Remember when I used to be a writer?  That was awesome, right?  2011 was a really intense year for me, so my “career,” unfortunately fell by the wayside.  However, I never stopped listening, so here are my favorite records of 2011.  Before I get started, I want to give shoutouts to a couple people.  Thanks to Nick Jackson and Kelly Lavelle for making my site look so incredible.  If you want an amazing website, get in touch with these two.  They know what they are doing, and they put up with my impossible demands.  Thanks, guys.  I really appreciate your help and I am in your debt.

I also want to say that Mixtape Muse is one of the best blogs on the web, run by my buddy Quinn S., whose skills are lightyears beyond mine.  It’s already blowing up, but it’s going to be the blog to watch in 2012.  Plus, he writes cool power pop songs, and the world needs more of those.

But enough of my yakking, let’s boogie!

1. Anthrax: Worship Music (Thrash ain’t dead!)

2. The Roots: Undun (Gold, Jerry)

3. Real Estate: Days

4. The Biters: All Chewed Up

5. Butch Walker and the Black Widows: The Spade

6. Mastodon: The Hunter

6. Dum Dum Girls: Only in Dreams

7. Smith Westerns: Dye it Blonde

8. Fucked Up: David Comes to Life

9. Sloan: The Double Cross

10. Wye Oak: Civillan

Honorable Mentions

Florence and the Machine: Ceremonials

The Copyrights: North Sentinal Island

Motorhead: The World is Yours

Megadeth: Thirteen

Drive-By Truckers: Go-Go Boots

The Horrible Crowes: Elsie

The Happen-Ins: s/t

TV On the Radio: Nine Types of Light

Ryan Adams: Ashes and Fire

Will Dailey and the Rivals: s/t

Favorite Box Set:

The Beach Boys: Smile

Favorite Reissues:

Elvis is Back! (shocking, no?)

The Rolling Stones: Some Girls

Biggest Disappointment:

Lady Gaga: Born This Way (Where did the hooks go, Germanotta? WHERE DID THE HOOKS GO?!)

Most Inessential Album:

Justin Bieber: Under the Mistletoe (I’ll take A Christmas with Shaun Cassidy, thank you very much.)

Way to be Ahead of the Curve, John (Albums I Discovered This Year)

Superdrag: Regretfully Yours

Sunny Day Real Estate: Diary

The Jayhawks: Hollywood Town Hall

Rose Tattoo: s/t

The Undertones: s/t

Mission of Burma: Signals, Calls and Marches (I know, and you can all shut up)

Count Basie: The Atomic Mr. Basie

Sam Cooke: Live at the Harlem Square Club (Thanks to Scott Mullins for that one)

Waylon Jennings: Lonesome On’ry and Mean

Kinks: Kinda Kinks

Audio Comfort Food

Cheap Trick: At Budokan

Iron Maiden: Anything, but usually Powerslave, Live After Death or Somewhere in Time

The Ramones: Anything, but usually It’s Alive!

Rush: Moving Pictures

The Faces: Five Guys Walk Into a Bar

The Marvelous 3: ReadySexGo!

Pretty Boy Floyd: Leather Boyz With Electric Toyz

Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run

Superchunk: No Pocky For Kitty

Al Green’s Greatest Hits

From Elvis in Memphis

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan

David Bowie: Young Americans

The Clash: Give Em Enough Rope

Elton John’s Greatest Hits

Guns n’ Roses: Appetite for Destruction

The Gaslight Anthem: The ’59 Sound

Rod Stewart (who is AWESOME, despite what certain people think) Every Picture Tells a Story

Frank Sinatra: Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!

The Replacements: Tim

Poison: Look What the Cat Dragged In

I told you the extra lists would be super fun.  Feel free to comment and let me know that I have no taste.  See you in 2012

Freak of the Week at Ram\’s Head Live

In 1999, Butch Walker’s power pop band, The Marvelous 3, scored a top five hit with “Freak of the Week,” a song about an indie band getting a taste of fame.  When the song fell off the charts, the band was promptly forgotten by their label, and left to wallow in Buzz Ballads purgatory.

