Burning Bridges - Bon Jovi

I've decided to mix things up a little bit this week. Instead of reviewing this...yeah, let's still call it an "album", I'm going to let someone else take the reigns. The following review will be written by my loving girlfriend, Sarah Taylor. Aside from over a decade of personal experience in bands & listening to Rock music, she is a massive Bon Jovi fan & at my request, wanted to have a crack at reviewing his latest release.
Whilst I have my own thoughts on this collection of music (which I will tweet at a later date, if you're desperate to know my point of view), I felt that her perspective might be better as Burning Bridges is clearly meant for B.J fans instead of the casual listener. If you like her style of writing over mine, definitely let me know so I can beg her to write some more posts & get more regular visitors.
Anyway, take it away Sarah!

Hello Wembley! (Or James' blog...whatever). Upon James' request, I'm here to do a small review of the new album from Bon Jovi. Mainly because I've been a massive Bon Jovi fan since I was around 12 years old which, let me tell you, is a long time ago! I've seen Bon Jovi live three times so far and will continue to do so whenever he tours. Burning Bridges is supposedly a 'fan album', whatever that's supposed to mean! I will tell you now though, I'm not a writer, so this may seem a little amateurish (apologies!). So yeah, here's what I made of Burning Bridges.

First of all, I didn't know what to expect from Burning Bridges. I only heard that it was a selection of songs that Bon Jovi wrote that never got finished. So I suppose in a way I was expecting an eclectic mix of songs in different styles from previously released albums. For example, I was hoping for a song that sounded like it belonged on the Lost Highway album, or a song that had the feel of Slippery When Wet etc.

I will cut to the chase. I was bitterly disappointed.

Overall, the album is 80% depressing ballads, with two or three songs that are a bit more upbeat. Maybe it's illegal to release an album that's more than 80% dirge so Bon Jovi had to put some happier songs into the mix, who knows. The whole album felt thrown together, more of a private collection of dick stroking songs for Jon Bon Jovi to listen to whilst taking candlelit baths with a mirror to admire his very own face. The songs lacked passion and drive and were quite frankly dull. Usually on Bon Jovi albums you at expect at least one ballad, which I can cope with and sometimes enjoy, but this...this was just something else!

I feel, ultimately, like this album was a massive 'fuck you' to Richie Sambora. Why? Well, the lack of show stopping guitar solos with tons of feeling. The fact that Bon Jovi's vocals come first, and the musicians come second. Honestly, I cannot remember any riffs from the ballads on Burning Bridges. When I think about the album, all I can hear in my head is Bon Jovi's voice. That is not coco! (Talking of Sambora, I cannot wait until he releases a new album, because I know I will get quality music, amazing guitar solos, and passion... lots and lots of passion!).

There were three songs on Burning Bridges that I enjoyed:

1) "We Don't Run"- A punchy and typical Bon Jovi song. Nice drum beats, lots of 'whoah-ing' in the vocals, and a chorus that would sound amazing on a stadium tour. I can picture this song going down a storm at one of Bon Jovi's gigs. There's a small guitar solo which sounds like Phil X is trying to imitate Sambora's unique sound, but we all know Sambora would've done it better! Overall though, I do like this song. It's strong and will stand the test of time.

2) "Saturday Night Gave Me Sunday Morning"- OK, first things first, this song sounds like it was supposed to be on the Lost Highway album. Not a problem for me, but it may be for other listeners. I have to say, Tico Torres is on fine form and remains one of my favourite drummers. His drumming is simple but effective without being too flashy (*cough* Lars Ulrich *cough*), and compliments the songs well. I have just one problem with this song. The lyrics on the chorus. What on Earth is 'Saturday Night Gave Me Sunday Morning' supposed to mean?! Doesn't that happen to all of us, unless we meet our demise on a Saturday? What irritates me more is the fact that Bon Jovi already has a song that states 'I'm feeling like a Monday, but someday I'll be Saturday night'. Does Bon Jovi need some sort of mental intervention so he can figure out what day of the week he wants to be?!

3) "I'm Your Man"- So this song almost didn't make it onto my top songs from the album, but I did find the song to be listenable and didn't have many problems with it, so I thought I'd be fair and add it to the list (the very teeny-tiny list!). So the song itself isn't anything special but I did like the quirky and ever so slightly 'Oasis' sounding riff. It sounded uplifting and would make for good background music. The lyrics are typical of Bon Jovi, speaking of lovers, phonecalls and other obvious themes. They're not deep and meaningful but they aren't offensively shite either. I don't have much else to say about the song, it's just...acceptable!

As for the title track, well...give me strength. Is this the ultimate 'piss off' track for Sambora I wonder? The lyrics are bitter, set to an over joyous country style song with what I can only describe as oompa-band undertones! According to NME however, the song is about their split from Mercury Records. This is possibly true, I just can't help but think these lyrics, especially after Sambora's (rather unexplained) exit from the band, are a bit harsh. This however, is just my opinion!

So overall I would give the whole album a measly 4/10. I wish it could've been more, as I'm an avid Bon Jovi fan, but I refuse to sugar coat shit. The thirteenth album for these guys is an absolute flop. Thirteen is unlucky for some but definitely unlucky for Bon Jovi and a huge disappointment for their fans.
I just hope they have something amazing lined up in the near future, so we can all forget about this sorry incident!

High Country - The Sword

If you've been following my posts for the last couple of months, you'll know I've been desperately waiting for this album to come out. I talked about the title track in July but now it's time to look at the entire package.

Based on the small selection of songs I'd heard before buying the album, I was expecting something amazing. What I got was decent although, if I'm perfectly honest, a little flat at times. If the previous four albums by The Sword were solidified in the Heavy Metal genre, High Country definitely wobbles between that and Hard Rock. From the album cover abandoning the usual jagged font to the song's themes centred more around magic than mythology, The Sword haven taken their biggest genre-crossing step yet.
Album opener "Unicorn Farm" is a bizarre introduction combining a catchy rhythm with some of the synth elements previously employed in Apocryphon, flowing perfectly into "Empty Temples", the first of several Thin Lizzy impersonators on this album. It's a great track which gives you a glimpse into the sound of the rest of the album; the clashing drums and megaton power chords have been softened but every now and then, there's an explosive moment where you can hear remnants of Gods Of The Earth and Warp Riders bursting through.
The main factor behind the change in sound is possibly the percussion and Santiago Vela III's more restrained drumming this time around. There are still a couple of apocalyptic tracks where the pace is energetic and you can imagine riding into battle with these songs booming out in the distance ("Suffer No Fools" and "Buzzards"). Otherwise, the album is largely dominated by Blues-inspired Hard Rock not unlike a previously mentioned 70's Irish band ("The Bees Of Spring" and "Ghost Eye"), heavier Modern Rock tunes experimenting with backing vocals and a touch of brass ("Seriously Mysterious" and "Early Snow") & healthy combinations of the two, resulting in some of the strongest tracks on the album ("The Dreamthieves" and "High Country").

