable in “Shaun of the Dead” and “Peter’s Friends”. It is a beautiful love song, that can and is beloved by music lovers of all ages and persuasions. My favourite song on the album follows, with Brian May’s “39”. I am a science fiction nerd, and having a song written about someone going into space and returning a year later, only to find that a century has passed on earth, has always tickled by geeky attitudes. The fact that Brian, who studied astronomy at university, wrote the song made it even better. Brian sings the lead vocal on the song as well, and the layered vocals in the middle of the track are wonderful, with Roger once again in charge of the highest notes hit. It is an outer space ballad, utilising all of the amazing subtleties that the band has grown over their years.
The first side of the album comes to its conclusion with two differing songs, firstly the Brian May guitar rock based track “Sweet Lady”, one that I hesitate to describe as ‘a typical Queen hard rock track’ but it still fits the description. Great rhythm from Roger, John and Brian with Brian’s licks and solo bringing out the best qualities of the song, while Freddie croons along. Secondly is Freddie’s “Seaside Rendezvous”, styled much like a music hall number and performed to suit, with Freddie and Roger bringing their talents to the fore to imitate the various instruments available.
Side 2 opens with the epic “The Prophet's Song", relating the biblical story of the great flood and Noah’s ark, all of which the idea came to composer Brian May in a dream. He then spent some time of the construction of the song, the arrangements that needed to be coordinated to the different parts of the story to give them the musical and vocal backing the required. When you listen to the song in the context of what is going on, it is quite the production, and not one that would have been easily conceived and arranged. How do you follow that up? Well, with Freddie’s own love letter, “Love of My Life”. Based for the first half around Freddie’s piano, Brian playing the harp and his acoustic guitar, with Freddie’s lead vocal and the layered harmony of voices behind him like a choir, it wrings the emotion from you in the way it was meant to. Here again, this ballad like John’s and Brian’s, showcase the ability of the band to create tracks like these without compromising their own music. Something that is a very difficult thing to do. This is followed by “Good Company”, Brian’s Dixieland and jazz sounding composition that has him performing on the ukelele and lead vocal, and which does not have Freddie performing in any capability.
The song that the entire world knows follows, the one that truly began the band’s ascension to the heights they rose to, “Bohemian Rhapsody”. You know the song, either like it or love it or put up with it. Its composition by Freddie is amazing, and that story itself is worth investigating if you don’t already know about it. The fact that the band just called it “Fred’s Thing” in the studio, because he was working on it all the time but without any strategy as such. That he wrote and recorded it in blocks, with the recording of the instruments being down without the band members knowing how it would be used and put together, is just fabulous. The ballad to start, the opera in the middle, the heavy concert to finish, with the ballad reprise at the end. It is a rock opera in one track, an epic, a progressive rock track that defies that term by way of its structure and movement. And it was a great song even before “Wayne’s World” came around, but anyone who doesn’t think of that scene in the movie at the point that Roger hits that out of control highest note before the song descends into the headbanging riff from Brian is just lying. And, to finish it all off, Brian gives us “God Save the Queen”, a perfect send off for what is pretty much a perfect album. Depending on how you define that.

As I no doubt mentioned on my recent podcast episode extolling the virtues of Queen’s final album “Made in Heaven” - episode 156 for those of you who may have missed it – my introduction to Queen came through the radio singles of the early 1980’s, in particular my fist memory of Queen being “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, before purchasing “The Works” as one of my first ever albums on vinyl. These, along with the “Greatest Hits” album were my introduction to Queen, along with the next 1980’s releases of “A Kind of Magic” and “The Miracle”. The albums from the 1970’s came after that for me, mostly because I was comfortable with those albums and the music they offered me.
The first time I heard, and my main knowledge of songs of this album, came from the live album “Live Killers”, which I also had around this time. It was where I first heard “Death on Two Legs”, “I’m in Love With My Car”, “Love of My Life”, “39” and “God Save the Queen” (for what it was) came from that live album, all of which I enjoyed immensely, and probably hastened my chase for those other albums by the band. All of them, in retrospect.
So I got the album. I can’t tell you where or when. That memory has unfortunately disappeared from the filing cabinet. But I do remember how I felt listening to this entire album those first few times – thinking ‘what the hell have I walked into here?’ Because, as explained, it is a rollicking ride through that opening five tracks of the album. And yes, I could just say the whole of Side A and that would also be accurate. But it is those first five tracks that get me every time. The rage of “Death on Two Legs”, the jauntiness of “Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon”, the bombastic “I’m in Love with My Car”, the divineness of “You’re My Best Friend”, the sheer beauty of “39”. These five tracks to me draw and drive picture frames through the mind. And onto the second side, with the epicness of “The Prophet’s Song”, the wrought emotion of “Love of My Life”, andjust the bohemian rhapsody of “Bohemian Rhapsody”. All of it was entrancing from the very start, and it brought a new level to my love of the band Queen from what had been built on those albums I had from the 1980’s into the 1990’s.
Whether it was supposed to be this way or not, I have always listened to this album as a collection of songs, as a selection of skits and plays and stories gathered together and put on stage, played at the opera or on A Night at the Proms that was often broadcast when I was a kid at my grandparents. Each song acts as a scene of the whole, a place where the performers enact that part of the story, before moving off stage and the next part comes out to be performed. Each its own tale, and yet tied together to form a whole, the title of “A Night at the Opera”. The collection of songs on this album represents a great variety of genres and types, so much so that on any other album it might not work, that it might be a little too radical in approach. But for Queen, and in this situation, it works like a dream.
As with all of the albums I review for this podcast, I have had my copy out again over the last... almost two weeks. Listening to it all over again, in between the other albums. Always knowing that if I needed a pick me up, and album to give me a lift during the workday, that this one was the one I could go for. And which I did. It is still just an amazing album. And yes, I can admit that songs such as “Seaside Rendezvous” and “Good Company” I could quite easily do without, if I were of a mind to. I could easily skip them if I needed to. They are there as a part of the album, but to me they aren’t a big part of what makes this album as magnificent as it is. But I still listen to them. Because they ARE a part of this album.
This album has reached its 50th anniversary, something that seems so incredibly unlikely and impossible. And yet Freddie has been gone for 34 of those 50 years, and that too seems impossible. Despite having owned this CD for more years than I could count, I still dally with going out and buying the anniversary issue on vinyl, just because. Because why not? It will get used. This album has been played by me every year since I first discovered it, and I doubt that is ever going to change. Having it on vinyl just feels like the right thing to do.
Arguments will always rage over what IS the best Queen album of all time. There are 15 to choose from in regards to studio releases. And favourites will always reign in an argument. But taking emotion out of the argument, and just judging an album on the quality of the songs that are a part of it, considering the work that it took to produce those songs at the quality they reached, and the nature in which the albums have been put together and hold their value after all this time, it would be difficult not to have “A Night at the Opera” very near the top of the tree. If not the top. It was an incredible achievement in the history of music, and its influence is still found today in bands and musicians and music around the world.

26. Blind Guardian / A Night At The Opera. 2002. 2/5

This was the first Blind Guardian album I bought, when it was released in 2002. I had never heard any of their stuff, but it looked as though the band were of a genre that was right up my alley.
Having secured it from Utopia, I listened to it probably a dozen times, thought it to be "OK", and promptly slotted it away and forgot about it.

Listening to it today, I'm not overly sure what I saw in it originally. While growing from the same roots of other stuff I love, I found it to be very confusing, with too much competing within the music itself to allow the songs to blend together. What came across was not so much a wall of noise, but more like when you get the radio caught between two stations, and you can hear both at once (I know in this digital age that this doesn't happen too much anymore, but those that can remember it happening will know what I am talking about).

Rating : This was one of those out-of-the-blue purchases, that you hope will pay off, but doesn't. Seems like only others of my friends (ie Kearo) has the golden touch in this regard. 2/5.

25. Queen / A Kind Of Magic. 1986. 5/5

It is rare in life that one looks forward to both a movie coming out, and the soundtrack to that movie. But back in 1986, the film Highlander was released, and the accompanying soundtrack was done by Queen, and released as their own album, entitled A Kind Of Magic.

