Poll: Your Favorite Forgotten Record

My take on the rest:

Iron Maiden - No Prayer For The Dying - it's still Maiden... their worst is still better than a lot of bands best

Motorhead - March Or Die - Looks like Motorhead, sounds like Motorhead, must be Motorhead

Anthrax - Volume 8 - The Threat Is Real - Listened to it a few times, can't remember a single song on that album. Terrible album

Judas Priest - Ram It Down Already threw in my 2 cents, nothing to see hear (outside of Blood Red Skies which worked great live)

Kiss - Hot In The Shade - If Peter Criss' solo album isn't considered a KISS album, then HITS (which had one HIT) is easily KISS' worst album.

Black Sabbath - Forbidden - Listened to it a couple times, didn't connect with me

Dio - Angry Machines - Dio's done better... not a horrid album but not great

AC/DC - Blow Up Your Video - Looks like AC/DC, sounds like AC/DC, must be AC/DC.... not their best album, the quality is on par with Fly On The Wall, Flick Of The Switch or Stiff Upper Lip


Aerosmith - Rock In A Hard Place - Not a big Aero-fan, but it's not a terrible album. Plus, the track Lightning Strikes is a damn good song!

Accept - Death Row - It's got Udo on it and that is a good thing

I had to go with the Saxon, not because the others in the list I am familiar with are bad (the Motorhead, for example, kicks), but because the Saxon rocks hard from start to finish. I like everything I've heard by them, but Solid Ball of Rock just nailed me 100%.

ZombieHavoc wrote:

The one thing that seems to weird to me is when people like the genre that Turbo was kind of trying to fit itself into, but then don't like Turbo.

So, like someone will like whatever 80s keyboard-heavy, commercial metal album by whatever band, but then not like one by Judas Priest? Or Saxon? To me, a band like Priest or Saxon can do almost anything better. So if I like 80s keyboard-heavy commercial metal, then yeah, they are going to do that better than the bands already in that genre.

So if you don't like metal with keyboards and stuff, then sure, it makes sense you don't like it when Priest does it. But otherwise, I don't get it.

Did that make sense?

Where this kind of thing gets weird is that sometimes these bands are reach for a brass ring and so incredibly BAD at what they're aiming for that you end up with mixed results.

Example: I'm a huge Gary Numan fan, but I love the albums he made in the 80s when he seemed to think Janet Jackson was the person to emulate. All synths, brass, female backing singers, fretless bass, etc. Now, what made those albums work for me is that Numan is too damn weird to really make pop music. He fails spectacularly. The stuff is too grim, atmospheric and weird to EVER be radio friendly. However, that stuff tickles me in the right spot.

Turbo was Priest trying to be Bon Jovi or Motley Crue (Locked In) hanging out with Twisted Sister (Parental Guidance) and they didn't really nail it. Turbo Love is probably the most Priest song on the record because they don't sound like they're trying to do someone else there.

Full disclosure: Turbo is one of my FAVORITE Priest albums, but I'm trying to be objective here. I like it because it's an anomaly. A lot of people didn't and don't want an anomaly. They want what they came to expect from Priest, and Priest didn't exactly do an exemplary job wearing the new hat, which is also kind of why most people seem to have a bone to pick with Nostradamus. For me, it was a nice attempt at some of the more grandiose European metal bands (I'm also a huge Therion fan so, again, it ticked the right boxes), but for others, it was just too much of a deviation from the style they'd come to expect and it didn't bridge the gap to prove that Priest could do something else.

Runicen wrote:

Example: I'm a huge Gary Numan fan, but I love the albums he made in the 80s when he seemed to think Janet Jackson was the person to emulate.  All synths, brass, female backing singers, fretless bass, etc.  Now, what made those albums work for me is that Numan is too damn weird to really make pop music.  He fails spectacularly.  The stuff is too grim, atmospheric and weird to EVER be radio friendly.  However, that stuff tickles me in the right spot.  

