I've noticed over the years that many of the songs I listen to have terrible lyrics. This ranges from the mundane, illogical and even rhyming the same word with itself -- terrible. I have listed a few notable songs that have some pretty poor lyrics. Overall, the songs are pretty good though.
Black Sabbath -- War Pigs
In War Pigs, one of the most classic metal songs, Ozzy Osbourne felt that it was okay to rhyme the same word with itself.
Ozzy Osbourne
The song OPENS with: "Generals gathered in their masses, just like witches at black masses. . ." Okay... masses and masses... really?
Megadeth -- You're Dead
This song comes off of Megadeth's United Abominations album which pretty much rips on the United Nations the whole time. I might agree, but I still don't like when musicians inject politics into their music. The album is bland; so bland that I didn't notice this little gem of a lyric until about five years after I bought the CD:
"One day I'll dance on you're grave, even if you're buried at sea. . ." Well, wtf, that's just retarded. Dear Dave Mustaine, even though you have longdumb-looking hair, you are not metal-Jesus. No walking on water for you.
Dave "Jesus" Mustaine
Iron Maiden -- The Prisoner
It pains me to put Maiden on this list... but just know that this song is otherwise awesome. It comes off of their third and best album Number of the Beast. I'm pretty sure they wrote it as a homage to the old TV show by the same name -- The Prisoner. I think that's where they get the opening dialogue of the song from. So the whole song is about busting out of prison, essentially, which you'll see, is a pretty hard thing to write good lyrics about:
Bruce Dickinson
(WTF)
"Run, fight to breathe, it's gunna be tough -- now you see me, now you don't . . . if you kill me, it's self defense, if I kill you they'll call it vengeance, spit in your eye, I will defy. . ." Now, I mean, come on! At least they save the song with a badass chorus with some good vocal melody.
That's all for now. As I listen to my iTunes and hear more terrible lyrics I'll do a follow-up post. Out.
This is the continuation of two prior posts: Part 3 of 3. This is it! Numbers 4, 3, 2, and 1!
See the prior posts, numbers 13-10, and 9-5, to get up to speed.
#4.
METALLICA: ...AND JUSTICE FOR ALL (1988)
Well, you might be able to guess why this album is in the top five for me. It's a cross between heavy metal and social science (broadly defined). Basically, it is America. Well, my America. I mean, seriously, those of you who know me would have no problem guessing that if I ruled America, it would be dominated by heavy metal ... and justice ... for all. Heavy metal begets justice. Duh. For a real-world example, see my ancient post about the effects of heavy metal on communism (obliteration).
The album has been criticized for its production. Particularly, the percussion has no depth, no balls. The guitars come across as weak. These are all recording/mastering issues, which do not reflect the quality of the material that was created for the album. The songs on the album are very good. The opening guitar melody for "...And Justice for All" is very distinct (and unique). The percussion disappoints, when it "kicks in," because of the aforementioned recording issue (the bass drum has an oddly snare-like sound, which should never, ever be the case on a metal album). The album also contains "Blackened," which is heavy, "Harvester of Sorrow," which has some sweet riffs and good time changes (for Metallica), "The Frayed Ends of Sanity," despite having a cheesy song name, is a really good metal-sounding song. It has guttural riffs, complimented by some pussy-ass percussion that had the potential to be amazing. "To Live is to Die" is the only song that sort-of stands out as different, because it slows down at times and extends into protracted guitar riffs that are like mini-solos, which is kind of cool. The best song on the album, though, by far, is "One." This song is deserving of it's entirely own paragraph... so that's what it'll get. [presses "Enter" twice]
"One" by Metallica -- it is probably my favorite song by them (closely rivaled by "Bleeding Me" and "Hero of the Day" from Load (1996)). It tells the story of a young man ravaged by World War I. He goes off to fight the Germans, but ends up being blown up by an artillery shell. His arms and legs are blown off, in addition to his face. However, he is kept alive by the miracles of "modern medicine" in the 1910's. The doctors think he is a vegetable, so they keep him alive, doing tests (none of which are physically painful).
"One" -- an ominously simple name
This music video is excellent, containing
video clips and sound bites from the film described below.
