Outshined (Soundgarden ‘Badmotorfinger’)

I absolutely love Badmotorfinger. The Soundgarden sound here was pretty much perfect for me, I loved it’s aggressive energy. Whilst they would go on to diversify it was a rare thing for them to recapture the hard hitting energy of this. There’s some truly awesome playing on tracks like Face Pollution and stunning riffing on Rusty Cage and of course this weeks pick, Outshined. One the great “how’s that go?!” riffs.

Acrobat (U2 ‘Achtung Baby’)

This and Nevermind were probably the two giant albums for the year. It was nice to see Edge and Daniel Lanois being super creative again. There’s some good stuff going on here that gets sometimes overlooked due to the scale of their success. There’s a wonderful solo on Love Is Blindness for example. Edge and Lanois are masters at building up layers and blending sounds together and arguably this is the best they have done to date. Acrobat to me was a throwback to the earlier material of U2 and my fave track off the record.

Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana ‘Nevermind’)

It would be impossible not to include Nirvana for 91. I can clearly remember this record being released. If you wanted to hear it you had to be awake it around 3am in the morning and listen to some “alternative” radio show. I was a bad sleeper so that’s how I discovered it and it was immediately clear to me it was the way rock was going to progress. I was instantly struck by the sound of his voice and I really liked the blend with the heavy guitars. The song was ok but the overall sound was simply awesome.

Mama I’m Coming Home (Ozzy Osbourne ‘No More Tears’)

I loved the sound of this album, at the time it sounded huge. After the disappointing No Rest For the Wicked, which followed the disappointing The Ultimate Sin, which followed the slightly disappointing Bark At the Moon you can clearly understand the trend that peeps weren’t exactly expecting a great record. And it’s not a great record but it was a nice step into a fresher all new 90s Ozzy. The production was big and sounded expensive, the songs were melodic and catchy and Zakk continued to evolve into the Zakk we’ve come to know in recent years.

Poundcake (Van Halen ‘For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge’)

I remember the excitement building as Ed’s face started appearing on magazine covers'¦ and he was smiling. So the new album had to be good right?! Ted Templeman was back and it was going to be Van Halen back to their roots of just good ol’ rock and roll. It turned out '¦ erm '¦ ok-ish. However, with transcriptions to Poundcake all over the press it was hard to avoid playing it. I admit I still find myself playing the Poundcake riff sometimes and there’s a few bends in the solo I still knock out every now and then. Ed was still the man… but it appeared he had passed into legend and whatever he did would not be enough.

So there we are. Why the 2 week delay?! Simply put'¦ 1991 wasn’t a good year for me. 1991 is the year all my plans (and life in general!) got totally derailed due to a lengthy illness that continued through the first half of 1992. I have never recovered the same hunger and energy I had for guitar since. So we’re tip-toeing into my wilderness now!! Now more than ever I’m interested in finding what other people would suggest listening to!!

Have a really good weekend peeps!
Pauly.
:o)