UFO -LIGHTS OUT
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UFO — LIGHTS OUT | DeRank™: 0,00

"Phenomenon" ultimately remains my favorite by a narrow margin, with this one coming right after, slightly above "Heavy Petting," if only for "Love to Love," which is one of their best tracks, epic rock that is "refined" without slipping into tackiness, and for the cover of the Love's gem of melodic pop perfection, "Alone Again Or." In short, "Lights Out" is an album full of love. UFO's songwriting is very straightforward, with classic songs, such as the ballad "Try Me," which might even be a bit cliché, but they use it to craft consistently good, or at worst, pleasant songs. Having listened to them frequently in the past few weeks, I can confirm they are among my favorite classic '70s rock/hard rock bands; I wouldn't take them to a Desert Island, but they have released several excellent albums in the genre, truly excellent. This one is undoubtedly on their podium. more
Ash Ra Tempel -Seven Up
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Ash Ra Tempel — Seven Up | DeRank™: 6,19

Not a masterpiece like some other albums by Ash Ra, but this curious journey to Switzerland by Manuel Göttsching's band towards the refuge of exile guru Timothy Leary has always entertained me a lot. Between trips and shenanigans, this nice record came out, made up of two jams (one more cosmic, beautiful) improvised, tasting like Seven Up spiked with LSD. A nice and "fun" album, truly an interesting collaboration. The peaks of Ash Ra are still the first two albums, but I've listened to this one often and always with pleasure. more
Aretha Franklin -Aretha in Paris
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Aretha Franklin — Aretha in Paris | DeRank™: 2,79

Well, it’s Aretha live at the Olympia in Paris in 1968, at the height of her artistic glory and commercial success, what else is there to add. My goodness, there isn’t much difference between this live performance and one of her contemporary studio albums; it’s more like a live compilation of some of the best tracks from her repertoire, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the album is a blast. All the beauty and energy of Franklin and the best Soul and R&B are here in spades. I only think of the songs that open and close the live set: I definitely prefer her version of "Satisfaction" to the original by the Stones, no matter how much I like the Stones, while "Respect," well... it’s the usual perfect bomb to close a live album with fireworks. Beautiful, beautiful. more
Black Sabbath -Heaven And Hell
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Black Sabbath — Heaven And Hell | DeRank™: 0,19

Black Sabbath 2.0 with Dio on vocals (yes, Black Sabbath with Dio, they made the joke), Black Sabbath 2.0 who dive into NWOBHM Heavy Metal. I should point out that for me it makes no sense to refer to this type of music as "Heavy Metal," especially when talking about these Sabbaths, when the term "Heavy Metal" was coined precisely for hard-sounding rock or rock-blues records, including the early works of Sabbath themselves. So wouldn’t it be a huge contradiction to refer to "Heaven and Hell" with the same term, which is something entirely different? What the hell is "Heavy Metal" doing here and in other records of this genre? At most, this could be called "Soft Metal," there you go. Clean sounds, light, epic and absolutely melodic openings, at times practically pop-rock, in others a Hard Rock with a bright and "grand" sound. In any case, I consider this album a radical refreshment of sounds and lineup that the Sabbaths needed, after the last two subpar albums with Ozzy, and an excellent album in its own right, which, however, doesn’t drive me crazy at all. I still consider it a good album, with a great title track (great piece) and "Lonely is the Word," which are the standout songs, featuring beautiful melodies, RJ's lovely voice, and excellent guitar parts by Totonno Iommi. The rest speaks much less to me, but it’s pleasant. more
Black Sabbath -Sabotage
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Black Sabbath — Sabotage | DeRank™: 0,00

An album that has taken a musical direction largely oriented towards a more canonical and "classic" Hard Rock, losing the heaviness (because they played the heavy version of heavy rock, the overweight rock) that was beautiful in the early records; this, to my ears, makes it lose a few points, but oh well, because it's beautiful Hard Rock and "Sabotage" remains, in its genre, one of my favorite albums of the '70s (and, therefore, of all time). There are also songs here that explore different genres, "Am I Going Insane" leans more towards a sour pop-rock than anything else (and it's quite nice if you ask me). "Supertzar," on the other hand, is a terrible mess without appeal; I think it's the first shitty song from Sabbath, something unimaginable for a band like them up until that point. Other than that, everything is great; "Symptom" and the more elaborate "The Writ" (the final acoustic part is beautiful) are my favorites, two magnificent tracks, and even the 10 minutes of "Megalomania" flow very nicely. A great album, the last truly great one with Ozzy on vocals, before two albums that were definitely tired and less inspired (though not completely worthless) and the respraying (redeeming although to tastes not very pleasant to me) in "epic" tones with Ronnie James Dio. more
Alice -Capo Nord
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Alice — Capo Nord | DeRank™: 2,79