So very very good.
And now the song in violin (or cello? what are they playing?). (Warning: very epic cover)
The thrust of the story is how the man is trying to figure out whether he is alive or dead, sleeping or awake. This is his personal hell. He has no face, therefore he cannot see, no mouth, therefore he cannot speak, and no arms and legs to walk or run away with. He is helpless. He can do nothing. He tries to communicate with the medical staff by tapping his head on his pillow in Morse Code. The medical staff... well, I won't tell you how the story ends. The song is based off of a 1970's anti-war film called Johnny Got His Gun (1971), which was based off of an earlier novel. This movie is the subject of a very early post of mine, probably the first one I made on this blog, actually. (Not sure, but I think I reveal the ending of the movie in that post, so spoiler alert.) It is a favorite film of mine, and the song is one my favorites as well. It blends history, film and heavy metal all in one... no wonder it's so high on the list.
Despite the poor production, the album is excellent. Solid, straight through.
Favorite Lyrics: "I can't remember anything, can't tell if this is true or dream. Deep down inside I feel to scream, this terrible silence stops me . . . oh please god, help me." - One.
Album Cover: What do you think!? Amazing, of course! It has lady justice chained to a stone wall, trying to break free from her bonds. That is epic in any context, but when mixed with metal, it makes me feel uncontrollable urges that I rarely feel otherwise...
#3.
IRON MAIDEN: BRAVE NEW WORLD (2000)
I wrote an entire post about this album before. It was Iron Maiden's last album to have an "edge" all the way through. This is because it was perfectly produced. It wasn't sanitized, and the songs still have balls.
This is one of those rare albums that make me noticeably happy when it comes on, every time. It specifically reminds me of when I was 17, when I was still playing national tournament paintball, doing my thing, the thing that I love most. I used to be a janitor, when I was 17. I worked at a "classy" grocery store called Delicious Orchards in Colts Neck, NJ. Frequent shoppers were Queen Latifa, Bruce Springsteen, and some player (memory's fading) from the N.Y. Jets circa 2004-ish. Anyways, I remember playing it very loudly in my car on the way to and from work. I seriously never took this CD out of the player for weeks on end. "Ghost of the Navigator" blows me away every time. By far, however, my favorite song is "Blood Brothers." See my prior post about "Blood Brothers" for an explanation of why. The album also contains great songs like "Dream of Mirrors," "Brave New World," "Out of the Silent Planet," "The Thing Line Between Love and Hate," and "The Nomad." I don't dislike a single song on this album.
The album opens up with "Wicker Man," which is probably the most mundane song on the album (but not really mundane at all). I say "mundane" because it is just more of a straight-through rock song, versus the sweeping guitar and vocal melodies, coupled with the solid time changes, which characterize Maiden.
This album is excellently produced. It is not too modern (as in flat sounding), and it isn't quite a rough-cut, so to speak, where you can hear noise, and pretty much everything else you don't want to. It is Maiden's last well-produced album (well, Dance of Death (2003) wasn't done that bad, but Brave New World kind of overshadows that album in my opinion -- Brave New World is Dance of Death's older, more-successful, brother).
The back cover.
(From left to right: Janick Gers, Adrian Smith, Bruce Dickinson,
Nicko McBrain, Steve Harris, and Dave Murray)
The album just reminds me of another time -- an awesome time in my life.
Favorite Lyrics: I can't pick "favorite" lyrics from this album, because they are all very good, but here are some that I like: "And if you're taking a walk through the garden of life, what did you think you'd expect you would see? Just like a mirror reflecting the moves of your life, and in the river, reflections of me. Just for a second, a glimpse of my father I see. And in a movement he beckons to me. And in a moment the memories are all that remain. And all the wounds are reopening again. We're blood brothers, we're blood brothers!" - Blood Brothers
Album Cover: Pretty good. I like the shade of blueish-purple for some reason. It's always caught my eye. I like Eddie's face kind of being created out of the clouds, and the expansive city, the "brave new world," below.
