September 2022 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs & More

Another month gone by which is good news because it means more Vinyl, CDs, books and even a DVD have been added the collection. And we are kicking this month off a very pleasant surprise from a good friend of 2 Loud 2 Old Music. Mr. Books himself, Aaron, from KeepsMeAlive.com has sent yet another care package. The man believes in giving! This time around we got 2 books and 2 CDs all the way from the Great White North. Be careful what you say in the comments on his site as you are bound to wind up with it. Aaron knows my love for Idol and I have made comments before about the other 3 items…and now I have them. Thanks Aaron…and yes, he left a little note as usual!!

Now to start the month out, during labor day weekend, 2nd & Charles had their buy 5 get 5 free sale and so I hit up the CDs section and stuck to the 5 and 5 rule. Here is the 5 I bought…

And the five I got for free…or vice versa, however you want to look at it…

Continue reading “September 2022 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs & More”

June 2022 Purchases – Vinyl, CDs, Cassettes & More

Summer has been heating up and so did the purchases for this month. This month had some serious quality for me and at the same time some quantity as well. And the month came in with a bang as all my Def Leppard albums I ordered finally made it in. When I say “all”, I mean the new one and all the formats I ordered. I’m starting to like it too!

And it kept on going with a huge sale at 2nd & Charles having a buy 5 CDs get 5 CDs free and I took advantage of that discount. My daughter joined me and picked up some DVDs and CDs as the sale applied to those as well. First batch is all Kiss!!

And then a selection of great artists…

Continue reading “June 2022 Purchases – Vinyl, CDs, Cassettes & More”

February 2022 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs

February is over so it is time for our monthly round-up of what 2 Loud 2 Old Music got their hands on this month and it was another banner month. It all started with a trip to the antique mart called Sleepy Poets. My daughter loves that place and I don’t mind because there are records and I found a couple good ones. One was the only early Stryper album I was missing and the other was one of my mother’s favorite bands Air Supply so I had to buy it. I miss her a lot so it will be something in my collection that when I am really, really missing her I can pull out and play.

Then the following week, my daughter wanted to hit more antique shops as she loves to find old vintage clothes at not a too ridiculous of a price. The first place we hit in Mathews said it was an antique place, but really it was a record store and now I have another great place to go buy albums!! Yeah me!! I found some great vinyl, CDs, singles and cassettes…they had it all. First are the albums, which are an early pressing of Mariah Carey’s debut on vinyl and a Billy Idol 12″ Single of Mony Mony.

Continue reading “February 2022 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs”

The Top Albums of 2021

2021 was not quite as strange as 2020 as things started to get back to normal. I got out to see a couple concerts and back to digging in the record stores and even went in to the office a few times.  Covid pushed back a lot of albums in 2020 and they finally came out in 2021. Some were worth the wait and well, some weren’t.  But there were some great releases and I am sure I missed a number of great albums and if you look around the web, there will be tons of Top Album lists you can get a pretty good idea of what you should check out in case you missed any of these.

This year I am doing things a little different.  I am only doing one list post, but that list will be centered around my Favorite Rock Albums of the year.  At the end I’ll give you my Top 5 Non-Rock Albums of the year as I didn’t listen to a ton of new releases this year as I was focused so much on my Kiss, Judas Priest, Queen and now Cheap Trick & Aerosmith Series.  That took a lot of time.

Also note, these are MY FAVORITES!!  These are not the most popular or trendy albums.  You won’t find the cool trendy bands, because they are usually here today gone tomorrow.  These are the albums that I connected with during the year and I kept coming back to again and again.  And without further adieu, here are the Top Rock Albums of 2020:

THE TOP ROCK ALBUMS OF 2021:

#10 – Eclipse – ‘Wired’:

71-t49UrImL._SX522_ Eclipse is a melodic rock / glam rock /hard rock band out of Sweden and let me tell you Sweden knows how to pump out these bands. I think there are more rock bands in Sweden then there are people.  It is just a guess.  The two original guys, Erik Martensson and Magnus Henriksson. are back with their 9th album and they keep delivering.  Erik’s vocals are killer and Magnus can lay down some riffs.  The three opening tracks, “Roses On Your Grave”, “Dying Breed” and “Saturday Night (Hallelujah)” just suck you in and you know you are in good hands and just along for the ride at this point. Continue reading “The Top Albums of 2021”

REMINDER: ENGINEER AND MIXER RYAN WILLIAMS ON THE SATURDAY LEBRAIN TRAIN

A friendly reminder that Ryan Williams will be joining us on a Special Saturday Edition of the LeBrain Train…

Mike LeBrain and I will be interviewing a well-respected engineer and mixer in the music business who started out working with one of the biggest producers of all time Brendan O’Brien. Not a bad way to learn the business. Join us why we walk through Ryan’s career and all the great bands he has worked with and some interesting stories about some things that happened along the way. By the way, Ryan is my brother-in-law so I know the deep dark secrets…kidding…or am I?????

