Month: August 2021

August 2021 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs

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Wow, how time has flown. Summer is winding down, school is back in session and we had a big month here at the 2 Loud 2 Old Music home life. Our oldest daughter turned 18 and moved off to college the very next day. A very happy and sad time in our life. And my youngest became a freshman herself in High School. Man, they grow up so fast. And usually when I have these big moments that make me happy and yet sad, I drown that sad part in purchases and I have to say, there were a few this month and so we might as well get to it…

To start it off, the first album on the list this month is one that came out on July 30th, but I didn’t get the album in time for the July post so it kicks off this month’s post. The brand new album by Needtobreathe called “Into the Mystery” and my copy is CD. I also have the Vinyl on order but due to delays we won’t see that until November which is why I have the CD now.

Then my daughter and I were out and I picked up a few random items. First was bought at Manifest Disc in the used CD section and was something I have already, but didn’t. It was a limited deluxe edition CD with a 64 page mini-magazine of Kiss’ Monster. I have this one on vinyl, but this was too cheap and cool to pass up.

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Billy Idol – “Cradle of Love” – 7″ Single (The Billy Idol Series – Bonus Edition)

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If you remember a couple months back, I bought about 21 7″ Singles and in that were a couple of Billy Idol Singles. The first one is for the single, “Cradle of Love”, which was the first single off his 1990 album, ‘Charmed Life’. The single was released on April 17, 1990 and the album came out 2 weeks later on May 1, 1990. This was the first time Billy had released a song, or an album, without Steve Stevens on guitar (except for his debut E.P.). The song is the highest charting Billy Idol song going all the way to #2 in the U.S. and it went #1 on the Mainstream Rock Chart which is the one and only time he has done that as well. What was the song that kept him from the #1 slot…well, it was Mariah Carey’s “Vision of Love” which was her debut and we know what happened to her.

The A-Side, “Cradle of Love”, was for the Andrew Dice Clay movie, ‘The Adventures of Ford Fairlane’. The song is about a whole slew of cradle-robbing rockers like Jerry Lee Lewis.  It is a classic Billy Idol song and has everything you know and love about his sound. It showed he could do it without Steve Stevens. The song was written by Billy Idol and David Werner and the song on this single is actually the album version of the song and not a remix which is okay because the B-Side is the treasure here and we will get to that shortly.

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My Sunday Song – “Jesus Came to Tennessee” by Will Hoge

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For My Sunday Song #262, we are talking about “Jesus Came to Tennessee” by Will Hoge. The song is off one of Will’s protest E.P.s called ‘Modern American Protest Music’ from 2012. The whole album is Will speaking out about what was going on in America at the time and there will be another song we highlight from this E.P. That will be two songs out of ten that will come from an E.P. and not an album and that should tell you what I think about the E.P.

This one is where the lyrics need to be read as it is totally and utterly brilliant. The song is a fictional story about Jesus coming down to Tennessee and visited with Will. It is a conversation he and Jesus had as they drove around Tennessee. It is hilarious at times no doubt with Jesus saying the following…

And I’ll call off this doomsday end of the world and I can go back home
“It gets wild when I leave Daddy and John Lennon up there all alone”

But most of it is commentary to how badly we have screwed up things down here. Will and his wife had a child out of wedlock, but Jesus says thats okay as he was born out of wedlock as well. Jesus sees all the war and poverty and how we treat the gays and He is ready to pull the plug on us. Will asks Jesus if he wants to watch Fox or CNN and Jesus says he just wants to hear the truth. And then Jesus calls off the Doomsday when he sees the little children of all different races and sexes playing together with no cares about race or anything. Jesus then said maybe there is hope. Which reminds us that racism is learned and not natural. There is so much great stuff in this song that you need to listen to it more than once. Here is one more line that I love…

I yelled, “One more thing Jesus, could you help me write some hits?”
And in a big voice he said that “I will, if you quit writin’ songs like this”

I love that line as it shows that Will doesn’t take himself serious and has a great sense of humor. I’m telling you, this guy is pure gold!! I could dissect every line in this song and relate to current events, but I think you will pick up on it easily enough when you hear it. It is a combination of everything that is wrong with our country right now and some hope that we could fix it.

Musically, it is a country style track and Will speaks-sings the lyrics like some old-school outlaw country track. It is a simple beat the whole time and Will goes through the whole conversation with Jesus. There isn’t too much to it as this song is all about the lyrics so listen close and take it all in.

