I have always been vocal about my un-shared belief that Ozzy-era Black Sabbath songs are at their best when covered by other people. Kyuss, Pantera, Type O Negative, Faith No More, 1000 Homo DJs, Slayer; they all do better sounding, heavier versions of Sabbath jams than Sabbath does in my opinion. That said, Tony Iommi remains unchallenged as the greatest riff writer in history and the band's later rebirth with Ronnie James Dio fronting them wielded far different yet arguably even better material, topping off with the sole Black-Sabbath-sans-the-name Heaven & Hell release The Devil You Know, easily the most crushingly heavy record ever done by a bunch of blokes pushing sixty.
It is a cliche to have Frank Sinatra as the only bona fide crooner on a list like this, but though I will not claim to be an expert in ole timey swing singers who have recorded everything there is to record from the Great American Songbook and them some, I cannot deny that the Chairman of the Board does not absolutely define "easy listening" to me. Meaning I can willingly hear Sinatra sing anything at any time and have no problem with him being the soundtrack to my life. His reputation as one of the best, most prolific recording artists of all time remains unchecked as his hundreds of albums contain classic after classic, the man's voice never faltering through until the end.
Cliche number two already. Having a list of musical artists and not including Johnny Cash seems criminal. Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton; they are all wonderful indeed, but the beauty of Johnny Cash's low, talking-level baritone and massive repertoire that spanned several decades and various creative boosts I will still put at the top of the classic country heap. During the 1950s he was recording songs that would forever define him, his live prison albums are essential, he did a number of Americana records, and of course his stripped-down, Rick Rubin produced outings in the twilight of his years featured possibly his best stuff yet. White, drunk karaoke/open mikers may continue to try and ruin "Folsom Prison Blues" and "Ring of Fire", but one listen to Cash doing them again and the material is forever justified.
Gone before he could even join the 27 club, Otis Redding for a minute in the 1960s solidified a legacy as having one of the most powerful and downright fierce voices that rhythm and blues would ever see. Keith Richards admittingly wrote "Satisfaction" for him and Redding himself penned and recorded "Respect" before Aretha Franklin did it, but outside of all of the iconic songs that filtered through him, the man could sing like absolutely no other. You could argue that he stole the Monterrey Pop Festival out from under Jimi Hendrix' star-making performance, which brought Redding to a far huger audience as he roared through a crowd-participation heavy set. He was dead only a few months later from a plane crash in Lake Monona in Wisconsin and it is another of those cases of "what could've been" had his recording output had the chance to grow more vast.
Though I have only recently gotten into Yob after seeing the burger named after them listed on Kuma's Corner's menu for several years, this Eugene, Oregon based trio has risen to my absolute favorite doom band for a number of reasons. Almost exclusively writing songs that exceed the ten-minute mark, frontman Mike Scheidt has at his disposal a powerful voice that miraculously has only gotten better after his severe, intestinal disease diagnosis which caused him to undergo surgery more than once since last year. Musically the band is Neanderthal heavy while at the same time being incredibly beautiful as they hammer away on chord progressions and slow, lumbering movements that are as pretty as they are sonically huge. "Marrow" alone should convert any non-believer, but Yob's crop of excellent songs and albums seems to be in full-swing, their latest release Our Raw Heart thus far standing as their masterpiece.
John Coltrane's catalog and abilities on a saxophone are wildly revered and he is one of the most influential musicians in any genre to ever emerge. Pioneering in the hard bop and bebop mediums and later being at the forefront of the free jazz movement, Coltrane's musical exploration was nothing short of spiritual to the man. A Love Supreme, (the greatest jazz album ever recorded), was Coltrane's attempt to commune with a higher power through nothing but himself and his incredible band's instrumental interaction with each other. Being one of the many alumni of Miles Davis also put him in the position of having been featured on even more forever cherished recordings. The Trane's progression throughout his career was something every musician should probably strive for.
Getting a lot of "they have to be here" artists out of the way, Elvis Presley nevertheless deserves his placement tenfold. Not that the icon really needs any defending from my part, but many people feel compelled to underplay Elvis' career in part because of the amount of "King of Rock and Roll" pressure that was almost immediately thrust upon him and for his later years where the goofy image of him being a fat and bloated eccentric crystallized in most people's minds, (see picture). Ignoring all of that nonsense though, it is difficult to deny that he was both an astonishingly emotive vocalist and performer on top of recording so, so, so many wonderful songs before his inevitable death. Though unfathomable fame naturally made him out of touch to a large extent, Elvis in many ways always remained humbled to his audience and just wanted to entertain people and sing. While shooting television sets and trying to be a drug snitch for Richard Nixon, but still.
