An · elf · in · a · human's · body

The 100 Essential Hard Rock and Heavy Metal albums (in chronological order by year)

( behind the cut )

I've tried to include all the major types of metal. But it's painfully obvious that I'm not really in 'the know' about metal after about 1993.

(and if you're wondering what happened to Nirvana - I have a strange thing with Grunge. I count Soundgarden and Alice in Chains as metal but Nirvana, Mudhoney and Pearl Jam I class as Alternative Rock, which is closer to Punk and Indie)

You remember the Renault clio music? The one that would've been playing in the background of all those Papa and Nicole adverts.

Well a few years ago I heard the original music on Virgin radio and missed hearing what the song was or who it was by. But I remembered something about Johhny or Jimmy or someone 'trying to find certainty'. For a while there I wondered whether it was off the Who's Quadrophenia (cause that's about Jimmy looking for the meaning of life and I'd only ever read about the album and not heard it)

In any case the song sounded to me like it could've been made by some kind of stadium rock band during a phase of experimenting with electronic sounds. (After all - the other music I knew from a car advert and later found out the original artist was 'Layla' by Eric Clapton)

Years later (today in actual fact) I finally find out that the song is by Robert Palmer! Robert Freakin' Palmer!!! The 'addicted to love' guy.

Then, to top that - I find out that Placebo did a cover of it. Placebo covering Robert Palmer! It's either that or Placebo covering a song from a car advert!

The world's gone surreal.

I bought a new rucksack yesterday - and the guy at the shop said "I'll get you a bag for that"

Erm... it is a bag. I don't need a bag for a bag! It already is a bag, I can just put it on my shoulder.

It would probably look something like this:

Part 1

Tubular Bells Theme (0.00 - 5.54)
Moods and Vibes (5.54-11.31)
Nasal Choir with Demonic Boogie (11.31-16.18)
Master of Ceremonies introduces the Noah's Ark of Instruments (16.18-25.30)

Part2

Floating (0.00-5.26)
Love Song with Bagpipes (5.26-11.41)
Piltdown Man (11.41-16.30)
Funeral for the Piece (16.30-21.46)
Sailor's Hornpipe (21.46-23.20)

One of the things that really sucks about the special edition versions of the starwars trilogy is the music.

'Yub nub' (the ewok celebration song at the end of ROTJ) and 'lapti nek' (the original tune in Jabba's palace) are far superior to their replacements.

Of course the music in the Mos Eisley cantina is kept exactly the same. Because people would probably kill George Lucas if he changed that X-D

Old news and everything (about ten years old!) but the recent showings of starwars films on tele have got me thinking about this I suppose.

After mostly going off the genre for several years I seem to be getting heavily (excuse the pun) into metal again.

I'm discovering all over again the delights of thrillingly extreme stuff such as death metal, the early raw maiden style of 'Killers' and the absolute, sheer brilliance of Metallica's 'Ride the Lightning' album.

Maybe my tastes in music are cyclical and I've come full circle.

It's quite bizarre though that I'm 33 years of age and I still like death metal :-D

Blackadder: I don't wish to be pedantic or anything, Percy, but the colour of gold is gold, that's why it's called 'gold'. What you've discovered, if it has a name, is some 'green'.

Percy: Oh, Edmund, can it be true? That I hold here in my mortal hands a nugget of purest green!

If you see this on your friends list, and you can be arsed to, quote Blackadder in your LJ.

As a result of the world-creating and plot-creating in isolation from each other I have just realised that my current story requires there to be a sexual/romantic relationship between a human and an alien that is like a giant preying mantis :-/

It could be quite an exciting challenge however, to portray how the feelings and the situation allow the human character to overcome the 'ick' factor and overlook the insectoid nature of his lover to see the person underneath.

just as I suspected, some bacteria taking advantage of post-shaving itchiness and now running completely beserk.

i have been prescribed anti-biotics and a cream. Couldn't afford both of them so I'll be getting the cream tomorrow.

And I've been fantasising so much about cream these past few days, almost literally lusting over thoughts of savlon.

I just read something where somebody was saying about advances in science allowing us to build 'better power sauces'

It made me giggle. I want a power sauce! Sometimes the ketchup just won't come out of the bottle fast enough - what you need is a power sauce!

I think they meant 'source' not 'sauce'

House and Garage

So what about the original form of dance music, House? Well, when Rave went darkside a lot of British clubbers left Hardcore Rave for House and the reigning form of happy, ravey house music was the cheesy sound of Handbag House, also known as Eurodance. This was the form of house that was full of all the cheesy pop song types of dance music. Hathaway 'What is Love?', 2 Unlimited 'No Limit', Felix 'Don't you want my loving?' are basically continuations of he turn of the decade crossover tracks such as 'Everybody Dance Now' and 'Pump up the Jam'.

There were rivals to Handbag House however. One was the trancey sound of Progressive House, a sound that mixed trance, house and dub bass to create a classy, sophisticated form of house. Another rival was Tribal House, a heavily percussive, psychedelic form of house, it bongo rhythms pooled over from World Music.

