JC_AOR

For me the most under rated album of 2010 would be the new Brian Howe disc 'Circus Bar'. I know ISSA rated somewhere on my list. I liked the album quite a lot but hadn't given it enough play to rate it higher. I'm giving it another play right now.

I'm keen to check out one of Pete's honorable mentions 'Black Rose - Cure for Your Disease'. Anyone else heard this? Oh and Socratic, I'm glad to see the Brian Howe disc on your list. It's fairly soft AOR but I though it was very under rated.

I like the 'HH Best Of' section just the way it is. I don't think genres should come into it at all. I just want to know what CD's these guys saw as their favourites throughout the year and hopefully I'll get some ideas from them about albums that I missed. It's great to have debate about why a particular band didn't make it into anyones top 5 etc. but I think the debate about whether this band or that band "belongs" on someones list because of its genre should be left alone. As someone else pointed out, given that this is a best of 2010 list, you can exect exactly that...the best albums of 2010 which is invariably going to mean there are a lot of modern sounding bands on the list. There are plenty of "best of 1989" lists floating around the place, this is the "best of 2010".

If I buy an album and then they put out a "cool version" or bonus tracks - I download the bonus tracks. They don't get my money twice.

Very sad. I was just talking about Cold Chisel last night with a mate as we were watching Ian Moss as a special guest on RockWiz. I didn't realise Steve played such a big part in the songwriting (Flame Trees too). That will always be one of my favourite songs.

Yeah it has been a very wet and mild summer so far here is Queensland. Whilst the recent flooding in Brisbane was severe and affected the city centre quite badly, Brisbane was lucky enough to have had warning that the floods were coming, allowing people to get themselves to safety. The same cannot be said for the Lockyer Valley and Toowoomba (West of Brisbane) where people had no warning of what was coming, and that is where all the lives were lost. As far as my situation goes (and thanks for the thoughts Jeff), I am on the Northern side of Brisbane which got let off lightly by the floods. In fact in most parts of Northern Brisbane it was business as usual.

It goes something like this: Hard Rock / MHR / AOR: Treat - Coup De Grace Vega - Kiss of Life Ratt - Infestation First Signal Reckless Love Steve Lukather - All's Well That Ends Well Crashdiet - Generation wild HEAT - Freedom Rock Moritz - Undivided Houston FM - Metropolis Unruly Child - Worlds Collide Auras - New Generation White Widdow Terry Brock - Diamond Blue Pretty Maids - Pandemonium Jettblack - Get Your Hands Dirty Crazy Lixx - New Religion Nelson - Lightening Strikes Twice Taking Dawn - Time to Burn Degreed - Life Love Loss All I Know - Vanity Kills Bad City - Welcome to the Wasteland Issa - Sign of Angels Serpentine - A Touch of Heaven Stan Bush - Dream the Dream Brian Howe - Circus Bar Airbourne - No Guts, No Glory Giant - Promise Land Grand Illusion - Brand New World Bruce Kulick - BK3 Elliott, Joe (Joe Elliott's Down 'N' Outz) - My Regeneration Vol. 1 Avantasia - Wicked Symphony & Angel of Babylon Jimi Jamison and Jim Peterik - Extra Moments Rick Springfield & Jeff Silverman - From the Vault Wheels of Fire - Hollywood Rocks Allen/Lande - The Showdown Line of Fire - Momentum Stage Dolls - Always Angeline - Confessions Modern Rock: Hinder - All American Nightmare Goo Goo Dolls - Something For the Rest of Us Before Their Eyes - Untouchable Amber Pacific - Virtues Lifehouse - Smoke and Mirrors Bullet For My Valentine - Fever Just Surrender - Phoenix Ed Kowalczyk - Alive The Driving Conditions - Full Throttle Other: Keith Urban - Get Closer (country) Rascal Flatts - Nothing Like This (country) John Waite - In Real Time (not really a new album) 7th Heaven - Jukebox (a compilation box set of old songs - some crap and some excellence)

I've been waiting 2 months now for this to arrive. Contacted Gary once already and he said he would re send with a free t-shirt but still nothing. Pretty disappointed in the service. Geoff has yours arrived yet?

