Chickfighter

So music nut that I am I have been meaning to do this, but unlike everybody else I like to wait until the year is actually over before making my list. I mean how can you make a "best of the year" list in early December? Even waiting until now I'm sure my opinion is still rather tentative. I'm going with a list of forty-two because forty-two is of course the secret of life, the universe and everything. Also it means I can tag on two decent but not great albums by classic legacy bands at the end.

So here it is!

1. Agusa - Prima Materia

2. Unitopia - Seven Chambers

3. Retreat From Moscow - Dreams, Myths and Machines

4. Riverside - ID.Entity

5. Mystery - Redemption

6. Uriah Heep - Chaos & Colour

7. Great Wide Nothing - Hymns for Hungry Spirits, Vol. II

8. Godsmack - Lighting Up the Sky

9. Rick Miller - Altered States

10. Blood Ceremony - The Old Ways Remain

11. Mondo Drag - Through the Hourglass

12. Advent Horizon - A Cell To Call Home

13. Steve Thorne - Malice in Plunderland

14. Pattern Seeking Animals - Spooky Action at a Distance

15. This Winter Machine - The Clockwork Man

16. Avenged Sevenfold - Life Is But a Dream...

17. Kite Parade - Retro

18. The Dust Coda - Loco Paradise

19. Sunchild - Exotic Creatures and a Stolen Dream

20. Galahad - The Long Goodbye

21. Hackberry - Breathing Space

22. Ten - Something Wicked This Way Comes

23. Regna - Cinema

24. Lalu - The Fish Who Wanted To Be King

25. The Foundation - Mask

26. Residuos Mentales - A Temporary State of Bliss

27. Subsignal - A Poetry of Rain

28. Ozric Tentacles - Lotus Unfolding

29. Eloy - Echoes From the Past

30. TRK Project - Odyssey 9999

31. Moon Safari - Himlabacken Vol. 2

32. All My Shadows - Eerie Monsters

33. Siena Root - Revelation

34. Comedy of Errors - Threnody for a Dead Queen

35. RPWL - Crime Scene

36. Ice Age - Waves of Loss and Power

37. Southern Empire - Another World

38. Temic - Terror Management Theory

39. eMolecule - The Architect

40. Cyan - Pictures from the Other Side

41. Jethro Tull - Rok Flote

42. Yes - Mirror to the Sky

Clearly my choices are heavily prog rock, but not exclusively. What is your favorite album of the year?

It is a bit of a shock when you realize that albums from when you became interested in music are turning fifty. I recently made a list of thirty-seven from 1974 divided into three groups by release date to create three days of listening, about ten hours a day. Some notables that failed to make my list include Aerosmith - Get Your Wings; Argent - Nexus; Bruce Cockburn - Salt, Sun and Time; Budgie - In for the Kill!; Bob Dylan - Planet Waves; Gentle Giant - The Power and the Glory; Jethro Tull - Warchild; King Crimson - Starless and Bible Black as well as Red; Joni Mitchell - Court and Spark; Traffic - When the Eagle Flies. The early 1970s were a great time for music in my opinion. My listening list follows below with approximate release dates.

Gordon Lightfoot – Sundown (Jan)

The Doobie Brothers – What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits (Feb 1)

Deep Purple – Burn (Feb 15)

Steely Dan – Pretzel Logic (Feb 20)

The Marshall Tucker Band – A New Life (Feb)

Camel – Mirage (Mar 1)

Kansas – self-titled (Mar 8)

Chicago - VII (Mar 11)

Jim Stafford – self-titled (Mar 16)

Eagles – On the Border (Mar 22)

Frank Zappa – Apostrophe (‘) (Mar 22)

Triumvirat – Illusions on a Double Dimple (Mar)

Blue Oyster Cult – Secret Treaties (Apr 5)

Lynyrd Skynyrd – Second Helping (Apr 15)

Robin Trower – Bridge of Sighs (Apr 20)

Focus – Hamburger Concerto (Apr)

Bad Company – self-titled (May 24)

Al Stewart – Past, Present and Future (May)

Eloy – Floating (June 25)

America – Holiday (June 26)

Eric Clapton – 461 Ocean Boulevard (July)

