In Praise of....

the heavy metal ballad or power ballad. There was a time back in the 80's basically and perhaps for a little bit in the early 90's when some of the heavy metal acts were the biggest bands in the land. These bands shared a responsibility to not only rock your faces off but to also tenderize your hearts with the sweetest of love ballads. Why don't we climb back inside the old mystery machine and give a few of these a listen. You may not be better off afterwards but you will probably enjoy the experience just a little bit. (I hope).

These are in no particular order. But they are the ones I enjoyed the most. 

Love Hurts - Nazareth - This is arguably one of the first of the power ballads. It came out in 1976 and you can feel the pain of unrequited love from it. So emotional and dripping with teenage angst. 

Beth - Kiss - One of my favorite power ballads of all time. So good. So over the top. 

Home Sweet Home - Motley Crue - One of the great ones and probably my favorite Motley Crue song. Which probably says something about the kind of music that I emotionally connect to. But I am not ashamed. Not one bit. 

Close My Eyes Forever - Ozzy and Lita Ford - Ahhh such a lovely duet and almost guaranteed to get you to 2nd base with that sweet chick you made the mix tape for. 

Don't Close Your Eyes - Kix - Does anybody remember Kix? 

Catch you later folks. 

Random Music Thursday

Much like Dewey Finn I serve the world by Rockin. So lets get it started.

Celebration Day - Led Zeppelin - Nothing more can be said, but this band rocks. I may not always be in the mood for Led but I am always willing to at least try to get the Led out. 

What Do I Care - Johnny Cash - Mr Cash is always welcome here and I love the sentiment behind this song. "You love me, and I love you. So what do I care." You tell it like it is John.

Time After Time - Ozzy Osbourne - I still have a soft spot after all these years for the love songs of Ozzy. I don't know what it is about them. But I really like his ballads. 

Offering - The Avett Brothers - This is a just plain good band. They are also a band that can have a really emotional effect on me. I like their music so much that at times it is a painful experience for me that speaks of lost love and love never found. 

Jolene - The White Stripes - This is a cover of a Dolly Parton song and they do it so well. The White Stripes are one of my favorite bands and really I can enjoy pretty much everything Jack White has ever done. This live version of Jolene is amazing. 

Random Music Tuesday

And away we go...

Hyper Chondriac Music - Muse - This was a trippy, trippy number. It very much feels like put the headphones on and smoke a bowl kind of music. I do not mind that but I do not listen to this type of music very often. It reminds me of one of my favorite ABC' Afterschool Specials'

Lift Us Up - Bonnie Prince Billy - I do not have the words for how much I love this entire album. There is a depth to it that I find so fulfilling and I love just closing my eyes and letting the whole thing envelop me. If you have the chance I highly recommend giving it a listen on Spotify. So good.

Kentucky Mandolin - Bill Monroe - One of the masters of bluegrass and boy does he light this Mandolin up. WOW. I can only imagine how fast his fingers are moving over the strings. Look out! I found a live version and now I do not have to imagine it and neither do you. I bring it to you below.

Okay, now that was legitimately impressive I thought. The whole thing. On we go with our regularly scheduled programming.

Secret Loser - Ozzy Osbourne - Classic Ozzy. Bang those heads folks. Bang those heads and check out that album art. Wowie wow wow.

The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight - R. E. M. - Classic song and off of an amazing album Automatic For The People. I think that pretty much their whole discography is very good.

I really enjoyed today's mix of music. So good.

If Wishes and Butts Were Candy and Nuts....

We would all have a Merry Christmas!! There is a line in the film 'Pitch Perfect' that goes like this. "If I could sing a lick, I would. But I can't and I hate myself everyday for it!"


I am not nearly as dramatic as that but there are times when I am listening to music and I feel that way about playing guitar or piano or drums or just wanting to be in a band in general and to be able to blow peoples minds. To just be up on stage and to rock their socks off with the power of my rocking! So because of that I thought it might be fun to show you guys some songs that make me feel that way. I hope you enjoy listening to them as much as I enjoy bringing them to you.