Sadly, the band is only as strong as their weakest link and whilst he's improved since 2008, J. D. Cronise's vocals are still flagging behind everyone else ever so slightly. It's almost like listening to a slightly more abrasive tribute to Josh Homme but fortunately, the music is good enough to stop The Sword from becoming another Guns 'N' Roses. Aside from a few songs which sound a bit monotonous in the fog of crunching chords ("Mist & Shadow"), the riffs are generally suitable and will easily stick with you after a couple of listens.
The best way to describe the genre (or subgenre) of this album would be Stoner Rock as I suspect most of the tracks were written to be listened to when absolutely baked. After all, the band have released a special "weed-themed" edition of High Country that comes with rolling paper and a stash box, not to mention the obvious euphoric connotation with the name of the album. It would make sense, considering the flatter songs would probably sound incredibly peaceful whilst stoned.
If you are into the occasional toke and happen to listen to this album whilst in high country yourself, you'd probably rate it 10/10. For all us sober critics, I reckon a 7/10 is more than fair. It's not the best album they've written if you're into heavier riffing & the kind of soundtrack Vikings would listen to if they were still about, but I would say it's quite an interesting yet admirable entry from their discography if you're into Rock music overall, assuming you can listen past the occasional musical dissonance and droning vocals.

Taster Session #2

About a week after I wrote the first Taster Session post, several bands released more singles from upcoming albums. Rather than edit the first one and re-post it, I waited until a few more songs made their way onto Youtube before writing a brand new Taster Session. Also, it may have had something to do with not knowing what to post this week until I can review "High Country" - The Sword in two weeks.
Anyway, here are some more tunes from upcoming albums!

"Saturday Night Gave Me Sunday Morning" - Bon Jovi         (listen here)
From the album Burning Bridges (21/8/15)

From my understanding, this album is supposed to be a collection of unfinished ideas the band had between tours that have been fleshed out to act as a stepping stone between What About Now from 2013 and another studio album coming out next year. As for my opinion about Bon Jovi, I think Dean Winchester put it best in an episode of Supernatural; "Bon Jovi rocks...on occasion". Sadly, this track is not one of those occasions.
It's alright if you're into the medium-paced Rock songs that you can jump around to at gigs but it's no "Wanted Dead Or Alive" or "Let It Rock". Bon Jovi fans will probably like it as Mr Jovi certainly hasn't lost the use of his pipes but it's not to my taste. However, one of the other tracks from the upcoming album ("We Don't Run") has more of a punch to it & sounds like a better version of "My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark" - Fall Out Boy. If you're after music with more aggression & a passionate sound, definitely check that one out.


"Cirice" - Ghost          (listen here)
From the album Meliora (21/8/15)

Is it Ghost or Ghost B.C.? Either way, this track grew on me after a few listens. I started off thinking it was alright & found myself internally humming it a few days later, which is usually a sign that I should buy a song if I'm enjoying the experience of having an earworm. I'm not familiar with the band's previous work but if it's as strong as this, I'm definitely going to check it out. My only real criticism is that the intro goes on a bit long but I'm probably only saying that because I fucking love the chorus and want to hear it immediately.
Everything comes together perfectly in this song, from the haunting piano during the intro to the gradual build-up of guitar riffs and solos. I'm probably going to out myself as a Metal pleb by comparing some of the verse riffing to slower Metallica tunes like "Harvester Of Sorrow" & "Sad But True" but hopefully I'll redeem myself by saying "Cirice" blows those tracks out of the water. Not just that but at no point does this song feel pretentious or uber-serious like some of the more operatic Prog-Metal tunes of the last decade.


"Arrow Of Time" - Queensryche          (listen here)
From the album Condition Human (2/10/15)

I know, I know, I'm missing two umlauts, let's just look past it.
I get the impression that Queensryche are overlooked when it comes to great 80's Metal, as compilation albums often choose "Silent Lucidity" instead of tracks like "Queen Of The Reich". Hopefully, this album will encourage people to dive into older material and maybe even a few of the deep cuts from Operation: Mindcrime if this track is anything to go by. "Arrow Of Time" sounds great if you're into mid-80's Iron Maiden with Todd La Torre taking up the mantle for a second time after Geoff Tate was given his P45 from the band.
Purists will no doubt find fault in Todd La Torre's vocals & bawl about how it's not Queensryche without Geoff Tate, effectively pissing all over the efforts of the rest of the band, but I think he sounds great. He's definitely been inspired by Tate's work with the band but it doesn't sound like he's trying to be Tate. If anything, it sounds like he's trying to be Bruce Dickinson but I won't hold that against him. I'm not as excited for this album as I am for High Country but I'll still check it out & go in with decent expectations.


"HardRockLover" - Prince          (listen here)
From the album HitNRun (??/??/??)

Dear God, this is fucking shit. We've got everything from vocoder to screaming in this turd of a song and further proves Prince's career has gone on far too long. Remember a few years ago when he proclaimed the Internet was "over", shortly before releasing his new album via newspapers? Now he's releasing this album via hip new streaming service Tidal having removed all his previous material from Spotify. I'll be honest, I'm genuinely struggling to grasp whether Prince is the world's greatest troll or just a fucking idiot.
This track feels like someone trying to make fun of Rock and Pop with something that sounds like bad video game music. It sounds like a good song that's been rigorously fucked by someone who believes they're an artist, assisted by a band that are probably more lucky than talented. If he's a troll & he's deliberately releasing crap material under the guise of "art" to ridicule the elitist music journalists (who will no doubt love this), he's doing a great job. If he's actually trying and this is the final result, he should've just stopped after "Let's Go Crazy".


"Speed Of Light" - Iron Maiden          (listen here)
From the album The Book Of Souls (4/9/15)

Once I learned that the 16th offering from my favourite band would be a double album containing an 18-minute orchestral epic, I was a little worried. I reckon I'm in the minority when I say I prefer Iron Maiden's shorter, less progressive songs but that's not to say I dislike the nine minute epics; I just tend to prefer tracks like "The Number Of The Beast" to "Paschendale". However, this track has since blown all my concerns away and now I'm hyped for September 4th to roll in (after August 21st, that is).
As hard as it may be, let's ignore the fantastic video for now as it's the only music video I've linked to in these Taster posts. The song is brilliant & sounds like it could've been written for any one of the earlier Maiden albums. At first, I thought Bruce's vocals sounded a little off (which I can hardly fault them for as this was recorded before his cancer diagnosis) but after a few more listens, it slowly started to improve. Either way, I love this track and it's made me super excited for the album. Job well done, lads!

Once again, a decent mix of tracks I loved and tracks I couldn't stand. If I had to order the ten tracks I've listened to across both Taster posts in my favourite order (1 being best, 10 being worst), it'd go:

1. "Speed Of Light" - Iron Maiden
2. "High Country" - The Sword
3. "Cirice" - Ghost
4. "Coming For You" - The Offspring
5. "Arrow Of Time" - Queensryche
6. "The Vengeful One" - Disturbed
7. "Thunder & Lightning" - Motorhead
8. "Complexity" - Eagles Of Death Metal
9. "Saturday Night Gave Me Sunday Morning" - Bon Jovi
10. "HardRockLover" - Prince

Do you agree? Let me know your order in the comments OR if there are any upcoming albums with great singles out at the moment, although I can't guarantee there'll be a Taster Session #3 written any time soon.