Renaissance – Turn of the Cards (July)

Little Feat – Feats Don’t Fail Me Now (Aug 9)

Atlanta Rhythm Section – Third Annual Pipe Dream (Aug)

Bachman-Turner Overdrive – Not Fragile (Aug)

Jackson Browne – Late for the Sky (Sept 13)

Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – The Good Earth (Oct 11)

Tom Waits – The Heart of Saturday Night (Oct 15)

The Rolling Stones – It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll (Oct 18)

Supertramp – Crime of the Century (Oct 25)

Dan Fogelberg – Souvenirs (Oct)

REO Speedwagon – Lost in a Dream (Oct)

Todd Rundgren’s Utopia – self-titled (Oct)

Genesis – The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (Nov 22)

Charlie Daniels Band – Fire on the Mountain (Nov29)

Wishbone Ash – There’s the Rub (Nov)

Joe Walsh – So What (Dec 14)

Let me know if you have favorites I haven't included. And rock on, nice people.

As we appear to have reached the end of the golden age of comic book films I thought I'd try to make a list of my top 25. This is a live-action list so no animated films here. It is interesting that the films that stick with me and get multiple viewings don't tend to be all the superhero genre films from Marvel and DC, but rather more interesting and original fare with overt pulp and/or science fiction flavors. Here's my list.

1. Joker

2. Dredd (2012)

3. Watchmen

4. Alita: Battle Angel

5. The Avengers

6. Kingsman: The Secret Service

7. Speed Racer

8. V for Vendetta

9. Logan

10. Sin City

11. The Rocketeer

12. Deadpool

13. Guardians of the Galaxy

14. Iron Man

15. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

16. Kick-Ass

17. The Shadow

18. Men In Black

19. Thor

20. Hellboy II: The Golden Army

21. Batman Begins

22. Danger: Diabolik

23. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

24. Spider-Man (2002)

25. Superman (1978)

What are your favorites?

Recently it occurred to me that perhaps the biggest contribution to the progressive music genre from US bands came in the form of bringing prog elements into the AOR arena. I know a lot of hardcore prog lovers look down on this sort of prog light or prog adjacent stuff as being way too commercial. Hey, who doesn’t enjoy LARPing as a prog snob? But there is something to be said for bringing our favorite music genre to the masses.

So I started compiling a list from my collection. No Brits. No Canucks. Nobody else. Just US bands. I skipped the earlier psychedelic stuff like Spirit or Sugarloaf and the art rock glam of Alice Cooper. I passed over the jazz-fusion confusion of Blood Sweat & Tears; Chicago; Mahavishnu Orchestra; Return to Forever and Weather Report. But there are no artists I could not connect to prog in some way. So no Springsteen or Steely Dan either for instance. I also excluded a few more capital P prog bands (some that I quite love) that just seemed to have music too convoluted or lacking in mass appeal to qualify for this concept like Captain Beyond; Cathedral; Crack the Sky; Happy the Man; Mirthrandir; Todd Rundgren’s Utopia; Yezda Urfa; and Frank Zappa.

The prog connections of a few selections are questionable. “We’re An American Band” has some proggy elements and is produced by Todd Rundgren just as he entered his prog period, not to mention serving as the title for this project. The Montrose debut has Space Station #5. “Flat As a Pancake” has plenty of proggy elements. Heart’s first two albums always struck me as very prog adjacent. And that’s exactly what this list is – various levels of “prog adjacency.”

Lastly I limited the time frame to the 1970s, eliminating a few early ‘80s albums. Eventually I ended up with a list of forty-two which seemed right since, as all galactic hitchhikers know, forty-two is the answer to the secret of life, the universe and everything. This list is a very enjoyable listen for someone like me who went through high school and off to college during this period of time, namely 1973 to 1979. Thank you, American bands!

Check it out!