When Walker played “Freak of the Week” during his acoustic set at Ram’s Head Live, the crowd roared.  Not because it was the song they came to hear, but because it has become a rarity.  Butch Walker is no longer the lead singer of The Marvelous 3, but his own man.  The Marvies and Left of Self-Centered certainly introduced some of the crowd to Butch Walker (myself included), but nobody was there to huddle under a warm blanket of nostalgia.

Butch Walker has a few well-known songs, but not a signature.  Because of this, he can play what he wants. He can open the show with an acoustic set, or he can storm the stage with his Les Paul blazing.  Like any artist with a robust body of work, there are a few songs you can generally count on, but nothing is a sure thing.  That is what makes a Butch Walker show special.  Even “Cigarette Lighter Love Song,” the closest thing he has to a signature song, gets played with.  The first time I saw him, he did it with a full band, like on the album.  The second time, he was on the piano.  At Ram’s Head last week, he scrapped the instrumentation entirely, performing the song a cappella.

Hardcore fans often lament the fact that Butch Walker isn’t a bigger star, that he should be selling out theatres instead of playing clubs.  He should.  However, watching Butch at Ram’s Head, I realized that if he had a huge hit single, he would have to make certain concessions.  The loose, freewheeling structure of his show would be gone.  He would have to play the hits, and concentrate on what the fans of that single wanted to hear.  They wouldn’t want to hear the evolution of Butch as a songwriter, which is what the crowd at Ram’s Head was lucky enough to get.  They didn’t get a Butch Walker show, they got his musical history; from the guitar duel of “Freebird”, to the Marvelous 3, to The Black Widows.  Butch wouldn’t have it any other way.

Sebastian Bach is one of heavy metal’s great interpreters.  Dave “The Snake” Sabo and Rachael Bolan were good songwriters, and Skid Row would have probably been successful with another singer, but Bach took their songs and shaped them into molten slabs of rock.  He has the combustible mixture of technical virtuosity and personal charisma that all great singers possess, regardless of genre.

So where is it?  Sebastian Bach rarely sounds like Sebastian Bach on Kicking and Screaming, his first solo album in almost five years. Listening to Sebastian Bach sing was like watching a great actor perform Shakespeare.  He would pick apart every lyric and figure out where to inject his trademark mannerisms.  He was so good at his craft that it never felt like showbiz trickery.  On Kicking and Screaming, every Bachism is intact, but they feel tacked on.  He’s screaming because he feels he has to, not because it fits the music.

You could make the argument that Bach is just trying to work with the material he was given.  If this was the case, I would be more forgiving, but Bach co-wrote many of the songs.  Bach is still writing from a 19 year old’s point of view.  He’s misunderstood, he’s full of aggression, and he’s still untouchable.  Metal is an ageless genre, but Bach is trying to portray the guy from the “Youth Gone Wild” video.  He’s not that guy anymore, and he hasn’t been for a long time. Besides, even if you write from a place of arrested development, couldn’t you come up with a better line than “I’m the original crazy/in a world that I never known?”

The lyrics are complimented by the most generic heavy metal that Bach has ever lent his vocals to.  The metal press has made a big deal over Bach’s latest axe-slinger, 21 year old prodigy, Nick Sterling, but he doesn’t bring much to the table.  He can shred, but his playing isn’t very distinctive.  His style consists of by-the-numbers metal riffing with a flashy but faceless solo on top.  His playing is also hindered by the terrible production, which is as clean and septic as a hospital hallway.

When Skid Row released Slave to the Grind two decades ago, it was a quantum leap from the rebellious party rock of their self-titled debut.  On that record, Sebastian Bach sounded like he was capable of anything.  Now he’s just another guy, trading on past glories.  Bach’s voice is still there, but the fire is gone.  It’s a damn shame.