The progressive side of house continued in the mid nineties with Tech House, a style that tried to mix house with techno to create something classy and sophisticated but a little harder than the fluffy sounds of Progressive House. In the late nineties came Brit House, which seemed to take Progressive House and Tech House and distill their essences down to a monotonous drone.

The most interesting twist to this Tech/Prog branch of House however came around 2001-2003 with Microhouse. Microhouse is related to Glitch and Minimal Techno and it is busy, complicated music, full of tiny little details. The overall vibe of Microhouse is mellow and chilled out and its percussion is tiny and compact sounding. Indeed the leading record label of Microhouse is actually called Kompakt.

The cheesy, mainstream form of house meanwhile exagerrated Handbag House into the crazy cheese of the likes of Aqua and the Vengaboys. Also in the late 90s another form of Eurodance was quite heavy on the vocoders. This form of vocoder house was also known as Nu-Italo Disco and it even influenced Cher with her hit 'Believe'. Another form of late 90s Eurodance was Epic House, a form of house that is very similar to Epic Trance and tends to like covering classic songs from the 80s in a housey, trancey style.

But the form of cheesy house that became truly massive in the late 90s and early noughties was Funky House, especially the French form of Funky House made popular by Daft Punk. Daft Punk, Bob Sinclare, Spiller, Modjo, Junior Jack - all of these artists created a heavily filtered form of camp and disco-ey House music that has become as ubiquitous and ever-present in today's dance climate as Anthem Trance has. It is only very recently that it has begun to be usurped by another style of populist House called Electro House. Electro House takes the dirty and highly enjoyable electro sound, reminiscent of the early 80s and late 70s and combines it with bouncy, high energy House music to create a truly enjoyable form of dance music that seems to occupy a happy medium between styles that satisfies almost everybody.

But starting the the late 90s and continuing to the present day has been a most unusual development. It arose out of the Jungle/Drum n Bass scene and it took the tuneful, song oriented approach of Garage but gave it a bit of urban bizzness courtesy of Drum n Bass. At first this UK orm of Garage was happy and energetic, like Hardcore gone House and it was called Speed Garage. Later it became all toned down, slinky and soulful and was known as 2-Step Garage, with artists such as Artful Dodger and Craig David.

This was UK Garage's most popular era: 99-2000. When Garage lost people's interest around 2001 it began to mutate. From these mutations came Grime, a roughneck form of Garage dominated by the rhyming and rapping of the MC, and Dubstep, a largely instrumentaland even experimental form of Garage. Those two developments were around 2003-2004. In very recent times (2007) there has been a return to Speed Garage in the energetic form of Garage known as Niche.

But House isn't always soft or poppy. There have also been two forms of House known as Hard House. One of these came from Chicago, and is the closest house can get to Gabba. It is pumping and hard and has even mixed with Southern Rap and Ghetto Tech to create the rude and naughty Booty House sound.

The UK form of Hard House however may sound raw and noisy but it is also a cheesy, ravey sound full of hoovers, crown noise and bouncing basslines. It came closely after Anthem Trance as a harder, more raw alternative for English clubbers, but it was soon eclipsed by Hard Trance.

Dance music has lost some of its momentum since about that time but maybe this is simply a sign that it is maturing as a genre. I'm sure that in the future it will continue to innovate and come up with new styles, if only to reflect changing times. Its changes may come slower these days and seem less revolutionary but electronic music will always continue to fascinate and entertain for many years to come.

Essential Music: Hathaway 'What is Love?', 2 Unlimited 'Ready for This', Capella 'U got to know', 2 Unlimited 'No Limit', Felix 'Don't you want me', Strike 'You Sure Do', Leftfield 'Not Forgotten', Underworld 'Rez', Isolee 'Beau Mot Plage', Aqua 'Barbie Girl', Vengaboys 'The Vengabus is coming', Cher 'Believe', DJ Sammy 'Boys of Summer', DJ Sammy 'Heaven', Aurora 'Ordinary World', Daft Punk 'Homework' (album), Roger Sanchez 'Another Chance', Stardust 'Music Sounds Better with you', Daft Punk 'Discovery' (album), Junior Jack 'Thrill Me', Mylo 'Doctor Pressure', Wiley 'Wearing my Rolex', The Egg 'Love don't let me go', Bodyrox 'Yeah Yeah', Double 99 'Ripgroove', 187 Lockdown 'Gunman', Artful Dodger feat Craig David 'Crowd Say Bo Selector', Craig David 'Fill Me In', Sisqo 'Thong song', The Streets 'Original Pirate Material' (album), T2 'Heartbroken', Lock n Load 'Blow Ya Mind', 666 'Alarma', Storm 'Time to Burn', Public Domain 'Operation Blade', DJ Jean 'The Launch'

Note: This list of essential music is clearly lacking in certain key areas. There is no Tech House on there, no Tribal House, no Brit House, only one microhouse tune (the Isolee tune that began the genre), no real Nu-Italo tunes (just the Cher one), The Streets as sole example of Grime, no Dubstep, no Booty House and no Chicago Hard House. Again, there are still areas of dance music that either I am yet to explore fully or that I have no real interest in.