Shout Out: One More From The Road - Lynyrd Skynyrd

Time for another shout out post & this time, I'm going to talk about one of my all-time favourite albums. However, what makes this special is that it's also a live album. Usually, I stay away from live albums unless somebody recommends a song or two. However, after hearing some of the tracks, I decided to check the rest of the 2001 deluxe edition out & instantly fell in love.
Unlike previous shout outs where I'm reviewing several albums in one batch, One More From The Road is a two disc collection of 24 songs recorded during several performances at Atlanta's Fox Theatre in 1976. Since eight of those are alternate versions of tracks already on the album, I'll only be talking about the first 16 songs.

So why is this one of my favourite albums instead of the individual LPs the songs came from or a bog-standard compilation that contains most of these tracks anyway? Firstly, the obvious context. If memory serves correctly, I received this album on my 17th birthday & hadn't heard the original versions of over half the songs on it. I've listened to most of them now but I know there's a part of me that prefers the live versions just because it was my first experience with the music. Despite this, my love for the album isn't just blind nostalgia and when I say "obvious context", I'm not just referring to my discovery.
As I mentioned earlier, this was recorded in 1976, the year before the tragic plane crash that killed several crew/band members & ended what's now considered to be the classic Skynyrd era. This album captures the band in their prime and there isn't a single dull note in any of the songs. Ronnie Van Zant's vocals are pitch perfect from start to finish. Steve Gaines, Allen Collins & Gary Rossington are all on excellent form during their respective performances of main riffs and solos. Even Billy Powell's piano solo in "Call Me The Breeze" is fantastic, as are the efforts from the rest of the band.
I would assume one of the biggest differences in quality between the original live album and 2001 deluxe edition lies in the audio mix between the music and the audience. In the latter, you can hear the well deserved cheering and applause at the start of a track and right at the end. They've also slightly muted the crowd so that they don't distract you from the band, just as live albums should be arranged. You could listen to these songs halfway through & if you hadn't heard the tracks before, you could easily assume they were studio recordings.

As for the tracks chosen, all the hits are here as well as several songs you can't find on pre-Street Survivors albums. Whether you're a Skynyrd fan or not, there'll be something for any fan of classic Southern Rock on here but there's also something that puts it above the studio albums. Most Lynyrd Skynyrd tracks have the same irritating flaw; they fade out at the end, often during a guitar solo. Fortunately, it's a lot easier for a band to just end the song naturally rather than fade out during a live performance so all of the songs that fade out in studio recordings have proper endings.
The biggest downside to this is that it probably means you won't be able to listen to "Sweet Home Alabama" or "Free Bird" again without wishing they recorded a studio version of the ending solos. That really is the only downside, though. The song choices are great, the recording quality is fantastic, the band's performance is exceptional and it's CDs like this that stop me from completely writing off live albums. In other words, it's a 9/10 from me.

1. Workin' For MCA

2. I Ain't The One

3. Saturday Night Special

4. Searchin'

5. Travelin' Man

6. Simple Man

7. Whiskey Rock-A-Roller

8. The Needle & The Spoon

9. Gimme Back My Bullets

10. Tuesday's Gone

11. Gimme Three Steps

12. Call Me The Breeze

13. T For Texas (Blue Yodel #1)

14. Sweet Home Alabama

15. Crossroads

16. Free Bird

Unlike other bands who have the occasional great live track in a collection of crap ("Young Man Blues" - The Who springs to mind), this whole album flows so perfectly that it's definitely something you need to buy as a collection instead of a few random singles.

If you have any other live albums you recommend, list them in the comments. I doubt I'll ever enjoy a live album as much as I enjoyed One More From The Road but even if it was half as good as this album, it'll still be better than pretty much all the other live collections I've listened to.

Tenology: Terrible Rock/Metal Lyrics

Bridging July & August, this week's post is a list dedicated to lyrics from Rock or Metal songs which are just truly, truly awful. As is the case with most of the other Tenology posts, these aren't in any particular order nor are they meant to be taken as the Top 10 worst lyrics of any category. They're just ten examples of shitty lyrics that I know of, nothing more or less. Obviously, this is going to be heavy in opinion but before I start, here's a brief description of what I would call a terrible Rock/Metal lyric.
If the song has an established rhyme sequence and this line decides to either randomly break it or get incredibly lazy with the chosen words, that constitutes a bad lyric. If the words chosen make it genuinely difficult for me to enjoy the song, that's definitely a bad lyric. If an overused cliche or reference that's been used too many times is dragged up and used to make the song sound more romantic or intellectual (e.g. pretty much any song after "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" which refers to Romeo & Juliet)...yeah, you get the picture.
Let's get cracking!


1. "Hot Blooded" - Foreigner

"You don't have to read my mind,
to know what I have in mind"

I guess it's kinda fitting that the album cover also contains the same picture used twice

I really like this song for what it is. It's a cheap, 79p Hard Rock song that's always good to listen to when it comes on the radio but it's unlikely to be anyone's favourite. You might argue that it could've (and should've) been a more popular Arena Rock hit but considering the band couldn't even think of another word that rhymes with "mind" for the opening line of the first fucking verse, something tells me this band never really intended this to be their magnum opus. But hey, it's a dud lyric in an otherwise acceptable track. Just a shame it's one of the first lyrics after the chorus.


2. "The Trees" - Rush

"There is trouble in the forest,
And the creatures all have fled
As the maples scream "Oppression"!
And the oaks just shake their heads"

"WHAT?! How DARE you put Rush in this opinionated blog post about rubbish lyrics!!"

I wanted to include the lyrics for the entire song but chose instead to pick the verse which I felt was the silliest. I mean, whether you think the song is one of Neil Peart's finest lyrical works or a pretentious load of crap, at the end of the day it's just silly. It's a forced metaphor designed to highlight social/economic class strife that reads like a children's poem without the music. In fact, if it WAS written to be a poem, I'd probably enjoy it a lot more as the words aren't all that bad without context. However, it's not a poem. It's a Prog Rock track and they're lyrics for a Rock song.


3. "Spirit In The Sky" - Norman Greenbaum

"Never been a sinner,
I never sinned,
I got a friend in Jesus"

This lyric is worth a million sins, in my book! *chuckles internally*

Another case of a great track ruined by a shoddily lazy lyric. Up until the verse after the solo, the song does a pretty good job with the rhyming couplets and aside from being flatter than week old cola, it's a great tune. Sadly, Mr Greenbaum decided to phone it in at the two & a half minute mark and presumably thought "Sod it, it's been a long day. I'll just whack out the first thing that comes into my head" shortly before he came up with a line that feels disturbingly out of place. Not just that but the rest of the lyrics are all recycled from previous verses and choruses. Someone probably should've told Norman that Sloth is actually a sin before he cut corners whilst writing an entire song about how fucking great he was...Pride too, that's another sin.


4. "Daddy, Brother, Lover, Little Boy (The Electric Drill Song)" - Mr. Big

"I'll be your daddy, your brother, your lover and your little boy"

A visual representation of what this song turns into thanks to the lyrics...a trainwreck...get it?

It took me a while to actually buy this song and listen to it fairly regularly. Even now, I find myself skipping it despite loving the musical side to it. I can listen to romantic songs that talk about being someone's lover. I can live with tracks that imply a family connection to someone the singer really cared about. I can even stand a well-written tune that insists on telling the listener about how they're "your daddy". But when a singer serenades you about being all of those things at once and phrases it in a kind of creepy way, it ends up on blog posts like this. I totally understand the sentiment behind it but I also feel it could've been done in a way that wouldn't deserve a spot on The Jerry Springer Show.