The career of Elvis Presley is usually broken into two arcs.  The first is Young Elvis, the greasy haired hillbilly with a dangerous sneer and gyrating pelvis.  The second is Gilded Elvis, the overweight drug addict in a white sequined jumpsuit, belting out “My Way” as rivers of sweat poured from his black helmet of hair.  However, there is an arc in Elvis Presley lore that is often overlooked by the general public and rock critics alike, The Pop Idol.

Contrary to John Lennon’s belief, Presley’s artistic sprit did not die when he went into the army.  On the contrary, he entered RCA’s newly minted studio in Nashville with an unquenchable thirst to prove that he was more than just a rock n’ roll singer.  Revisionist history has painted Elvis’ post-army direction as Colonel Tom Parker exerting control over his client.  This theory could not be further from the truth.  Rock n’ roll was on shaky ground in 1960.  Little Richard had gone into the ministry, Chuck Berry was in jail, Jerry Lee Lewis was blackballed for marrying his fourteen year old cousin, and Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper perished in an Iowa cornfield.  Rock became a genre of singles, one hit wonders and clean cut teenagers.  Rock n’ roll was not a career.  Elvis Presley was savvy enough to realize this, and knew he had to do an about face.

Shortly before the album’s release, Elvis was Frank Sinatra’s special guest on a Timex television special entitled Welcome Back Elvis.  In a moment of pop culture detente, Sinatra crooned a few verses of “Love Me Tender,” as Elvis shook his hips to “Witchcraft.”  Cynical critics wrote the duet off as Elvis paying his respects to the old guard.  When Elvis is Back was released shortly after, critics and fans alike were surprised at how traditional it sounded.  The arrangements were more subdued.  Elvis voice was deeper, smoother and rarely quivered or hiccupped.  “It’s Now or Never” could have been sung by Eddie Fischer or Mario Lanza.  It didn’t smack of danger as his earlier albums had, which is probably why some fans saw it as a betrayal.  There is nothing rebellious about a man in a white turtleneck.

Elvis is Back doesn’t sound like a revolution, but it’s arguably the best he album he ever made.  The reason it works is because the songs were well chosen, the musicianship was impeccable and Elvis Presley was determined to prove that he was more than a hick from Tupelo Mississippi.  When Elvis was engaged, he could make even the most saccharine song work.  Take “Are You Lonesome Tonight,” one of his best known songs from this period.  It’s maudlin, overwrought and a touch melodramatic, and features the most ridiculous monologue in the history of recorded music.  In the hands of Perry Como, Tennessee Ernie Ford or even Andy Williams, it would be resigned to late-night Time Life infomercials, but Elvis’s interpretation keeps it relevant.  Like his hero Marlon Brando, he brings his own experiences to every song he sings.  On the surface, “Are You Lonesome Tonight” is addressed to Pricilla Beaulieu, the gorgeous American teenager he dated while stationed in Germany.  However, he could also be singing about his own feelings of isolation after losing his mother two years before.  It could be interpreted a dozen different ways, making it one of his most unfairly maligned performances,

But he had to betray his rock n’ roll credibility for such a performance, right?  Wrong.  In the middle of all the sweet and syrupy pop comes “Reconsider Baby,” one of the toughest songs Elvis ever recorded.  Over a slinky acoustic guitar and Boots Randolph seductive saxophone, Elvis snarls his way through the Lowell Fulson classic.  He no longer sounds like a greasy-haired trucker from Tupelo, but an experienced veteran who has experienced the world outside of his hometown.  He may be asking the girl to reconsider, but he knows that he is capable of getting any female in the world.

Elvis is Back! proved that Elvis Presley’s appeal went beyond the rock n’ roll ghetto, but his new style quickly became an albatross around his neck.  He became seduced by the easy paychecks of lightweight Hollywood musicals, and exerted less control over the songs he sung.  As the ‘60s became “The ‘60s,” Elvis’s pop leanings became archaic.  He stopped caring, and released some of the most mediocre music of his career, which has blurred the greatness of Elvis is Back!  As with his late ‘60s comeback, there is a ton of wasted potential.  If Elvis had remained motivated, what could he have accomplished?   Unfortunately, this question would never be answered.

