Rolling Hard Rock 2008 Thread

is this about those dancing days?

I totally disagree with most of this, but it actually makes me curious about the bands here that I've never heard of:

http://pub37.bravenet.com/forum/3172289350/show/929916

Classic Rock magazine best albums of 2008

50. The Black Keys - Attack & Release
49. Todd Rundgren - Arena
48. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - "Dig Lazarus, Dig!!"
47. Thunder - Bang!
46. Tesla - Forever More
45. Viking Skull - Doom, Gloom, Heartache & Whiskey
44. The Jim Jones Revue - s/t
43. Girlschool - Legacy
42. Stonerider - Three Legs Of Trouble
41. Black Tide - Light From Above
40. Diagonal - s/t
39. Dirty Penny - Take It Sleezy
38. Glenn Hughes - First Underground Nuclear Kitchen
37. Bob Dylan - Tell Tale Signs
36. Graveyard - s/t
35. Lethargy - Purification
34. Testament - The Formation Of Damnation
33. Blood Ceremony - s/t
32. The Mars Volta - The Bedlam In Goliath
31. The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
30. Kings Of Leon - 0nly By The Night
29. Rose Kemp - Unholy Majesty
28. The Clash - Live At Shea Stadium
27. Joe Bonamassa - Live From Nowhere In Particular
26. Endeverafter - Kiss Or Kill
25. Uriah Heep - Wake The Sleeper
24. Rose Hill Drive - Moon Is The New Earth
23. Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark
22. Queen & Paul Rogers - The Cosmos Rocks
21. Thin Lizzy - UK Tour 1975
20. Judas Priest - Nostradamus
19. Marillion - Happiness Is The Road
18. Pride Tiger - The Lucky Ones
17. Alice Cooper - Along Came A Spider
16. Motorhead - Motorizer
15. Black Crowes - Warpaint
14. Stone Gods - Silver Spoons & Broken Bones
13. The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound
12. The Raconteurs - Consolers Of The Lonely
11. Opeth - Watershed
10. Motley Crue - Saints Of Los Angeles
9. Journey - Revelation
8. Big Linda - I Loved You
7. Whitesnake - Good To Be Bad
6. Def Leppard - Songs From The Sparkle Lounge
5. Airbourne - Runnin' Wild
4. Black Stone Cherry - Folklore & Superstition
3. Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy
2. Metallica - Death Magnetic
1. AC/DC - Black Ice

That Black Stone Cherry album is dreadful. And to think they had so much promise...but no, they're well on their way to being Nickelbackified.

The first track is pretty good, but other than that, those are my thoughts exactly.

I actually way preferred this year's Nickelback album myself. (And I never heard much promise in Black Stone Cherry to begin with.)

So who are: Big Linda, Pride Tiger, Rose Hill Drive, Rose Kemp, and Dirty Penny?

Not sure I've ever heard Thunder, either, though I've definitely heard *of* them before.

Had no idea Uriah Heep put out an album this year, either.

Unjustifiably missing on that list: Rose Tattoo, Rick Springfield, Helix, Night Ranger, Ted Nugent's live album.

I have a self-titled Thunder album from 1980 that Wounded Bird reissued, I remember correctly they play mildly interesting roadhouse rock. Had no idea they were still together/reunited.

That was weird spacing... also, it should be IF I remember correctly. I mean, I could probably throw the CD on, but I'm lazy.

That must be a different Thunder, these guys are ex Terraplane who were around in the late 80s. God why do I remember this stuff?

Alice Cooper - Along Came A Spider

I completely missed this, is it worthwhile in any way whatsoever?

I couldn't even make it through the thing. (And I'd actually liked 2005's Dirty Diamonds OK. Think we talked about this somewhere upthread, actually.)

The Thunder I know had a US debut -- were more well known in Britain as regular openers for the mighty Quo, I think -- at the end of the Eighties/early Nineties. Made some noise due to a single and video for "Dirty Love" -- which is a funny, amusing and very catchy song. The video had the drummer, a short bald guy in a ballerina's outfit and dirty sneakers. I recall it being on MTV a lot. The rest of the album was only fair by comparison. Second album and they were about through here although they had more in the UK.

I've a best of collection. It's OK, was very cheap used and contains "Dirty Love" which is the entire reason for owning or investigation. Most of what they did was standard hair metal, boogie and ballads.

Gave 'em a review in the newspaper which essentially said you'll probably hate most of the album but damned if the single won't keep you coming back to it.

Helix had a new album? I'm amazed I didn't know that. Good, I take it?

Yep. Wrote about it here:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/05/hair-metal-pion.html

I think George wrote about it on his blog earlier than me, too.

And Thanksgiving weekend in Michigan (true story), I convinced my younger sister to go out to her garage and find her legendary cassette copy of Walking The Razor's Edge and donate it to my collection. She said she'd bought it for the "great ballad", which must have been a hit in Detroit, or at least Windsor, at the time. She also got excited when she saw an old Giuffria cassette (self-titled) of hers out there. (She'd bought that for a ballad at the time, too.) The two boxes of cassettes in the house were pretty much all John Cougar and Bryan Adams ones (hers, like I say in that Helix review) and Pat Benatar ones (her husband's), except for the Firm and a couple other things.

George beat me to the Helix album by four months:

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2008/02/sludge-in-70s-recent-cost-effectives-us.html

Haha, yeah, Helix's ballad (cover of "Make Me Do Anything You Want") was quite the crossover hit in Canada.

I should track that new album down, good to see it was well-received. They were just in my city playing some tiny dive, flogging a Christmas album or something, and I sort of wanted to go, but didn't. I saw them a couple of times in the mid-80s when they were selling out 3000 seat theatres in Canada.

Bleh, I remember Giuffria..."Call to the Heart", that was the big song of theirs.

Demonstration of the Korg Pandora by me. Basically, much of the technology is devoted to putting a classic rock band in a box the size of a cigarette pack.