5. "Jailbreak" - Thin Lizzy

"Tonight there's gonna be a jailbreak
Somewhere in this town"

I can't believe I never questioned this line when I first heard it

Credit where due, I wasn't the first to make this observation. I saw Dave Spikey (a stand-up comic) make a joke about these lyrics years ago and sadly, I can't find a clip of it on Youtube to link to. However, he still raises a good point. It makes it sound like everyone in the band was thinking "Gee, I wonder where a JAILbreak could take place" as they were writing it. There's not too much material to be mined from this comment so I guess the rest of this paragraph could be spent talking about how every other Thin Lizzy song mentions "the boys".


6. "You're So Vain" - Carly Simon

"You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you"

[INSERT WITTY REMARK CONNECTING 'SECRETS' WITH 'OBVIOUS NIPPLES']

OK so the self-referential nature of a song aimed at someone the singer hates is quite clever and definitely catchy. However, there is a crucial flaw to this song that nobody seems to want to admit. The song is called "You're So Vain", a line she repeats in the chorus. The whole point of the song existing seems to be to highlight the fact that there's a vain dick in her life, so technically the song is about the guy/amalgamation of men she's singing about. This wouldn't be a problem if she didn't also sing "you probably think this song is about you" in the chorus, a statement that doesn't really make the guy(s) seem vain as the song is actually about that person/people.
Forget your "ah, but if it's about several people & one of those people thinks it's about them alone, they're being vain" argument too. If that was the case, the song would still be about that person as she would then be singing "you're so vain" at them alone. In other words, if anyone thought the song was about them, it was and anyone who didn't think it was about them clearly wasn't that vain. It's a flawed lyric that undermines the rest of the song and probably didn't deserve half the critical analysis I applied to it here.


7. "Born To Run" - Bruce Springsteen

"Just wrap your legs round these velvet rims
And strap your hands 'cross my engines"

Maybe they'd sound better if they didn't sound like they were spoken with a mouth full of food

I've made my thoughts about Bruce Springsteen crystal clear on this blog but I will say that the rest of the lyrics to this are pretty good, as are the efforts of his supporting band up until the awkward-sounding bridge. However, aside from the classic "tramps like us..." line, the only lyric I could recall happens to be one of the worst I've heard from any band/artist. Leaving aside the fact that you don't actually strap your hands across an engine when riding a motorbike unless you want to experience a worse burning sensation than trying to spank an open flame, it's the kind of cheap chat-up line I'd expect to overhear at a pub after the village shithead decides to down pint number seven. Like most of the above, it's enough to completely stain the song and prevent me from enjoying it even slightly, although Mr Springsteen's presence doesn't help either.


8. "War Pigs" - Black Sabbath

"Generals gathered in their masses,
Just like witches at black masses"

A good example of a song that could easily lose a minute or two

Similar to the first entry in this post, these iconic opening lyrics fall into the trap of rhyming a word with itself. It's like Ozzy or whoever wrote these words wanted the first line but couldn't think of another word ending in "-asses" that didn't make the song sound ridiculous. Chances are it was a band decision, even though they could've used the line later on in the song and rhymed it with "fascists" or "assets" or something that didn't sound like a child had written it. I would have been tempted to give these guys a pass, as they are Black Sabbath and all, but the fact that concert-going Metalheads always, ALWAYS belt out these shitty lyrics at full volume like they're the finest words ever assembled earns them their spot here.


9. "All Right Now" - Free

"Now don't you wait, or hesitate.
Let's move before they raise the parking rate"

Last time I saw a sign reading "Free Fire and Water", I was at an arsonist's pool party!! *rimshot*

I confess, the lyrics I originally wanted to use were different to these ones. I initially thought the lines before these were "Hey baby, what's your name? Maybe we can see if it's the same", which was ripe for a good mocking. However, turns out they're really "maybe we can see things the same" which is just about good enough to avoid tearing apart. At least, they would be if these lines weren't directly after it. Have you ever read a poem written by a kid where the content makes no sense just because it needs a rhyme at the end of the line? Yeah, that's this lyric right here.
"Let's move before they raise the parking rate" may have been a common saying in the early 70's, I don't know. If it was, maybe this line doesn't belong here. However, considering they actually had a decent rhyme of "wait" and "hesitate" just before, this line just feels like they wanted to get the lyrics for the verse out the way so they could move onto the chorus. In other words, it's got a faint aroma of laziness about it. Still a decent track though.


10. "Pink" - Aerosmith

"Pink as the bing on your cherry,
Pink, 'cause you are so very"

After hearing this song, pretty sure it's at eight now

Aerosmith was always going to end up on this list, it was inevitable. I could've gone down the easy route and picked "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" or maybe something from Toys In The Attic but instead, I went for a song that I fucking hate that wasn't "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing". Sammy Hagar wrote a song professing his love for the colour red and the result is a decent Hard Rock track. Aerosmith wrote a song professing their love for the colour pink/vaginas and the result is a kind of Country Rock puddle. That just about sums up Aerosmith compared to other Rock bands in a nutshell. Anyway, the lyrics I picked were the ones that sounded the most idiotic and made the least amount of sense. There are some decent ones in this track but the song is still terrible, as are these lyrics.


Do you agree with my choices? Do you think I was a bit harsh on some of these tracks and should've played it safer with songs known for crappy lyrics like "Ironic" or "Photograph"? Let me know in the comments and feel free to suggest some of your own tracks that could've done with a rewrite before entering the studio.

Taster Session #1

After last week's trilogy of video game posts, I decided to go back to album reviews but after checking online to see if there were any albums that caught my eye, I couldn't find any worth reviewing or listening to. What I did discover was a series of upcoming albums from bands I like listening to.
Now I understand this flies in the face of being open minded and I wouldn't recommend avoiding bands just because you've never heard them before (otherwise nobody would have a career) but the simple truth is no new albums or bands have made me think I should listen to their material.
When I hear a single on the radio and like it, I'll give the album a try. If I hear good things about a band, I'm more likely to try them out than if I hear nothing about them. Either way, I was left in a bit of a situation as I didn't want to go back to another opinion post or Tenology. So here's ANOTHER NEW IDEA!

As there are several upcoming albums from bands I'm aware of hitting the shelves in a few months, there are also quite a few singles from these albums online already. I'll be talking about some of those singles in this post and will discuss my experience with the band in the past as well as giving my expectations for the respective album, just in case I end up reviewing them.
Right then, let's get started!

