Top albums of 1994!?

[Dustin]

Well, just for shit's & grin's

let's take a look at what we all were listening to 10 yers ago. What was your top albums that were released and you were listening to in 1994?

here's mine:

Asia - Aria

Atrocity - Blut

Atomic Opera - For Madmen Only

Black Sabbath - Cross Purposes

Carcass - Heartwork

Dangerous Toys - Pissed

Dio - Strange Highways

Dream Theater - Awake

Doctor Butcher - s/t

Fates Warning - Inside Out

Great White - Sail Away

Helloween - Master of the Rings

Jag Panzer - Dissadent Alliance

Kings X - Dogman

Machine Head - Burn My Eyes

Obituary - World Demise

Overkill - W.F.O.

Pantera - Far Beyond Driven

Prong - Cleansing

Queensryche - Promised Land

Rage - Missing Link

Savatage - Handful of rain

Testament - Low

Yes - Talk


...not much of a selection, and there are only 3-5 more albums that I bought that I was lisenting to and were released that year. As you can see, most of them are quite domestic, household named bands, and only a few were rare to find on U.S. shores (Rage, Doctor Butcher, Atrocity), so I got lucky on some of them. Quality metal was very scarce then and we didn't have the internet or on-line vendors to find anything. So if you found something like Rage - Missing Link by browsing in a retail store, you found a goldmines worth of Music! 1994 was also the year I graduated from school, and it was a fairly boring year for album releases.

However, most of these listed are absolute classics now! Many memories are behind some of these albums.

\m/
Dustin

 

[JazzMX5]

'94 was the year that Maiden did little except announce that Blaze Bayley would be taking over vocal duties (thus of course creating the most controversial, and still hotly debated, period of the band's history), and released the VHS/CD combo pack of 1989's famed concert video 'Maiden England', which was more than worth re-buying as it was one of the best Maiden live recordings ever made (Martin Birch excelled himself with it), finally available on an official CD release. Well, most of it - there's only so much you can do to fit a 90 minute release onto a 74 minute disc.

It was also the year that Skin released their eponymous debut (to coin a very over-used phrase). They made a sizeable dent in the UK charts as the album was released initially at a budget price (I think it was £5.99 for the cassette and £8.99 for the CD), and had a handful of catchy, almost radio-friendly singles on it. Nevertheless, they were most definitely a very good, solid, hard rock band (perhaps not quite 'metal'), and the later re-release of the album that came with a bonus CD of ten cover tracks was definitely worth the asking price. They never managed to match the debut, and fell off the face of the planet a couple of lackluster albums later, but I had the chance to meet them in Norwich in '94 and they were a great bunch of guys.

Also in '94, Brit rockers FM released a 'best of' album entitled 'Only The Strong', which as well as being a stunning recap of their career up to that point, also had a kick-ass cover I recreated over an afternoon on the bootlid (trunk lid) of my car - which bemused them somewhat when I showed up for a gig (again in Norwich; The Oval was a fantastic venue, now sadly departed like so many) with it on my car. Much schmoozing was done, CDs were signed (still have them), a great show from the lads, hung out with Steve Overland at the bar afterwards over a drinkie or two. Also, they hooked me up with a free pass to their next show in London, in December of '94. Top guys, and another late lamented band who never got the success they deserved.

Another great album from '94 was the newly-reformed Killing Joke's 'Pandemonium'. Still a monster of a record ten years on. And although I didn't discover it until later, PWEI's heaviest album ever, and the last before they split, 'Dos Dedos Mis Amigos' (aka 'Two Fingers My Friends', and a weird title considering they were from Stourbridge in England) was also a '94 release.

It was not a bad year, by any means. Although maybe we should remember that it was the year that saw Kurt Cobain take his own life. I was never a big Nirvana fan, and some may consider them the 'anti-metal', but really the only other time I've seen an outpouring of such emotion come from the (non-mainstream?) music community was just earlier this month when Dimebag Darrell was prematurely taken from us.

 

[Dustin]

Also in '94, Brit rockers FM released a 'best of' album entitled 'Only The Strong', which as well as being a stunning recap of their career up to that point, also had a kick-ass cover I recreated over an afternoon on the bootlid (trunk lid) of my car - which bemused them somewhat when I showed up for a gig (again in Norwich; The Oval was a fantastic venue, now sadly departed like so many) with it on my car. Much schmoozing was done, CDs were signed (still have them), a great show from the lads, hung out with Steve Overland at the bar afterwards over a drinkie or two. Also, they hooked me up with a free pass to their next show in London, in December of '94. Top guys, and another late lamented band who never got the success they deserved.

It's intersting you bring these guys up... I've always wanted to check them out. I heard they were the British answer to Survivor! Is this correct? if so... I'll have to start hunting down their albums.

...and you painted your car to fit their album cover and hung with these guys to boot? you ARE a tosser!


ahhhhh....1994 :Spin:

\m/
Dustin

 

[JazzMX5]

They weren't too far off, actually. The first couple of albums ('Indiscreet' and 'Tough It Out', the latter long since out of print and rather hard to track down; sad as it's a very strong album) were very AOR, poodle-hair and fluffy keyboards included, but with the departure of Steve's guitarist brother, Chris Overland, and keyboardist Didge Digital (yes, really!), and the acquisition of Andy Barnett - a name you might find familiar? - on guitar, their sound took a turn for the harder, turning them into more of a bluesy hard rock band. Two albums followed (the patchy-but-worthy 'Takin' It To The Streets' and the excellent 'Aphrodisiac'), before they released a fantastic 'unplugged' live album entitled 'No Electricity Required', which mixed in many cover standards with FM's own songs. 'Only The Strong' followed as a retrospective, and the band resurfaced a couple of years later with the softer-rock 'Dead Man's Shoes', which sounded a bit weak but nevertheless included some great songs.

The next thing I heard was that the band had split up... scary to think that 'Dead Man's Shoes' came out ten years ago.

They were a fine band, though; you're always welcome to check out my collection of their CDs, Dustin! Sad to say that I never found 'Tough It Out' on CD (and my tapes are back in England still), 'Only The Strong' actually disappeared in a house move, and 'Dead Man's Shoes' appears to have a foil crack inside the disc! (Although it seems to still play... weird.)

Damn, I need to replace them forthwith!

 

[JazzMX5]

Oh, and a handful of download recommendations (if you can find them): 'All Or Nothing', 'Breathe Fire', 'Burning My Heart Down', 'Don't Stop', 'Dangerous Ground', 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine' (yes, that one), and 'Hot Wired'.

 

[Dustin]

Sweet!!!

I just noticed that the ol' "Harlings AOR" has a two-disc FM best of... up for auction on eBay. This dude has it ALL when it coems to AOR stuff. One of my favortie vendors on eBay, her ein the U.S. I'll have to try and pick that up, I'm sure it would be a god place to start.

..I'm still wondering what Jens, the ol' Black Chest was listeing to 1994.

\m/
Dustin