There comes a time in every rock critic’s career where you have an Almost Famous moment. A moment when your naïve vision of what rock journalism is like comes true.  Mine occurred at the inaugural M3 Rock Fest in 2009.   People who stared at me from album covers and posters my entire life became living figures, walking past me, riding golf carts and sharing beers with each other. Dee Snider was laughing with Don Dokken.  Ron Keel was reminiscing with Mark Slaughter.  Stephen Pearcy was shaking hands with Gary Cherone.  It was a high school reunion with leather pants.

Every 20 minutes, a white van with tinted windows would pull up and someone would get out.  Around 2:30, ex-Warrant singer Jani Lane arrived.  His red, puffy face and engorged belly was far removed from the lithe rocker he once was.  He was immediately surrounded by his peers, who slapped his back and told him how good he looked.  Jani was all smiles, lapping up the attention.

After the crowd thinned out a bit, he approached me.

“How are you, Jani?” I asked.

“I’m good, man,” he said, clearly jazzed that I knew who he was.  “I’m really excited to be here! I can’t wait to get out there and rock! Are you ready to rock?”

“Always, dude.  It’s been a great day so far.” I said.

“That’s great, man! I love to hear that! What’s your name, bro?”

“John.”

“NO WAY!” he exclaimed.  “That’s my name too! Awesome!  So what do you do, John?”

“I’m a writer,” I said. “I’m covering this event for my blog, Rant n’ Rave With John.  May I interview you?”

“YEAH!” he enthused.  “I’d love that.  Maybe we could do it after my set or something.  Are you going to watch my show?”

“Definitely. “

“Awesome.  Is there a song I can play for you?” he asked

“Could you play ‘I Saw Red’?”

Jani’s eyes grew wide.  He took a step back.  I thought he was going to burst into tears, but he composed himself.

“I’d fucking love to play that song for you,” he said, and then went into the inner-sanctum.

Jani Lane was no longer an A-list rock star, but he hadn’t forgotten how to command an audience.  He had them pumping their fists in the air and chanting every chorus.  He was embracing the past that he had run from for so long.  After a rousing rendition of “Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich,” a roadie handed him an acoustic guitar.

“Thank you all for coming,” he said. “I’d like to dedicate this next song to my new friend, John.”

He took a deep breath and began to play “I Saw Red.”  As he played the opening chords, Jani Lane disappeared.  He was replaced by John Oswald, singer/songwriter.  We were no longer in Meriwether Post Pavilion, but a small club.  He finished the song to a wave of applause.  Oswald put down the guitar, and bowed.  When he came back up, his guitarist played the riff to “Cherry Pie.”  Jani Lane had returned, but for three minutes, we got a glimpse of what he could have been.

An hour after his set, Jani came running over to me.

“Hey, John! I’m glad you’re still here! I wanted to make sure I signed a picture for you!”

“Thanks, Jani!” I said.  “I really enjoyed your set.  You sound great.”

“Thank you so much, dude.  I’m really glad you came,” he said, scribbling his signature on an 8×10 glossy.  “Did I do the song justice?”

“If Elvis Costello had written ‘I Saw Red,’ Rolling Stone would be creaming themselves over it.  It’s one of my favorite songs of all time.”

Jani smiled and handed me the picture.

“That means the world to me, John.  Thank you.  I’m going to go do a meet and greet and then we’ll do our interview, OK?”

“Sounds good, man.”

He gave me a hug and got onto a waiting golf cart.  I never saw him again.

Oh well, 13 years is a damn good run.

1. Superchunk: Majesty Shredding

Superchunk had been a gaping hole in my indie rock education.  I’d read all the critical acclaim, but never bothered to pick up No Pocky for Kitty or On the Mouth. When my boss put Majesty Shredding on my desk, I approached it with some trepidation because latter day works by respected artists are usually a terrible gateway.  The moment the record stopped playing, I slapped the disc on my bosses’ desk and said, “This needs to be added to our playlist today.”