"High Country" - The Sword         (listen here)
From the album High Country (21/8/15)

I should start off by saying that I love The Sword. They're like everything awesome about Black Sabbath mixed with everything awesome about Slayer. Heavy riffs and explosive drums all combined to make a musical score suitable for Ragnarok. Their first album starts off OK with some great standalone tracks and their second album packs a necessarily hefty punch, as any good Metal follow-up album should. The third album was perhaps a bit prematurely experimental but luckily the fourth album returned to apocalyptic riffing.
This song kind of makes me wonder where the 5th album will go. It's heavy, sure, but it also sounds very different to The Sword that sung about "Fire Lances Of The Ancient Hyperzephyrians" or "The Black River". In fact, it sounds a bit like "Believe" - The Bravery spiced up with some reworked riffs from "Gasoline" - Audioslave (this song definitely has a bit of cheeky riff pinching from "Gasoline"). However, I highly doubt this means The Sword have gone uber-commercial and morphed from Heavy Metal to Hard Rock like Megadeth did with Super Collider.
What it probably means is The Sword want to release a well received album and maybe get a bit of radio play with this single. I could be dead wrong as I haven't heard as much buzz about it as, say, Last Of Our Kind - The Darkness when the first singles were being released for that. I'm a little worried that this is the title track as it lacks the same wallop that title tracks are supposed to provide. Either way, it's made me excited to listen to High Country as I really enjoyed the song and I trust The Sword will give Rock and Metal fans an excellent album.


"The Vengeful One" - Disturbed          (listen here)
From the album Immortalized (21/8/15)

I'm familiar with Disturbed and some of their more popular hits ("Down With The Sickness", "Inside The Fire", etc) but I wouldn't call myself a massive fan. I like their sound to a passable degree although unlike some of the other Metal bands I generally favour, Disturbed tend to rely on that sound a little too much. I'm not saying they can only play one song with different lyrics over and over again (like another band we'll be looking at shortly) but whenever a new Disturbed single is released, it always has the same staples of their music.
This track is no different and sounds just like their "best" material so if you were a fan of Disturbed during the Indestructible period and are hoping they haven't lost their way, fear not! If this single is anything to go by, you're probably in for another album of similar material. I tend to be OK with this if the material is good and yeah, in Disturbed's case it often is. I might check this album out as Disturbed have surprised me with a couple of awesome songs ("The Infection" springs straight to mind) but I don't know if I'll review it here.


"Thunder & Lightning" - Motorhead          (listen here)
From the album Bad Magic (28/8/15)

Another band who are overly-reliant on the sound of one song. Motorhead have the same problem as AC/DC, something I refer to as 'The Simpsons Syndrome'. They've been consistently making music for such a long time that it's hard to imagine a world where there isn't a Motorhead release every other year. I think the main reason people still listen to this band is because Lemmy IS the band and you can't dislike Lemmy. He's like a pirate that quantum leapt into the Rock and Metal scene.
Anyway, "Thunder & Lightning" is not a Thin Lizzy cover (although there is a cover of "Sympathy For The Devil" on the upcoming album, which I'm keen to hear). It's a typical Motorhead track with thrashing drums, thunderous bass and gravelly vocals. I've often found that Motorhead are capable of putting together a really cohesive album that works from start to finish. You may not like all the songs but they belong on the album, if that makes sense.
Plus, contrary to popular belief, a Motorhead album isn't just the same track recycled ten times. There are bound to be slower songs on Bad Magic that still hit hard and it'll probably be another decent effort. Unlike AC/DC, Motorhead have yet to show signs of aging or creative rot. Their music is still fast, furious and full of energy and for that reason, I have no problem with them still producing albums.


"Complexity" - Eagles Of Death Metal          (listen here)
From the album Zipper Down (2/10/15)

There are two things I need to lay out in the open before I talk about this song. Firstly, these guys aren't Metal. Their name is based around someone comparing their music to the equivalent of the band The Eagles but of the Death Metal genre. Anyone who hasn't heard their music should kill that expectation immediately. Secondly, they're not Mock Rock like Tenacious D or Steel Panther. They're a Hard Rock side-project from Josh Homme (Queens Of The Stone Age) who have decided to change their name to EODM for some stupid reason.
Whilst I like quite a few of their songs ("Wannabe In L.A.", "Miss Alissa", "Speaking In Tongues"...), I don't really have any fondness towards these guys in the same way I care about The Answer or maybe some older bands. I wouldn't have lost any sleep if these guys never went back into the studio but I'll definitely listen to the album when it comes out. For an album opener heralding the return of this wacky outfit after seven years of absence, "Complexity" is pretty generic. I doubt this band are smart enough to ironically write a bland track called "Complexity" but it sounds like it could easily be a filler track from any of their previous albums.
There's bound to be great material on Zipper Down but I'm in no hurry for October to roll around, nor am I desperate to listen to this song again any time soon. However, if you're a fan of these guys then do check the single out. As I said, it sounds like it could easily blend in with their previous works so I guess that's a good sign for EODM purists.


"Coming For You" - The Offspring          (listen here)
From the album ????????? (??/??/??)

I vaguely remember listening to The Offspring's latest album from 2012 (Days Go By) and the only track that stuck in my mind was some piece of shit called "Bumping In My Trunk" or something dumb. Thing is I didn't actually hate the album, it was just that track that stuck in my mind because of how crap it was. I can remember the album being more mature than Ixnay On The Hombre, which was just pure 90's Pop Punk but done in a great way.
Based on this single, it's almost as if the band were going through musical regression but got stuck halfway. It sounds like Oasis trying to cover Green Day or a bunch of thirtysomething adults trying to recapture their youthful rage and passion from twenty years ago. I could be completely wrong but based on this single, I'm guessing fans of The Offspring's earlier material might not be into this. However, fans of Alternative Rock with a tiny bit of a Punk bite will love it.
Despite my earlier criticisms, it strips away the worst elements of Oasis/Green Day whilst blending the best together. Since this track was released as a single without an album, we'll have to wait for more information to come out before forming any solid conclusions on whether that's the direction this band are heading in but as far as speculation goes, they have me intrigued. That is all.

There are more albums coming out this year that I'm bound to check out but at this current point in time, no singles have been released. Perhaps when Megadeth, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Black Sabbath, The Smashing Pumpkins and Iron Maiden give us a sample of their material, I'll come back with Taster Session #2. Also, if there's a single, band or album you think I should listen to, feel free to recommend it/them in the comments. I'm always happy to listen to new Rock/Metal music if you think it's good enough!

Guitar Hero & Rock Band: A History Lesson part 3

I hadn't intended to make these posts so long but it turns out there were more GH/RB games than I originally thought. Part 1 covered 2005-2007, part 2 covered 2008-2009. This final part will cover 2009-2010 which will include the following games:
Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero, Guitar Hero: Arcade, Lego Rock Band, Guitar Hero: On Tour Modern Hits, Guitar Hero: Van Halen, Guitar Hero: Warriors Of Rock, Rock Band 3 and Green Day: Rock Band.
As for other small games released between 2005-2010, they won't be mentioned in this history lesson but I'm sure you'll get over it.

Around the same time as The Beatles: Rock Band was released, Activision had another entry in the main console series to release.