Poland's premier extreme metal champions Behemoth have maintained not only a level of excellence since the 90s, but they continue to improve on each release which is ultimately the main reason they have remained such a beloved band in my book. Gradually stepping further away from solely speed-obsessed, blast-beat brutality, (which is nothing not to love in and of itself mind you), the band's last several releases have seen a heavier presence of groove and dynamic experimentation, taking their ubber-blasphemy to high art levels. Visually, lyrically, and of course musically, Behemoth is one of the few metal bands that manage to not look ridiculous when being completely pretentious and mainman Adam "Nergal" Darski takes more painstaking care of his craft than many others in his field. This band just oozes beautiful evil and the seriousness in which they take it all is highly enduring to say the least.
A lot of "best so-and-so band" artists are on here and Sigur Rós from Iceland are the ambient-rock, shoegazing poster-boys. I fell in love with these guys after immediately catching wind of them and though they have experimented with their already experimental sound throughout their careers, (adding actual English vocals as well as conventional song structures and lengths), at their crowning best, few bands excel more at playing the every loving shit out of a single chord progression for ten-plus minutes at a time while singing ethereal, falsetto vocals in a made-up language. The final, untitled track off their ( ) album may in fact be the best piece of music I have ever heard in my life, but many of their other similarly gorgeous and haunting works are likewise quite amazing. I am doing myself a serious disservice never seeing them live yet, but I intend to change that as such an experience I would wager would be just short of life-changing.
A very compelling argument can be made that Tupac Shakur was the greatest MC of all time. As a studio-fiend, he certainly seemed hellbent on laying down as many verses as he possible could, writing to such abundant amounts as to still be envious of his abilities and persistence all these years later. Whether he had a deathwish or just dramatically, (and sadly, correctly), knew that his time here was short, Tupac was an extraordinarily prolific, brutally honest and though-provoking rapper that left no stone of his sensationalized thug lifestyle unturned. All Eyez On Me is hip-hop's finest, filler-less double album, "Hit Em Up" is the greatest diss-track, and Tupac was the guy who introduced the original line-up of Kiss on stage at the Grammys for the first time in makeup in sixteen years. So naturally, I also have to adore him for that.
I have not kept up on Nine Inch Nails' later releases the way that I should, but a claim could be made for a time that no industrial rock band was ever better. Essentially an ongoing solo project for multi-instrumentalist/songwriter/producer Trent Reznor, NIN has had sporadic bursts of activity with a multitude of lineups since 1989's excellent Pretty Hate Machine, peaking with The Downward Spiral which is contestable as the best album of the 1990s. Reznor has always borrowed equally from the ambient work of Brian Eno as much as the DIY aesthetic of Prince and the dancable, machine-like riffage of Ministry and KMFDM. In the process, he came to define industrial music himself. All of that aside though, Reznor's songwriting skills have always been eons above any of his contemporaries. "Head Like a Hole", "Hurt", "Closer", "The Perfect Drug", "I'm Afraid of Americans"; there is certainly a pattern of excellence here.
Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong, (wise move probably that she shortened that), simply has one of my favorite voices as well as a flawless, be it a somewhat infrequent recording output. Originally collaborating with her brother Rollo, (from the electronica band Faithless), Dido's first two records where perfectly crafted pop-masterpieces in my book. These were more in vein with the triphop style of the time before she switched gears slightly with Safe Trip Home which was more conventional, acoustic singer-songwriter based. She has since returned to more electronica fare, (though her latest release was five years ago at this writing), but the quality has never faltered and I could listen to her breathy, immaculate vocals endlessly no matter what the context.
Frontman/songwriter Mark Sandman had the grave misfortune of literally dying on stage from a spontaneous heart attack at the age of forty-six at a venue in Palestrina, Italy, thus permanently laying the band Morphine to rest in 1999. Yet throughout the decade that they were together and not really since has a group explored such a particular sound as they did, utilizing a two-string bass tuned to octaves, a saxophonist playing two axes at once, and a drummer. Sandman also had a fantastic, "if Lou Reed was a crooner", low-end voice and his honest, confessional, and often bizarre lyrics were routinely superb. Self classified as "low rock", the band only produced a handful of albums, Cure for Pain and Yes excellently standing out the most amongst them. In the era of grunge, Morphine was a very different and very extraordinary type of alternative and bands like this simply emerge rather sparingly if at all.