I can't remember which I sampled first - the film or the album. However, the album itself is teriffic on its own. Most of the early songs on the album skew towards the sentimental - One Year Of Love, Friends Will Be Friends, Who Wants To Live Forever. Towards the end, they rifle up the volume - Gimme The Prize, Don't Lose Your Head, Princes Of The Universe.

The album combines all of these elements - the best elements of Queen - into one package. It resembles A Night At The Opera, in that the story told through the lyrics and the song arrangement, even without knowing the movie itself. The album gains momentum as it goes along, completed with Princes, leaving you on a high rather than a decline.

Memories : Six of us (oooh...let's see...me, Bono, Kearo, Jason Thacker, Dale and Joel I think...)travelling to Wollongong to watch Highlander at the cinema for the first time. And saying how brilliant it was. Then, some years later, four of us (Bono, Kearo, Joel and myself) travelling to Sydney to watch Highlander II....and watching one of the worst films of all time....ugh.

Rating : Though, as I've said before, ballads are not my cup of tea, Queen do them so well, they can't help but be liked. And then the harder stuff....yeah... 5/5

24. Alice Cooper / A Fistful Of Alice. 1997. 5/5

Alice Cooper’s comeback over the previous decade leading up to this album had been built on excellent collaborations with songwriters who had found their sweet spot with where the music scene was at the time, and then having guests come in to lend a hand as well, which meant that he had plenty of fans of music drawn in by this method. The albums “Trash” and “Hey Stoopid!” were huge and spawned a number of top ten singles, while the 1994 concept album “The Last Temptation” is an underrated album even to this day.
This album was from a show recorded on June 2 of 1996, a year before this album’s release. It was from a gig held at Sammy Hagar’s Cabo Wabo club in Mexico. There were a number of special guests who played at the gig, including Sammy Hagar himself who guested on “School’s Out” and Rob Zombie, while Slash also played on a couple of songs.
When you have a career as long as Alice and as many albums as he has released, it isn’t easy to put together a set list that will showcase that period and be able to play songs that the fans want to hear. At this point of his career, there is no doubt that some of those hits from his current albums were what the younger fans wanted to see, while the older fans were still more interested in those hits from the first seven albums of the original Alice Cooper Band. Trying to juggle that and keep everyone happy would not have been easy (even less so today another 25 years on), and there will always be songs left out that fans want to hear. The added benefit of that is that no matter what songs are chosen to be a part of an Alice Cooper set list, you know they are going to be top shelf.

I recently reviewed another live album on this podcast (Rainbow’s “On Stage” for those that are interested) and said then that it is ‘unfortunate’ when the songs are chopped and changed from their original play order, which was done on that album to allow them to fit on the vinyl. Here on “A Fistful of Alice” it is also done, though it seems as though it was done more for convenience than it was to fit, given this was released on CD. Several changes exist, and also on different releases. Of the gig that was played, only “Hey Stoopid” didn’t make any of the releases of the album. “Welcome to My Nightmare” was replaced on a couple of versions of the album by “Bed of Nails”. And “School’s Out” appears as the opening song even though it was towards the end of the set. None of this is particularly important of course, but it is informative.
When it comes to the quality of this live album, it really is top shelf. The band at this time, consisting of Reb Beach and Ryan Roxie on guitar, Todd Jensen on bass, Paul Taylor on keyboards and Jimmy DeGrasso on drums, sound amazing throughout, but especially on the older songs, which they give a terrific modern updated feel to the music, giving them a full sound and a slightly faster tempo that works brilliantly.
While the old and the new are spread evenly throughout the album, they all come together seamlessly on the track list which is a difficult thing to achieve. And in a way it is a shame that there are basically four versions of this album – the US, the UK, Japan and Australia – because it would have been great to have the whole set list on one edition. So as it turns out, you don’t hear “Under My Wheels” on the US version but you do on the other three, you hear “Billion Dollar Babies” on the US and Japanese version, but not the other two, “Bed of Nails” appears on the Japan and Australia version, but not the other two. So, whichever version you have, or that you stream, you are missing out on something.
But it is the added power and presence of the old track here, such as “School’s Out”, “I’m Eighteen”, “Desperado”, “I Never Cry” and “Teenage Lament ‘74” that are really impressive, showcasing those songs in their best possible light, and in the process proving to the younger crowd that the older songs are still relevant. So too “Welcome to My Nightmare” and especially “Only Women Bleed”, which is a truly fantastic song and brilliantly performed here. And of course the newer songs and better known hits are here, “Poison” and “Feed My Frankenstein” (we’re not worthy), and a ripping version of “Elected’ to close out the live show. There is also the single from his latest album at the time, “Lost in America”, and then one new studio track at the end of the album, “Is Anyone Home?” which is also a good song.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – a live album should always be a great album because it should have the best songs and showcase a band in their natural environment. Apart from the stated different versions problem I have already spoken of, this album does the job. Alice and the band have so many brilliant songs and albums in the 1970’s that don’t always get their due, and the ones on this album most definitely have been treated in the right way. Updated from their 1970’s versions to spit and polished 1990’s versions gives them a new lease on life, introduces them to new fans, and showcases their brilliance. This is an album that demands constant rotation, multiple plays, and the joy will continue no matter how often you put this album on.
I bought this not long after its release, and enjoyed it thoroughly. I still do. It’s a terrific live album, one that often got journeys in the car as well. In the early 2000’s, on my return to my home town, I often spent Saturday nights after the golf club I used to drink at had closed up on the headland overlooking the ocean, sitting in the car with this pumping through the speakers, myself and one of my cricket mates with a couple of roadies and singing every word. Great days. And this album is good for that, because Alice wrote anthems, made for singing loud and possibly while drunk.
As I said, there had been only one official live Alice Cooper album before this one, and there have been several released since. But this will always be my favourite. It has the essential and the awesome, and it’s pretty hard to beat.

23. Gary Moore / A Different Beat. 1999. 2/5

Let's face it. I listen to Gary Moore for his rock, which he basically stopped releasing after 1990. Since then, it has been blues, or versions of the blues, that he has concentrated on.

This album was actually a little experimental, using what I guess could be call fusion blues, along with elements of sampling and rap along with it.
Overall, and as a concept, it has its merit. Gary Moore has never been afraid to try different things or approach things from a different angle, and this is what he does on this album.

In the overall scheme of things, however, if you are not a fan of the blues, then you won't get a lot from this album. And that's pretty much where I stand.

Rating : There are interesting concepts involved here, but it doesn't really grab me. 2/5.

22. Queen / A Day At The Races. 1976. 3.5/5

Following on from the monster that was A Night at the Opera, the follow up was always going to be a difficult process, not only in the success of the album itself but in the success of the album’s single “Bohemian Rhapsody”. A Day at the Races brings us a multitude of genres within the album’s framework, which only the individual can decide whether it works or is too much to deal with. One thing it is not, is predictable.