Majesty Shredding has everything I look for in a rock record.  The huge guitars are balanced by catchy pop melodies.  The choruses are anthemic and awash in harmony.  Majesty Shredding is proof that a veteran band can continue to make relevant music two decades into their career.

Key Tracks:“Digging for Something,” “My Gap Feels Weird,” “Crossed Wires”

2. The National: High Violet

High Violet is a record that rewards you for paying attention.  I hate that I actually typed that sentence, but there is no other way to describe it.  When I played High Violet for the first time, it all ran together.  The band’s deliberate playing and Matt Berringer’s moody baritone merge to make a drone. With every listen, I discovered something new.  The National is the only band in the world that can write about zombies without sounding completely ridiculous.

Key Tracks: “Bloodbuzz Ohio,” “Conversation 16,” “Anyone’s Ghost”

3. Robyn: Body Talk

2010 was not a banner year for mainstream pop music.  It was the year of Katy Perry ejaculating whipped cream from her flesh terrace, Justin Bieber’s Canadian swagger and Ke$ha.  Lady Gaga got more press for her meat dress than her pop hooks.   In the midst of all the hype and hot air, Robyn quietly released three EPs of sublime pop, each one catchier than the last.  A refugee of the mid-90s teen pop boom, Robyn’s songs are compulsively danceable, but with meaningful insights about relationships.  There are a million pop songs about unrequited love, but “Dancing on My Own” is one of the few that is truly honest.

Key Tracks: “Dancing on My Own,” “Hang With Me,” “Time Machine”

4. Kanye West: My Beautiful, Dark, Twisted Fantasy

People love to hate Kanye West.  They love to hate him because it’s fun to boo a villain when the stakes aren’t very high.  Interrupting Taylor Swift’s VMA acceptance speech isn’t going to start any world wars, but it sells magazines.  After listening to Kanye’s first post-Swift-gate album, I think people hate Kanye West because he’s so good at what he does.   Twisted Fantasy is exactly what Lil Wayne’s Rebirth should have been, a weird, wonderful funhouse of every musical genre, held together by West’s schizophrenic yet oddly literate rantings (Sample lyric: “I was the abomination of Obama’s nation.”).  West has the balls to put a King Crimson sample in a lead single and make it work by sheer force of will.

Key Tracks: “Power,” “Devil in a New Dress,” “Runaway”

5. Sleigh Bells: Treats

2010 was a big year for lo-fi indie duos, but Sleigh Bells’ debut put them at the top of their class.  The first thing that hits you is Derek Miller’s guitar, which bludgeons the listener with short bursts of distortion.  Then Alexis Krauss comes in, tempering Miller’s distortion with her voice, which is the picture of innocence.  However, Krauss’ persona changes on a dime, cooing above the guitars one second, growling with them the next.  The push/pull between the two is what makes Treats such a fascinating record.

Key Tracks: “Infinity Guitars,” “Riot Rhythm,” “Crown on the Ground”

6.     LCD Soundsystem: This is Happening

The set began in darkness, with four notes drifting from a solitary keyboard.  After a few minutes, a single spotlight lands on James Murphy.  He barely moves and holds the microphone so close to his face that you can’t see his mouth.  At the end of every verse, his delivery becomes more passionate, and more instruments join the menagerie of sound.  Then the drums come in and the lights go up.  20,000 people bounce in unison.  The effect is overwhelming.  If This is Happening turns out to be LCD’s last album, what a way to go.

Key Tracks: “Dance Yrself Clean,” “Pow, Pow,” “You Wanted a Hit”

7.     The Sword: Warp Riders

There is a lot of debate in the heavy metal community over whether The Sword is a real metal band, or if there is a layer of irony in their work.  Warp Riders hopefully put the doubts to rest.  You can’t have a twin guitar attack that tight without being students of the game.  The riffage is enough to make even the most jaded metal dude bang his head with joy.  Put your horns up for this one.

