Yes, I'm bored to death... and no, I don't have anything else to do. So I'll post
my top 10 Albums of all time... or at least untill now, what means... well... a bit more than 21 years pure experience of life.
But before I get to the top ten, here are a few albums that didn't make it, but I still wanted to mention
Nirvana - Nirvana
What is such a list without Nirvana? Well, they didn't make it INTO it, but at least i mentioned them before so I can go to sleep tonight without feeling that bad... or maybe I have to because I took the best-of and not Nevermind like everyone else... Uhm...
Well... whatever... nevermind...
Iron Maiden - Dance of Death / Powerslave / A Matter of Life and Death / Brave New World / The X Factor / Fear Of The Dark
So many great albums and none of them made it into the top 10. No one is more surprised than myself as i consider Iron Maiden as one of my most favourite bands, but the albums just don't deliver a constant feel, there are always awesome songs that stand out and a few that feel bit left behind. These "left behind"-song are not bad, but just don't stand the comparison with the rest and as I search for the best complete album, I can't just ignore that fact
The albums that were the closest to get into the top 10 were: A Matter Of Life And Death and The X Factor.
Lacrimosa - Elodia
An atmospheric gothic album with brilliant musically realization. Why this one didn't make it into the top 10? Because of Anne Nurmi and the Song
The Turning Point...
Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory / Meteora
Nu-Metal at its best, no real let-downs (except of the two Mr. Han tracks), but also no atmosphere and a laughable playing time... I have singles which are longer than a Linkin Park album...
X JAPAN - ART OF LIFE
This is one phenomenal piece of art. It's deep, it's intelligent, it's well played and Toshis voice is just awesome on this one. So why is it not on the list? Simple answer: it is just one song. It got a playing time of 30 minutes and so it is nearly as long as a Linkin Park album, but it is just one song... it will probably make it's way in my list for the top songs (when I will ever make such a list...).
Muse - Absolution
One great album, but some songs are just not as great as the others, don't stand the test of time and get a bit boring after a while. It also loses a bit of it's intensity with the break in the middle.
Deadsy - Phantasmagore
I actually can't discribe this one... let's just move on to the next...
Sentenced - The Funeral Album
With this one you get what it promises, well it's not an album for a funeral, but it makes a good last album for a band. Atmospheric and just well made.
Bruce Dickinson - The Chemical Wedding
Maybe the biggest candidate that missed the top ten. This album is really, really great, but the following 10 were just slightly better... sorry Bruce...
So here we come to the top 10 of my greatest albums of all time:
10. The Dreaming - The Dreaming EP / Bonus Tracks / Dreamo (Acoustic EP)
Oh, well... okay as you can see, these 3 CDs are only EPs and not Albums, but together it becomes a mighty 12 song strong force. These were the first 3 outputs from The Dreaming and were followed by an Club Remix EP and the actual Longplayer "Etched In Blood" which contains mainly new tracks but also some reworked versions of songs that they already released with these EPs. The real Album was pretty good, but couldn't catch the intensity and the emotions from the EPs. I espacially admire the acoustic EP which contains 4 beautiful songs with such an emotional voice only supportet by an acoustic guitar and a violin (and it is the only EP which is still available, like on fixtstore.com).
So all three make it together to the 10. place of this ranking, the only reason which stops them from getting at least one or two places higher on that list is that this is no album but 3 phenomenal EPs.
9. Blaze Bayley - Blood and Belief
The 3. solo Album of Mr. Blaze Bayley, ex-singer of
Iron Maiden, did that what Maiden could not. It's in the list for my top 10 albums. And when that wouldn't be enough, he also left
Bruce Dickinsons solo-masterpiece
The Chemical Wedding, which was maybe the hottest aspirant besides Blaze, behind and grabs himself place number nine.
I never listened to
Wolfsbane, but since his appearance on Maidens X Factor album, you were able to hear how his singing gets better and better with its time. He still might not be one of the best singers, but you can feel and hear his effort and sometimes that just means so much more... So with Blood and Belief you got a emotional, powerful and heavy f'n piece of metal.
And you have to see the video to Hollow Head, pure awesomeness. xD
And it stays heavy with my number 8:
8. Nevermore - This Godless Endeavor
The strange thing about me and this band ist... it's the only album I have and I don't know why. I love it. I adore it. I would kill for it... or maybe because of it...
Anyway, I read the lyrics while I was puting the CD in my player for the first time and as I were reading them and the first song has just started I was very sceptical if this album would survive in my player long enough to hear it to the end. I mean, I never expected that such unusual passages like:
"I'm the power of pain and pleasure symbiotic, I am, I am
In a medicated nation of blind neurotics, I am, I am
Psychotic pain baptised in pure narcotics, I am, I am"
from Medicated Nation
could sound that good. They understand it perfectly to let complex passages sound complex but smooth. You never have the feeling that it gets ardously to listen to them. Also the perfect vocal work of Warrel Dane will leave you absolutely satisfied.
7. Dream Theater - Octavarium
I don't believe that many Dream Theater fans will agree with me when I say Octavarium ist the best longplayer they have ever released. This one is the most diversified album they have put out so far, no matter what song you play, they all have a different feel and most importantly James LaBrie is doing a phenomenal job on this one. I always considered him as one of the best vocalist I've ever heared, another thing most people won't agree with, but this might be his best performance ever. On this very album he is able to show the whole world that he does not stand in the shadows of the vitousity of his bandmates and of course they are playing their part as great as always. No song on this really stands out of the rest, but thats also one thing that makes this one so great. Everythings equall. On
Train of Thought you got
In the Name of God, on
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulance there is
The Glass Prison, even
Metropolis Part 2: Scenes From a Memory got one outstanding song with
Home, but on this one everything flows on the same wave, every song for itself... held together by equal quality.
