JollyBoyJohn posted:

I remember seeing that Attila album on a "best albums ever" list and expected to hate it but found it pretty rocking

XBenedict posted:

I'm either suspect that you saw that on a "best of" list, or that the author of the list has only listened to like 5 albums.

Junpei posted:

I've heard some controversy about whether this act was queerbaiting or exploitative or what have you, but I'm legit curious: Having only listened to "All The Things She Said", and finding it pretty good, is t.A.T.u. any good?

Junpei posted:

The only Eagles songs I know are "Life In The Fast Lane" and "Hotel California", where do I start with them?

ultrafilter posted:

Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) is the top selling album of all time in the US. You should probably give that a listen.

Junpei posted:

The only Eagles songs I know are "Life In The Fast Lane" and "Hotel California", where do I start with them?

Junpei posted:

The only Eagles songs I know are "Life In The Fast Lane" and "Hotel California", where do I start with them?

BigFactory posted:

Couldn’t you just listen to the flying Burrito Brothers and graham parsons instead of The Eagles and be much happier?

BigFactory posted:

Couldn’t you just listen to CCR instead of The Eagles and be much happier?

IUG posted:

So this is more of a "should I continue with?", but is Sting's stuff looking at if you have all The Police albums? I'm going to assume no though, but haven't ever checked out any of his stuff. I just assumed it was much different from The Police stuff.

IUG posted:

So this is more of a "should I continue with?", but is Sting's stuff looking at if you have all The Police albums? I'm going to assume no though, but haven't ever checked out any of his stuff. I just assumed it was much different from The Police stuff.

Terminally Bored posted:

Declan MacManus posted:

eagles are pretty middle of the road as far as country rock goes but they're also one of the best known bands in the genre; people don't necessarily want to start with sweetheart of the rodeo or gene clark's no other

ExecuDork posted:

The suggestions for Billy Joel are excellent, I had a couple of his songs stuck in my head a few weeks ago so I bought The Hits (presumably this is the first of his compilation albums, I can't remember the other choices on his website) and I'm very happy.

ExecuDork posted:

Switching gears, how about Henry Rollins? I always hear about him as "used to be the frontman for Black Flag" but I've never (to my knowledge) heard a Black Flag song, ever. He seems to be more influential as a critic and a broadcaster (i.e. he has an opinion and is willing and able to put it out there), but his background as a musician is always, ALWAYS mentioned right after his name in anything I've read about or by him.

Junpei posted:

Van Halen. I know "Jump" and "Panama", and I am vaguely aware that the David Lee Roth albums are better for in-your-face party rock and that the Sammy Hagar albums are better for power ballads, (and also that the Gary Cherone album blows), but not much else.

fartknocker posted:

I'm gonna go just because they're my favorite band and I feel like it.

If you want the quick, TL;DR, "I know absolutely nothing about this band" level introduction, start with Best Of, Vol. 1. It's a one CD, goes chronological from their debut up to 1996, about evenly split between the Roth and Hagar years, and so you'll get a good idea of most of their biggest songs. The downside of it is that it is just one disc, so you are going to miss out on a bunch of stuff, as a bunch of their biggest/most notable songs (Hot for Teacher, Jamie's Cryin', You Really Got Me) aren't included. They do have a two disc best of, 2004's Best of Both Worlds, but the majority of it alternates between Roth and Hagar songs, so it's a bit of an uneven listen. Both have the downside of them using almost entirely just songs released as singles, so a ton of great songs aren't included on either compilation (Mean Street, Ice Cream Man, 5150, I can go on).

Really, the best thing you can do is just start with Van Halen I and go chronologically. The original six Roth albums are all fairly short (The longest topping out ~35 minutes) and are usually start-to-finish excellent. Their 1978 debut and 1984, the last Roth album, will probably have the majority of the tracks you'd have heard a billion times from classic rock radio (Runnin' With The Devil & Panama come to mind), but both are legitimately among the greatest albums of all time and have some amazing album cuts that need to be listened to at least once (I'm The One, Atomic Punk, and Girl Gone Bad being a few personal favorites). The other Roth albums are also very good, with 1981's Fair Warning usually being the album die hard fans cite as their favorite (Mean Street and Hear About It Later being phenomenal), while Diver Down (1982) usually gets a bit more mixed reputation because Eddie has trashed it on a few occasions because it's cover heavy, but it's a generally fun, upbeat album and has a few songs (Hang 'Em High, Cathedral, Little Guitars) that really deserve a listen to. Van Halen II (1979) and Women and Children First (1980) are also both worth checking out, particularly if you enjoy the sound and style of the first album, and also have a number of great songs (Women in Love, Light up the Sky, Romeo Delight, In A Simply Rhyme).

