Release Highlights and Unofficial Start of Halloween Season

 

               It’s Thursday and that means a release post.  As is tradition, I will start with my favorites from last week, which in this case were just a pair of singles.  First was “Found/Tonight” by Ben Platt and American Icon Lin-Manuel Miranda, a mashup of a song I’m not familiar with and “Another Round Tonight” from Miranda’s musical “Hamilton,” a biography of founding father and freedom fighter Alexander Hamilton done mostly in a hip-hop style.  “Another Round Tonight” is one of my favorite pieces from the musical, especially for the lyrics “Raise a glass to freedom/something they can never take away/no matter what they tell you.”  The other favorite was a collaboration between one of my favorites, Demi Lovato and Marshmello, who I’m not sure what they are, exactly, because they show up as a person who covers their entire head in a mask and don’t appear to sing at all on their tracks.  It was called “OK Not To Be OK,” and the message was the self-explanatory, it’s okay to not feel okay.  This week I’ve realized I’ve kept myself so ridiculously busy over at least the past two years, maybe more, with self-projects that I’m going at such a breakneck pace I’m surprised I haven’t had a heart attack.  I think it’s because death became just too uncomfortably close to my family then.

 

               Anyway, we’ve got some great-looking stuff over the next week and here’s some of the things I’m looking forward to the most.

 

Ace Frehley-Origins Vol 2: For those wondering, Origins Vol. 1 was released in March/April 2016 and was one of the best releases that year, with highlight tracks including a cover of Thin Lizzy’s “Emerald” featuring a guitar duet with Slash of Guns N Roses and Velvet Revolver fame and a re-recording of KISS’ own “Cold Gin” with the lead guitar and solo played by Mike McCready of Pearl Jam.  No special guests have been announced this time, but the covers include a bit of a who’s who of Classic Rock, with The Beatles’ “I’m Down,” The Rolling Stones’ “Jumping Jack Flash,” Jimi Hendrix’s “Manic Depression,” Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times, Bad Times” and Deep Purple’s “Space Truckin’” all making appearances.  Naturally, I have actually pre-ordered this album and hope it’ll be as good as the first one.

 

Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets-Live At The Roundhouse: While David Gilmour and Roger Waters have the more distinguished solo careers, drummer Nick Mason of Pink Floyd toured last year and decided to release one of these shows as an album this year.  There are good versions of “Fearless” and “One Of These Days” from the “Meddle” album on this album that have been released as singles and it seems more focused on the early days of the band than Waters or Gilmour’s live albums, which tend to focus on “Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall” due to them being the most popular albums.  So this should be fresh and different, if nothing else.

 

Alicia Keys-Alicia: The longtime Pop/R&B singer releases her newest album, titled after her first name.  She has released several good singles for this already, “Underdog” speaking about the unsung heroes and heroines of society, the commonfolk we tend to ignore but some people desperately need (it was also effectively advertised in the Miley Cyrus Bright Minded Episode that also featured Millie Bobbie Brown, as both hosts from The Voice had a chat in it), and “Perfect Way To Die” was a well-timed release after the death of George Floyd and talks of the needless murders of African-Americans in our society. 

 

September 19^th: String Gamer Player-Respawn: Contains Themes of beloved Square-Enix RPG characters Terra from Final Fantasy VI, Tifa from Final Fantasy VII and Primrose from Octopath Traveler.  Terra Branford is a mage in a world that has forgotten magic that turns into a more powerful pink form called an esper.  Tifa Lockheart (or Lockhart, I’m not quite sure which), is one of the love interests of the protagonist Cloud Strife whose specialty is punches and kicks, and Primrose is an attractive dancer character, which means she powers up the other characters in the party through dancing and can also attack by dancing.

 

September 22^nd: Vanilla Fudge-Immigrant Song: Vanilla Fudge is a rock band that some consider a sibling band to Led Zeppelin, making this 50^th anniversary cover of one of Zeppelin’s most well-known tracks especially appropriate.  Most of the comparison between the two stems from the similarities in styles of their drummers, Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham and Vanilla Fudge’s Carmine Appice, who also drummed for Cactus, the supergroup Beck, Bogert, Appice and Ozzy Osbourne’s 1983 tour and whose brother Vinny Appice has been the drummer for Black Sabbath when Ronnie James Dio is the lead singer, as well as the band Dio itself.

 

Also, I consider September 17^th, due to the busy-ness of yesterday, to be my personal start of the Halloween season, namely due to one year when a Let’s Player (person who plays video games on YouTube) started their Halloween special around this time and the local grocery store put up their decorations at the latest, the same day.  So, here’s my Spotify Halloween Playlist for this year.