It starts off on exactly the right foot. “Tie Your Mother Down” is one their greatest, a hard punching track that showcases everything that is great about the heavier side of the band, not surprisingly written by Brian. His guitar is the star of the song, perfectly foiled by the drums and bass to act as the superb rhythm throughout, while Freddie has a ball, crooning to the beat. It is a dramatic and upbeat opening to the album to draw in the listener.
From this point until we reach the second side of the album, there can be differing opinions on what is presented. I can appreciate the songs that appear in this section, and the way they are written and performed by the band. But for the most part I’m not especially interested in the songs. When I put this album on I listen to it all the way through and enjoy it, but I am waiting for other songs to come on when thee are being played. All of this is in a similar way to the previous album, because it has a similar set up with some brilliant songs, and then others that are wonderfully done, but just don’t attract me. Thus is the conundrum I have here with “You Take My Breath Away” which sounds great, but just has not got the drive for me, and in a similar way this is also true of “Long Away”. “The Millionaire Waltz” has different genres thrown in all along for its five minute length, though it is when Brian’s guitar takes hold that it most attracts me. Then John Deacon’s ”You and I” completes the first half of the album with a middle-of-the-road easy listening song which Freddie makes sound so impressive with his vocals.
The second side of the album starts with the eternally brilliant “Somebody to Love”, one that combines all the greatest parts of the Queen conglomerate, the multi-layered vocals and harmonies that mix within the beautiful rhythm of bass and drums and the piano, and then Brian’s solo guitar through the middle. After all these years it I still a show stopper whenever it comes on the stereo. Oh, to be able to sing like that.
The underrated “White Man” follows, starting off in a slow melancholic way before the heavier band clicks in and drives the lyrical aspect of the song in a serious and passionate way. From here we are treated to “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy”, which harks back to the style of the previous album, sounding as it does as though it should be being played on a beach in Brighton, England in the 1930’s. Again it is the layered back vocals that help this become as ‘fashionable’ as it is. Roger Taylor’s “Drowse” honestly makes me feel that way almost every time I listen to it, before the album finishes with "Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)", which has two choruses in Japanese as a tribute to those fans. Neither of these songs has much fascination for me as a lover of Queen the band and their music.
As it turns out, perhaps it’s just a matter of taste. There were a couple of songs on A Night at the Opera that I tolerate, and have learned to tolerate, because of how much I love the rest of the album. Here on A Day at the Races though, there are a couple of songs that I don’t enjoy, and I am unable to treat with the same recognition which would allow me to hold this album in higher esteem. Despite two songs that I consider are some of the best of Queen’s catalogue, the album itself doesn’t quite get that high a rating.

Rating:   “Why can't they understand I'm just a peace lovin' guy”.  3.5/5

21. Dream Theater / A Change Of Seasons. 1995. 5/5

In a world where music on the heavier side of the equation was going through excruciating growing pains, from the onset of grunge and from that the various tentacles of genre change that grew from this, it was unusual to see a band – any band – able to stick to their core sound and continue to hammer away at it with the same enthusiasm as they always had. Even more unusual was being able to find a modicum of success as they did so! One of those bands that did find a path through the maze was American progressive metal alumni Dream Theater. Over the course of three albums and the odd change of band member, they had not only produced a hit single in the form of “Pull Me Under” but had cultivated a following that moved outside the other music influences that were going on in the world in the early 1990’s. Keyboardist Kevin Moore had left the group following the recording of the “Awake” album, which led to them hiring Derek Sherinian to fill in on the tour that followed, after which they took him on as Moore’s permanent replacement. The band did not rush in to start on working on new material however. For some time, the band’s fan base, who were all a part of the Ytse Jam mailing list that the band used as communication with their fan club, had been championing the cause to have a song that the band had written some years ago be recorded and released. That song was called “A Change of Seasons” and is said to have been written back in 1989 and had intended to be released on the band’s second album “Images and Words”. At almost 17 minutes in length, it was deeemd to be too long to be released on a studio album. It had been performed live by the band despite this, and was still in an evolution of improvement and revising over the years. And the idea of using it was still very much at the forefront of the decision making process.
On the back of this continued petitioning from fans, the band decided to go ahead and record it, and issue it as an EP rather than as a part of a brand new studio album. By the time it came to this process, the length of the song had increased from almost 17 minutes to just beyond 23 minutes, and it became the centrepiece of the 1995 EP which carried the sme name as the title track, that being “A Change of Seasons”.

The title track “A Change of Seasons” was eventually recorded at BearTracks Studios in New York in May of 1995. Here the song was re-written, improved and stretched to its final length of just over 23 minute. New keyboardist Derek Sherinian was significantly involved in contributing to the final mix of the track.
To suggest that this is an epic is an understatement, but does its epicness come simply from the song’s overblown length, or is there more to the whole concept than meets the eye and ear? It is true that the song includes audio samples from the 1989 film ‘Dead Poets Society’, as well as quotes from the 1648 Robert Herrick poem, ‘To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time’, and yet that is a misdirect as to what the lyrics convey. Mike Portnoy, who wrote the lyrics to the song, said in a Q&A session a couple of years after this release, when questioned about it said: “it's about the cycle of life. Basically, I took a lot of personal incidents, like losing my mother and a couple of things that happened in my life, and I wrote them into the lyrics”. Indeed, the back cover of the album shows a calendar with the date November 16 showing, the day that Portnoy’s mother died. But more than this, not for the first nor last time in the Dream Theater song collection, this track is also broken into seven suites, signifying the change in mood and direction of the track at that point. Three of these suites are classed as instrumentals, while the other four have James LaBrie’s amazing vocals inserted into them. The titles of the suites indicate the change of the track through the movement of the seasons, with the titles ‘The Crimson Sunrise’, ‘Innocence’, ‘Carpe Diem’, ‘The Darkest of Winters’, ‘Another World’, ‘The Inevitable Summer’ and ‘The Crimson Sunset’. What this also allowed the band to do on their tours was to be able play sections of this track when time constraints or the lack of desire did not allow for the full version of the song to be played. Indeed, it has only been on rare occasions that the band has played this in its entirety on stage and given the usually lengthy timeframes of Dream Theater songs that isn’t surprising.
“A Change of Seasons” is a tour de force. It may well be very long, but fans never grow tired of listening to it from start to conclusion. The rising and falling tides of the music, the emotive state of the song itself, holds you in awe all the way through. The musicianship and composition is remarkable, and the way the song is crafted brings it all together. The build and fall of Mike Portnoy’s drums and John Myung’s bass is amazing. It can fall to almost non-existent phases when necessary, and then builds in speed and complexity without even noticing what is going on. It is a part of what makes Dream Theater the amazing band they are. Derek Sherinian's keys are superb, and his experience is utilised to its utmost here. It goes without saying how truly remarkable John Petrucci’s guitaring is on this track. He is a genius, and that is plainly obvious throughout this entire journey of this song. And the voice of Dream Theater, James LaBrie once again crushes it, that emotive level he is able to reach is so much a part of the bedrock of this band.
Once the main event has concluded, there is so much more to come, so much wonderful and brilliant stuff. Some fans ignore what comes after the main track, but it would be a foolish individual who does so. Because what we have here Dream Theater doing what they do so well – covering songs and bands that they grew up with and whom they admire and look up to. And all of it is terrific, but some of it is particularly awesome.
We have two songs done in their entirety, and we have two medleys, all of which come from a live performance that the band did at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London in January of 1995. So not only do we get a whole bunch of wonderful cover versions, we get them in the live environment, and they are smoking. A medley of three Led Zeppelin songs is played, titled as just the three song titles - “The Rover" / "Achilles Last Stand" / "The Song Remains the Same". I love Myung’s wonderful running basslines through this medley, he really pays a great tribute to John Paul Jones here, it is fabulous to listen to, while Portnoy’s drumming is sublime as well. Following this is what the band titles “The Big Medley”, a 10.5 minute voyage through a number of different songs from different bands. They take a walk through “In the Flesh” by Pink Floyd, “Carry on Wayward Son” by Kansas, “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen, “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’” by Journey, “Cruise Control” by Dixie Dreggs and “Turn it on Again” by Genesis. There’s a lot of progressive rock bands there from the 1970’s that they have obviously drawn inspiration from in their own music, and they pay tribute to all of them in this one big mashing of tracks.
But the two absolute standouts are the two tracks they do as standalone performances. The first is their amazing version of Elton John’s “Funeral for a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding” from his “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” album. This sounds just incredible, and amplifies everything great about this song. The keys are so well performed by Sherinian. The guitar is crushed by Petrucci. And James LaBrie is marvellous on vocals. When I first heard this version of the song it reminded me of how much I enjoy Elton John’s album, and it sent me back to it to relive, and I remember thinking how good that album still is, but that now Dream Theater had destroyed that opening track from the album for me, because they improve on it tenfold from the Elton John version. And the other song here is the version of Deep Purple’s “Perfect Strangers”, where Sherinian seems to be channelling Jon Lord through him as he plays so closely does it sound to the original organ on the track, and how LaBrie’s wailing at the end of the track is so brilliant. I don’t think anything can beat Deep Purple’s original version of the song, but this really does run it close.