#2
IRON MAIDEN: NUMBER OF THE BEAST (1982)
Woe to you, oh earth and sea, for the devil sends the beast with wrath, because he knows the time is short. Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number. It's number, is six-hundred and sixty-six. (written from memory) This is the opening to the classic song "Number of the Beast," by Iron effin' Maiden, from the classic album Number of the Beast. This album was the third studio album released by Iron Maiden, and the first one to feature new singer Bruce Dickinson. Well, suffice it to say that this Iron Maiden was completely different, apparently, from the first lineup with frontman Paul Di'Anno. Dickinson added a vocal element to the band, that few bands ever get (for this style of music). He doesn't have the range of some singers (Rob Halford, Freddie Mercury, or Ian Gillan, for example), but he has a powerful quasi-operatic quality, which is pretty damn unique. Plus, he is really fun to watch on stage, pretty much running back and forth non-stop, quite similar to a small dog.
The original music video for "Number of the Beast" --
1980's clothes and all.
For me, this is the pinnacle of 1980's heavy metal. Number of the Beast represents all that is good in the world (ironically, through satanic symbology). This album is when Iron Maiden was still hardcore to the bone. They wrote nasty-as-shit riffs, and just plowed through album after album. As mentioned in the last post in this series, they released Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind, and Powerslave, back-to-back, in years 1982, 1983, and 1984, respectively. This is damn impressive, considering the sheer quality of those albums.
Number of the Beast contains some of the best songs that Iron Maiden made. The album starts off with "Invaders," which could be called average by Maiden's standards. But the album immediately goes into "Children of the Damned," which is a slower, more percussion-driven song. It is a heavier song, setting the stage for the rest of the album, closing out with the classic fast-paced squealy guitars. Next comes "Prisoner," inspired by the British television show of the same name. The song opens with the memorable lines "Who is number 1?" "You are number 6." "I am not a number, I am a free man!" It next goes into "22 Acacia Avenue," which has the nastiest opening riff on the album. Next is "Number of the Beast," described supra. Next is "Run to the Hills," an Iron Maiden classic, likely their best known song, and which they use to close out most of their live shows. The song is about American Indians fighting the white man, and retreating into the hills. So good. Next is "Ganglands," the weakest song on the album, and is the only one I usually skip when listening. But it's okay, because they sandwich "Ganglands" in between two great songs, because the album closes out with the very very epic song "Hallowed be Thy Name." This song opens with a man sitting in a cold prison cell, awaiting his trip to the gallows. And builds and builds and builds until it ends with Bruce Dickinson howling "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, hallowed be thy name!" over and over again. It is certainly an amazing ending to an album, leaving you wanting more.
Later releases also included the song "Total Eclipse," which was excluded from the original album, probably for length reasons. It is a very good song, but I don't really know what it's about. It has some nice lyrics though.
Favorite Lyrics: "I'm waiting in my cold cell, when the bell begins to chime. Reflecting on my past life, and it doesn't have much time. 'Cause at 5 o'clock, they take me to the gallows pole. The sands of time, for me, are running low........ohhhh!" - Hallowed be Thy Name
Album Cover: Memorable, but otherwise average. It has the band's mascot, Eddie, being the puppet master for the devil, which is kind of funny. It has a unique color pattern, which is cool.
#1
BLACK SABBATH: HEAVEN AND HELL (1980)
Sing me a song, you're a singer! That's right folks, the intersection of Ronnie James Dio and Black Sabbath produced a few hellishly awesome albums, one being Heaven and Hell (the other two being Mob Rules (1981)and Dehumanizer (1992). Dehumanizer was surprisingly good, too, considering it was a one-off (ish)).
Rarely do you have two legends cross paths. Even more rarely do you have two legends cross paths and achieve something so mind-blowingly awesome. Contra Ian Gillan and Black Sabbath; David Bowie and Queen.
This album was the first Black Sabbath album after Ozzy Osbourne left the band in 1979, to go off on his highly successful solo career as the "prince of darkness" (giving us classic songs like "Crazy Train" and "Bark at the Moon"). People thought metal was dead, or on the decline. Sabbath was (and is, in many ways) the hallmark of metal. Without Sabbath, what was left? Much was riding on how Black Sabbath handled its vacancy at vocals. Enter Ronnie James Dio. Dio had been in Elf and Rainbow, two modestly successful hard rock bands in their own right (playing with the likes of Ritchie Blackmore, star guitarist of Deep Purple). Dio secured his place in the great halls of metal by joining Sabbath.
