Song of the Year:


* Weezer - Perfect Situation

Sure, it might lack the magic that "Buddy Holly" had all those years ago, but this year Weezer proved that they haven't lost their touch, no matter what the hordes of trolls that call themselves fans on message boards want to claim. Make Believe was a solid album of pop songs that didn't live up to the legacy of the Blue Album, but was better than the Green Album, Maladroit, and even Pinkerton. Fans don't like to admit it, but Pinkerton is not as good as they want to think, and it's only confused as being good because some people have the messed up logic that quirky lyrics about obscure detail means a song is good. That's not true, and it's about time someone says it. "Perfect Situation" is a great pop song, and their best single since "Buddy Holly". A rolling melody over piano chords, and a wordless chorus combine to provide an anthem that everyone can relate to. Honestly; who can't relate to "Oh oh, oh oh, oh woah, oh"? It all comes down to the fact that music is supposed to be fun, and this song was more fun than any of the others that I heard on the radio or saw on tv this year.


The Top Ten:


10. Foo Fighters - In Your Honor

When the Foo Fighters decided to make a double album, I was wondering just how insane Dave Grohl has gone over the years. I know that their last album, One By One, wasn't accepted all that well by critics, but for a band that has displayed no sort of epic vision to say that they're going to basically record two separate albums at the same time means that something has usually gone wrong with them. The 'rock' album portion is the same old stuff for them, which is good enough. They're a lot better than most of the generic rock that fills the airwaves. The acoustic disc is the weird part. A couple of the songs have cool arrangements, but the disc gets boring very fast, since Dave doesn't really write the greatest of melodies. Even Norah Jones can't save the song she appears on.

9. Opeth - Ghost Reveries

I don't know if it's fair to call them my favorite death metal band, since I'm not sure that they're a death metal band, and I'm not sure if I even like anything that you could call death metal anyway. Ghost Reveries, thankfully, plays down the metal stuff in favor of a more prog influence, and it works much better than some of their older stuff. While it's not as good as Blackwater Park is, it's a marked improvement over the rest of their catalogue. Now if only we could get them to stop with the growling....

8. Nightmare of You - Nightmare of You

Everything that I've read about these people says that they sound like The Smiths with Billy Joe from Green Day singing. I don't know how accurate that it, but they're a nice enough version of that description to make me happy. It's not the greatest music, but it's different than most of the stuff out there. Plus, how can you not love lines like "I want to be buried in your backyard/And when the flowers grow/Just know you're still in my heart." It's morbid, funny, and the perfect update of The Smith's "There is a Light That Never Goes Out".

7. Diamond Nights - Popsicle

With bands like The Darkness bringing classic rock back into the pop consciousness, it's only natural that there would be even more of them out there. Popsicle is underproduced, and inherently retro. Everything from the guitar tone to the swagger strikes of the 70's, and it's just good fun. They're a more serious version of the Darkness, and would be the AC/DC to the Darkness' Queen. I'm sure that you haven't heard this before, and I'm not going to urge you to go and find it, but if you do, it's a decently fun way to waste some time. It's better than the album that the Darkness put out this year.

6. Demons and Wizards - Touched by the Crimson King

Demons and Wizards is the now two album spinoff of both Blind Guardian and Iced Earth. The amazing thing is that something good has come from the two boring bands. Iced Earth is boring, and Blind Guardian is pretentious to the point of being unbearable, yet Demons and Wizards is neither. Inlike their debut, this album is more acoustic, and more moody. This is nice, since it's when Jon Shaeffer is writing his 'thrash' riffs that he gets boring. When he's trying to sound like someone other than himself, he's good. That's the case here, and for the most part, everything fits together well. There's some odd bones to pick (like their cover of "Immigrant Song"), but nothing that will detract from this being a solid little album that fortunately proves that Shaeffer doesn't need to have his hands chopped off by the metal gods just yet.

5. Blues Traveler - Bastardos

I might be one of the few, but I like the second incarnation of Blues Traveler. Unlike most fans, my favorite album from the band is not one of the first three. I like the fact that they "sold out". I'm not afraid to admit that, and I'm also not afraid to admit that I like this album. There's nothing amazing on it, there's no hit singles, but there's enough solid songs that it doesn't matter. Sure, there might not be anything as good as "Hook" here, but there's also nothing nearly as bad as their jammy early garbage. They know how to write songs, and this shows why. Plus, after two albums without much use of it, the harmonica is back to it's former place as the front instrument in the band.