Key Tracks: “The Chronomancer Part I: Hubris,” “Night City,” “The Warp Riders”

8. Drive-By Truckers: The Big To-Do

The Big To-Do refers to the arena rock concerts that Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood attended as a youth in Alabama.  In a smoky arena, the young Hood saw AC/DC, Thin Lizzy and Ozzy Osbourne provide an escape to thousands of kids looking for a respite from their everyday lives. The Big To-Do begins with “Daddy Learned to Fly,” a song that could have been on a Molly Hatchet record.   The album gets darker with each song, touching on murder, alcoholism and dead-end jobs.  The message: A big rock show can provide an escape, but real life never goes away.

9. The Arcade Fire: The Suburbs

Only The Arcade Fire could turn something as banal as Suburbia and turn it into an epic landscape.  Largely inspired by brothers Win and William Butler’s Texas childhood, the album is an art-rock record with arena rock sensibility.  Butler sings of spending time driving around with nothing to do, staring out the window dreaming of the world beyond. Although these sentiments are framed as distant memories, Butler cannily notes that not much has changed: “You watch the life you are living disappear / and now I see, we’re still kids in buses trying to be free.”

Key Tracks: “We Used to Wait,” “Ready to Start,” “Sprawl II: Mountains Beyond Mountains”

10. The Gaslight Anthem: American Slang

Three years ago, The Gaslight Anthem was an up and coming band building a solid reputation as an amazing live act.  In 2010, they were anointed rock’s next big thing.  There was a lot riding on this record, and American Slang largely lived up to the hype.  The band largely stripped away the rockabilly influence of The ’59 Sound and replaced it with a more soulful approach.  The sound may have changed, but the heart is still a mile wide.  The stage has gotten bigger, but these Jersey boys haven’t forgotten where they came from.

Key Tracks: “American Slang,” “The Queen of Lower Chelsea,”  “The Diamond Church Street Choir”

Just Missed the Cut: Other Albums I Enjoyed This Year

• Butch Walker: I Liked You Better When You Had No Heart
• Best Coast: Crazy For You
• Jenny and Johnny: I’m Having Fun Now
• The Hold Steady: Heaven is Whenever
• Iron Maiden: The Final Frontier
• Beach House: Teen Dream
• The Dillinger Escape Plan: Option Paralysis
• Ratt: Infestation
• Fitz and The Tantrums: Pickin’ Up The Pieces
• Jonsi: Go
• Belle and Sebastian Write About Love
• Bruce Springsteen: The Promise
• Mavis Staples: You Are Not Alone

Teenagers have a habit of revealing too much about themselves.  In the twenty minutes my friend Clyde and I had been in line for the Virgin Mobile FreeFest, we learned the following things about the freshly scrubbed young people behind us.

• The young man looks less trashy without his faux-hawk.
• The girl with braces wants to take Jake to homecoming, but still needs to work up the courage to do it.
• The girl with Lisa Loeb glasses is turning eighteen next week, but still feels ten inside.
• The young man threw up last weekend.  It felt good.

The kids talked about every aspect of their lives, except for the festival they were about to see.   I was seven years their senior and I couldn’t shut up about it.  Pavement and LCD Soundsystem for free?  It was a mind boggling bill.  The show didn’t come up until the line started to move.

“I really wanted to see blink-182 and Weezer,” the young man said. “The bill isn’t as good this year.”

I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

“What about Pavement and LCD Soundsystem?”  I asked.

“I’m here to see Ludacris and Jimmy Eat World,” he said.

The teenagers were not alone in their sentiments.  Clyde and I ran into several people we knew, all of whom lamented that the bill wasn’t mainstream.  I brought up the presence of M.I.A. and Joan Jett, who had achieved mainstream success

“Yeah, but blink-182 played last year.”

I saw blink-182 last year.  I enjoyed their set, but there was nothing surprising or challenging about it.  They opened with “Anthem” and closed with “Dammit.”  It was fun, but it was like looking through a high school yearbook.  The nostalgia was thick and comforting, but I didn’t want to go back.