6. ASP - Horror Vacui
The only band from my native country that made it on this list... come to germany we have beer, sauerkraut and horrible music and with bands like
Tokio Hotel we spread this desease all over the world and make you listen to what we have to suffer from.
But wait, not everything that comes from germany is bad... we haven't invaded a country for quite a while now, which is a good thing... well... at least not on our own, we only support the americans doing it. Jeez, how will I get out of this one now?
Okay, well... as I said, not everything from germany is bad when it comes to music: ASP is one of the few exclusions. One thing I didn't want to include in this list were best-of compilations, as these don't represent an album as that. Well, this best-of made it into it anyway, because it is able to give it it's own feel that no other ASP album was able to deliver (even when these were very good too). It doesn't feel like a usual compilation, maybe because of the few new songs, maybe because some of the old got rerecorded or even remixed for this 2-CD gothic-masterpiece. It just doesn't feels like these songs are taken from other CDs, everything fits so well into another, everything feels like it belongs right there and that is something usual best-of CDs don't do. The songs may be on regular ASP albums too, but this one still feels so unique on it's own, that it totaly deserves this place.
5. Avril Lavigne - Under My Skin
Okay, who expected that? You got Blaze Bayley. You got Nevermore and Dream Theater. You got heavy guitars, monsterous drums and a few of the best metal vocalists on this planet, where some of them didn't even make it on this list, and who gets number 5? A small girl from Canada!
I don't know how she made it, but she did it. Avril has outdone so many longtime favourites with this very album. Under My Skin got a depth I never expected from a pop-rock album, there is just one negative thing about it: my favourite Avril Lavigne song
Losing Grip is on her debut album
Let Go and not on this one, but beside that, Under My Skin is a very emotional, well produced pop-rock masterpiece... not only for girls. ;)
To bad that her third album
The Best Damn Thing was a huge letdown...
4. X JAPAN - BLUE BLOOD & Dahlia
I can't understand a f*cking word but I love it. Well at least I understand it partially as some passages or sometimes even whole songs are in english. The first song I've heared from X Japan was
ENDLESS RAIN live from their last concert. Maybe not the best way to get to know a new band, but I didn't knew that it was and I also didn't knew that it was already 9 years ago to that time... but that very song with all its emotions made me instantly a fan of X Japan. Like I said, I don't even understand a word, but emotions don't need languages, you can understand them no matter where you come from. With Endless Rain X made one of the most beautiful ballads I've ever listened to, but that one song doesn't got them to the fourth place and as you can see there isn't only one, no, two albums made it up here. Two albums that also show the progess the band made over the years and both albums deserve this place.
The first is Blue Blood. What I like about Blue Blood is on one side these quite songs like Endless Rain or
UNFINISHED, on the other side there are the heavy tunes like
X,
BLUE BLOOD or
Kurenai, which bring you such an intensity.
The second album is Dahlia and this one sounds much more experimental. Even though the ballads got much more playtime on this album, songs like
DAHLIA and
SCARS show the progress the band made from Blue Blood over to
Jealousy upto this very album.
The intensity, emotions, progress and love to the details are the main factors that bring X Japan this close to the best 3.
3. Stabbing Westward - Ungod & Wither Blister Burn & Peel
Again we have 2 albums sharing one place, this time we have Stabbing Westwards debut album Ungod and the one that came right after it, Wither Blister Burn & Peel.
Ungod got maybe the best album intro of all time (that what I call "intro" are actually the first 5 songs) and builds an intensive depressive pressure on the listener, which pulls them right into the struggle of despair. Especially
Red on White represents everything this album is about, the voice gets one with the music until it gets to the chorus that is as simple as it is brilliant.
The second album Wither Blister Burn & Peel, gets abit away from that pressure of the debut and drifts more into aggressiveness and hate.
Both albums got their very own feel and emotion and both deserve this third place.
The next entry was actually planed for the 7. place... but while I was writing the short text to it and listened to exactly that CD I was asking myself, why is it only on the 7? Well... I didn't know... this is about the best ALBUM, not the CD you find the best songs on. And to be an great album it must deliver a feeling, an expirience, an atmosphere... This CD does all that so great, that I pushed it all the way up to the second place:
2. Poisonblack - Escapexstacy
The songs all sound like they're the same. Well, that was at least my first thought when I listened to Escapexstacy the first time and now they made it to position 2 on this list. You have to give this one a little while until the songs can unfold all the little nuances that makes this musik so great. Except of maybe
Love Infernal, this longplayer contains nothing you could make a hit-single from, but the whole album is perfectly atmospheric and well balanced that you will give a damn about it. The warm voice of
Charons J.P. Leppälouto takes you into an emotional trip right into a broken heart and won't let you out until all the 44 minutes and 21 seconds are done. But don't get me wrong, this is not a CD that will make you depressed or anything, it's just that this whole atmosphere that the instruments build and which get so greatly supported by the vocals and the lyrics and that will totaly make it's way into your heart and soul and won't let you go until it's over.
1. Stabbing Westward - Darkest Days
Well, this is it. The first place and the greates album of all time. This one unifies everything that makes every other mentioned album on this list so great. The intensity, the emotions, the atmosphere. Carried by the great voice of Christopher Hall and the oppressive industrial rock sound. This album unites the depression, the hate, the desperation, that made the previous Stabbing Westward longplayers so great, but they don't just copy their old concepts, they give a whole new feel to it. Their sound evolved and found its peak in this 16 song-masterpiece of perfection. It starts with
Darkest Days, the perfect atmospheric opener for this album, and ends with the half-ballad
Waking Up Beside You, a track that perfectly closes the story and the album and will release you softly from the struggle of emotions you just have experienced.
Bruce Dickinson