The LeBrain Train: 2000 Words or More with Mike and John Snow

Saturday July 3 – Episode 74 – Ryan Williams

Have you ever had anything with your name on it nominated for a Grammy award?  Ryan Williams has — for his work on Train’s Drops of Jupiter, Velvet Revolver’s Contraband, and Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger.  And we’ll be talking to him about it on Saturday’s LeBrain Train.

Join John Snow and I for this special Saturday episode with a very in-demand engineer.  How much demand?  Well, besides Stone Temple Pilots, he’s either engineered or mixed for Matt Nathanson, 3 Doors Down, Lifehouse, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Pearl Jam, Outkast, Staind, Michelle Branch, The Panic Channel, Phil Collen’s Delta Deep, Korn, Static-X, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Biffy Clyro, 10 Years, Atreyu, Mastodon, Billy Idol, P!nk, Sugar Ray, Deftones, Adam Lambert, Coheed & Cambria, The Black Dahlia Murder, Bush, Neon Trees, and Beck.  He even has a co-write on a Kelly Clarkson song.  Is that enough demand for ya?

This is going to be a great chance for us to pick the brain of a guy who has literally worked with the biggest names in modern music.  You do not want to miss this one — catch it live so we can ask Ryan your questions!

Saturday July 3, 1:00 PM E.S.T. on Facebook:  MikeLeBrain and YouTube:  Mike LeBrain.

ENGINEER AND MIXER RYAN WILLIAMS ON THE SATURDAY LEBRAIN TRAIN

Mike LeBrain and I will be interviewing a well-respected engineer and mixer in the music business who started out working with one of the biggest producers of all time Brendan O’Brien. Not a bad way to learn the business. Join us why we walk through Ryan’s career and all the great bands he has worked with and some interesting stories about some things that happened along the way. By the way, Ryan is my brother-in-law so I know the deep dark secrets…kidding…or am I?????

The LeBrain Train: 2000 Words or More with Mike and John Snow

Saturday July 3 – Episode 74 – Ryan Williams

Have you ever had anything with your name on it nominated for a Grammy award?  Ryan Williams has — for his work on Train’s Drops of Jupiter, Velvet Revolver’s Contraband, and Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger.  And we’ll be talking to him about it on Saturday’s LeBrain Train.

Join John Snow and I for this special Saturday episode with a very in-demand engineer.  How much demand?  Well, besides Stone Temple Pilots, he’s either engineered or mixed for Matt Nathanson, 3 Doors Down, Lifehouse, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Pearl Jam, Outkast, Staind, Michelle Branch, The Panic Channel, Phil Collen’s Delta Deep, Korn, Static-X, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Biffy Clyro, 10 Years, Atreyu, Mastodon, Billy Idol, P!nk, Sugar Ray, Deftones, Adam Lambert, Coheed & Cambria, The Black Dahlia Murder, Bush, Neon Trees, and Beck.  He even has a co-write on a Kelly Clarkson song.  Is that enough demand for ya?

This is going to be a great chance for us to pick the brain of a guy who has literally worked with the biggest names in modern music.  You do not want to miss this one — catch it live so we can ask Ryan your questions!

Saturday July 3, 1:00 PM E.S.T. on Facebook:  MikeLeBrain and YouTube:  Mike LeBrain.

Limp Bizkit – The Albums Ranked Worst to First

I know what you are thinking, all their albums should be labeled the Worst. However, that is not the case. I am not a huge fan of the band by any means, I am trying to shake things up a little and try different things with my posts and I thought why not really stretch it and tackle Limp Bizkit. I will admit to liking a few songs, but I don’t actually own anything by them so thanks to Apple Music for giving me the means to do a fair assessment without spending any more money that my monthly Apple Membership fee.

Nowdays, a person wearing a “Red” hat is labeled a racist, Trump supporting pig. That is right, the MAGA Hats. Well back in the late 90’s, there was another reason to hate the “Red” hat and that was because people loved to hate the backwards “red” hat wearing lead singer of Limp Bizkit, Fred Durst. Man, people loved to hate this guy.

The band was labeled as Nu-Metal and they brought in elements of hip hop, rap, metal, funk and rock. A whole smorgasbord of sounds. They were all over MTV and a massive success, but that success turned to hate really fast thanks to the controversial Fred. It was worse hate than poor Nickelback get for their success. Anyway, we are going to tackle their studio albums and I will try to let you know which ones I think are the best and in the order I rank them. I am not judging the band or its members, just focusing on the music or whatever you want to call it.

Continue reading “Limp Bizkit – The Albums Ranked Worst to First”

Tuesday’s Memes – Limp Bizkit

I must be running out of ideas if I am doing a collection of Limp Bizkit memes!  What the heck, I might as well as there are plenty to choose from.  Love them or hate them or love to hate them, whatever it is, I hope you get a kick out of the memes.  They made it so easy to hate them so let’s celebrate that fact…enjoy!

Let’s do a political one to start…

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The songs…

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Continue reading “Tuesday’s Memes – Limp Bizkit”