The first album by Carla Bissi under the stage name Alice, and under the wing of Battiato and Giusto Pio, is truly remarkable. In fact, her career begins here. "Capo Nord" is part of that cycle of albums written by Battiato and Pio during a moment of fantastic pop inspiration, in terms of music, lyrics, and arrangements. The Battiato-esque pop-rock/synth-pop didn't miss a beat; furthermore, here (as with Giuni Russo or Milva in the same years), this inspiration is gifted to one of the greatest interpreters of Italian music. An interpreter but also a songwriter, both because she was actively involved in writing with the two masters, and because she wrote two songs entirely by herself, one of which, "Una sera di Novembre," is among the most beautiful on the album, refined and elegant. Plus, there's her voice and great interpretive skills. We all know how great Alice has proven to be throughout her career, what she has accomplished as a musician, songwriter, and interpreter, but this album is already a very tasty appetizer. "Il vento caldo dell'estate," "Bael," "Sera," and especially the dark, resigned melancholy of "Rumba Rock" are truly memorable songs. Beautiful. more
Soundgarden -Louder Than Love
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Soundgarden — Louder Than Love | DeRank™: 0,00

I like it a lot; it's always been my favorite from the Soundgarden catalog. More visceral than the mature "Superunknown" and more polished than the raw "Ultramega Ok," it represents the perfect compromise achieved by the band's music, the most cohesive and "square" album. I consider it one of the best Rock/Hard-Rock albums released between the '80s and '90s. Moreover, this is the best lineup of Soundgarden, at its peak, with Yamamoto, a great bassist, who played a crucial role in the songwriting process. And then there's a brilliant singer/songwriter, an excellent guitarist, a drummer also in great form, and what comes out is a very homogeneous album, even in the quality of the tracks. Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to call it a masterpiece or consider it one of "my" essential albums, just because I see Soundgarden as excellent students who, while making a fantastic impression, haven't surpassed their masters (we all know the various inspirations of the band; I don't need to repeat their shopping list). So, it's a matter of taste, but I truly find this album skirting perfection; it has only great tracks, from the first to the last, no dips, no weak points, no underwhelming songs, it flows smoothly—it's a solid block of excellent hard-rock 2.0. Beautiful. more
Afghan Whigs -Congregation
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Afghan Whigs — Congregation | DeRank™: 3,93

Very nice, the appreciation grows with each listen. In fact, this is the first Afghan album that I've properly listened to in full, and at first it left me somewhat puzzled; I expected more Soul/Black influences given its stunning cover, which by itself indicates Dulli and the guys' passion for the hybridization between white rock and soul/r&b, just as the lyrics of the title track are also significant, for example. From the second listen onwards, however, I found myself in front of a beautiful album of typical "90s rock," with very beautiful songs one after another, inspired, some wonderfully engaging ("Turn on the Water" or "Conjure Me" or "Miles Iz Dead" with its magnificent little riff, "This is My Confession," for example). There's not a weak track; I'm not crazy about the production and sounds (in the sense of volumes, I really don't know this stuff), but the level of songwriting here is of excellent quality. In this album, their passion for pop-soul-r&b is not musically perceivable (except in a vague way), but it’s clear that they had broader intentions than just the simple "let’s do big rock." From the beautiful cover of "The Temple" taken from "Jesus Christ Superstar," for instance. Well, from what I’ve understood, "Congregation" acts somewhat as a bridge between the first two rougher albums and the two that follow, the albums of definitive maturity. A bridge very well done, I must say. more
Elton John -21 At 33
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Elton John — 21 At 33 | DeRank™: 0,00

