Barking Spiders

The very ace The Heart is Strange by xPropaganda, a worthy successor to Propaganda's eternally brilliant A Secret Wish released 36 years ago!

Most of the players i like have been in bands with some guesting on other people's albums. Does that count as a session player? In which case I'd say Derek Forbes, Michael Dempsey. For players that have done a lot of guesting/session/sidemen work, it's easy for me. Marcus Miller, Louis Johnson and Tony Levin

that's 2 minutes per track not per album!

After my re-try of LZ albums I've since had other listens to the supposed best and worst albums of classic rock bands I've generally had little time for; Queen, Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd. OK I more or less flipped through each one giving each track around 2 mins which is ample time to make a call. Viz PF, IMO the best supposedly DTOSM and Wish You Were Here - still bore the s**t out of me. The 'worst -which mainly seem to be Ummagumma, Division Bell, Momentary Lapse of Reason - turn up no pleasant surprises either. Black Sabbath - Ozzy Osbourne has one of the worst voices in music. I just don't get how he's a multi platinum album artist in the US. As for RJ Dio, I can't stand that style of cod-operatic s**t (same with Rob Halford, Bruce Dickinson, Myles Kennedy) I forced myself to listen to 'best' ones like Paranoid, Master of Reality and the 'worst' - Technical Ecstasy, Born Again and Forbidden. Because Born Again has Ian Gillan - a way better singer than the other BS vocalists - it is by default their best, even though it's no great shakes. Queen - so, Shear Heart Attack, Night at The Opera and The Game appear to be their highest rated. I've not heard SHA since I was a kid and actually it's pretty good, way better than the overrated NATO. Also way better to my ears is Hot Space as I like its dance/pop vibe and is on a par with the well rated The Game , which I admit is mostly pretty good. Next up, if I can summon up the strength I'll work my way through a selection of 'best' and 'worst' of two of my least fave big names of classic rock, The Who and the Stones. I'm not expecting any pleasant surprises, particularly with the Stones as Jagger's voice is as bad as Ozzy's and I'm too familiar with their best known tunes, few of which I even can tolerate

IMO they still had (most of) it up to Red with green the best of the post Pinkerton albums. While none of these are quite up to blue at least half the tunes are good on each one and don't deserve the bashing , mostly from fans it seems. Check out allmusic and all their albums are at least 3 1/2 star ratings.

Viz JA i fully agree. I used to have all their albums and got rid of all apart from Strays which is light years better

Going against my own nature over the last few days I've listened to Led Zep, all their albums and all the way through. In conclusion, for me In Through The Out Door is by some margin their best album and I'm not trolling for the hell of it. The reasons? 1. it features lots of tasty keyboards which flesh out their sound by some margin 2. Plant actually mostly sings with his banshee yowling/screeching that marred their other albums out of sight...kinda. 3. The production is cleaner, tighter and lighter with the plodding heavy sound of the early albums reined in 4. I dislike Blues heavily influenced rock intensely but there's little sign of that here I understand that John Paul Jones -the best musician in the band - had more input here than on the other albums so that explains the heavier keys orientation So, what allegedly weak albums by well-known bands would you say are among their better, if not the best albums

But the map doesn't show the underworld/Hades where I'm domiciled! Think I might have a couple of neighbours from BC

Let's take a step back here. You do ironing!!!? 😱

Ah, forgot my two fave Clutch albums. Earth Rocker and Psychic Warfare. Crackers all the way through Also forgot to say Music has the right to children and Tomorrow's harvest - Boards of Canada Adventures beyond the Ultraworld, UF Orb, Abolition of the royal familia - The Orb Music for the jilted generation - Prodigy Tri repetae, LP5 and Amber - Autechre Looping state of mind - The Field Supermodified, Permutation and Out from out where -Amon Tobin Lifeforms and the Archived series 1-6 though these aren't 'proper' albums - Future Sound of London Suzuki and No hassle -Tosca Hydroponic garden, Interloper and World of sleepers - Carbon Based Lifeforms Dream of 100 nations and Rejoice rejoice - Transglobal Underground

There are a few in my collection, off the top of my head those with 8+ tracks being Lexicon of Love - ABC A secret wish - Propaganda Stella - Yello House of Love's epon debut Dubnobasswithmyheadman - Underworld brown album - Orbital Vertigo -Groove Armada Life is Yours - Foals Chairs missing - Wire Giant -The Woodentops Rattus Norvegicus - Stranglers Title of Record - Filter Doolittle - Pixies Risotto -Fluke Fear of Music - Talking Heads Leftism -Leftfield Endtroducing - DJ Shadow Fat of the land - Prodigy Probably a few more

Not sacrilege in my books, in which Prince isn't all that hype /myth have cracked him up to be. The original sounds so much of its time and has dated badly IMO and so was due for a bit of freshing up. I'm not a fan of this genre of music in the vid but it's definitely better than the original.