Right bands, wrong songs

Guitar Hero 5 has the feel of a series trying to reinvent itself. In the past, GH has been all about being able to play iconic Rock songs in general video game style. GH5 features more Indie bands with simplistic guitar melodies and songs from classic artists that are generally quite easy to play, almost as if the game was designed for newcomers to the series. It would also explain the addition of modern bands like My Morning Jacket and Brand New, artists who have no place in the series but will likely bring in hip, young kids who were turned off by the idea of "dinosaur Rock" in these games.
Fortunately, the series adds some great ideas which make you wonder how you ever played the games before. For example, the addition of Party Play mode means you can drop in & out of songs whenever you want whilst other bandmates keep on playing. There's also the ability for players to rock the same instruments, so you can have a band consisting entirely of drummers if you really wanted. There are also song specific goals for tracks which make playing them in Career a bit more entertaining, although this could've done with some expansion.
There are also more cameos from artists such as Kurt Cobain so if you want to watch an in-game avatar of him singing "You Give Love A Bad Name" (probably the best thing about GH5), you're in luck. If this game had Guitar Hero: World Tour's soundtrack, I would hate it a little less. Unfortunately, this feels like the hipster of the series and nobody likes hipsters except other bloody hipsters. Still, it could be worse. It could be full of annoying Pop songs...

It genuinely took me a good couple of minutes to pick this game up in stores before I took the plunge and bought it

Band Hero isn't strictly part of the GH series but I'm talking about it as it did have a fairly notable impact on the franchise. For starters, the soundtrack being mostly Pop music meant that Guitar Hero 5, a game designed to have a soundtrack that included something for everyone, would have less shite like Hilary Duff and more from actual Rock bands. However, it also meant that GH5 included Pop music as DLC occasionally, just in case any of the teenage girls who bought the game knew you could buy extra music for a game they were sort of into.
However, when you look at this game from a non-biased standpoint, it's actually quite good. As the "GH of Pop Music", the soundtrack is alright and the engine is based around GH5 with a few extra tweaks like Karaoke mode for vocalists. All in all, it's as faithful to Pop as the original GH games were to Rock. Some may call this series expansion as yet another case of Activision selling out but I can think of a much better example...like Guitar Hero: Arcade.

I feel ashamed at the amount of cash I've put into these machines

Using on-disc and downloadable music from GH3 as the soundtrack, Guitar Hero: Arcade allows you to experience the same fun as GH3 but this time in a public place with teens judging you whilst you try to play a grotty guitar with a chewed up strap and sticky buttons. The songs picked range from the astoundingly easy ("Juke Box Hero") to the immensely difficult ("Surfin' With The Alien"), giving you plenty of choices in between.
Since this is literally designed only to make money, some songs are labelled "Premium" so you have to pay a bit extra for having a slightly less malleable music taste. However, provided you get a machine that works properly, you can still have a lot of fun on these machines although don't expect any features that were added after GH3. Yes, one of you still needs to be bass and no, you can't play Beginner mode. Oh yeah, GH:WT added Beginner mode. Forgot to talk about that in the last part. It's basically just open strums.
I can't call this too much of a sell-out as the GH franchise was inspired by GuitarFreaks arcade machines. What I CAN call a sell-out is charging people extra for songs that aren't particularly long or special, it's almost a random selection of tracks the publishers decided were worth the extra £1. Anyway, during the period that these three Activision titles were put out, Harmonix had a colourful game doing the rounds as well.

"How can we make hammer-ons even harder to read?"

If Band Hero was specifically aimed at younger audiences, Lego Rock Band was aimed at the whole family. I don't want to spend too long talking about Lego games in general so I'll leave it at one sentence: they're awesome. This game is no exception and RB2's career mode partnered with adorable yet silly Lego avatars jumping around on-stage to "Ghosbusters" or "The Final Countdown" and the extra additions like the cinematic song challenges make this one special.
There's also the ability to shorten songs so that younger players don't find it too challenging, which is a neat touch. Perhaps one of the most subtle yet ingenious facts about Lego Rock Band is how it feels more like you're developing a sort of Rock empire. You unlock fans and pets that casually walk around your pad whilst you get ready to play a set and in true Lego fashion, it feels more like you're building something awesome than other games in the series.
For seasoned experts, you're unlikely to find too much challenging although some of the solos may take a few tries to nail, especially on the RB engine. Any enough talking about the more creative competitor, TIME FOR ANOTHER GUITAR HERO!

The "Return Of The Jedi" of the handheld trilogy

Guitar Hero: On Tour Modern Hits was the handheld game that nobody asked for. Despite critics praising the soundtrack from the previous game, claiming it got better as you unlocked the older tracks, this game is all about songs released in the early 21st century. But hey, modern songs are cheaper to license and Activision had a lot of games to push out!
It adds very little that's new or fun to the series aside from a slightly revamped career mode similar to RB2's and once again introduces songs that you'll never play on a console title, since Activision didn't learn anything the first two times (they were too busy extrapolating the wrong message from all their market research). This game has its moments but they dwindle in comparison to the ones in previous handheld or rival games.
It was around this time that the consensus was "Ugh, not another one" whenever a new game was announced. What Activision needed to release was an instantly popular title that would sell like hot cakes and justify the growing number of SKUs being produced. Instead, what they made was Guitar Hero: Van Halen.

The "Back To The Future Part 3" of the trilogy

I hesitate to say "when this game was first released" as the first iteration of this expansion wasn't actually sold in shops. It was given away with copies of Guitar Hero 5 in America. Many critics brought up the likelihood of Activision knowing they had a mediocre game on their hands, but what exactly made this game lacklustre? The soundtrack is alright, even if the guest acts were picked by Eddie Van Halen's son. Plus, the Van Halen songs are all picked from the David Lee Roth era so there are plenty of great "filler" tracks from the original albums that introduce people to songs they probably wouldn't be aware of.
However, there's a small issue with some of the charts, namely the one for "Painkiller". Apparently, there was some sort of licensing issue so the guitar chart has been butchered to the point where it's no longer challenging. The game reeks of these kind of corner cuts, factors such as the recycled GH:WT engine as opposed to the current GH5 one and the mixed tone of the soundtrack that was assembled by a kid who probably enjoys playing Rock Band more.
The game could've been amazing and I guess it's not really bad, although it was enough to help hammer in a nail on the franchise's coffin at the end of 2009/start of 2010, as was the next game to be released (even though again, it's one of my all-time favourites).

Not too little but definitely too late

Similar to how bands would seek their older material for inspiration after their experimental phase, Guitar Hero: Warriors Of Rock is full of songs chosen due to how fun they are on guitar, although there are still several picks that are fun for vocalists ("Bohemian Rhapsody"), drummers ("Aqualung") and newcomers that joined at GH5 ("I Know What I Am"). There's also a brand new career mode that involves powers influencing gameplay, although for expert players who can FC the majority of tracks, these add practically nothing to the game.
There are also more song challenges for each instrument, meaning that there are many challenges in Quickplay mode (retitled Quickplay+ because rebranding equals something else to advertise) and the entire feel of the game is more rough-edged, though sadly a bit too serious for its own good. Despite the temptation of a Hard Rock/Metal soundtrack, there are many tracks that feel odd in this title. Fall Out Boy and Tom Petty may be popular artists but you'd have to be short in the skull to call them Warriors Of Rock.
Whilst the game contains some amazing guitar charts and a great selection of tracks, most of the fans this game was aimed at had jumped ship long ago. As a result, GH:WoR wasn't enough to resurrect the dying franchise and a few months into 2011, Activision announced the series would go on hiatus for the indefinite future. GH fans were unhappy but fans of Rock Band had not one but two games to enjoy.