An album that represents an improvement over the previous one, but of course compared to "Victims of Love," even a Best Of with me singing in the shower would have been an upgrade. A professional album, with a couple of good songs, another 2-3 nice ones, and the rest is pretty forgettable in my opinion. This first EJ album from the '80s, followed by the even more valid "The Fox," could have seemed like a prelude to a return to quality productions, but instead, it was a foreshadowing of some real crap. This is still an acceptable and decent album, anyway, that you can listen to a couple of times before collecting dust. But he will do worse, much worse, Uncle Reginald. more
Elton John -Peachtree Road
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Elton John — Peachtree Road | DeRank™: 1,68

Second album from Elton John's "renaissance" period, which spans from "Songs From the West Coast" to "The Diving Board", where he recovered his artistic dignity, lost under the sofa towards the end of the '70s and then unfortunately fallen down the drain after 1983. He started composing songs and albums that always wavered between the excellent and the decent, at least. This album leans towards "decent" and is the least beautiful of the years 2001-2013, but it remains pure gold compared to those wonderful mishaps that the Sir graciously gifted us at the end of the '80s. "La Strada del Pesco" has the flaw of being almost entirely composed of ballads and slow songs, and if they were all masterpieces, it would be fine, but only a few are actually good songs (and none truly memorable, anyway, standard stuff from standard Elton John, albeit pleasant to hear), so the result is an album that is not bad but still too heavy, repetitive, and quite boring overall, without peaks or particular flashes, where the only more lively moment, "They Call Her the Cat," is welcomed with joy, perhaps precisely for this reason, it seems to me the best part of the album. Oh, there are some lovely little Elton John ballads here, for sure, but 4-5 out of 11; the others are too irrelevant, and that’s not enough to avoid the sense of boredom. more
Blue Öyster Cult -Tyranny And Mutation
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Beautiful album, the best by the Oyster alongside the subsequent one, but personally, it's slightly my favorite among all of them. While the beautiful debut album featured many great tracks but also a couple that were just okay (like Joe Bouchard's "Scream"), here all eight songs are of high quality, with an overall average superior to that of the first album. "7 Screaming Diz-Busters," for instance, I consider the best creation of the Oyster along with "Astronomy" and a perfect example of their search for compositions that went beyond the canonical song structure typical of Hard Rock at the time. Broader in scope, more mutable, with a more complex structure, it's a hit. Besides that, the rock-pop-r&b gem "O.D.'d on Life Itself," the acid ballad with a beautiful arcane-melancholic melody and the riff (but only that) very Sabbath-like of "Wings Wetted Down," and Joe Bouchard's much, much better showcase as a solo writer, compared to the debut, with "Hot Rails to Hell" and "Baby Ice Dog" (lyrics by Patti) all elevate this truly beautiful album, but they’re all at this level, and I don’t mention them all due to space constraints. The band is at the top of their game, both as songwriters and musicians (the Bouchard brothers’ rhythm section is splendid, Bloom sings almost all the songs, Roeser’s guitar work is perfect and never too intrusive or overflowing, Lanier doesn’t write anything but his keyboards are pleasantly more present this time, and so on). more
Blue Öyster Cult -Spectres
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Blue Öyster Cult — Spectres | DeRank™: 0,17

It's not that bad. At this time, BOC had definitely embraced a light and radio-friendly rock/pop-rock sound, but they still had a good knack for pop melody, and the album is a decent effort in its genre, very pleasant to listen to even just in the background. Compared to the previous one, it doesn't have those two or three standout songs, but everything is almost on the same level of enjoyable rock-pop tunes. I don't mind it, aside from a couple of big seagull droppings that wouldn't look out of place in a worst pop chart of the following decade, precursors of crap, so to speak. But it's a nice album. more
judas priest -sin after sin
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judas priest — sin after sin | DeRank™: 0,33