Now the first instrument I want to highlight is guitar and I am not saying that this is the best guitarist in the world or anything like that. I am just saying that listening to this makes me wish I could play guitar like that.

Let's take a look at drums now and for me this is a pretty obvious choice. But it may not be the choice for everyone else and the same rule applies as before. I am not saying this is the best, it is just the one that brings these feelings out of me. This is Santana's drummer at Woodstock he was 19 at this time and his name is Michael Shrieve and he will blow your mind. Actually the whole of this performance by the band is mind altering.

The Piano and there can be only one Ben Folds

Bass and Rush go hand in hand

There you go folks. I hope you enjoyed listening to it as much as I enjoyed bringing it too you.

More Music (Ozzy Osbourne)

Welcome to Tuesday and today we are back moving through my music collection and it is all about the master of metal himself Ozzy Osbourne. This is his solo work after he left Black Sabbath. I hope you enjoy today's ride on the...

"Crazy Train"



"Bark at the Moon"



"Flying High Again"



"Perry Mason"



I love Ozzy!! Even if old Ozzy is totally nuts. I still like his music. But let's close this out with some solo work by arguably the best guitarist that he ever had Randy Rhoades. Like all rock gods he died far to young.

More Music (Black Sabbath)

In 1970 an album was released that shook the very earth. This album changed the face of music and I think was probably what started Heavy Metal. Sure, other bands rocked hard in the late 60's and through the 70's but no band rocked as hard as Black Sabbath.

As a teenager I was only aware of Ozzy Osbourne as a solo act and being a young man raised within the Protestant church it often seemed to me that Ozzy was the very devil that I had been so often warned about. Of course it didn't help matters when his solo albums looked like this.

That album came out in 1980 and I was pretty much scared to death of it. I had not yet really began to like music like I do now. Do not get my wrong. I enjoyed it but I went to a private christian school for most of grade school and my parents car had an AM radio so all I really listened to was the local 50's station. So I did not have a real understanding of rock music and what started with the 50's then shifted into the 60's with the Door's and Jimmy Hendrix and the Who but I still never listened to or had even heard of Black Sabbath. At some point in the late 90's I stumbled across a remix of the Sabbath Classic "After Forever". I believe it was on a film soundtrack. After listening to it a few times I started to realize that the lyrics did not seem to be in praise of Satan at all.

Being an inquisitive young man I decided to check out the original version of the song and I was really surprised by both the music and the lyrics. It is also interesting to note that the song just before "After Forever" is "Sweet Leaf" a song all about how good marijuana is. So really all of that is to say that Black Sabbath was a far more complex band then the Christian Anti-Rock Media really realized.

Enough of my theorizing. On to the music. I am going to throw up some stuff when Ozzy was in Sabbath and then I will put up some stuff from when Ozzy was kicked out and Ronnie James Dio joined the band. I prefer the Ozzy years better but there is some good stuff from when Dio was there.

So without further adieu I bring you track 2 off of their first album "The Wizard". They get extra special bonus points for use of the rockin harmonica. I also really love the drums in this track and the secret cowbell.



Their second album was called Paranoid and I bring you the 8th track "Fairies Wear Boots". Another song that just has an amazing drum and bass line with some tasty guitar licks and the lyrics just make me laugh. I love it. 6:30 of awesome.



Their third album, Master of Reality, was also an epic one and I think my favorite off of it is the one I mentioned earlier "After Forever".



I really think that the first three Black Sabbath albums are the best ones. But they did have a few good songs here and there after those their fourth album was called Black Sabbath Vol 4. One of the songs is called "Supernaut". Want to hear it? Here it is.



Actually I am going to stop there. Ronnie James Dio can get his own post when I get to him. Black Sabbath was and always will be Ozzy's band. No offense to Dio fans out there because I own some Dio and I like his work but I like his solo stuff. Frankly, I think his work with Black Sabbath was not that good.

So there you go. A little bit of heavy metal for you.

Tomorrow we are moving away from the metal and more into pop punk.