Chronological List (Roughly)

Grand Funk Railroad – We’re An American Band (39:48)

Montrose – Montrose (32:22)

Kansas – Kansas (45:05)

Jefferson Starship – Dragon Fly (42:25)

Ambrosia – Ambrosia (40:00)

Kansas – Song For America (45:08)

Journey – Journey (36:57)

Head East – Flat As A Pancake (39:24)

Jefferson Starship – Red Octopus (42:00)

Heart – Dreamboat Annie (40:02)

Kansas – Masque (40:44)

Angel – Angel (37:08)

Styx – Equinox (34:32)

Journey – Look Into The Future (41:41)

Starcastle – Starcastle (39:39)

Blue Oyster Cult – Agents of Fortune (36:35)

Jefferson Starship – Spitfire (42:04)

Angel – Helluva Band (44:07)

Boston – Boston (37:07)

Ambrosia – Somewhere I’ve Never Travelled (45:46)

Styx – Crystal Ball (34:45)

Kansas – Leftoverture (43:55)

Starcastle – Fountains Of Light (36:14)

Journey – Next (37:37)

Foreigner – Foreigner (38:46)

Steve Miller Band – Book of Dreams (38:02)

Heart – Little Queen (39:00)

Styx – The Grand Illusion (38:59)

Meatloaf – Bat Out Of Hell (46:25)

Kansas – Point Of Know Return (44:28)

Starcastle – Citadel (39:15)

Blue Oyster Cult – Spectres (40:29)

Journey – Infinity (36:28)

Jefferson Starship – Earth (41:27)

Dixie Dregs – What If (39:46)

Boston – Don’t Look Back (34:00)

Ambrosia – Life Beyond LA (41:23)

Styx – Pieces Of Eight (42:18)

Toto – Toto (40:46)

Trillion – Trillion (36:54)

Kansas – Monolith (41:43)

Jefferson Starship – Freedom At Point Zero (42:27)

This is simply my attempt to list my top fifty albums from last year. It is mostly but not entirely prog rock and prog adjacent rock. These fifty recordings are all good listening. What were your favorites from last year?

1. Kaprekar's Constant - The Murder Wall

2. JPL - Sapiens chapitre 3/3: Actum

3. Lalu - Paint the Sky

4. Naxatras - IV

5. Kite Parade - The Way Home

6. Red Bazar Inverted Reality

7. Arena - The Theory of Molecular Inheritance

8. Mysteries of the Revolution - Longing For The Dawn

9. Jonas Lindberg & the Other Side - Miles From Nowhere

10. Last Flight To Pluto - Random Karma, Fate and Destiny

11. Phoenix Again - Vision

12. Jalayan - Floating Islands

13. Birth - Born

14. Fren - All The Pretty Days

15. mobiUS - Make The Promise

16. Dave Cureton - State of Mind

17. Ten - Here Be Monsters

18. Virtual Symmetry - Self-titled

19. Robert Reed - The Ringmaster Part Two

20. Rosalie Cunningham - Two Piece Puzzle

21. Rick Miller - Old Souls

22. Cats In Space - Kickstart the Sun

23. Praying Mantis - Katharsis

24. Karfagen - Land of Green and Gold

25. Threshold - Dividing Lines

26. Marillion - An Hour Before It's Dark

27. Verbal Delirium - Conundrum

28. Elder - Innate Passage

29. Pattern Seeking Animals - Only Passing Through

30. Lana Lane - Neptune Blue

31. Bjorn Riis - Everything to Everyone

32. Infinitome - Beyond the Beyond

33. The Tangent - songs from the hard shoulder

34. Jethro Tull - The Zealot Gene

35. The Black Noodle Project - When the stars align it will be time...

36. Earthless - Night Parade of One Hundred Demons

37. Kaipa - Urskog

38. Alan Parsons - From the New World

39. Soft Ffog - Self-titled

40. Aliante - Destinazioni Oblique

41. Anima Morte - Serpents in the Fields of Sleep

42. Lobate Scarp - You Have It All

43. Ryo Okumoto - The Myth of the Mostrophus

44. Framauro - My World Is Ending

45. Big Big Train - Welcome to the Planet

46. Pure Reason Revolution - Above Cirrus

47. Avatarium - Death, Where Is Your Sting

48. Saxon - Carpe Diem

49. Comedy of Errors - Time Machine

50. Queensryche - Digital Noise Alliance

Good year! The top dozen or so here are wonderful. And I probably picked up another twenty-five or so beyond this list.