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!
Agusa - Prima Materia
Unitopia - Seven Chambers
Retreat From Moscow - Dreams, Myths and Machines
Riverside - ID.Entity
Mystery - Redemption
Uriah Heep - Chaos & Colour
Great Wide Nothing - Hymns for Hungry Spirits, Vol. II
Godsmack - Lighting Up the Sky
Rick Miller - Altered States
Blood Ceremony - The Old Ways Remain
Mondo Drag - Through the Hourglass
Advent Horizon - A Cell To Call Home
Steve Thorne - Malice in Plunderland
Pattern Seeking Animals - Spooky Action at a Distance
This Winter Machine - The Clockwork Man
Avenged Sevenfold - Life Is But a Dream...
Kite Parade - Retro
The Dust Coda - Loco Paradise
Sunchild - Exotic Creatures and a Stolen Dream
Galahad - The Long Goodbye
Hackberry - Breathing Space
Ten - Something Wicked This Way Comes
Regna - Cinema
Lalu - The Fish Who Wanted To Be King
The Foundation - Mask
Residuos Mentales - A Temporary State of Bliss
Subsignal - A Poetry of Rain
Ozric Tentacles - Lotus Unfolding
Eloy - Echoes From the Past
TRK Project - Odyssey 9999
Moon Safari - Himlabacken Vol. 2
All My Shadows - Eerie Monsters
Siena Root - Revelation
Comedy of Errors - Threnody for a Dead Queen
RPWL - Crime Scene
Ice Age - Waves of Loss and Power
Southern Empire - Another World
Temic - Terror Management Theory
eMolecule - The Architect
Cyan - Pictures from the Other Side
Jethro Tull - Rok Flote
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.
Joker
Dredd (2012)
Watchmen
Alita: Battle Angel
The Avengers
Kingsman: The Secret Service
Speed Racer
V for Vendetta
Logan
Sin City
The Rocketeer
Deadpool
Guardians of the Galaxy
Iron Man
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Kick-Ass
The Shadow
Men In Black
Thor
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Batman Begins
Danger: Diabolik
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
Spider-Man (2002)
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?
Kaprekar's Constant - The Murder Wall
JPL - Sapiens chapitre 3/3: Actum
Lalu - Paint the Sky
Naxatras - IV
Kite Parade - The Way Home
Red Bazar Inverted Reality
Arena - The Theory of Molecular Inheritance
Mysteries of the Revolution - Longing For The Dawn
Jonas Lindberg & the Other Side - Miles From Nowhere
Last Flight To Pluto - Random Karma, Fate and Destiny
Phoenix Again - Vision
Jalayan - Floating Islands
Birth - Born
Fren - All The Pretty Days
mobiUS - Make The Promise
Dave Cureton - State of Mind
Ten - Here Be Monsters
Virtual Symmetry - Self-titled
Robert Reed - The Ringmaster Part Two
Rosalie Cunningham - Two Piece Puzzle
Rick Miller - Old Souls
Cats In Space - Kickstart the Sun
Praying Mantis - Katharsis
Karfagen - Land of Green and Gold
Threshold - Dividing Lines
Marillion - An Hour Before It's Dark
Verbal Delirium - Conundrum
Elder - Innate Passage
Pattern Seeking Animals - Only Passing Through
Lana Lane - Neptune Blue
Bjorn Riis - Everything to Everyone
Infinitome - Beyond the Beyond
The Tangent - songs from the hard shoulder
Jethro Tull - The Zealot Gene
The Black Noodle Project - When the stars align it will be time...
Earthless - Night Parade of One Hundred Demons
Kaipa - Urskog
Alan Parsons - From the New World
Soft Ffog - Self-titled
Aliante - Destinazioni Oblique
Anima Morte - Serpents in the Fields of Sleep
Lobate Scarp - You Have It All
Ryo Okumoto - The Myth of the Mostrophus
Framauro - My World Is Ending
Big Big Train - Welcome to the Planet
Pure Reason Revolution - Above Cirrus
Avatarium - Death, Where Is Your Sting
Saxon - Carpe Diem
Comedy of Errors - Time Machine
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.