I like it less than Sad Wings, without a doubt, but it's a good album nonetheless, marking the start of the band's '77-'80 period, which is characterized by "Not as beautiful as in Sad Wings, but damn, I really like these metalheads." Compared to its predecessor, it gives up on more fanciful theatricality, greater eclecticism, and a certain "elegance," settling into an alternating pattern of more classically Hard Rock tracks (with a bit of that over-the-top epicness here and there, thankfully not overly annoying) and very, very successful ballads. "Last Rose of Summer" is my favorite on the album; they are often talked about as the forefathers of the typical "heavy metal ballad," but this is an almost "singer-songwriter" song that confirms their remarkable melodic ability. A beautiful song. Just as beautiful is the Baez cover and the melancholic, twilight, warm, and dark melody of "Here Come the Tears," because in my opinion, Judas had the best typical British melodic taste. On the hard side, "Sinner" is a fantastic piece (and this album features Simon Phillips, the best drummer to ever come through their ranks, I mean...) but the others are great too ("Let Us Prey" and "Raw Deal" especially) with clear proto NWOBHM inspirations and nods to Hard Rock classics (Purple, Zeppelin, and the like), both musically and in Halford's vocals, with Bobby Pianta's guiding manuals popping up every so often, as it should be. A nice album. more
Judas Priest -Killing Machine
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Judas Priest — Killing Machine | DeRank™: 0,29

My favorite Judas album after Sad Wings. Beautiful because it returns to the bloodier and rawer territories of Rock/Hard Rock, while still containing some of the more "refined" and melodic aspects here and there, leaving the more airy and epic style of "classic metal" — let’s call it that — which they were progenitors of (and which is still present, see the lovely opening "Deliver the Goods"). There’s a greater urgency and visceral quality in this "Killing Machine," which makes me prefer it slightly over its "brother" released a few months earlier, which is almost equally valid, of course. Here, the only one that doesn't say much to me is "Evening Star"; the rest is explosive. The sequence of three songs from "Burnin' Up" to "Killing Machine" (irresistible) is unbeatable, and they are all among my favorites from the band. In the middle, of course, shines the excellent cover (not easy) of one of the masterpieces that the Green Wizard of English Blues-Rock wrote with Fleetwood Mac (the last one, to be precise), that perfect spellbinding anthem of rock-blues, "The Green Manalishi," which reveals their appreciation for the Green Mac and which will become a classic in their live set. The ballad "Before the Dawn" is also beautiful, confirming their melodic taste, and while it’s just a bit too romantic and sentimental, it’s still very lovely. And then there's the lighter and poppy part with "Take on the World," featuring a stadium anthem (Queen-esque without being as annoying) that sounds almost like a cleaned-up pub song from England. more
Judas Priest -Point Of Entry
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Judas Priest — Point Of Entry | DeRank™: 0,00

I had always skipped this album, going directly to the two that followed. Then I thought, "Why not give it a listen, you never know..." I should have continued to skip it. Terrible album. Pure and hatefully “radio-friendly heavy metal”—the kind that is truly not very heavy and truly not very metal (I call it pop-metal)—but above all, tremendously tacky, sycophantic, and unnecessarily, overwhelmingly over-the-top, gaudy, "epic" (in the worst sense of the term this time). Unfortunately, it’s a genre that quickly goes from enjoyably garish to monstrously bad for me. This one is bad. It has a couple of delightfully tacky moments, but it's bad. Comparing this album to the attitude of a "Killing Machine," as well as to the songs themselves, this album self-destructs. A major misstep for the band, and also the only one I’ve ever listened to, since the next two aren’t my cup of tea, but they’re amusingly tacky-fun, and "Painkiller" is instead a colossal leap in luxury. I don’t know the two from '86-'88 and I don’t want to know them; twice the same nonsense, no thanks. more
judas priest -rocka rolla
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judas priest — rocka rolla | DeRank™: 0,19

A classic, immature debut album, still somewhat "undecided," but not a bad record for that. Simply put, it's mostly a hard rock album that feels a bit generic, enjoyable but somewhat flat, with very few moments or tracks that really elevate it from the crowd; it stays, rather, in the average realm of any standard hard rock album from those years (with a few nice songs, like "One for the Road"). Then there are the tracks where Judas seek different atmospheres and genres (as they would do on Sad Wings, but with very different results), but even the triptych "Winter/Deep Freeze/Winter Retreat," originally conceived as a single piece divided into three sections, or the final instrumental, the delicate "Caviar and Meths," don’t particularly stand out and leave me completely indifferent. However, there are two tracks on the album that manage to shine well beyond the average quality of the remaining pieces: "Dying to Meet You," distinctly divided into two parts and particularly beautiful in the first half, and the rock ballad "Run of the Mill," with its almost 9 minutes, which is in my opinion the first true great piece by Priest, a classic rock ballad, with a classic long guitar solo, but beautiful, inspired, very well-executed, a fantastic track. Two years later, what will come will come, and it will obviously be a whole different story. more
Judas Priest -Stained Class
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Judas Priest — Stained Class | DeRank™: 0,03