I was not aware of the band Dream Theater until 1999. That of course was a massive oversight on my behalf, but as should have become aware by now over the course of this podcast, my seeking out of new music during the 1990’s was almost non-existent. Having moved into the big wide world away from trusted friends and their constant ‘you MUST listen to this band/album’, I had a slight cocoon around me in regards to searching for and finding new bands. The bands I already knew? Sure, I bought their stuff, which is why I had to listen to “Load” and “Reload” more often than a normal person would. Idiot!
As we moved into the new century though, most of my friend group had managed to move into locations much closer together again, and we began to see more of each other and so the music began to start up again. So, inevitably, it was my heavy metal music dealer who informed me that this band Dream Theater had something about them, and that I would be wise to start listening to them. The result of this was four albums that came at me almost at the same time, ready for my adoring approval. And while I would listen to them, I wasn’t really getting what was supposed to be great about them. It wasn’t as if they didn’t sound good, it’s just that I didn’t get all the time changes and mood changes and weird drumming and guitar things that were happening. But then my ear caught this, and so it was “A Change of Seasons” that I began to concentrate on, because something about it hooked me in, and made me want to listen to it more. And that is how Dream Theater dragged me in. Their longest song, with more intricate and intimate changes than anything else they had done to that point in time. THAT was the song and EP that won me over. It probably didn’t hurt that the cover songs that followed it were all tracks that I knew and loved, and hearing them play those so well no doubt encouraged me to keep playing the EP over and over, and thus coming to appreciate everything about the band, which I could then enjoy by switching to their other albums. Which is exactly what I did.
My CD copy has been out in the Metal Cavern again this week, and I can honestly say it never gets old. I spent most of my time now though just listening to the title track, and then hitting replay to listen to it again rather than listen to all of the cover songs. They’re still good, don’t get me wrong, but what I really wanted to hear was the 23 minute masterpiece that they created this EP for in the first place. And while they have continued to produce some amazing albums in the 30 years since this was released, this is still one that I can come back to at any time and still enjoy. It is still a fabulous listen.

20. Various Artists / A Call To Irons : A Tribute To Iron Maiden. 1998. 1/5.

When I originally saw this in Utopia, I was very excited. It was the first tribute album I had seen for Iron Maiden. I knew only a couple of the bands on it, and not very well, so I was looking forward to it.
Major disappointment.
This album really makes you appreciate how good the original band is, and how special Bruce Dickinson's vocals are. I realise this is a death/doom/gloom metal tribute, and I don't listen to much of these type of bands, but this was still desperately disappointing.
There are a couple of decent versions on the album. But mostly it is awful. $32 I will never get back.

Rating : Well, it was truly fortunate to get this much. 1/5

19. Judas Priest / '98 Live Meltdown. 1998. 4.5/5.

After such a long time out of the public eye in the period between the end of the Painkiller tour and the release of Jugulator, it was a no brainer that the World Tour that followed would be recorded and released in order to show the world that Judas Priest still had what it took to be the great band they had been, and that the change in lead singer hadn’t changed that. And so the world received '98 Live Meltdown to do just that, and although fan reaction was missed, it still provided the comparison that we all needed in order to make up our own minds.

As with most live albums, there is a delicate balance to find between the new material you are touring on, the old material you would like to include, as the classic songs that cannot be left out of the set list no matter how many times they have been played. Here the job was all the more difficult, because the new album had a new lead singer in Tim “Ripper” Owens. So not only did they want to highlight the latest album thoroughly, to show the world that they could do justice to these songs that they had produced, but they wanted to show that their older material was still relevant to them and that Ripper could indeed do justice to it as well. Overall Judas Priest was able to do this, and with only a couple of exceptions pulled it off magnificently.
The majority of the songs played here off Jugulator sound better live. All of “Blood Stained” and “Burn in Hell” and “Death Row” are improved by the live versions, and the crowd interaction led by Ripper. It gives them a better atmosphere throughout. For me though “Bullet Train” is lacklustre here, and “Abductors” is only average. You can hear how much the band want you to like them, and Ripper’s energy singing ‘his’ songs certainly gives them an extra punch.
Elsewhere, the material really cooks. Every song off Painkiller is a triumph. Hearing “A Touch of Evil” and “Metal Meltdown” and “Night Crawler” alongside that album’s title track “Painkiller” in their live setting is a real treat, and Ripper does a great job. Add to that the classic elder statesmen of the set list “Beyond the Realms of Death” and “Victim of Changes” which both sound fantastic. “Metal Gods” and “The Sentinel” are favourites of mine and I really enjoy Ripper’s vocal versions. And once you get to the end of the album and have those great crowd favourites such as “Breaking the Law”, “Green Manalishi (With the Two-Pronged Crown)”, “Hell Bent for Leather”, “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” and “Living After Midnight” where both the band and the crowd use all their energy it’s a great sound.
The main downside is the terribly disappointing version of “Diamonds and Rust”. The original Judas Priest cover version is legendary and is what set it apart from the original, but here the band goes back to just reducing this to an unplugged version, and it loses all of the Priest power. A poor choice in my opinion.

I still love this album. How can you not? It is full of Priest classics, and also gives you a smattering of the songs that made the era of the band that no one talks about anymore. If it wasn’t for two or three tracks, and that bum note version of “Diamonds and Rust” this would be a full marks live recording for me. It still acts as a great album because you get those Jugulator songs live that have disappeared forever from the reborn Priest formation.

Rating:  “What’s my name?!!”   4.5/5.

18. Animal / 900 lb. Steam. 2003. 3/5.

I obviously bought this for the W.A.S.P. connection with Randy Piper, and the fact that Chris Holmes originally toured with them. I still think the album has some very good songs.In fact, it starts off a treat, but somehow it loses it a bit mid-album, before picking up again towards the end.
I, of course, did not believe it would be a W.A.S.P. rip-off. In fact, it sounds a lot like the old L.A. bands seem to be progressing in their latter years (ie L.A. Guns).
It still shows all of the promise it did on release.

Rating : A solid outing without breaking any new ground. 3/5.

17. Danzig / 777 – I Luciferi. 2002. 2/5.

This album, for me, was a HUGE disappointment when I first got it, and it has been one I have been somewhat apprehensive about pulling out again for fear of hating it more.
So, putting it on this evening, I made sure I went into it with an open mind, and not pre-judging it.
I listened all the way through, allowing it to play uninterrupted.
At the end, I came to this conclusion – it is just a wall of noise, with not a lot of anything going for it. OK, sure, there are a few catchy bits from the middle of the album until the end, but in all reality, I really am not sure at all what Glenn was trying to achieve with this. To me, he had really run out of ideas, and didn't know whether to go backwards, forwards, or tread water.

Rating : It's not so bad that it deserves nothing, but it didn't inspire me to delve into it again in the near future. 2/5.

16. AC/DC / '74 Jailbreak [EP]. 1984. 3/5

In the mid-1980's, the AC/DC publicity machine decided to right a wrong, and put out this EP. It contains the track "Jailbreak", which only appeared on the Australian version of the album Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap and not the International version. Goodness knows who came up with that decision, but in retrospect it must be considered to be a ridiculous one!

Seeing as they were trying to rectify the mistakes of the past, they also included four songs that only made the original debut release, Australian only version of High Voltage. Those songs were "You Ain't Got a Hold on Me", "Show Business", "Soul Stripper" and "Baby, Please Don't Go". All of these were solid songs from that era, which had been missing from the International scene, and now allowed the fans and hard core collectors to get into the swing of things.

For most Australians this became a superfluous release, though no doubt many (like myself) still own a copy, just to keep their collections full.