If you go through those and want to keep going, the first two Hagar albums, 1986's 5150 and 1988's OU812, are pretty good. The production on them is different from that done on the Roth albums, and honestly they can be a bit more hit and miss than the Roth years on first listen. You'll get some very synth heavy, power ballad level stuff (Dreams, When It's Love), but it's not like every single track is based around keyboards, like say, mid-80s Rush became. You'll also get some fantastic guitar work and really awesome songs (5150 and Mine All Mine being probably my favorite songs, regardless of singer), and I really think the singles tend to be some of the weaker songs on these albums, so they are worth listening too if you have the time. If you like them, they'll probably really click for you. After that, the band goes back toward a heavier sound in 1991 with For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, which has some excellent singles (Poundcake, Right Now, Top of the World), but how you feel about the rest of the album really will depend on how much you enjoy EVH's guitar skills with Hagar's word choice (Which can vary quite a bit). Very much an album towards the middle of the pack. The last Hagar album, Balance, from 1995, stays with a heavier sound, but is a very uneven album, so YMMV quite a bit. The singles (Can't Stop Loving You & Not Enough) on it are obvious as hell and tend toward blatant commercial stuff, while the rest of it alternates between excellent (The Seventh Seal, Don't Tell Me (What Love Can Do), Balchitherium) and mediocre (Take Me Back), so take it as it goes...

After that, if you are somehow still interested in all this insanity, I'd say go right to 2012's reunion with Roth, A Different Kind of Truth. About half the songs on began life as demos prior to their debut (Which you can no doubt find on YouTube if you want to compare them) and some people seemed to use that to dismiss the album when it came out, but Eddie's playing remains excellent, and most of them are very good and close to the quality of their original albums, with a few of the newer songs (China Town, As Is) being down right great IMO. The sound is also more in key with their first few albums (Meaning it tends to be heavier stuff), which can be a plus if you liked that. The downsides are Dave has obviously aged a bit, and the lack of Michael Anthony contributing to their signature backing vocals becomes obvious.

Coming up towards the end here are their two live albums, 1993's Live: Right Here, Right Now and 2015's Tokyo Dome Live in Concert, with Hagar and Roth respectively. The former was heavily edited up during production, with several of the tracks being totally done in studio. It's not very representative of how they sounded live with Sammy, with too much crowd noise in the mix, and little to no improvisation from Eddie that normally made listening to (Or seeing) them live worth while. If you want to see that, look for the Live Without a Net video, from their 5150 tour. It's an excellent performance and will really give you an idea why the Hagar version of the band actually worked out as well as they did. Tokyo Dome is from their 2012 tour and is basically just a slightly cleaned up soundboard recording. Musically, it's very good, with the Van Halens (Eddie, Alex, and now Wolfgang on bass) being all in perfectly fine form, but Dave is... not. Now, granted, DLR was never exactly one to give 100% effort into his vocal delivery, even in his prime, but he's showing his age and it can be kinda rough. If you want to hear how Eddie's guitar has sounded live over the past ~20 years, that covers it, but it can be a bit rough at first due to Dave.

The final piece of all this is 1998's Van Halen III, with Gary Cherone on lead vocals. It's actually not a terrible album! ...it just doesn't sound like anything else Van Halen ever did. Eddie basically had unfettered control, and so you get more overdubbing and wildly different guitar tones in one hour than probably all their other albums put together. Cherone's delivery is somewhat mixed and could have been better, while lyrically he is an obvious change from Dave and Sammy (Make of that what you will). Eddie does more of the backing vocals (And lead on the final track, How Many Say I), which is a negative. Only one song (Fire in the Hole) is really close to the sound found in their other albums, and a bunch of them are longer songs than on any other album they did. A few of them remind me of a tone more closer to early 80's, Discipline-era King Crimson, and really the whole album is simply not what most people expected when they grabbed something with Van Halen on the label, which is a big reason it has the reputation that it does. Honestly, I'd say it's a fairly mediocre album that is really failed by its mix and production quality (Or those in control of those aspects). That said, if you are really curious about how the album should have sounded, check out some of their live performances from 1998. Ironically, the III Tour was excellent because the new songs were done in a more traditionally Van Halen-style (Eddie using a single, heavy guitar sund and Michael Anthony doing backing vocals) and Gary was willing to play basically any song from their back catalog, so it had a great setlist and is worth exploring more, particularly if you like live material (This show being a personal favorite of mine).

Lastly, for the related vein of material: If you do happen to enjoy the appropriate albums, David Lee Roth's first solo album, 1986's Eat 'Em and Smile, is similarly styled, fantastic, and worth your time. How you'd view his later stuff depends on how much you enjoy that and his overall schtick, hitting on some varying styles and production quality. Hagar's many solo albums come in varying shades of quality, particularly prior to ~1979, so those are a case where one of his Greatest Hits albums or randomly going through YouTube or such will really give you all you'd need. 1987's I Never Said Goodbye is worth checking out if you do like the Van Hagar stuff, as Eddie helped produce it and played bass so it's got a similar sound. His post-Van Halen solo albums tend to be one or two solid songs mixed with a lot of forgettable filler, although his stuff with Chickenfoot (Him, Michael Anthony, Joe Satriani and Chad Smith) is very good.

Junpei posted:

Were Kris Kross actually any good? Whenever I hear them referenced it always just sort of is "heh. Remember when those middle schoolers had a rap career?" and not like, any discussion of their actual skills/fame/songs. I like "Jump", for the record.

BigFactory posted:

I got nothing against the eagles except for their music and don henleys lovely attitude about people who work for/with him. But mostly the music.

Junpei posted:

George Michael's post-Wham! music?

JollyBoyJohn posted:

I've never heard any Barenaked ladies songs other than 90s anthem - One Week and a live version of "if i had a million dollars" What am i missing?

Junpei posted:

George Michael's post-Wham! music?

JollyBoyJohn posted:

I've never heard any Barenaked ladies songs other than 90s anthem - One Week and a live version of "if i had a million dollars" What am i missing?