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Friday New Releases – August 27, 2021

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Welcome to the final Friday New Release post in August and let me tell you there are a bunch to choose from this week. There are over 50 new albums to pick from so sit back and get on scrolling as I am sure you will find something you like. There are a handful I want to hear, but nothing I am running out to buy at this time. The ones I want to hear are marked in Blue. Let me know what you see that you want to hear and let me know what I might have missed that came out this week so everyone will know. Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

  • 81JBdQH7PhS._SX522_  Brian Setzer – Gotta Have the Rumble – (Surfdog): Brian Setzer, former front man of The Stray Cats, is back with another solo album. I am hoping for some good old rockabilly as no one does it better. His singing and guitar playing are exceptional and I am always ready for a good time from Setzer.
  • download  Big Red Machine – How Long Do You Think It’s Going to Last? – (Jagjaguwar / 37d03d): I know nothing about this band, but keep seeing good things about it so I am going to venture out and try this one. The band is Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon and the music is indie/alt/folktronica which I didn’t even know was a thing. We will see how it turns out.
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Queensryche – ‘Operation: Mindcrime’ Super Deluxe Edition – Box Set Review

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What is one of the greatest concept albums of all time? That is right! It is the Queensryche masterpiece, ‘Operation: Mindcrime’. The band is celebrating this album with a Super Deluxe Edition Box Set and it is full or wonderful things. You get 4 CDs, 1 DVD and a book all included in a wonderful and sturdy box. It look like a lot of time was spent on the packaging. And if you look at the back cover, it tells you everything you are going to get…or does it? More on that later.

Before we get to the meat of the box set, the CDs and DVD are housed in a tri-fold cardboard sleeve that is all black with the exception of the logo on the front. The CDs slide in to slots on each side while the DVD is housed in its own mini-cardboard sleeve which slides in to its slot in the middle fold. It is not my favorite way to house CDs as you have to be careful not to scratch them when you insert or pull it out.

The Front Cover
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Judas Priest – ‘Nostradamus’ (2008) – Album Review (The Complete Albums Collection Series)

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For the band’s sixteenth studio album, they went somewhere they had never gone before and really pushed the boundaries of what they could do. “Nostradamus” was going to be a concept album about the man himself, Nostradamus. The idea was brought to the band by their manager, Bill Curbishley, way back in 2005. Eventually the band came around and work started on the album in 2006 and went through 2007. The album finally saw the light of day on June 16, 2008 and saw the band get their highest charting album to date at #11 (now realize that was only sales of 42,000 and in 2008 that had become a lot as album sales were way down).

The band would shed their speed and thrash metal sound and stick strictly to a more symphonic metal sound so if you were expecting anything from before you were in a shock. This was going to be so different than anything else they had done. The album turned in to a 2 CD set with 23 tracks and over a 103 minutes worth of music. You were taken on a journey through the life of Nostradamus and would get songs about his notorious prophecies and about the man himself. You can tell by the titles of the songs on the first disc they are about some dark prophecies that talk about war and the basically the end of the world. The album is full of orchestrated moments and even choirs and if you are looking for the classic Halford scream, you will only get that on the very rare occasion. Rob sings more in an operatic singing style and fits the music perfectly. This is the band stretching their limits and really reaching for the stars.

The band is still Rob Halford, K.K. Downing, Glenn Tipton, Ian Hill and Scott Travis on drums. Don Airey is still on keyboards and then you have Pete Whitfield who handles all the string instrumentation. The band was hitting on all cylinders and have given an album that has to be listened to as an album and from front to back in the order intended to get the full effect and follow along. And due to the length of the album there is no way we are going to go through song by song in any great detail so forgive me. I will stick with the highlights and there are many.

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AC/DC – “Through The Mists of Time” / “Witch’s Spell” – 12″ Limited Edition Picture Disc (RSD 2021 Release)

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I really like Picture Discs. I find them quite beautiful and a wonderful piece to add to the collection. I doesn’t even matter if that is not a new song, bonus track, live version or rare track on the release. I still like to have them. For the June 12, 2021 Record Store Day, AC/DC had a limited edition picture disc that I didn’t even realize was being released. I only caught it because I was online and ordering the Def Leppard RSD release and noticed it. So, I added it to the cart, and sold!!

The Picture Disc is for the song “Through the Mists of Time” and the B-Side is “Witch’s Spell”. Both are on the new release Power Up and not some special mix or anything else that I can see. This is a Limited Edition and that means there are only 5,000 copies. I don’t know what number mine is as it doesn’t say that anywhere on the packaging. Mine has a sticker that says 14280, but that is handwritten and I think was added by the local store. No idea what it means but don’t want to peel it off. The release was made in the Czech Republic based on a sticker that is on the back. There is a Record Store Day Sticker on the front as well plus a little obit type strip at the top (no Japanese on it though) that lists the band and the song info on the back. And that is all there is to it.

On Side A is “Through The Mists of Time” and I love the white background with the band and speaks wrapping around the front. It is a cool shot. Speaking of cool, the coolest song on the album is “Through the Mists of Time” which is not a normal AC/DC title. It harkens back more to a Zeppelin title and has this nostalgic feel to it. And let me tell you what a breath of fresh air this song is and might be one of the best songs on the album. Over 40 years and they still can throw surprises at you. 