LCD Soundsystem’s set wasn’t nostalgic, it wasn’t comforting, and it certainly didn’t feel familiar.  The set began with a single spotlight on James Murphy.  He was wearing a pair of cargo pants and a short-sleeved plaid button-down.  His hair was a mess, and the stubble on his face indicated that he hadn’t shaved in several days.  He held the microphone too close to his mouth as he sang.  His eyes were closed, as if he was afraid of rejection.  The keyboard played behind his singing, always the same riff.  And then the crescendo.  The mood instantly shifted from introspective to unabashed glee.   The single spotlight became a mass of swirling color, turning the pit into a rolling wave of humanity. It was a release instead of the usual call and response.

Although LCD Soundsystem lacks recognizable hits, their message is simple enough that a casual music fan could be turned on.  If they didn’t care for Murphy as a singer or frontman, there were the beats.  If they didn’t like the beats or Murphy, there was the swirling palate of lights.  If they didn’t care for the lights, the mood of the people around them was so infectious that they had to react.  The best music has the ability to release you from your constraints, even if it’s just for that moment.  LCD Soundsystem achieved this feat on the hardest stage to do so; a festival.

As we left Merriweather Post, I thought of the teenagers behind us.  I hope that kid took his mind off his hair long enough to check out LCD.  His faux-hawk would have wilted under the weight of awesome.

“My favorite band is Aerosmith.”

When I hear this sentence, I cringe.  Not because I dislike Aerosmith, but because I can recite the coming exchange word for word.

“Cool.  What’s your favorite album?” I ask, knowing the answer.

“Pump.”

We have another one.  I plaster a smile on my face and then respond.

“That’s cool.  I’m partial to Rocks.”

The young Aerosmith fan gets a quizzical look on his face and asks, “What’s Rocks?”

What is Rocks?

In my younger and more vulnerable years, I lashed out at that question.  How can someone be an Aerosmith fan and not know what Rocks is?  Aerosmith’s entire reputation is based upon this record. Toys in the Attic has “Walk This Way” and “Sweet Emotion,” but Rocks is the pinnacle of the classic Aerosmith sound.  Joe Perry and Steven Tyler are at each other’s throat, but they don’t let it get in the way of the product.  They are snorting half of Peru, but the cocaine is a muse rather than a burden.  It’s the moment before the wing completely fell off the plane.

In the mid-70s, Aerosmith was reviled by the rock press for ripping off The Rolling Stones.  While The Stones’ influence is obvious, Aerosmith had two things that The Stones didn’t: Volume and Steven Tyler.  Rocks is Steven Tyler’s coronation as one of the definitive frontmen of the 1970s.  He showed charisma on the early Aerosmith records, but when he hits the first note of “Back in the Saddle,” he sheds his skin as a Jagger clone.  Robert Plant could scream, but his screams were more sensual.    He would have sex with random groupies sure, but he would treat them like ladies.  Tyler has no time for such pleasantries.  He needs to evacuate some liquid kids, and he needs to do it right now. He could seduce, but the result is always the same.

While Tyler howls, Joe Perry provides the sweet talk.  His guitar slithers and slides, drawing the listener in with every hot lick.  Many guitar heroes were able to do this, but the volume and the assistance of Brad Whitford gave Aerosmith their metallic edge.

Aerosmith’s sound is the key to their success, but the lyrics keep Rocks grounded in reality.. A year had passed since Toys in the Attic and Aerosmith was now one of the biggest bands in the world.   Their music was blasting from every Trans-Am in America.  It should have been an album of supreme triumph, but it isn’t.  Tyler sums it up in one of the most overlooked lyrics in the history of rock n’ roll:

“Walkin’ on Gucci wearing Yves St. Laurent/They barely stay on ‘cause I’m so goddamn gaunt.”