4. Edguy - Superheroes (EP)

You all know that I have a love for Edguy, the least serious power metal band in the world. Sure, they aren't really power metal anymore, but they're still a lot of fun. Even though it's just an EP, this is still more quality music than you'll find in most places this year. "Judas at the Opera" might be the single weirdest lyrical song that I've ever seen that doesn't involve R Kelly, but it's so over the top that it's stunning. This is just a teaser for the full length Rocket Ride, which I've already heard and reviewed, and is probably going to end up being album of the year next year.

3. Wallflowers - Rebel, Sweetheart

I'm going to go through this paragraph without mentioning Bob Dylan, except for when I just did. The Wallflowers are indeed still around, and they're still putting out good records. The only one that you remember, Bringing Down the Horse, was good, but both Breach and this one are better. Rebel, Sweetheart is a solid album of rootsy rock songs that defy the conventions of pop music by having hooks and smart lyrics. Who would have thought that both could coexist? Jakob might not be the best singer, but that never stopped his father. Oh wait, I just mentioned him again. My bad. Still, The Wallflowers are carrying the tradition of Tom Petty into this millenium, even if no one asked for that to happen.

2. Bruce Dickinson - Tyranny of Souls

While Iron Maiden is happy releasing what seems like three new live albums every year, Bruce Dickinson decided to use his off time from the band for a good purpose. Tyranny of Souls is a better album than any of his other solo releases, and it's also better than the Iron Maiden releases since his return. The songs are a nice mix of hard rock and Maiden style fantasy metal, and Bruce shows that his voice hasn't given out on him yet, even though it should have by now. He can't really sing anything but high notes anymore, but that's all that anyone ever wanted from him in the first place. It doesn't hurt that the title track is ne of the best songs of the year. "Speaking tongues of fire/Inflaming our desire/Watching as we die upon the cross." Simple, yet effective.

1. Weezer - Make Believe

I said most of what needs to be said in the paragraph regarding "Perfect Situation", so there's not much left for me to say. Make Believe is a really good pop album, and as the old cliche goes, "there's nothing better than a good three minute pop song." Make Believe is a nice step up from the subpar Green Album and Maladroit, both of which I did enjoy anyway. Aside from "Beverly Hills" getting annoying if you listen to it too many times, the rest of the album is all saccharine pop that recalls the fact that Rivers Cuomo knows how to write hooks as well as anyone in the business. His voice has also come back into form, as he actually surprises with how powerful his performances are. The odds are that an album with the song of the year on it is going to finish near the #1 spot (It didn't happen last year, but it did finish #2 - the song in question is "Either Side of the Same Town" by Elvis Costello), and this year it makes it all the way to the top.


The Rest:


* Life of Agony - Broken Valley

If you thought that these guys broke up years ago, you're in for a surprise. IF you don't even know who they are, don't feel bad, since you're in the majority. I'm happy to say that this time around, they ditched the hardcore act, and decided to make a straight up sludge metal record. It works much better, since singer Keith Caputo sounds more like Scott Weiland than Scott does, and no one thinks that Scott could pull off fronting a hardcore band. Half of this record is really good, and half of it is pretty boring. I'll leave it up to you to decide which is which.

* The Darkness - One Way Ticket

I'll admit it - I like the Darkness. Their first album was a hilarious look back at what rock music used to be. It was fun, interesting, and the fact that I can hit some of the falsetto notes that they do was just another thing that makes me wonder why I tell people these sorts of things. The downside is that this album, their second, suffers from the Sophomore Jinx. It's overblown, as you would expect, but you can only be overblown if you have something in inflate, which they forget to include. The single is a rewrite, and a poor one, of "I Believe In A Thing Called Love", and the rest of the album never rocks hard enough to be fun. Maybe they need to wear spandex when they write songs, but this was ok, but not nearly what was expected from them.

* Robbie Williams - Intensive Care

Robbie might just be the biggest star in all of Europe, and he can't get any attention over here. That's ok, since I don't think we really want to pay any attention to him. He sounds like just about everyone on pop radio, and since we can't take his earnings as income tax, we don't need him. Intensive Care is far from his best work, but it's still pretty good. He sounds fine, has decent songs, and omits anything that would remind me of that god awful piece of trash known as "Millennium", which is very high up on my list of songs that I never want to hear again (#1 on that list is "There's Always Something There To Remind Me - I hate that song so much that you can't believe it).