Great album, along with the '78 twin Killing Machine, it completes the podium of my favorite Priest records, though it’s consistently a notch behind Sad Wings. Here, the stylistic variety of the previous two albums (especially the usual big record from '76) is abandoned, and the band solidifies into a hard/heavy rock-metal that, damn it, is practically a primer for all their students of the following decade, Maiden and the lovely NWO gang, etc., as well as the Dio-era Sabbath, in many aspects (and, as always, done better by Judas). The best songs for me are "Fire Burns Below" and the beautiful cover from the stunning second album of Spooky Tooth, "Better By You, Better Than Me," which I may prefer because it stays closer to 70s rock/hard rock territory, even though the beautiful closing track fully embraces the grandiose tones, which can also be perfectly traced in '70s hard rock, and everything connects. The only one that convinces me less is "Saints in Hell"; everything else excites me greatly, nice nice, from the opening duo "Exciter"-"White Heat-Red Hot" to the title track, passing through the third best song of this album, "Beyond the Realms of Death," with some great guitar solos, especially Tipton's. more
Judas Priest -Sad Wings Of Destiny
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Judas Priest — Sad Wings Of Destiny | DeRank™: 0,31

Stunning album, with the band making a significant leap in quality compared to their debut, which was not bad but still quite immature. As far as I'm concerned, it's among the best Hard Rock albums I've ever listened to, and even more so, I consider it one of those albums capable of surpassing the barriers of categorization and the boundaries of genres, an album appreciated beyond one's own "musical current" of belonging. Here, the Judas draw inspiration from this and that (a bit from the usual rock giants of the early '70s - Led/Purple and their ilk, a touch of the best Queen, the finest melodic refined pop/songwriting/electro-acoustic croonerism/a sprinkling of melodic ideas or musical concepts close to a certain "prog" taste of the more "romantic") but they have the merit of blending it into a concoction that is entirely their own, doing so with great inspiration in songwriting, eclecticism, and sophistication, as well as a masterful balance of aggression, melancholy, and dramatic flair. In doing so, they themselves throw collected (and often exaggeratedly misinterpreted) insights from a multitude of other bands from the following decade onward ("Tyrant," for example, is clearly a pre-cursor to Maiden, citing perhaps the most capable disciples, even in beautiful melodic, vocal, and guitar taste). "Victims of Changes" and "Epitaph" (written solely by Tipton - like the theatrical rock gem that is "The Ripper") are my favorites, but there's not a second wasted here. more
Rush -rush
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Rush — rush | DeRank™: 0,48

First album for Rush, by the way without Peart on drums (played by one John Rutsey); practically a duo (Lee-Lifeson) + 1. A very conventional hard rock album, played by two musicians with unquestionable high technical skill (already here it's a pleasure to hear Geddy's bass, not so much to hear his voice that's like a chicken being strangled) but very green when it comes to ideas, personal style, and songwriting. Sometimes they venture into territories that seem like lesser apocryphal Led Zeppelin in tone (definitely) minor, and Lee seems to be an awkward cross between Plant and a car alarm siren; in other songs (I’m thinking of his singing in "Finding My Way") he instead comes off as a spiritual guide for future generations of sharp-beaked hard/metal poultry, and it’s hard rock that is very much rooted in those coordinates (and without reaching the level of the best hard 'n' roll of bands like, I don't know, AC/DC from the immediately following years). It’s not a bad album, no, in fact there are nice things to be found in "Here Again" (a good Hard-Rock-Blues track which is indeed a lesser apocryphal of Led but more than respectable) or in the long instrumental introduction of "Before and After," where Lee prefers to let his bass sing for a couple of minutes, a very commendable choice, thank you. A fundamental piece was missing for the birth of the "true" Canadian trio, this is a decent but lukewarm introduction. more
Guns N' Roses
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Guns N' Roses | DeRank™: -0,48

Maurizio Ganz & Rozez more