Rating:  She was down, he was up, had a gun in his hand.  3/5

15. Stryper / 7 Weeks : Live In America. 2004. 5/5.

We always knew these guys could play and, above all else, sing. But when you listen to this album, it still just blows you away that a guy can sing like this live.
Containing their best of the best (on a reunion tour around the US), this is a fabulous showcase of what Stryper were all about. Whether you pay attention to the lyrics or not (I tend not to...), the music and energy is just brilliant. This is up there with the bet live albums of all time.

Memories : Front row of the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney, June 1987. One of the loudest gigs of all time, in the Yellow & Black outfits. Remembering the whole day – Pete Orgill with his scotch, which was duly confiscated, Dorky losing his card in the cashcard teller, Bono asking for a lift with a guy in a Porsche, people getting trampled fighting over the Stryper Bibles they tossed out during gigs. Ah to be 17 and foolish again...

Rating : One of the best live albums of all time (oh – I've already said that.. :) ). 5/5.

14. Danzig / 666 – Satan's Child. 1999. 3/5

The band that Glenn Danzig had put together after the dissolution of the group that played on the band’s first four albums had waded into stormy waters when it came to the rapture that was occurring in the music scene in the back half of the 1990’s decade. Grunge had given way to alternative metal, and then into the even more psychoanalysed industrial metal sound that had found its footings at this time. The band first dipped their toes into this lake with the follow up to that fourth album, titled “Danzig 5: Blackacidevil”, an album whose whole sound structure had gone through a processing plant and come out the other end like a mangled car having gone through the crusher at the old car’s home. Granted, there are people out there that enjoyed this album, and those people are generally dressed in strait jackets and locked in padded rooms. There was a deal of experimentation that went on during that album that certainly divided the opinions of the fan base.
Following this, the band moved around again, with Jeff Chambers on guest guitars and Josh Lazie on bass guitar coming on board to join Danzig who again contributed guitars to the album and returning drummer Joey Castillo. In regard to the recording of the album, Glenn was quoted in an interview with Metal maniacs in December 1999, "This record is the first time I've ever recorded my vocals digitally. I recorded with a mic and in a booth, but through a computer, and that's how the overdubs were done on this record as well. What I tried to do with this record is take all my favourite elements from Danzig 1 through 5, and the Thrall EP, put it all together and add a couple of new flavours."
Most fans would have been excited about this development. The best of everything that had come before this combined?! It had “winner” written all over it! The end result of course is open to the individuals opinion. And of course, given that it was the band’s sixth album, the temptation was too great not to use 666 as the opening to the title, in this case even captioning it like a bible verse as 6:66, and of course then as a preface to the remainder of the album title, Satan’s Child.

In many ways, this album tries to right a wrong while still suggesting what they were doing is the right course of action. It's almost like a child admitting they had done something wrong to their parents, and yet continuing to go down the track of those actions without guilt. I mean, the album does try from the outset to rectify what could be seen as the overcompensation of “Blackacidevil” away from what many considered to be Danzig’s core sound, and yet in the same instant continuing down the path through the industrial metal genre anyway.
“Five Finger Crawl” opens with an energy that brings hope to the heart from the outset, though the effects used on Glenn’s vocals does tend to grate until you become used to it. Already however the feeling of the album is a better fit than almost everything that came from the previous album. This is followed by “Belly of the Beast” that does morph the old Danzig sound with the new industrial version, combining a solid rhythm underneath Glenn’s more energetic vocal, and a guitar slot that mimics the genres tones perfectly. “Lilin” tries too hard to follow the path of an industrialised Alice in Chains song and is bombarded by the ugly sounding tin snare in parts of the track that pre-dates the abomination of Lars Ulrich’s drum snare sound on the “St Anger” album. It is a song of two parts, the awful snare sounding piece, and then the remainder of the track which has the bones to produce a half decent doom metal inspired track.
“Unspeakable” raises the tempo and energy to create something that sound very good but also leaving the feeling that it is unfnished, that it needed just a bit more polish to lift it to being an excellent song. This is followed by “Cult Without a Name” that does a similar job of segueing between the fast paced heavy song to the lilting doom introspectiveness, all within the best phases of the Danzig tradition. The natural segue into "East Indian Devil (Kali's Song)" about the goddess Kali does come with its less savoury aspects, the return of the effects on Glenn’s vocals and which does become a messy mashing of a song. “Firemass” has a similar meshing of eastern sounds as well, and while not a complete mess like the previous song still fails to find its place in the way the album has been recorded.
“Cold Eternal” returns to the mystical wailing under almost non-existent instrumental backing, which is overwhelmed by the hard riffing follow up, the title track “Satan’s Child”. The music on this track drowns out the course of “Cold Eternal”, but also is tainted slightly by the less wonderful wailing of Glenn through the chorus. The song is fine but with Glenn’s vocals now heading in a less powerful fashion it comes off as a slight disappointment. “Into the Mouth of Abandonement” is a combination of the previous two tracks, moving from quietly spoken lyrics and that snare rim to loud over the top riff and vocals mixed in together. This does facilitate the lyrics of the song with intent, but again it sounds unfinished, unpolished, requiring something more to really get the most out of the song. You can pretty much read the same for “Apokolips”, though the sifter pieces are louder and more pronouced before the explosion into the hard and heavy riffing and vocals.
The album concludes with “Thirteen”, a song that Glenn was invited to write for Johnny Cash and whose acoustic version appeared on his 1994 album “American Recordings”. Danzig’s version for this album is in the heavy blues style, and also appeared as the opening to the movie “The Hangover” and closes out the album with a surprising amount gravitas due to the haunting vocal form Glenn and easy perfect guitar and drums to complete the song.

The utter abrasiveness of “Blackacidevil” when I first heard it on release was pretty much enough for me to ditch Danzig forever. My distaste for that album was brought on by the significant change of direction the band took at that time, and given my own tastes were not heading in that direction, I felt at the time that I wouldn’t need to head down that path again. However, I had a change of heart about six months after this album was released, when I decided I really needed to give the band another opportunity, if only for the pretty colours on the album cover. So, I secured a copy of the album from that scourge of the internet, Napster, and had several listens at that time. And that first impression of the album was... ‘well, it's better than the last album...’... and then it was filed. And probably the only times I have listened to it since was when each new Danzig album came out, and I would listen to it to compare to that new release.
I recently did an episode for this podcast with my partner in crime Steve Holz where we reviewed and ranked all of the Danzig albums from our least favourite to favourite, and so again listened to the album several times. And now for this episode I have had the album on for the past 2-3 weeks. And I think it is fair to say that in that time period of the past few months, I have come to enjoy the album more than I did when I first heard it 24 years ago. Now that may well be because I am less picky about music at my advanced age, or that I am more capable of forgiving some flaws from artists I appreciate. And Danzig is certainly one of those bands. My main thoughts on listening to the album again are that there are passages of songs on this album that I really like, but also within those same songs there are passages that I think harm the song overall. And for me that is probably my main gripe with this album. It is very mixed musically and certainly vocally. Glenn is changing his style from what he had in the classic bands era, and some of it is okay but some of it is not. And the vocal effects and snare rim tin sound and overall guitar is just not up to par. Perhaps if it was re-recorded without that stuff, and having Tommy Victor on guitar rather than Glenn himself, then maybe this would be a better listen. Maybe.