I hear they actually hired a "Trippyness" consultant to make the game extra trippy

Keeping in mind that there wasn't a main series release from the Rock Band franchise during 2009, this game was developed whilst Activision were selling GH5. In other words, Rock Band 3 is the experimental phase of the game's career. It's hard to talk about the "big innovation" Harmonix added to this game as there's honestly quite a few. They've added Keyboard so a fifth player can join in. They also added "Pro Mode" so you can now play six-stringed guitar controllers for a more realistic experience. They included Vocal Harmonies, a feature added in The Beatles: Rock Band that I also forgot to mention. Want me to continue? Alright then!
The soundtrack is more diverse although, much like GH5, pretty rubbish. There's also the ability to rate songs so the ones you prefer show up in random selection more often. Little things like this make the game that bit better and career mode is also more unique with more unlockables for the achievement addict too. The game was made with love, care and the player's entertainment in mind, even if it did feel like it was being pulled in too many different directions for it to truly be the best of its kind. The soundtrack had to have keys and iconic riffs so it meant several odd choices nobody would've requested made the cut.
Overall, it's a great game if you have a large amount of DLC and admire features over general substance. This wasn't the last Rock Band game to come out in 2010, as they had one more slightly questionable band-centric expansion up their sleeve. Nobody knew how they could possibly hope to top The Beatles: Rock Band and between you and me, I don't think Harmonix knew either. That's why we got Green Day: Rock Band.

I personally blame whoever woke them up in October

I won't spend too much time talking about this as I didn't actually buy or play it. What I can tell you is that it contains a fairly handsome collection of Green Day songs, all of which became available via DLC. After these two games were released, Harmonix kept putting out DLC for a few years to come. They also created another expansion called Rock Band Blitz but that came out in 2012.
Whilst Activision may have been responsible for the series blasting in and out of the mainstream, Harmonix did their part to keep the series alive and whether you're into Green Day or not, I'm sure the title had the same care put into it as all their other products. So here are my ratings for each title I actually bought/spent money on:

Guitar Hero 5 - Excellent additions to gameplay ruined by a pretty pathetic soundtrack. 5/10.
Band Hero - A solid expansion pack aimed at a new audience with a few diamonds in the rough. 6/10.
Guitar Hero: Arcade - Obvious cash in, presumably to make back money on failed GH games. 5/10.
Lego Rock Band - Another hit to add to the growing collection of awesome Lego games. 8/10.
Guitar Hero: On Tour Modern Hits - Completely unnecessary and almost entirely lacking in fun. 3/10.
Guitar Hero: Van Halen - Needed a lot more work on it to truly be considered great but luckily, it's still good. 6/10.
Guitar Hero: Warriors Of Rock - This game got a bit of an unfair grilling by rubbish critics, definitely a series highlight if you're a fan of the series/Rock music. 9/10.
Rock Band 3 - With GH:WoR's soundtrack and engine, this probably would've been the perfect game. Sadly, it's got the same problems as GH5. 7/10.

As for the future of these games? Well, Rock Band 4 and Guitar Hero: Live are coming out later this year. I have my opinions on both games already but chances are you've read them on Twitter already. Maybe I'll do a special blog post about them when they actually come out in October but I will say this about both games now.
Rock Band 4 looks like it'll only be worth getting if you have a shitload of DLC, which is not something I can back as a gamer.
Guitar Hero: Live looks like it was inspired by Freemium games and will probably ruin every other music game after you play it for too long.
That's this three-part series of posts over! No idea what I'll review next week but hopefully it can be contained to one entry. If you have any suggestions, definitely let me know! I still enjoy a challenge and still enjoy reviewing or talking about albums/setlists/things involving music.

Guitar Hero & Rock Band: A History Lesson part 2

In part 1, I talked about all the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games that came out between 2005 and 2007. I had originally intended to cover everything from 2008 to 2010 in this part but since there were a whopping 18 games in that time period, I'm going to have to split it into ANOTHER part that deals with the last 9.
So for part 2, we'll be looking at a selection of games released from 2008 to the first half of 2009, which are as follows:
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, Guitar Hero: On Tour, Guitar Hero: World Tour, Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades, Guitar Hero: Metallica, Rock Band Unplugged, Guitar Hero: Smash Hits and The Beatles: Rock Band.
That means part 3 will cover Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero, Guitar Hero: Arcade, Lego Rock Band, Guitar Hero: On Tour Modern Hits, Guitar Hero: Van Halen, Guitar Hero: Warriors Of Rock, Rock Band 3 and Green Day: Rock Band.

Quite a fucking mouthful right there and that's not even every game from GH/RB that was released! I'm not counting ones like the iOS games or DJ Hero as a) I didn't play them and b) they're not part of the GH/RB series.
Buckle up!

To this day, I still ask myself "why Aerosmith?"

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith was the first in a trilogy of band-centric games to be released over consecutive years (depending on which region you're from). Modelled around the GH3 design, the game contained a setlist roughly the size of GH1 and contained not only a decent selection of Aerosmith tunes but also "warm-up" acts consisting of songs and bands hand-picked by Aerosmith, such as The Cult, Joan Jett and Lenny Kravitz.
It goes without saying that this game isn't going to be for everyone, hence its smaller size. On top of an overall easier difficulty and a weird cameo from Run D.M.C, the game has plenty of downsides. Despite this, it's still quite fun and offers some decent guitar charts ("Toys In The Attic", "Walk This Way") as well as some great covers ("All The Young Dudes", "All Day And All Of The Night"). I would recommend it to people who perhaps don't know many Aerosmith songs but have heard one or two and enjoyed them.
There's always the possibility of games like these introducing you to your new favourite band so it's worth picking up if you can find a cheap enough copy. Around the time of this game's release, there was also another GH title available in shops except this one had a twist; it was for handheld consoles.

The best way to fuck your touchscreen up!

Guitar Hero: On Tour utilised the Nintendo DS's touchscreen and additional cartridge slot to bring GH gameplay to fans of portable gaming. It contained a setlist featuring old ("Hit Me With Your Best Shot") and new ("Youth Gone Wild") songs to the series. Sadly, whilst it was a great idea, the execution contained many problems. For starters, if the fret pad became dislodged from the cartridge slot ever so slightly, you'd have to restart the entire game.
Also, whilst the soundtrack was generally great, many of these songs never made it to a full console GH title so you could never truly appreciate a significant portion of the setlist through tinny DS speaker quality. Much like the first Guitar Hero game, it was a winning formula that needed some work before it could truly be called great. Whilst that work was being done, the next entry in the main series was released.
Guitar Hero: World Tour.

The game's tagline should've been "Great Artists Steal"

Taking a page out of the Rock Band book, Guitar Hero: World Tour introduced drums and vocals to the mix, as well as adding open notes to bass guitar and tap/slide notes to guitar in order to differentiate playing styles. The game marks the first title that used 100% master recordings as opposed to covers so there are quite a few Live songs or alternate recordings in the game. Fortunately, many of these contain even better charts than the originals would ever have ("Sweet Home Alabama").
On top of this, the new GH drumkit came with three pads and two cymbals, making it more "realistic" drum-based gameplay than Rock Band's four pad kit. Continuing Activision's decision to rely on "star power" to push the game, there are many cameos from popular musicians such as Ozzy Osbourne, Jimi Hendrix, Sting and Ted Nugent. The main downside to this game from a soundtrack perspective is the same as Rock Band's.
With the new focus on band gameplay, there are many songs that are just plain boring to play on guitar. Consequently, fans who joined the series early on began to abandon the franchise for being "too easy". So whilst the fans were unsure about whether they still loved Guitar Hero, what was happening with Rock Band?