 

1.)    Scythian Suite (Live)-Metallica and San Francisco Symphony

2.)    Black Sabbath (Live 2017)-Black Sabbath

3.)    Crazy Train (Live 1981)-Ozzy Osbourne

4.)    Crazy Train (Live 1992)-Ozzy Osbourne

5.)    Moth into Flame (Live)-Metallica and San Francisco Symphony

6.)    Nothing Else Matters (Live)-Metallica and San Francisco Symphony

7.)    For Whom The Bell Tolls (Live)-Metallica and San Francisco Symphony

8.)    Ride the Lightning-Metallica

9.)    Ride the Lightning-Halestorm

10.) Eat Me-Ozzy Osbourne

11.) Scary Little Green Men-Ozzy Osbourne

12.) Straight to Hell-Ozzy Osbourne

13.) Under the Graveyard-Ozzy Osbourne

14.) Take What You Want-Post Malone, Ozzy Osbourne, Travis Scott

15.) Crucify The Dead-Slash and Ozzy Osbourne

16.) Diary of a Madman-Ozzy Osbourne

17.) Paranoid (Live 1981)-Ozzy Osbourne

18.) Over the Mountain-Ozzy Osbourne

19.) Breaking the Law-Judas Priest

20.) Breaking the Law (Live 2015)-Judas Priest

21.) Suicide Solution-Ozzy Osbourne

22.) Fear of the Dark (Live in Brazil)-Iron Maiden

23.) Black Widow-Bruce Dickinson, Adrian Smith

24.) Ace of Spades-Motorhead

25.) Ace of Spades (Live Belfast 1981)-Motorhead

26.) We Will Rock You-In This Moment feat. Lzzy Hale and Taylor Momsen

27.) Black Wedding-In This Moment feat. Rob Halford

28.) STFU-Rina Sawayama

29.) The Trooper-Iron Maiden

30.) Iron Man (Live 2017)-Black Sabbath

31.) Experiment on Me-Halsey

32.) What Baby Wants-Alice Cooper and Kesha

33.) Swing It-Phil Campbell, Alice Cooper

34.) Feed My Frankenstein-Alice Cooper

35.) Unholy War-Alice Cooper

36.) He’s Back (The Man Behind The Mask)-Alice Cooper

37.) Dream Warriors-Dokken

38.) War Pigs (Live 2017)-Black Sabbath

39.) War Pigs (Live 1992)-Ozzy Osbourne

40.) Children of the Grave-Ted Kirkpatrick and Tim “Ripper” Owens

41.) Starbreaker-Judas Priest

42.) Starbreaker (Live)-Judas Priest

43.) Living After Midnight-Judas Priest

44.) Necromancer-Judas Priest

45.) Evil Never Dies-Judas Priest

46.) You’ve Got Another Thing Coming (Live 2015)-Judas Priest

47.) Hell Bent for Leather (Live 2015)-Judas Priest

48.) Victim of Changes (Live 2015)-Judas Priest

49.) March of the Damned-Judas Priest

50.) Hell Bent For Leather (Live 1979)-Judas Priest

51.) Victim of Changes (Live 1979)-Judas Priest

52.) Running Wild (Live 1979)-Judas Priest

53.) Die Young-Black Sabbath

54.) Neon Knights-Black Sabbath

55.) End of the Beginning-Black Sabbath

56.) Black Sabbath-Black Sabbath

57.) Sabbra Cadabra-Black Sabbath

58.) Mob Rules-Black Sabbath

59.) Bad Memory-K.Flay

60.) Run For Your Life-K.Flay

61.) Lucky One-K.Flay and Tom Morello

62.) Edge of Dawn-AmaLee

63.) Fodlan Winds-Celestial Aeon Project

64.) Straight Up-Phil Campbell, Rob Halford

65.) Tarot Woman-Rainbow

66.) Die Young (Radio Edit)-Jorn

67.) As Above, So Below-In This Moment

68.) Nothing Else Matters-Metallica

69.) Saturday Night Special-BPMD

70.) One (Live)-Metallica and San Francisco Symphony

71.) The Iron Foundry (Live)-Metallica and San Francisco Symphony

72.) Keeping Halloween Alive-Alice Cooper

73.) Iron Man (Live)-Metallica

74.) The Ecstasy of Gold (Live)-Metallica and San Francisco Symphony

75.) Enter Sandman (Live)-Metallica and San Francisco Symphony

76.) Confusion (Live)-Metallica and San Francisco Symphony

77.) Straight Through The Heart-Halestorm

78.) Blackened 2020-Metallica

79.) Into The Void (Sealth) (Live)-Soundgarden

80.) Rainbow in the Dark (Live on the Master of the Moon Tour)-Dio

81.) Rainbow in the Dark-Dio

82.) Godzilla Appears-Akira Ifukube

83.) Godzilla-Bear McCreary and Serj Tankian

84.) Battle in Boston-Bear McCreary

85.) Redemption-Bear McCreary

86.) King of the Monsters-Bear McCreary

87.) The Outlaw Torn (Live)-Metallica and San Francisco Symphony

88.) Blackened (Live, Seattle Coliseum 1989)-Metallica

89.) For Whom The Bell Tolls (Live, Seattle Coliseum 1989)-Metallica

 

 

Halloween may be a little different this year, but one thing I always will love is that I can celebrate with an upswing in dark, snarling Metal Music.  Enjoy this time of year, my friends!