13. Van Halen / 5150. 1986. 4/5

I am going to assume that if you listen to this podcast then you have also seen the film “Airheads”. If you have not, stop this immediately, and go and watch it. And then come back. There is an exchange in the movie that involves the character played by Brendan Fraser called Chazz, along with a character called Ian ‘The Shark’ played by Joe Mantegna, and a character of an undercover cop played by Harold Ramis. In this scene, Chazz and his friend Rex (played by Steve Buscemi) are trying to make sure Harold Ramis is a real record executive and not a cop. To this end, Chazz asks “Whose side did you take in the big David Lee Roth/Van Halen split?”, and when Ramis eventually answers, “Van Halen” Ian immediately replies, “He’s a cop”. Ramis then tries to be given another chance, by pleading “Come on, they still sold a lot of records with Sammy!” Even though this movie was released a decade after the events it references, it was still a touchy subject and hot topic. Who made the better music – Van Halen fronted by David Lee Roth or Van Halen fronted by Sammy Hagar? As a teenager at the time, I can tell you the fight was real, and whichever side you took you would find yourself in an argument with someone.
The parting of the ways of Van Halen and David Lee Roth came on the back of their most commercially successful album, “1984”, and the hit singles “Jump”, “Panama” and “Hot for Teacher”. At the time it seemed like a ludicrous thing for this to occur. Behind the scenes, well, it depends on whose story you want to put faith in as to why it occurred at all. Eddie Van Halen had been pursuing keyboard and synth backing on tracks he had been composing, something that Roth was decidedly against. Eddie had begrudgingly rewritten tracks for songs on the album “Diver Down” that had included different guitar riffs and keyboard riffs under pressure. For “1984” he had continued to experiment with keyboards and synths in the writing process which continued to annoy Roth who wanted to remain in a guitar-heavy hard rock environment. The success of “Jump” had begun to turn the tide however, along with the influx of the synth into the hard rock environment of the mid-1980's. Roth had released an EP “Crazy from the Heat” in 1985 that had had middling success. The split soon came, and though each side blamed the other, the reasons behind the split – control of the band’s sound and artistic musical direction – were mutual.
Reportedly it was not an easy task to find a replacement for Roth as the band’s lead singer. It may well have been from the previous singer’s athletic and high energy disposition, that prospective singers felt they could not compete with what the band had had before. Two people who were offered the role were Patty Smyth from the band Scandal, and Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates fame.
In what seems like something that would only happen in a movie, it turns out that Eddie Van Halen had a car mechanic (as you would when you had money and owned many cars) who also served as the mechanic for one Sammy Hagar, formerly of the band Montrose and currently performing solo. He was coming off his own single success with the track “I Can’t Drive 55” which had reached #26 on the US charts, and his album “VOA” had made #32. They were introduced, Hagar auditioned, and he got the role. What no doubt also helped him to get the role was that he was also an accomplished guitar player, something that would suit Eddie and the band down to the ground going forward.
Van Halen, now with the hole having been repaired, moved into the studio to create what would be the follow up to “1984”. One further twist came to pass, with the band’s producer Ted Templeman, who had produced every Van Halen album as well as Sammy’s previous album, not available to perform the same role on this album. He had left, and instead was producing Roth’s debut solo album, which would be released four months after Van Halen’s new album. It was just another matter that stoked the fire of the great Van Halen/David Lee Roth split.
After the commercial success of the album “1984” and David Lee Roth’s departure, was there any hope for the next album? What would the band’s new singer provide, and would the fans be able to embrace him as they had done the juggernaut that was David Lee Roth? There were so many questions to be answered, and the anticipation of all fans, no matter which side of the fence they had fallen on, was electric as the release of Van Halen Mark II’s first album came with the title of “5150”.

For me at least “5150” is an album of two halves. Not light and dark, not brilliant and rubbish, but guitar-based and synth-based. Probably not even that when you truly come down to look at it. But there are definite songs where Eddie Van Halen’s guitar is prominent, the driving force of the song, and there are definite songs where it is the synth and keys that dominate the direction the song goes in. With the separation with david Lee Roth, the musical direction of the album takes a turn toward where Eddie had been looking for over the past couple of albums, and there’s no doubt that for some long term fans it was a difficult thing to live with.
From the outset, the guitar based tracks retain everything that Van Halen has brought to the table on their previous albums. The opening salvo of Sammy’s “Hello baby!” followed by Eddie guitar squeal sets off the album in style, not only offering a song that is ALL Van Halen without pretence but showcasing Sammy Hagar as a great frontman whose vocals more than hold their own in stepping into the big shoes of the band’s previous lead singer. Eddie unleashes a trademark solo through his middle section of the song – and we even get a Van Halen trademark of Hagar talking through the breakdown with just Eddie in support. Anyone arriving at this point wondering if the band was going to completely change its output now that the lead singer had changed has to be happy with what they encountered as the first arrival of the new line up. “Get Up” is a ripping track, bringing back memories of the early albums with the guitar entry and the super fast hi-hat tom and snare overlay from Alex to burst into the beginning of the song. This is 1970’s Van Halen, with the pace in overdrive and the energy cranked up to maximum. If you weren’t aware of the time period and the change in vocalist, you could easily mistake this for one of their early tracks. Everyone is outstanding on this track, though Alex in particular is the star. I’m not sure this song gets the plaudits it deserves. Perhaps by being sandwiched between the two hit singles takes a bit of the emphasise away from its glittering beauty.
The closing track of the A side of the album is “Summer Nights”, another mimics Van Halen’s earlier song structure in a more modern way, almost in a Sammy Hagar way. He sings it is his own way, but one where you can hear DLR trying to break out and do his thing as well. The mid-tempo beat set by the rhythm of Alex and Michael holds steady throughout, while Eddie riffs off another solo at the appropriate time to keep the song moving.
“Best of Both Worlds” opens up the B side of the album, and all sorts of things can be drawn from the title and the lyrics. It can be seen as the band offering the fans that this is the best of both worlds, the old Van Halen and the new Van Halen, with new lead singer here to rock your world. It can be seen as being the ebst of both worlds on this album, the old Van Halen sound mixed with the new Van Halen sound that they were hoping to go forward with. And that we are going to still be a guitar band, but we are going to be a synth keys band as well. This is mostly a guitar hard rock song, with the keys making a slight appearance underneath without being the main instrumental phase of the track. The title track “5150” is an extended hard rock song predominantly based around Eddie’s guitar riffs, and often sounds like it is an extended jam session, sticking to a rhythm riff throughout that aloows each player to bend their timing into something more individualistic. The result is a reasonable song, but it does feel overlong. And the album comes to its conclusion with “Inside”, another track that does feel like it would be better performed by the attitude and swagger of the previous lead singer than by Sammy himself.
The songs that Eddie takes on to utilise his growing fascination with keys and synths basically became the tracks that tended towards the single output, but that doesn’t mean they threw away the Van Halen house keys in the process. The first single “Why Can’t This Be Love” clambers around Alex’s tempo driving drums and Michael’s wonderfully understated bass line, and while the synth is the driving force of the track Eddie still comes in on guitar to provide enough tricks and squeals to show that he is still around. Sure, it might be a little in the back of the mix, but it is still there. Sammy’s vocals on this track are outstanding, with great support in the main from Michael. “Dreams” of course needs little to be said about it. Its synth-based rhythm through the majority of the song is what brought this other side of the band to prominence and showcased in particular the amazing vocals of Sammy Hagar as the new leader of the band. It differentiated this album and line up from the band from what had come before. It offered just how good it was and could be, and offered the fans a choice to either embrace it or stick with the albums they had already released. What this song also gives you though is the trademark Eddie solo which gives you the blend of the old and the new within this one track. The choice then was of the fans’ discretion.
“Love Walks In” is where the album may lose some people, but in return no doubt also gained a huge new portion of fandom. This is the Van Halen power ballad – probably something no one ever expected to ever utter in the same sentence. It is also the first song the band wrote with the arrival of Sammy Hagar, wrote the lyrics to the song on the spot. I mean, if he heard this music then the writing of the lyrics was not going to be a stretch. The synth maintains the mood of the track throughout, and Eddie’s guitar solo is as atypical of the genre as you can get. If power ballads are your thing, then this probably is what floats your boat. For some of us, it is very hard to take.