The song "Heaven and Hell"
Video from (probably) 1980.
Dio's time in Sabbath marked a departure from the style most associated with Ozzy. As Tony Iommi (Sabbath's legendary guitarist) said, paraphrasing, "Ozzy sang with the chords, while Dio sang across the chords." It's too much work to explain this, and it is only tangential, but those of you who are fans know what I'm talking about. Singing across the chords gave Dio more freedom, and let the power of his vocals really show. Iommi picked up the intensity of his guitar riffs, and the overall pace of the songs increased when Dio joined the band. Clearly, Black Sabbath was entering the 1980's.
Heaven and Hell was forged out of this backdrop. They lucked out, and scored an awesome album, even with the departure of Ozzy Osbourne -- a legend. Heaven and Hell has some awesome songs. My favorites are "Children of the Sea," "Lady Evil," "Neon Knights," "Die Young," "Lonely is the Word," and of course, "Heaven and Hell." Everything on that album is awesome: excellent percussion, excellent bass lines (simple and elegant), harsh, heavy, yet simple, guitar riffs (except for the solo, which is un-simple), garnished with the most powerful voice in hard rock and heavy metal history.
Dio wrote very symbolically. His lyrics conjured hardcore imagery in your mind. He sang about demons, wizards, kings and queens. His songs are about angels, fools, ships, and long voyages on the ocean. He paints pictures with his words. Sure, they are cheesy and not "hip," but I think that's the point -- it's just music, have fun with it.
R.I.P. Dio. 1942-2010.
Favorite Lyrics: [For you, Sharkmann:] "Sing me a song, you're a singer. Do me a wrong, you're a bringer of evil. The devil is never a maker, the less that you give, you're a taker. So it's on and on and on, it's heaven and hell, oh well." and "The world is full of kings and queens, who blind your eyes and steal your dreams, it's heaven and hell, oh well." - Heaven and Hell
Album Cover: Probably my favorite album cover of all. I bet Number of the Beast would be my favorite album of all time if it had a better cover. Basically, in this case, the album cover is the tie-breaker, and the grammy goes to Heaven and Hell hands-down. It has three angels, wearing awesomely gray robes, smoking cigarettes and gambling. The art is simple, and says a lot about people -- the duality of man, I suppose. This makes the message transcend the music... almost. >;-)
Honorable Mentions: Appetite for Destruction (Guns N Roses), Iron Maiden (Iron Maiden), Piece of Mind (Iron Maiden), Powerslave (Iron Maiden), British Steel (Judas Priest), Sin After Sin (Judas Priest), Load (Metallica).
Fin.
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Want to know what it feels like to be at a Black Sabbath concert? No? That's no fun. Well, I'll tell you anyway. It's pretty awesome. Obviously you will never know what it's truly like unless you go. But! I found this really awesome video of the boys totally causing thunder and lightning in the arena.
You really get a feel for the heaviness of the bass here... you get a feel for just, mwaha, just, mwaha, just what exactly they are capable of!! Mwahahahaha! *evil laugh*
After watching this video on my laptop speakers I realize how unimpressive it is. You really need real speakers to listen to it with the bass turned up some. Then, and only then, is it any good. Please forgive me for the lameness of this post, otherwise. What can I do to make it up to you?
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Before I kick off into a treatise on the greatest heavy metal singers, I wanted to quickly note that I have successfully got back my old blog posts. I have moved them over to this blog. The only thing is that the videos didn't keep the original formatting I gave them when the HTML was saved, so they are slightly larger than the content column in the middle of the page. No worries, it's just an aesthetic matter. Now on to the fun stuff.
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Greatest Metal Singers of All Time
This is all made up from my own personal favorites, not based on real music knowledge, haha. With that said, there are two factors which make an awesome metal voice. One is the epic-ness of the voice, and second is the badass-ness. A combination of these two factors gives the singer a higher score on my list. Some singers are better at being epic, and others are better at being badass. You can have some people who are so damn epic, but have no badassness, that their epic quality alone carries them to a high spot on the list. You can also have the opposite, where the badassness puts them high on the list.