Rock Band 2: Rock Bander

If you look at Rock Band 2 videos online, you'll probably find very little in the way of innovation. Still the same instruments, still the same soundtrack focus, still the same gameplay. The main differences between this title and the first come in small tweaks. For example, the career mode is less linear than previous games in either franchise and allows the player slightly more freedom in which songs they choose to play in order to progress further and unlock more tracks/get more stars.
There's also the addition of chord hammer-ons on guitar, new online features and a soundtrack full of master recordings too. However, unlike GH:WT, the majority of the game is the same as the predecessor but with slight improvements and there's absolutely nothing wrong with this when there are only two games in the series. For that reason, I easily preferred Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades to GH: OT.

Still reading this blog post? Cool, then I'll continue!

Whilst the main console games dealt with a full band, the DS titles still kept it to the stringed instruments. In Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades, you can progress through a strict chronologically ordered career mode on either Guitar or Bass with an extra option to play Guitar Duels against a CPU, a feature that would've been great in GH3 with the Battle Mode on songs other than the three boss battle tracks.
Starting off easy, the first tier consists of modern tracks ("The Pretender", "Crushcrushcrush") and as you advance through the game, you unlock more difficult and more enjoyable songs from previous decades ("No Rain", "Any Way You Want It") until finishing at the 70's. As far as career progression, soundtrack and gameplay additions go, this game is fantastic for fans of portable gaming and easily a series highlight in the same league as GH3.
Some problems still remained such as the game restarting easily and the songs that never made it outside of this game. Fortunately, these were easily forgivable when the rest of the game was so good. The Guitar Hero series and, hell, music games in general were in a good place by the end of 2008. Looking back with hindsight, it's easy to say that Activision drained the cash cow dry although I imagine it'd take a pretty shitty farmer to stop squeezing the udders when milk is still gushing from the teets.
Anyway, before I get too carried away milking this bovine metaphor, let's move onto the first & arguably best music game of 2009; Guitar Hero: Metallica.

METALLICUUHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Say what you like about these games, they know how to land strongly on the 2nd attempt. GH:M improves the best aspects from Guitar Hero: Aerosmith whilst shedding the worst ones too. The soundtrack is more appropriate for fans of Metallica, mixing well known hits from the band ("Master Of Puppets", "Nothing Else Matters") with bands and songs they've covered ("Tuesday's Gone", "Am I Evil?"). It also keeps the drums and vocals so you can argue with three of your friends about who has to be Lars.
There are also modes that show you song lyrics and allow you to just listen to the songs whilst trivia about the band/track appears on screen, a great feature that sadly only appears in two games. Everything about this game has had time and effort put into it, including the band's motion capture which doesn't come across as stiff and robotic like the Aerosmith ones. There's a lot to love about this game if you like the soundtrack, a statement that can also be applied to Harmonix's first portable title from the Rock Band series.

I still haven't fully mastered Expert on this!

Available exclusively on the PSP, Rock Band Unplugged gives solo players the full band experience as you're tasked with essentially juggling riffs and rhythms for each of the four band members throughout the entire song. During a track, certain phrases of notes will appear for an instrument. They'll only appear on one instrument at a time UNLESS you mess up and fluff some of the notes.
If this happens, more phrases will appear and you'll be at risk of failing the song due to missing oncoming notes on a different instrument. Gradually, you'll get back on track by hitting lots of notes in a single streak whilst your avatars play along to Boston or Tenacious D. Unlike the GH:OT series, you don't need a clunky fretboard to play this. Thanks to the easy button configuration, all you need is a PSP and game.
Perhaps the best thing about this game is not just that the new songs added to the series via RBU were later added as DLC to the console games but also other songs playable in RB1 or 2 were added to this expansion via DLC too. However, the major drawback with this game is that it's entirely single player. Even the GH:OT series had multiplayer modes over WiFi so it seems odd that RBU lacked them entirely. It's likely that Harmonix wanted a small expansion to tide people over until the next big RB release. Meanwhile, Activision had another GH title to pump out!

Are these pictures starting to look a little 'samey' to you yet?

Guitar Hero: Smash/Greatest Hits is an expansion disc that contains songs from the five GH games lacking drums and vocals, all in original master recording form and playable for the entire band. There's also a loose storyline involving visiting the seven wonders of the world but let's face it, nobody gave a fuck about the plot of these games by that point.
There was a good balance of songs from each of the original games (although there could've been a few more from GH3) and despite not being charted by Neversoft, most of them were incredibly fun to play with the improved engine and graphics. However, with Harmonix releasing large track packs full of new content as DLC each week, perhaps this title would've been more suitable as a month's worth of DLC.
I'm not sure if Activision would've made more money that way but it definitely would've softened the over-saturation this genre was going through. At this time, gamers and gaming journalists began to call for less rhythm music games but what they probably should've asked for was less from Activision, as Harmonix were ready to release one of the other top music games from 2009.

Still angers me that they never released 'Help!' album DLC

If you know anything about music licensing, you'll know that creating a game consisting ENTIRELY of Beatles songs would cost a metric fuckton of cash and require a busted nut's worth of hard work to pull off without feeling tacky. Luckily, this game was made by a team who care about the band, the music and the art of creating a game. The amount of detail put into this game, whether it's through the dreamy background sequences of certain songs or the unreleased studio chatter played before each song, is astounding.
The only major downside is a setlist which probably isn't the best selection of tracks they could've chosen. There are some glaring omissions and only a few of those were added via DLC. Yes, about 90% of the songs on-disc belonged there but a couple had no place in the game over some of their classics ("I Want You (She's So Heavy)" was a fucking arseache to play). However, it's a hugely enjoyable game that's suitable for anyone who can play these games on Easy or above and likes The Beatles.
So here's another rundown of my personal scores for all of the above:

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith - Definitely not the strongest band choice for a game that lacks band gameplay but plenty of fun charts to keep guitarists entertained. 6/10.
Guitar Hero: On Tour - Solid soundtrack, decent gameplay and strong potential. 6/10.
Guitar Hero: World Tour - A much needed innovation might turn off some of the purists but if you give it a chance, you'll get hours of fun and maybe even find some more songs to pop on your iPod. 7/10.
Rock Band 2 - More of the same but polished and (more or less) perfected. 8/10.
Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades - Again, not a huge amount of change here but enough to make it more fun and a necessary game to play for fans. 8/10.
Guitar Hero: Metallica - Excellent soundtrack and a surprising amount of care for the team that published Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. 9/10.
Rock Band Unplugged - A refreshing mix-up on how you play these games but maybe not as fun as the standard instrument based gameplay. 7/10.
Guitar Hero: Smash Hits - A game that should've been several weeks of awesome DLC but definitely not a bad expansion disc. 7/10.
The Beatles: Rock Band - Personal taste regarding the soundtrack aside, this is the best possible game casual or hardcore Beatles/music game fans could've asked for. 9/10.

I apologise if these posts are boring to those who aren't into video games but don't worry, only one more left!