My first memories of listening to Van Halen came with “Jump”, which was all over the radio where I lived in my youth at the time. I may well have come across their music before this, but it is my first memory of the band. That, and “Panama” and “Hot for Teacher” were the songs that were on the radio and across the music video shows that I watched at the time, and thus the news of David Lee Roth’s departure from the band was big news in my world at the time as well. And I was well aware of the discussion around the two sides of the Van Halen / David Lee Roth argument that went on.
When this album was released, I had just begun my heavy metal odyssey, my discovery of the dark side of music, and while that’s not what Van Halen was, they of course had been a part of my music scene for a while. The album was recorded for me by my erstwhile heavy metal music dealer – my first Van Halen album as it turned out. And my memory tells me that while I thought it was okay, I wasn’t overly head over heels about it. Remember, at this time I was syphoning up every piece of Iron Maiden that existed at this time. And Ozzy Osbourne was my other obsession coming on hard. So both of those bands don’t mix necessarily with Van Halen. At least, not at that time. The singles were played on the radio, and I liked them fine, but the album didn’t really sit with me. When this album came out, there was a bit of the residual shying away from allowing this album to be good to my ears I guess. It would be traitorous to let myself actually enjoy this album, as a protest to David Lee Roth moving on from the group. And it turned out that when his first solo album came out a few months later, I DID listen to that far more than I did this album.
Flash forward two years, and I’ve started university, and I’m burrowing away in my car’s glovebox to find a cassette to put on to get me home after another confusing day. And I find this album and think “that’ll do”. And on that 30 minute journey home, I find myself thinking “why haven’t I been listening to this more often?!” Everything about it seemed to suddenly click. Maybe it was just the familiarity of the singles, combining with the less-aired album only tracks, that made it work for me on that particular day. But from then on, “5150” became an album that I was more than happy to listen to.
Over the years, that has continued. I find this album very easy to listen to. I mightn’t love it all to death, but it is an easy listen for me at any time. And that remains true to today. Listening to it again for this podcast episode has been fun, which is exactly how listening to music should be. As much as I very much enjoy Van Halen, and own all of the band’s albums from every era, they are not a band I dive into very often. But when I do put an album on, I always enjoy what I hear.
In the long run, I think this album probably highlighted its ideals better when it was released than it does now. And it probably never provided a true answer to that burning question over the better prospects of Hagar or Roth. When running a rule over both “1984” and “5150” they seem to be on a similar path, one that has forked away from the guitar heavy earlier albums. Replacing the lead singer enabled the band to move in the direction that it would appear the majority wanted to lean. And probably for both sides of the equation, the split turned out to be the best thing that could have occurred.

12. Deep Purple / 30 : The Very Best Of... 1998. 5/5.

This double disc best of came out at a time that Deep Purple seemed to be on the rise again, especially in Australia. It is a comprehensive history of the band, covering every formation of the group, and including their greatest songs, most of them remastered.
It is no small feat to do this well, and they could easily have added a third disc to fit more of the latter years into the package, especially off House of The Blue Light and The Battle Rages On. But for a two disc compilation, this is terrific.

Rating : This is the kind of thing you look for in a greatest hits album. The full history, the best songs, the hits. They're all there. 5/5.

11. Jeff Scott Soto / 2001 Duet With Queen. 2001. 2/5.

This is simply JSS singing vocals over the top of the original three tracks by Queen. Apparently it was done for the Queen Fan Club. It's interesting to listen to once, but hardly inspires one to revisit it, despite the quality of both band and the solo singer himself.

Rating : If it was a new recording, it would have rated higher. This is probably generous anyway. 2/5

10. Iron Maiden / The First Ten Years Disc 6 - 2 Minutes To Midnight/Aces High. 1990. 4/5.

One of 10 repackaged and re-released singles from the first ten years of Iron Maiden. Both of these singles come from the Powerslave album.

The first single was the brilliant "2 Minutes to Midnight". The B-sides on this was a cover of a Beckett song, "Rainbow's Gold", as well as a track called "Mission From 'Arry". This was an actual argument between Steve Harris and Nicko McBrain that was secretly recorded by Bruce Dickinson after a gig on the tour. It is extremely funny, and is quite an amazing insight behind-the-scenes of such a great band.

The second single is the equally brilliant "Aces High". The B-sides on this was a cover of two tracks from Nektar combined into one. Titled  "King of Twilight", it also includes parts of another Nektar song called "Crying in the Dark".

This is followed by a live version of "The Number of the Beast" recorded at Dortmund in 1983.

The final track on the album is "Listen With Nicko! Part VI", where drummer Nicko McBrain, in his own initimable style, gives us the history of the two singles over the course of ten minutes.

Some good stuff here, and well worth a listen.

9. James Labrie's Mullmuzzler / 2. 2001. 4/5

There is always the need to compare an artist's solo album with the albums of the band he is a member of. Labrie, of Dream Theater, has always made an effort to try an distance himself from the exact same music of his alumni, though of course the roots run deep. Here, with his second effort under the moniker Mullmuzzler, it is impossible not to hear the inherant similarities with Dream Theater. Put this out of your mind, and you can enjoy the album for what it is – Labrie's effort to do his own thing on his own terms. And it works.

Rating : I was more impressed listening to this tonight than I was when I first got it. That must be a plus. 4/5

8. L.A. Guns / Wasted [EP]. 1998. 3/5.

At a time when L.A. Guns was an evolving property, on the verge of splitting into two separate bands with two different agendas, this EP is actually surprisingly very listenable. It tends to delve into a slightly heavier direction than the day to day L.A. Guns material.

Six songs make up this EP. The first four songs are all new material, and they do rock. Featuring new vocalist Ralph Saenz, they are all better than average tracks. This is then followed by a remake of their biggest hit, entitled "Jayne 98", which, as with the original, I can take or leave depending on my mood at the time. The EP is topped off by a cover version of KISS' "Cold Gin", which is also worthy enough.
Perhaps the most notable thing about this EP is that it is the only recorded material the band made with their lead singer. He has since gone on to bigger things as Michael Starr in the band Steel Panther.
As always, EPs can be a difficult thing to review and rate, especially one such as this where there isn't really any interconnecting pieces. It really is a stand-alone piece that doesn't connect anywhere due to the changing nature of the band at the point this was released.

Rating:  We have ourselves to blame.  3/5

7. L.A. Guns / Hollywood A Go Go. 1997. 3.5/5

This is a pretty thorough and impressive greatest hits album. There is no argument here as to whether the band’s best songs have been captured, because they are all here.

As much as I have always enjoyed L.A. Guns, I must admit that over the past week or so that I have had this going around at work, I have discovered an ever greater admiration for them. There have always been the regular songs that I love – “Show No Mercy”, “Sex Action”, “One More Reason”, “Never Enough” – but I have grown a greater affection for songs like “Killing Machine” and “Long Time Dead” and others that I didn’t necessarily harbour before.

As a result, I heartily recommend this album to fans and non-fans alike. If you are looking for a quick fix, and don’t want to go out and just buy the first four albums, then this will do the job nicely.

Rating:  Oooh baby, it’s never enough .  4/5

6. Whitesnake / 1987. 1987. 5/5

Depending on when you came into this album and band, your view on the relative merits of Whitesnake [aka 1987] will probably be slanted one way or the other. For those that were into Whitesnake from their beginnings, from the ashes of the first demise of Deep Purple, this album can sometimes be seen as a sell out, one where the blues base of the band is washed out like acid-washed jeans. Those that come across it in recent years probably think that this is far too rooted in the late 1980's with its sound and production. Then there will most likely be others like myself, whose first meeting with the band was on this album, permed hair and Tawny Kitaen music videos and all, and it is where I first discovered my love of their music. The music videos drove the popularity of this album, being played on TV on all of the weekly video programs, and once the album had been procured, there was lots more to like.