I've read many anecdotes suggesting he really is a grade A a-hole, as are his former Metallica bandmates, what with their constant hazing of original bassist Ron McGovney

I really like the Pixies take though I wouldn't say it's better than the JAMC original. I agree about it being an odd choice. I've always thought the Pixies style would've been well suited to taking a country music classic and totally bastidising it.

Thought Robin Williams had died

Right now it's the top LP5 by Autechre, maybe Greater Manchester region's finest, jostling for that spot between 808 State and Future Sound of London.

No, me neither. When I was very young Autobahn was the first pop tune I heard that grabbed my attention. My dad had lots of Beatles 45s which I heard many times I didn't care for them then, still don't. Far prefer the Fab(elhafte) Vier to the Fab Four.

Shame for you as again it was great. It's now the only must-go to festival for me and the mrs. The science talks and seminars are always very interesting and the line-ups always imaginative and eclectic.

Saw them when they headlined 2019 BlueDot fest. It was great to see them for the first time, me a near lifetime fan, even though there was no Florian Scheider there, not that anyone could tell

Not surprised unfortunately. Reading festival has always stood out as one where trouble nearly always kicks off. I recall my eldest daughter going a dozen years ago and she came home early as trouble was kicking off on the saturday e.g. with bottles of p1$$ liberally being chucked into the crowd.

...as is all ambient electronica and Warp type stuff like early Orb, Autechre, Boards of Canada, Carbon Based Lifeforms, Biosphere, Plaid etc. Well that's my taste in instrumental music. At the mo' on Planet Rock they're doing 100 greatest guitar solos. Seems to me voters can't distinguish between a guitar solo and and solo guitar instrumental, what with a fair few instrumentals being played e.g. SRV's Little Wing, Cliffs of Dover by Eric Johnson. No doubt there'll be some Joe Satriani higher up the chart.

There were plenty of c@ck formulaic rock bands jumping on various bandwagons in the 80s, 90s, '00s be it hair metal, death metal, shred, nu-metal, metalcore, southern rock, pop punk, landfill indie.... The Leeds-Reading line-up isn't the worst I've seen. At least there a few goodish bands like Fever 333, Enter Shikari, Run The Jewels (cracking rap duo).... err that's it. I try to keep an open mind and regularly check out artists who get name-checked as something worth taking notice of. To my ears the only Brit band debuting this century I've time for is Foals. Nearly everything else is cloned and boring as f3ck. As for North American bands? I'll get back to you if I can think of any.

I sometimes tune into Wyatt and Derren mainly because of the between song chat. Good presenters but the music selection is mostly meh

I recall them doing this a few years ago. And indeed, you're quite right if you'd picked the #1 spot back then. I doubt anything will have changed. Be nice to hear some more unpredictable choices e.g. the solos in Another Girl Another Planet by The Only Ones, Just What I Needed by The Cars and Shot by Both Sides by Magazine. I nommed these but doesn't seem many others did. I've also entered submissions for the Rock Block, including the likes of Pixies, Killing Joke, House of Love, New Model Army, Echo ATB and other post punk and US alt-rock bands. Seems PR doesn't wanna know.

In my 20s I was playing regularly in function bands and on a semi-pro basis, to earn extra dosh while I was doing my engineering studies. Over the last 20+ years I've taken several breaks from bands due to marriage failures, bringing up kids, serial dating, further professional qualifications and other interests. It's not just the bass that's taken a back seat but all my instruments. Music tastes have also permanently shifted from guitar based stuff towards electronica so there's been very little that's inspiring me to play bass. Recently though I've been doing occasional depping which has been enjoyable but just a handful of gigs a year is enough to satisfy. It's clear I was never cut out to be a pro.