Same here! I like almost all eras of Numan (some of his industrial albums got a bit repetitive-sounding , though). Strange Charm, Outland, Metal Rhythm are really good albums and The Fury and Machine + Soul have some excellent tracks. I even have the Sharp + Numan album Automatic on vinyl. He wants to keep his distance from those years and stick with the NIN style he's been doing for almost 20 years (during a Meet and Greet, he admitted to me he is in a rut, LOL), but I still like those dance albums, even though, generally speaking, I'm not a fan of that type of music. I just really like his songwriting no matter what the musical style.

80s Metal Lady wrote:

Same here! I like almost all eras of Numan (some of his industrial albums got a bit repetitive-sounding , though). Strange Charm, Outland, Metal Rhythm are really good albums and The Fury and Machine + Soul have some excellent tracks. I even have the Sharp + Numan album Automatic on vinyl. He wants to keep his distance from those years and stick with the NIN style he's been doing for almost 20 years (during a Meet and Greet, he admitted to me he is in a rut, LOL), but I still like those dance albums, even though, generally speaking, I'm not a fan of that type of music. I just really like his songwriting no matter what the musical style.

Always awesome to meet someone else who even KNOWS about those records, let alone likes them.   

I don't dislike his attempts at industrial, but I don't feel like he does it well and more than a little of it I'm inclined to theorize is the fact that Ade Fenton has produced his last... Three? Four? The guy's not bad, but it comes off as NIN-by-Numbers and I'm not even that fired up by what NIN is doing these days.

Again, not BAD as such, but both Numan and NIN seem to forget that a lot of what made them so interesting to begin with is the odd soundscapes and the fact that nobody else quite sounded like them at ANY point in their earlier careers. I actually passed up a chance to see Gary in Philly because I realized I would have been far more fired up to see the Berzerker tour than the current one.   

I voted for Anthrax's Volume 8. I think that's just as good as any of their other albums. Different, sure, but still good. I'm also of the opinion that there are no bad Anthrax albums.

My 2nd choice would have been for Aerosmith's Rock in a Hard Place. It sits in just fine with the rest of their 70's classic era as far as I'm concerned. Done with Mirrors could have easily been included in it's place. It was the end of the "classic 70's sound" and didn't have the spit-shine of Permanent Vacation which kicked off a new era of the band.

Runicen wrote:

Always awesome to meet someone else who even KNOWS about those records, let alone likes them.    

I don't dislike his attempts at industrial, but I don't feel like he does it well and more than a little of it I'm inclined to theorize is the fact that Ade Fenton has produced his last...  Three?  Four?  The guy's not bad, but it comes off as NIN-by-Numbers and I'm not even that fired up by what NIN is doing these days.

Again, not BAD as such, but both Numan and NIN seem to forget that a lot of what made them so interesting to begin with is the odd soundscapes and the fact that nobody else quite sounded like them at ANY point in their earlier careers.  I actually passed up a chance to see Gary in Philly because I realized I would have been far more fired up to see the Berzerker tour than the current one.    

His latest album is really good. Much better than his last few. The songs actually have character, for lack of a better term. I can pick one out from the others rather than all of them blending together like on albums like Jagged. Definitely take advantage of a Meet & Greet if you can. Great experience. He actually sits down and talks to each fan.

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Raven's Stay Hard should probably be here as well. Not the highlight of their Atlantic records era (IMO, that would be Life's a Bitch), but a decent metal album with no real lowlights.

ZombieHavoc wrote:

Boris2008 wrote:

Orion Crystal Ice wrote:

Dio or Priest, how people can like 'Turbo' but not 'Ram It Down' is a total mystery to me. :p

How anyone can like either is the real mystery!   

The one thing that seems to weird to me is when people like the genre that Turbo was kind of trying to fit itself into, but then don't like Turbo.

So, like someone will like whatever 80s keyboard-heavy, commercial metal album by whatever band, but then not like one by Judas Priest? Or Saxon? To me, a band like Priest or Saxon can do almost anything better. So if I like 80s keyboard-heavy commercial metal, then yeah, they are going to do that better than the bands already in that genre.

So if you don't like metal with keyboards and stuff, then sure, it makes sense you don't like it when Priest does it. But otherwise, I don't get it.

Did that make sense?

Well, I think it's the fact that when people listen to Priest, they want straight up heavy metal. They might normally like the style of music (such as I do), but it's not what they want from Priest.