The album is packed full of songs that forced this vinyl to be played over and over again. this was released during my final year at high school, and it remains a part of the soundtrack of that time of my life. Anytime I listen to this now it sends me back to those days, when so much of the first part of my life came to its conclusion. The songs here became anthems for that. "Still of the Night" led that charge with that riff and Coverdale's vocals belting out the opening lines. "Bad Boys" crossing all the boxes, that leading riff into Coverdale's howl is just perfect. "Crying in the Rain" is again started out on the right night with the leading vocals starting it off before we even break into the song. "Children of the Night" picks up the tempo again exactly when it is needed, along with "Straight For the Heart" and then "Don't Turn Away".
Yes, the album does have a couple of songs that can easily be skipped if you are of a mind to do so. "Looking For Love" does tend to go on a bit too long, and misses the mark with me. "Is This Love" is pretty much the same deal, it really is a power ballad, a song that much certainly have targeted radio airplay. I tolerate it only because of the album it inhabits and the time it came from.
Coverdale's vocals sound terrific on this album. He had recently had surgery on his troublesome sinuses, which had delayed the recording of the album, but it seems to have done no harm. They combine perfectly with John Sykes' guitaring. Some of the riffs he has written and performed here are legendary, and along with his solo's would dominate any other record. This pairing, who co-wrote the majority of this album together, has done an amazing job. It seems almost ludicrous then that Sykes was sacked before they started touring this album, and was replaced on tour by Adrian Vandenburg and Vivian Campbell. Sykes went on to form Blue Murder, where his songs generally disappointed. Is this album just a perfect moment in time for him? Could he have done more of the same if he had stayed? We'll never know, and given that Steve Vai came on to record Slip of the Tongue it remains a superfluous question.
As I mentioned, this album invokes memories that I will never forget, and so it is always viewed with rose coloured glasses by myself. Whether or not it can be seen as a perfect album, there are songs here for me that will always stand the test of time, and in the long run that is the best way to judge any album.

Rating:  I'm getting ready, I'm in the mood to fool around.  5/5

5. Van Halen / 1984. 1984. 3.5/5.

It is strange to recollect now that at a time that Van Halen reached the peak of their popularity in the commercial market, they also reached the end of their first chapter. Through all of the battles and visions of grandeur and so forth, 1984 was headed for a road works sign ahead. The album is dominated by the three singles lifted from it, the real fusion of synth that inflicts itself upon some of the tracks as a constant reminder that it was released in the mid-1980's, and the spandex on the music videos that propelled the album's success.
As was related in the episode in Season 2 of this podcast which reviewed the band’s previous album “Diver Down”, the band had wanted to take a break from recording and touring at that time, but the success of the single had the record company pushing for anew album. As such, that break finally came following the tour for that album. It was also following that album that Eddie Van Halen was unhappy by the concessions he had made to both lead vocalist David Lee Roth and producer Ted Templeman, who had both discouraged Eddie from making keyboards a prominent instrument in the band's music. At this time Eddie was building his own studio, and as parts were being installed Eddie began to experiment on his synthesiser. What resulted was Eddie writing and composing much of what eventually became “1984” without the inferred different direction of Roth and Templemann. It was just himself on synth with no one else around, which is why he finally got his way. And so this is how the album was created, the combination of tracks based around keyboards-heavy influence, and the typical guitar driven tracks that the band had been renown for up to this point in time. And while most of the band’s writing and recording for previous albums had been done in a matter of weeks, the fact that this album had several months spent on it shows just how serious the band (or at least some of them) were about bringing a new desire to the band than had been the case up until that fabled year of 1984.

The synth instrumental opening of “1984” immediately informs you of what to expect here – whatever the last couple of albums have been like, and whatever they may have sounded like, this album is going to be a whole new chapter. Listening to it now is like jumping into a time machine, it is so tied to the time and the decade that even if you didn’t know the band or album, you know exactly when it was written and recorded. The straight segue into the true opening track “Jump” matches it perfectly, and listening to the album again today prior to recording this episode, it hit me once again what a perfect match it is, and just how ‘80’s’ this album can be. And yes, everyone in the world knows “Jump”, but have you ever really listened to the transfer between synth and guitar on the track? It’s one or the other, and not both, and it really is a terrifically written track. The story goes that Eddie had the synth riff for up to three years prior to this album, but Roth had refused to write lyrics to it before Eddie pushed the button on this album. Yes, it is a massive change and progression from Van Halen’s sound before this album, but the difference with “Jump” is the combination of Eddie’s burgeoning love for the synthesizer and his still amazing ability on the guitar. So while the synth and keys dominate the track as a whole, the interjection of the lead guitar still stakes a claim on the song, alongside the jaunty vocals of David Lee Roth and the jutting bass line from Michael Anthony. "Jump" has of course stood the test of time, still riding high in rock playlists forty years on. "Panama" is a great follow up, and in many respects I still enjoy more, perhaps solely because Eddie's guitar returns to a more prominent position in this song. This is pure Van Halen, a great opening riff, Roth’s seedy vocals sliding throughout the song, Alex’s great drumming throughout and Anthony’s bass guitar and supporting vocals just as important. The opening two tracks showcase the future and the past of the band perfectly, and are arguably the best of both in that respect.
"Top Jimmy" and "Drop Dead Legs" are typical Van Halen songs, both jauntily pushed along by Alex's drumbeat and Michael Anthony's bass. Ed's guitaring here is also closer to his classic stuff. Indeed, having gotten through the first side of the album, it is hard to remember why there was there was any problem from the old fans about the invasion of keyboards on this album, because those three songs in a row are great Van Halen songs with the vocals and rhythm and Eddie guitar that everyone had known and loved to this point of the band’s catalogue.
Lower the needle onto the second side of the vinyl, and you get the song that not only inspired more guitarists in that year than any other, and also more views of the video that accompanied the song than any other. The opening drumbeat into Eddie’s iconic guitar solo riff opening is still as wonderful as it was back when the album was released. Dave then takes over the song in his best style, the way he always commanded the attention in Van Halen’s best songs. "Hot For Teacher" got plenty of repeat business on MTV and the like for its video clip, and it is the energy provided throughout that makes this song as popular as it was. To be honest, it lifts what could have been an average song into a much better version of itself.
The follow up "I'll Wait" bring a return of the synth, and much like the opening instrumental, what it does now 40 years later is fully remind you of when this was recorded, because it sounds like all of the pop songs that were on the radio in those days. It could be by any of the bands in those days, and though there is a little of Eddie’s guitar in the middle, it is basically that synth that dominates throughout, and is the stark difference between the other songs up to this point in time on the album. I can’t say it is a favourite of mine. "Girl Gone Bad" is the equal of those songs in the middle of the album, the solid typical Van Halen tracks that they have always done well, with another great Eddie solo being a highlight. The album closer "House of Pain" has its moments without being overly memorable, and in many ways is a slight disappointment as a way of finishing off what has come before it.

Those of us in our teenage years when this was released cannot help but remember it, most especially the success of the first single “Jump”. It was plastered all over the radio airwaves for months, and for me still brings back specific memories of things I was doing at that stage of my life. And the album as a whole does similar things, though for me that wasn’t until probably a year after its initial release.
I did have a copy of this album taped for me on cassette and it got regular playing, but I guess it wasn’t something I obsessed over. As it turns out, I listened to it more in the years when Van Halen was on a hiatus than any other time. And a lot of that was in the memories it brought back rather than a desire to relive the album for itself.
Looking back now, and having had the album on a bit over the last couple of weeks, I have discovered more from it than I probably have at any other time. And a lot of that is to do with reminiscing on a long past age. But for me there three distinct areas of the album. The obvious synth tracks, and the obvious guitar tracks. And one other, the best song by far on the album, the one that typifies what was brilliant about the band – the wonderful drumming of Alex Van Halen, the long underrated bass work of Michael Anthony, the real hard rock guitar of Eddie, and Dave’s outstanding vocals. It is the song that will close this episode out. I do think I like this album more now than I have at any other stage of my life.
This was of course the last album with the original foursome, and the time when the split in the fandom came with that separation. David Lee Roth's departure from the group after this album brought a small amount of success for both himself and his solo career, and the remainder of the group with new front man Sammy Hagar. It was a changing of eras, and this album signified it as such. From the hard rock guitar band of the late 70's and early 80's, this album with its first major beginnings of synth oriented rock paved the way for bands like Bon Jovi and Europe to make their own mark on the industry. It signified a change in the way Van Halen wrote their music for the rest of their career, and for many it was the point where they stopped listening to Van Halen. I never had those conniptions. Indeed there were parts of both I enjoyed going forward and parts of both I didn’t. If nothing else, this album has two songs that I still listen to today, sing along to, play air guitar along to, and that are an implanted part of my musical upbringing. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.