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Freddie Mercury: A Life, In His Own Words by Freddie Mercury, Greg Brooks and Simon Lupton – Book Review

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In going through Amazon’s Kindle book, I found this book on Freddie Mercury and thought I would give it a try. The book is called ‘Freddie Mercury: A Life, In his Own Words by Freddie Mercury, Greg Brooks and Simon Lupton. Now, it says by Freddie Mercury but that is very misleading as Freddie was not involved with this book as he had long since passed. It is not an Autobiography. The book is actually a collection of interviews that Freddie had done over the years and they were pieced together here to let you hear from Freddie and what he was thinking. A pretty cool idea, however, it didn’t work in the way I am sure they were hoping it would.

Here are the problems…First…the book is in no real chronological order. It doesn’t really tell the story of Queen or really Freddie in any kind of sequential order. It is all over the place timeline wise. Second…it doesn’t go in depth on Queen much at all. So, if you are looking for a deep dive in to the inner workings of Queen, albums or tours, you will be sadly bored to tears. And third…it is very repetitive, It is very repetitive and it is very repetitive. I can’t tell you how many times we have to hear about how much Freddie likes to spend money, how much the real Freddie is not like the stage Freddie and how lonely and few friends he has. Those are all interesting story points true, but these interviews mention it time and time and time again.

What did they get right? Well, the concept is really cool. I did like hearing Freddie talk about the struggles of being famous, his battle with being lonely and his inner thoughts about getting old. As I said, they are truly interesting bits to learn about they just didn’t need to rammed down our throats a hundred times. The man does have an ego as he knows how good he really was, but that ego is squashed by how charming he can be in an interview. Heck, I did have fun reading the book in Freddie’s voice. In my mind I am putting the inflections on the headvoice as I am reading the same way I remember how Freddie would say things. He was flamboyant, he was over-the-top and he was Freddie Mercury, but you do get to see the other side of him which is quite nice to learn.

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My Sunday Song – “The Overthrow” by Will Hoge

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For My Sunday Song #261, we are going to tackle 10 songs from one of my favorite artist, Will Hoge. First up is the song “The Overthrow” off his 2020 album, ‘Tiny Little Movies’. The album is so raw and honest and this song is no different. Will has a way of painting a picture of America’s landscape with his lyrics and he doesn’t hold back on this one.

Will doesn’t intentionally write political charged songs, they tend to write themselves I would guess. When he puts pen to paper and plays that first chord, I imagine the song takes on a life of its own. This song dives in to the deep end and takes on the President of the U.S.A. and many might not appreciate his candor. With lyrics like “Darth Vader with a spray tan” pretty much tells you who he is talking about. He talks about how the man is tearing the country apart and that the people about to stand up and take it all back. They are going to Overthrow him with their votes and send his ass packing and that is what happened.

Musically, it is one of Will’s heaviest, rocking tracks and won’t be typical of what I have for you with this series but I wanted to start with a bang and this one does it. It is dirty, gritty, raw and is like a fist to the face. It is straight up rock & rolll with a little punk edge at least that is what I get from it. Will’s gritty vocals are a perfect match to the music. For me, the drums and that guitar are the highlights as they are both so powerful and are making a statement just like the lyrics. It all blends together perfectly with the vocals and you get a song that grabs hold, shakes you a little and doesn’t let go. Hold on tight!

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You Pick It! – Which Album to Review in September? (Updated)

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NOTE: I had to make a change to the New Release – KK’s Priest was moved to October 1st as release date so would now not be out in time to review for September. Sorry for the last minute change. I think Iron Maiden is a suitable replacement.

You, my reader, are going to pick an album for me to review each month.  It is really simple…first, I will give you 5 albums to choose from and second, you will tell me which one of those you would like to see reviewed on the site.  See…simple!

There are a few simple rules I have put in to place in my selections.  They are…

  • One has to be a new release (within the last month)
  • One has to be one I have never heard before (new releases don’t count for this one)
  • One has to be from a genre I don’t normally listen to at all or very often
  • And the last two are choices from my collection that I haven’t reviewed before

What are the 5 albums you ask?  Funny you should ask because I have those right here…

  New Release – Iron Maiden – “Senjutsu”

  Never Heard Before – Captain Beefheart – ‘Trout Mask Replica’

  Not My Normal Genre – Dr. John, ‘GRIS-Gris’

  From My Collection – Neal Schon – ‘Late Nite’

  From My Collection – U2 – ‘The Joshua Tree’

Let me know which one you would like to see and sometime in September, I will post a review of the album that gets the most votes. You have one week to decide and from there I will start listening to the album and do a review.

Thanks for participating!!