Jimmy E's Music List Mania

Slipknot’s lead vocalist is not exactly Mr Sunshine at the best of times, and the Iowan nonet’s music and outlook are nothing if not bipolar, but the sheer number of death references and metaphors on 2019’s We Are Not Your Kind album is exhausting. I’m not even sure he knows he did it – a lot of the record seems to be about the breakdown of a relationship while the title suggests alienation. I’ve previously accused this of being teenage angst, but it could well be political in these strange times of ours. Who exactly it is Taylor et.al are still craving acceptance from 20 years down the line, and why they still care, I am not sure. Well anyway, I’d thought I’d round up all of the references to death and killing. I shouldn’t criticise too much (or at all, really) given I couldn’t write a lyric to save my life (this choice of words was not initially intentional) but I thought it was interesting. Either Mr Taylor is trying to tell us something or perhaps he could branch out a little...

See “Best of 2008” for a general introduction. Be warned fair readers. As we step back in time from around here we’re getting into when nu-metal and other things that haven’t dated super well were around. And that probably won’t all be ignored because I was into some of it, even if most of that I haven’t listened to with anything approaching regularity for years. 2003 was a minorly historical year for a number of big names. For example, 2003 was the year of…Metallica’s St.Anger! Full disclosure, I didn’t hate it at the time and still don’t, but yes the snare drum sound is horrible, yes the record is about half an hour too long (but there are 40 or so minutes of decent music buried within the bloated 70+ minute running time), no there are no guitar solos, yes some of the lyrics are the worst they ever wrote (sadly, past the first four albums, that’s saying something). As opposed to, say, Iron Maiden, who largely make the same record over and over again (apparently AC/DC are th...

See “Best of 2008” for a general introduction. I’ve been saying these were my formative years, but I’m not entirely sure how many of my favourite records of 2004 I got into at the time . Some, definitely, like Slipknot, Head Automatica and 36 Crazyfists, but most of the rest? It wasn’t long after this that I fell bigtime for John Frusciante, Isis, Mastodon, and Cult of Luna. Others like Converge, Killswitch Engage, Lamb of God, Melvins, Mono, and Joss Stone came a bit later. I’m not sure what the point of that was, other than to reinforce something I already said (in my 2008 best-of post) about hindsight. While it also serves to highlight the arbitrariness of 1 January – 31 December release times it is of course still possible to place a lot of music in its historical and cultural context. Well anyway, try these on for size. 36 Crazyfists – A Snow Capped Romance I swear I wasn’t trying to be edgy, but when Slipknot’s Iowa and System of a Down’s Toxicity albums came...