I cannot say that I find all of Paul Simon's output to be consistently brilliant, (though none of it comes close to weak), but the man's accomplishments are clearly many. Of course his work with his good friend Art Garfunkel put both men on the map and even at such a young age then, Simon was proving himself to be one of the 60s most relevant songwriters, which is nothing to sneeze at. Though he had plenty of impressive moments throughout the 70s, the one-two punch of the very commercially and artistically different Hearts and Bones and Graceland albums remain my favorite of all of his stuff. The latter in particular is an album that besides popularizing afro-pop to a Western audience, is simply a perfect and wholly unique pop record that only gets better with age. Simon still has not slowed down and his voice is as warm and soothing as ever.
The greatest of all bluesmen may have recorded only slight variations of the same exact song hundreds of times over throughout his almost seven goddamn long decade career, but itis impossible to complain with the results. B.B. King is still mostly regarded as a legendary guitar player; he and his trusty, black Gibson, hollow-body Lucille slowing bending and resonating the ever loving hell out of notes as he gorgeously soloed in every last song he ever performed. It is really B.B.'s uncanny vocal skills though that have long impressed me the most. The man could belt like an untamed lion at times and then just as easily and sweetly bring it down to a panty-moistening falsetto, both of which would get any audience anywhere up and out of their seats in admiration. I love few singers in any style more and the utter boatload of material that he left us with will have me listening for the rest of my days.
Honestly the only reason that I have the appropriately titled The Band where I have them here is because it is just their first two albums that I have ever listened to. Yet it should go without saying that both of those records, (Music from Big Pink and simply The Band), represent some of the most pristine music ever made. Largely written by Robbie Robertson, The Band tapped into and defined what would be known as roots rock and Americana, meaning a type of pop music that seemed straight out of 19th century, rustic America yet at the same time was wholly relevant for its day, influencing countless artists ever since. Every member of The Band was an exceptional multi-instrumentalist who regularly switched up what they were playing, but they were also blessed with three outstanding, wide-ranged vocalists in the form of Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Levon Helm. Their initial recording run was small, (less than ten years), but they left an undeniable footprint.
Though I was raised on and for a time almost exclusively listened to classic rock, Thin Lizzy was one of those bands that I for whatever completely unfathomable reason never got into until my later adult years. Making up for lost time I guess, they easily tower over many such groups in possibly my overall favorite decade of recorded music. Hailing from Ireland while sounding as American as bald eagles and sportsball, Thin Lizzy was equipped of course with both the outstanding songwriting and unique vocals of Phil Lynott who acted as sort of a hard rock Bruce Springsteen in many respects. Yet they also had one of the most spectacular dual guitar duos in Scott Gorham and John Sykes. Lineups would later change and Lynott would ultimately succumb to a crippling drug habit, but in their prime, this band was simply on fire with some of the best riffage and lyrics any hard rock band could ever hope to have.
When it comes to pure, unabashed pop craftsmanship, few things are as indisputable as the fact that Paul McCartney is basically the best whoever lived. His onetime bandmate John Lennon might be the only bloke who can rival such a claim but since he was taken from us far, far too early and McCartney has yet to slow down for a minute, the proof is aplenty. You cannot mention McCartney without mentioning The Beatles and he is as aware of this as anybody. Yet even though those songs still stand head above shoulders over anyone's, (including his own later ones), it is not like all of the brilliance was gone post-1969. Left to his own devices, McCartney has confidently spent the last nearly five decades writing innocent, infectious pop songs about anything he fancies and his ear and un-BEAT ability for melody has never, ever left him.
Formed in Scotland in 1994, Snow Patrol have a knack for using simple chord progressions and musicianship layered with excellent, often unorthodox vocal melodies. Frontman Gary Lightbody has one of my favorite voices and even if the band's occasional, non-rhyming lyrics were pedestrian, (which they are not), he could be singing about anything and it would be just as marvelous. Many of their songs having become popular from TV show placement, (a common trick amongst newer bands), and so far their middle album Eyes Open might be my favorite from anybody of the early 2000s. Thankfully though, all of their material before and present stands up just as well.
Having gone through a very fair share of musical and lineup tweaks and starting out as a fusion band with founder/guitar guru Neal Schon having previously been in Santana, once Journey got vocal heavyweight Steve Perry under their wings, the game was changed. Long after Perry's absence from the band, they have stuck with the formula and only hired carbon clones to fill his shoes, which should say everything that needs to be said about how astonishing and integral to the whole the man's voice truly was. During the late 70s and early 80s, Journey was mega-huge and defined arena rock like none other. Their laundry list of hits remains intimidating and as understandably sick as everyone has gotten of "Don't Stop Believin'", I would be straight-up lying if I did not say I still do not adore this band. They were one of the very best of their kind, pure and simple.
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