The RARRAMAMSPAs 2018

Welcome to the first (and hopefully not last) awards ceremony on the blog!
The Riffs And Raffs Rock And Metal (And Maybe Some Pop) Awards!
Or
THE RARRAMAMSPAs!!

Since the Grammys have just been awarded and, as usual with any awards show, people are pissy about snubs and whatnot, I've decided to have a go at coming up with my own award categories looking at music released throughout 2017 from the Rock, Metal and maybe Pop genres. Some will be serious like best Rock/Metal albums, others will be less serious like...well, you'll see.
It's also worth mentioning that even though 2017 had a large collection of material recorded and released throughout the year, I probably barely listened to 5% of the albums that came out so there may be some glaring omissions. The key to enjoying this blog post is not to take it seriously...just like literally every awards show since time began.
So, let's put on our raincoats and brace ourselves for heading back into the drizzly, windy torrent of crap that was 2017 in music...but in a lighthearted, fun way!


The "Boston Zeppelin Through The Night" Award for
BEST ROCK ALBUM
The album I valued the most that belonged to the Rock genre, including various subgenres such as Southern Rock, Hard Rock and Shoegazing. It does NOT include Metal, Pop and their subgenres.
And the nominees are...
Heavy Fire - Black Star Riders
Villains - Queens Of The Stone Age
Pinewood Smile - The Darkness
How Did We Get So Dark? - Royal Blood

And the winner is...

Pinewood Smile - The Darkness in a win that nobody familiar with my blog saw coming at all.


The "Screaming For Powerslave In Peace" Award for
BEST METAL ALBUM
The album I valued the most that belonged to the Metal genre, including various subgenres such as Hair Metal and that's about it. It does NOT include Rock, Pop and their subgenres.
And the nominees are...
Lower The Bar - Steel Panther
Reaching Into Infinity - DragonForce
Paranormal - Alice Cooper
Heaven Upside Down - Marilyn Manson

And the winner is...

...

Uhhhh...

Fuck, this is a tough one...

...hmmmm...

Paranormal - Alice Cooper, I guess if you consider this Metal? It's pretty good, even if it is kinda weak for a "Metal" album. Plus it's kinda short. The point is that regardless of the winner, Metal fans lost in 2017 so this isn't really saying much.


The "Sgt. Pepper's Thriller Sounds" Award for
BEST POP ALBUM
The album I valued the most that belonged to the Pop genre. Pop albums may contain songs with a Rock twist or be recorded by Rock bands so long as it's very clearly a Pop album.
And the nominees are...





Yeah.
And the winner is...

After Laughter - Paramore because it's the only Pop album I listened to and if you want to see me gushing over Kanye West, Taylor Swift or whichever Pop artist cunts currently releasing autotuned bowel movements for a billion likes and shitloads of cash are trendy at the moment, I am glad to disappoint you. Fuck off to Pitchfork if you want opinions on anaemic shit.


The "Garage Ups Comes Around" Award for
BEST COVERS ALBUM
The album consisting of the best music written/performed by other bands but rerecorded by contemporary artists. This award goes to a band from any genre, as long as said band released an album in 2017...but mostly Rock/Metal.
And the nominees are...
Under Cover - Motorhead
The Salentino Cuts - UFO
ReAniMate 3.0: The CoVeRs eP - Halestorm
Covered And Taped - Dashboard Confessional

And the winner is...

Covered And Taped - Dashboard Confessional in a surprising victory! I really liked how each track gave the band a chance to find themselves musically and...nope, can't do it with a straight face


The winner is ReAniMate 3.0: The CoVeRs eP - Halestorm, and I didn't even like that record that much. The reason this won over Under Cover - Motorhead is because technically, Under Cover is more of a compilation of covers than a brand new covers album so it should've been disqualified. Why was it still listed? Because 2017 is the year of scraping the fucking barrel for decent music to talk about, how is this not apparent already?


The "Generation Lulu Or Bust" Award for
MOST PATHETIC ALBUM
The album that could've been decent (or maybe even great) if the band got their shit together and one or more members didn't absolutely phone it in. Once again, it's anyone's game in the genre department and once again, you're in the wrong part of the Internet if you want to read about Pop.
And the nominees are...
inFinite - Deep Purple
Christmas Christmas - Cheap Trick
Rip It Up - Thunder
Concrete And Gold - Foo Fighters

And the winner is...

inFinite - Deep Purple. Concrete And Gold nearly took the win but the category is "Most Pathetic Album" and a shit or even lame Foo Fighters album isn't anything new. Neither's a shit Deep Purple one but to see the band that gave us In Rock, Machine Head and Burn crap out fucking inFinite when most of the band are still capable of rocking was like watching your dad fail to make it to the shitter in time.


Now onto the awards for musical moments!