How do I rate them? What's my methodology? Duh, I make it up. The max score a person can get is 100%, this can be made of a combination of the two factors, or one alone. It is nearly impossible to get 100% by one of those factors alone, because then your voice probably isn't metal -- it's probably [insert a music genre which is known for epic singers] or hardcore (which isn't heavy metal, let's get that straight from the outset).
So here is the list. The list will start at the top with the least-best and work its way up to the best, by cumulative score. Note: these percentages reflect the singer's voice, not their persona.
1) Ronnie James Dio (Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Dio, Heaven and Hell). 250,000,000% Badass; 4,035,000% Badass. 254,035,000% EPIC AWESOME total.
Ronnie James Dio
(his epic singing kicks in around 1:45)
Ronnie James Dio recently died of stomach cancer. So sad. He was and forever will be, the man (even though he was like four feet tall, his voice was about 9 million feet tall).
The early Rock pantheon is occupied by only a few hallowed souls. But who makes this short list? Where did the best genre of music come from? We have to consider, at least, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin as the primary founders. If these bands were late 18th Century American statesmen, then they would rank up there with Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton... undoubtedly.
Indeed, veritable historians believe that the two histories -- that of the American founding and of Heavy Metal -- may have been intertwined. Some recently discovered evidence indicates that Ben Franklin was a satanist, and that he mistook Black Sabbath as an ally. In fact, Black Sabbath wasn't a Satan tribute band, and in addition, they were quite the opposite of an ally. Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin, being ENGLISH, were the enemy! (duh)
Veritable historians believe that Ben Franklin
may have been the first Black Sabbath fan... and a satanist.
Because of Mr. Franklin's mis-perception of the Founding Fathers of Heavy Metal ("FFHM"), he adamantly supported them. At late hours, eyewitnesses occasionally saw him wearing heavy metal t-shirts -- which must have been really odd apparel for the time period. He was also seen shopping at Hot Topic once.
One of Mr. Franklin's other favorite bands was the mighty Led Zeppelin. This morning I heard one of their songs playing over the system in my apartment building... which is awesome, by the way. Quick aside: My building plays some random ass music, but it's always awesome -- from 99 Luft Balons to Land Down Under (hilarious music video).
You should know who Led Zeppelin is. If you don't, then I hate you, and you should rethink your life. I mean seriously, Led Zep has become a music icon... unlike Uriah Heep (whom I'll cover in a post down the line). Zeppelin started in 1968, and by the 70's were in full swing as (what I call) a proto-metal hard rock band. They did crap-tons of drugs, and probably sexed lots of women. They are often cited as one of the FFHM, contemporaneous with Black Sabbath and Deep Purple.
Now, it is hard to say exactly where metal came from -- most say Black Sabbath, which is likely -- but there are some examples of early songs that were very metal indeed. In-a-gadda-da-vida is surely a proto-metal song, but Iron Butterfly, despite having a kick ass freggin' name, were quite low on the Iron, and very high on the Butterfly (and drugs, I mean c'mon "In-a-gadda-da-vida"? Really? In the garden of eden, perhaps?). So while you have an early band, with a kick ass song, and name, the band was definitely not metal. They are like the Vikings discovering America -- they discovered the best thing in the world, once, but they just didn't recognize it at the time.
Leif Ericsson c. 1000 A.D.
Some fools actually cite a Beatles song (Ticket to Ride) as an early metal song. The Beatles were the Beatles. They were good at what they did, I guess. But they were not metal... please. I really don't see a plausible argument for saying the song Ticket to Ride is metal.. at all. Proponents say that it is metal because of its repetitive bass line. ...Well those people are idiots, and clearly know nothing about metal (after all, they are Beatles fans). See, e.g., Cliff Burton; Steve Harris; Geddy Lee (for an example of an epic bass-player-front-man with a metal as shit voice (at 4:07; also, the RUSH guys look like they are having lots of fun early-on in this video)).