* Frank Black - Honeycomb

If you like the Pixies, you might want to stay away from this. It sounds nothing like the Pixies, and I think that's a good thing. There's only so many times that I can listen to any Pixies song before it gets boring to me, so seeing Frank Black do something different is good. Honeycomb is a wonderfully somber little record, and I'm sure that most of the people who bought it don't even understand it. That's the way it should be. Sure, there aren't any spectacular songs here, but they all have a charm to them, and "Selkie Bride" is a gorgeous little melancholy number.

* The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan

I've never been much of a fan of the White Stripes, and I still wouldn't say that I am. Jack White, for some reason, loves to make his songs sound as though they were played by someone with no talent, even though we all know that he does have some. Here, he strips away all of the fuzz from his guitars, and lets songs actually be songs, and not just noise. They aren't all great songs, and there's not many that I would really call good ones, but just for being a departure from what he usually does, it gets a better grade from me. It's definitely a more interesting record than Elephant was, no matter how dumb the people at Rolling Stone who gave it five stars are.


The Bad, Awful, and Pathetic:


* Rob Thomas - Something to Be

I have a dirty past as someone who used to like a lot of pop music. I've come clean about that, but one of the dirtier things about me is that I own, not all of my own doing, all three Matchbox Twenty records. Just out of habit, I had to see what this album would be like, since I still enjoy some of those Matchbox songs (no, therapy is not going to be able to cure me of this). Unfortunately for me, this album is terrible. "Lonely No More", the song all of you have heard, is good, as is the simple "When the Heartache Ends". Other than that, the songs all suck. Rob said that he wanted to do this record because he was tired of working within the constraints of a band with two guitars, bass, and drums. I hate to be the one to break the news to him, but that kind of pressure is exactly what was helping him out. Freedom isn't working well for him, and now we're going to have to endure another one of these solo albums. Oh joy.

* Black Label Society - Mafia

So many people like to say that Zakk Wylde is one of the best guitar players around, and I just don't get it. He can play all of Ozzy's old songs, but he can't write any of his own. He admitted in an interview that he wrote this entire album in less than a week, and it shows. Every riff is the same, every solo is the same, and he sounds as bored playing them as I do listening to them. He's using "In This River" as a tribute to Dimebag Darrell, even though it was written before he died. Nice one Zakk. The only good thing I can say about this one is that it was funny to see such a "badass" playing a polka dotted guitar in the video for "Suicide Messiah". Yup, he's my idol all right.

* Children of Bodom - Are You Dead Yet?

Poor Alexi Laiho. He doesn't realize what made his band fun. It wasn't his 'singing', and it wasn't him trying to bring industrial music back from the dead. The things that made his band fun were cheesy keyboards that sounded like they were borrowed from horror movies, and tempos that reminded everyone of old Slayer. So for this album, he went and slowed the songs down, focused more attention on his singing (even though he considers lyrics a chore), and took away the fun keyboards. That's a great way to win me over, and this is now one of the worst albums I've heard this year. It's boring, monotonous, and only the cover of "Oops I did it Again" is any fun, and only for the absurdity.

* Helloween - Keeper of the Seven Keys III (The Legacy)

When you're an old band that has no following anymore, there's one sure way to get attention: make a sequel to your best known work. Meat Loaf did it the right way with Bat Out of Hell II, but Helloween does it the wrong way here. Despite no one enjoying the experience of listening to Andi Deris sing, we get a double dose of it, since they turned this into a double album. Never mind the fact that the first two Keeper albums are classics, there's almost no one left from those albums still in the band. Yet, the trot this out anyway. It sucks. I won't shy away from saying that. The songs are longer than they need to be, have no melody, and think that the bass drum is the most important thing in the world. Helloween needs to retire right now, and they need to apologize for me having to listen to this.


And now for the biggest disappointment of the year:


* Dave Matthews Band - Stand Up

It's not fashionable for me to say this, but from time to time I enjoy these guys. They've written some good songs, and when they stay away from being too hippy, they can be fun. Before These Crowded Streets is one of my favorite albums of all time, so I always have a bit of hope that they can do something that good again. I should have known better. After two albums of meh material, and a terrible solo album, they come back with the worst record of their career. Forgetting that SONGS are what sell records, they didn't write any good ones. Apparently they had a more organic writing process for this record, and as we all know from farming, the word organic means nothing more than manure. And that's exactly what we've got here. Dave's voice is shot, the band doesn't seem to care, and as I already mentioned, they forgot to write songs. It's sad, but a band that produced a song as fine as "Crush" has been reduced to this. I think it's time for me to officially kill off any hope that I might ever have, so that I don't have to be so underwhelmed again.