The "Ah For Fuck's Sake, Really?!" Award for
MOST EMOTIONALLY DEVASTATING DEATH
This award goes to the musician whose recent death shocked and annoyed fans by making them remember that the world is fucking shit right now, pulling everyone back into the well of depression that we'd previously and temporarily clawed our way out of with the help of their music.
And the nominees are...
J. Geils - The J. Geils Band
Tom Petty - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Chris Cornell - Soundgarden
Chester Bennington - Linkin Park

And the winner is...

Chris Cornell. It was a tie between Chris and Tom but ultimately, I think that Chris' suicide felt like more of a gut punch than Tom's accidental death through an overdose of pain medication. Plus, Tom was more than a decade older than Chris and the death of a younger man (especially if it's by their own hand and out of fucking nowhere) will always surprise more people.


The "Kid Nugent" Award for
BIGGEST PIECE OF SHIT IN ROCK/METAL
This award goes to a Rock/Metal musician who did something dumb and quite possibly evil in 2017 to the point that they will forever be at least partially regarded as a colossal prick. Musicians who were assholes long before last year are still eligible as long as the reason for them being a piece of shit stems from something they did in 2017.
And the nominees are...
Gene Simmons for making jokes about sexual harassment and paedophilia at Fox News
Gene Simmons for claiming women can't have a family and be good at their jobs
Gene Simmons for not suing Bruce Springsteen for ripping off one of their songs, even though it's not the first time he's flat out ripped off older music for his modern songs
Gene Simmons for attempting to trademark the Devil Horns gesture popularised by Ronnie James Dio

And the winner is...

Gene Simmons for being egotistical enough to, despite all of the above, think of himself as God's gift to man, showing no remorse, perspective or intellectual growth/maturity despite having the sense to abandon some of his stupider attempts at notoriety.


The "Cake Out In The Rain" Award for
MOST RIDICULOUS LYRICS
This award goes to the song with some of the dumbest, most laughable lyrics of 2017. This award can go to any song from any genre from last year and unlike previous awards, there are a decent mix between Rock/Metal and Pop.
And the nominees are...
"I know tomorrow's not today" from "Public Private Breakdown" - Alice Cooper
"A tiger don't lose no sleep, don't need opinions from a shellfish or a sheep" from "Swish Swish" - Katy Perry
"Sure as a bear shits in the woods and sail boats have sails" from "Poontang Boomerang" - Steel Panther
"England is my city" from "It's Everyday Bro" - Jake Paul

And the winner is...

Well it's "England is my city" from "It's Everyday Bro" - Jake Paul, isn't it? Not just because it's a dumb line but because everyone kept fucking quoting it to the point that it was no longer funny. By the way, if there are worse lyrics from Rock/Metal songs written and released in 2017, please tell me about them. All I could find on Google were crap Pop ones, which isn't surprising considering most modern Pop songs are written by a team of eight businessmen trying to capitalise on that dumb and/or horny teen demographic.


The "Number Of Flames With Rock Of The Night" Award for
BEST RIFF
This award goes to the song with the most awesome riff played on guitar in 2017. Any songs from the Rock, Metal and Pop genre are eligible although let's face it, Pop ain't winning no riff competition. As for which riffs I'm counting (as many great Rock songs feature at least 3 distinguishable riffs), I'm mostly looking for riffs that carry the song's main melody rather than decent ones used sporadically throughout the track.
And the nominees are...
"The Evil Has Landed" - Queens Of The Stone Age
"Heavy Fire" - Black Star Riders
"Taking The Blame" - Inglorious
"Thunder Child" - The Bad Flowers

And the winner is...

"Taking The Blame" - Inglorious. It might not be my favourite song of the list but damn, that riff is fucking great. And hey, it's still one of my favourite songs of 2017.


And finally


The "Master Of Sex Magik...But Who's Buying" Award for
PEOPLE'S FAVOURITE BLOG POST
This award goes to the Riffs And Raffs blog post written/posted in 2017 that had the most views, even if it wasn't my personal favourite or even best piece of writing. Yes, this award might be a little self-congratulatory but fuck it, this is my BBQ so I get to choose the meat.

And the winner is...

Concrete And Gold - Foo Fighters with 1414 views!
I have no idea how this review has that many page views (I suspect many are bot/spam related, as this isn't the only blog post with views in the thousands) but if any of you human readers enjoyed this blog post, I'm glad I brought you some joy in these dark times. If you haven't read it, you might want to give it a quick glance as I seem to recall not hating it after posting it.


That's all from the RARRAMAMSPAs this year. Hopefully next year, I'll have some more positive awards to give out but with the news of at least four major bands/artists calling it quits only one month into the year, I'm a bit fucking sceptical.

COMING SOON: Reviews of new albums by Judas Priest, Saxon, The Sword and more when they eventually come out.