Albums of the Year (Part 1)

As far as reviewing goes, this year has been absolutely mental, not to put too fine a point on it. I'm not sure why but I seem to have been doing tons of it for Pure Rawk, possibly due to my inability to say no when something decent looking lands in my inbox. So deciding this year's best of the best was gonna be tough. In the end, the original list of 20 became 30, then 40, then 50 and even that was a struggle. After a lot of deliberation I eventually decided, what the hell, I'll chuck a list together of everything decent (ie that got 3.5/5 or above when I reviewed it) and just include everything. The final list came to 70 albums so I'm gonna post five a day from now until New Year's Eve. Hope you find something you like in there. :)

But first, something a bit less edifying

GOLDEN TURKEY AWARD - WORST ALBUM OF 2016

Last year I did a list of a few bands who'd put disappointing efforts out and should really know better but this time there was one contender which stunk way worse than the rest, this being Steven Tyler and his truly abysmal pop-country album "We're All Somebody From Somewhere". Let's be honest, you can pretty much count the number of good songs Aerosmith have done since 1982 (ie since John Kalodner sunk his claws into them and turned their music into unmitigated AOR dross) on one hand but even by these standards, "We're All Somebody..." was dire, veering between dull acoustic ballads and, even worse, cringe-inducing attempts to sound "modern" (Hilariously bad Kid Rock style rap track? Check. Dismal country-pop track that was so bad it was sub-Taylor Swift? Check. 69-year-old man singing about how he's gonna "bang bang you like the 4th July"? Check.) I'd really rather not dwell on this abortion of an album for any longer than I have to but if you really must know more, you can read my review of it on Pure Rawk here.

Right, now we've got that out of the way let's get on to the decent stuff.

ALBUMS OF THE YEAR 2016

70. SLAUGHTER & THE DOGS - "Vicious"

Forty years on from being the great "almost weres" of the early days of punk, it was good to see Slaughter & The Dogs back with a decent new offering. Even if it was very much a case of a band staying firmly within their comfort zone, songs like "Hollywood Whores", "Ultimatum" and "You Got Class" at least packed enough of a gut punch to make "Vicious" well worth a listen.

69. MOTHER FEATHER - "Mother Feather"

So imagine what might happen if Garbage or Curve had been fronted up by Alison Goldfrapp and amped up their guitar riffs a bit. That's Mother Feather in a nutshell pretty much. Signed to Metal Blade, their debut showed quite a bit of promise even if there's a tendency to go into Kaiser Chiefs/Franz Ferdinand raised eyebrow indie on a few tracks which they really need to nip in the bud. Give the stomping likes of "Natural Disaster" and "Egyptology" a spin for proof of how good this band are when they're on their game. Review here.

68. THE CULT - "Hidden City"

Here's the thing about the Cult - for better or worse they will always be playing and singing over the echoes of "Love" and "Electric", two albums which you're going to struggle to ever top. But that's not to say that "Hidden City" is a failure - like "Choice of Weapon" and "Born Into This" before it, it's a good solid 21st century Cult album as long as you're not expecting anything as awesome as they did in their glory days. Certainly the likes of "Dark Energy" are as good as anything the group's done in the last 10-15 years even if there's a few tracks later on that ramble a bit. You can read the review I did of it for Pure Rawk here.

67. LOVE ZOMBIES - "Passionfruit"

The release of the Love Zombies' debut album was overshadowed somewhat by Hollis and Davey's sudden upping of sticks to California from London to put a whole new band together under the name (not to mention Hollis' abrupt departure from Hey Hello). Which is a shame because "Passionfruit" wasn't a bad effort at all marking a significant step up quality-wise from the band's early EP's even if it didn't quite manage to keep up the high standards all the way through. Review by Muggins here and you can check out the very fun video to lead-off single "Birthday" below.

66. MFC CHICKEN - "Goin' Chicken Crazy!"

Third album from the fried chicken-obsessed North London '50s influenced rock 'n' rollers and it's just as enjoyably daft as ever. Put it this way, there's a song on here called "New Socks" about the joy of, surprisingly, buying a new pair of socks and whether that makes you chuckle to yourself or cast your eyes heavenwards and mutter "Oh for f**k's sake..." probably dictates whether you'll like this or not. But as we say up north, it's alright for them what likes fun. Review here.

More of this nonsense to come with Part 2 tomorrow - don't forget to tune in...