Rain

Spoooky...

David Bowie - Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family

David Bowie - Panic In Detroit

Anthrax - Panic

I never really paid attention but now that you mention it...

The Misfits - Death Comes Ripping

Christian Death - Sleepwalk

I'm not sure I could make a list of 10. It's a pain to have to pick between Killers and TNOTB as a favorite. Overall, I like the first 7, because they're such a huge part of the soundtrack to my teenage years. Then Adrian Smith left. To me, that guy is their emotional anchor. And I really don't get Janick Gers. Like, not at all. Then producer Martin Birch retired. Then a few years later they had this big comeback, with Smith and Dickinson. The music isn't bad, although the production and overcompression got worse with every album. There are also some remarkably bad edits on some of them, stuff that's unforgivable in the day and age of DAWs. A Matter of Life and Death would be my favorite of the bunch. I bought The Book of Life but couldn't listen to it in its entirety once - although I really tried. Dickinson's ambitions as a songwriter and a "pianist" left me shaking my head. The live DVD was good though. And their most recent album - well, I couldn't even make through the first song. So, yeah... Maybe a top three, for the first 3 albums, with a bonus spot for Maiden Japan.

I posted this list and went downstairs to prepare tea. I wasn't even out of the room yet that it hit me like a ton of bricks. I forgot Cheap Trick's Heaven Tonight. My most listened to album these last 12 months. No sane individual can really accomplish such a feat as listing only 10 records.

Wow, just realized that that other N word is censored on this forum... Heck, even their leader's name is censored! How disturbingly à propos.

Which reminds me... A few years ago, I was reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and I made the mistake of taking my copy to work to read during my breaks. My supervisor soon called me into her office - apparently, people had complained. I wasn't sure what troubled me the most. The irony - that I had to hide an unquestionably ANTI-***** book because some people jumped to the wrong conclusion. I mean, the author of the book was censored by the *****, and ***** would have had it burned - is that really the side you want to be on? There was the fact that by hiding it, I was actually somehow confirming those people’s impression that this was some kind of pro-***** book. There’s the fact that anti-Semitism is one of the things which I have absolutely zero tolerance for. It's instinctual. Like violence against women and children - I cannot bear the thought... There’s the fact that none of those people who actually jumped to conclusions and believed that this was a bad book had the guts to walk up to me and say that they would not tolerate ***** propaganda. Is that all they are ready to do against fascism? Anonymous complaints? Granted the cover can be misleading - but if I saw something like that on a desk at work and thought it was an actual ***** book, you can be sure I would walk right up to that person and verify... There is the fact that this is a classic history book, first published in the 60’s, which has sold more copies for the Book-of-the-Month Club than any other book in the club's history, millions of copies - a book that is more relevant than ever - but which should be hidden according to those clueless ignorants. Then there’s the simple fact that they jumped to conclusion and that nothing was, is being, or will be done to set the record straight by my supervisor…

Wow! That is BAD. As if they really care, too. It's the hypocrisy that kills me. A few years ago I was studying Judaism and watching lectures by a Rabbi, and YouTube was constantly pushing the most anti-Semitic videos you can imagine in my suggested videos list - I am talking tin foil hat conspiracy thories and raving mad propaganda which had no other possible purpose than to incite hatred. And I would report them. And they kept pushing them back under "you might also like" or whatever they call it...

Suske Quartett - Beethoven Complete String Quartets. Unlucky Morpheus - Vampir EP Black Sabbath - Paranoid Rush - 2112 KISS - Creatures of the Night The Beatles - Abbey Road Elvis Presley - That's the Way it is Depeche Mode - Songs of Faith and Devotion David Bowie - Low Alice Cooper - School's Out Of course, that's today - the list would be different next week, or even later tonight. The one thing that would not change is that there would always at the very least be some version of Beethoven's late string quartets. I'm also taking these as a special holiday bonus. Can't imagine a life without them.

Was temporarily put in Facebook jail a few days ago because I posted a cover version of Ozzy’s Suicide Solution on my page. Apparently, unless the word Sui**de is immediately followed by prevention, it raises a huge red flag and you get banned for a while. The irony is that I had posted that same cover a few times while I was working on a few years ago and there never was any issue. That was actually my second such experience. A couple of years ago, I used an image I found on Google to illustrate a private post. Some time later, someone published something on FB using that same image but their post contained misinformation - and it went viral. As a result, my own post was censored. Based on the image only. Of course, Facebook is Facebook. But seeing how AI and automation are creeping everywhere, even for the least paranoid among us, it’s fairly easy to imagine consequences much worse than just a blocked post or restricted access to a social media platform. I know I’ll be very cautious the next time I think of posting my cover of The Cure KiSSing an Arab (so far I’ve been lucky with that one, but, who knows…) (See, I’m even proactively censoring myself AND the Cure.) Incidentally, I can see all sorts of way how even this very discussion is likely to go sideways. I apologize in advance if it does. Just felt like sharing with a bunch of musician friends.

WASP - LOVE Machine. (I had another one of theirs in mind but I thought it might get me banned...)

Metallica - Creeping Death. In terms of direction, this should make things easy enough - I know death is like 75% of my music library and 101% of my own songs.

David Bowie - Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)

Caught this on Facebook yesterday. In case you missed it...

Somebody's been Butthole Surfing this morning... Saw your other post. Rainbow - Tarot Woman

All those endless nights onstage in Hamburg before they hit the big time must have paid off - although Ringo wasn't with them back them, he played there with with Rory and the Hurricanes (?) I believe . They really earned their chops. That Live at the Star Club album was a goldmine - not only as a Beatles fan but because like them, we often played long shifts in dance halls, and I had to come up with new stuff to play, so I learned a lot of those songs that they used to play in Germany but which never recorded onto their albums. Where else would I have heard Lend Me Your Comb or Red Sails in the Sunset...

Sorry mate.

Maxine Nightingale - Right Back Where We Started From (thank you Toronto Maple Leafs).

Pink Floyd - Coming Back to Life

You forgot the ankles! I'm hurting all over. Being old sucks.

Scorpions - Backstage Queen