Tyler delivers the lyric with just the right amount of exhaustion.  Many bands who tried to copy the formula forgot that Aerosmith doesn’t glorify the lifestyle.  For every “Last Child,” there is “Sick as a Dog,” in which the Toxic Twins completely withdrawal.  Rocks depicts the rock n’ roll lifestyle, warts and all.

Aerosmith would self-destruct after 1978’s Draw the Line.  Joe Perry and Brad Whitford left the band, while Tyler kept Aerosmith going.  When the original lineup reformed in the mid-80s, the raunch was still there, but the consequences weren’t.  Harrowing tales of the road were replaced by living it up while going down.  Rocks is not that record.  If you are hearing it for the first time, you will need to take a shower afterwards.  Trust me.

Cheap Trick’s At Budokan has one of the greatest album covers in the history of rock n’ roll.  Lead singer Robin Zander and bassist Tom Peterson are standing next to each other, grinning from ear to ear.  They are smiling the type of smiles that only come once or twice in a lifetime.   They aren’t smiling out of cockiness or arrogance, but because they can’t believe their luck.   If At Budokan was just a picture on a piece of cardboard, it would still be one of the greatest albums ever made.

At Budokan was released during the golden age of the live record.  Kiss and Peter Frampton had strong followings before they released Alive and Frampton Comes Alive, but the success of those two records made them stadium rock demi-gods.  Cheap Trick was in the same situation that Kiss and Frampton were in two years earlier, except they were full blown teen idols in Japan.  To capitalize on their success in the Far East, Epic Records recorded their sold out gig at the legendary Budokan sumo arena and released it for the Japanese market.

The album was released in Japan in October of 1978.  The raw sound created a buzz in the United States, and At Budokan became a strong seller on the import market.  Epic noticed this and released it stateside in 1979.  After years of critical acclaim but little commercial success, Cheap Trick became the rock stars they deserved to be.

At Budokan stands in sharp contrast to the bloated live albums of the late ‘70s, which were bogged down by endless drum solos, rambling banter and “extended” versions.  At Budokan contains only ten tracks.  With such an abbreviated setlist, Cheap Trick had no time for frivolity or error.  They come crashing out the gate with “Hello There” and rarely give the listener a chance to breathe.

The dynamic between hard and soft is the basis of Cheap Trick’s sound.  Guitarist Rick Nielsen goes for the jugular, banging out power-chords at a dizzying pace.  He embellishes the garage rock simplicity with bombastic bursts of soloing. The solos only last for a few bars, hinting at the virtuosity spewing beneath his trademark baseball cap.  Bassist Tom Peterson and Bun E. Carlos work behind Neilson, creating a steady rhythm section.  Carlos’ drumming is directly influenced by The British Invasion, simple but swinging.  Peterson’s bass is the melodic texture, melding with Neilson’s guitar to create a richer sound.

While Nielsen, Petersen and Carlos provide the power and the rhythm, Robin Zander adds the melody.  Although Zander is from Illinois, his voice is straight out of the British Invasion.  Zander has the ability to make every chorus sound huge.  He never screams or embellishes, but he has an innate sense of pitch.  He never gets out of breath or misses a note.  He makes being a frontman look like the easiest job on earth.

The setlist is all killer, no filler.  It’s exhilarating to hear “Come On, Come On” followed by “Lookout” followed by “Big Eyes.”

The atmosphere drives the album over the top.   The moment the album begins, the listener is greeted with the orgasmic screams of several thousand Japanese schoolgirls, who react to every single thing the band does.  Robin Zander sounds like a kindergarten teacher as he slowly introduces the band’s latest single, a little ditty called “Surrender.”

My favorite part of At Budokan is towards the end.  The band is tearing through “Clock Strikes Ten,” and Bun E. Carlos starts playing a brief solo.  After he pounds out a few beats, Zander introduces him, “ON THE DRUMS! MR. BUN E. CARLOS!”  Carlos follows the intro with a spectacular drum roll while the girls scream with glee.  I never get tired of hearing it.  There is such joy in those screams.