That has seriously got to be the weirdest, most out-of-place comment I've seen on this forum. You do realise what website you logged into this morning, don't you? Yeah I thought the same thing.. I know Vega will be very high on my list.

No, not a DSLR, but my compact digital.... Panasonic Lumix TZ3.... that's about 3 years old now. (I reckon you could pick one of these up on ebay for about $150) Bear in mid I also got plenty of shit photos between the good ones. Amazing shots for a compact camera. Very impressed.

Yes they should. Unfortunately this is what some bands are doing these days. We can't forget about them just because they didn't release a CD. Or maybe we should foret about them, to teach them a lesson.

Yeah very nice photos Lindsay. Were they taken with a DSLR?

Yep same here, there are loads of releases from the last few years that I haven't heard yet. I wish places like NEH and AOR Heaven would offer a discount to repeat customers. I've made a ton of very large orders through them over the last few years, sometimes adding up to well over $200 in one order. They should have some sort of bonus scheme where once you reach a certain dollar value not including postage then you get to pick a free CD or two. Back on topic, I wonder if White Widdow will release a follow up album in 2011? Also I'd like to see something new from Crown of Thorns.

Dont hold your breath on 1927... when i saw them in 2001, they played new songs and said the album was coming out in a few months.. The album is close to being finished and due out early 2011. If you like the old 1927 tunes you should check them out on one of their current shows, with a full band, much better than the shit you went to see ten years ago. I've seen them three times in the past 18 months and every show has been awesome. The shows I've been to have had 200-400 people there, and looking around it was hard to find even one disappointed fan. Matt you really shouldn't write this band off based on one bad experience. I think the show you saw was a one off reunion tour wasn't it, and there wasn't even a full band, is that right?

Yep I love this album, along with Big Deal - Passion Rose this would be my favourite Japanese Hard Rock album. Apparently this album was written as the soundtrack to a movie called 'Top Dog' (presumably not the Chuck Norris film). It's pretty heavy rock, but sounds great. Sometimes reminding me of the band Lion. I found this little snippet from an interview with one of the band members, Hideaki Nakama: Mr. Nakama, you released your debut album [bREAK IT UP] with HURRY SCUARY in 1988, which was the sound track of the movie [TOP DOG]. Since your debut, your music is of very high quality. Why did you write all lyrics of this album in English? Hideaki: I have always liked Western music so it seemed natural to write the lyrics in English. In addition, this album was the sound track of a movie. The record company and the producer of the movie agreed with the English lyrics. At that time most Japanese metal rock bands wrote lyrics in Japanese. I had really important experiences of making and releasing this album. I thank many people, especially Paul Raymond of UFO, for their help with making this excellent album.

Geoff, that is hilarious and disgusting. What made you start reading this book in the first place? And are they not feeding this poor girl in hospital?

Great list Dave - wow you really put some work into that. Some very nice choices there too, many of which I didn't even reliase were on the cards for next year. For me, my most anticipated album for 2011 is the new one by Aussie band 1927. So far I've heard two tracks from it and it sounds very strong. I'm also looking forward to the new John Waite, Whitesnake, Toby Hitchcock, Work of Art, Marchello Vestry and Tyketto. Also the Taxxi album being put out on Andrew's label should be a great one too. If Crunch put out an album I'll be very keen to hear it too. Another interesting one will be Faith Circus, their first album showed a lot of potential but was just lacking something and I really hope the follow up can improve on it.

I've got this one sitting in front of me right now along with a stack of about 20 other CD's I bought from NEH Records. I'll hopefully give it a spin tonight.

Ahh thanks guys. I'm surprised that these aren't more well known given the strong link to Bon Jovi. Maybe they really suck? I've just noticed a double album of all the shark frenzy tracks going around quite cheap so was thinking of giving this a go.

I actually bought quite a few titles from that seller which means they are probably all boots, well many of them anyway. I guess the fact that I didn't know this is testament to how genuine looking these boots are. I do feel a bit ripped off though as nothing about this was ever stated in the item descriptions. But I guess they were cheap.

Does anyone know if these Shark Frenzy albums are any good? I'd never even heard of them until now.

So are all the CD's on that site bootlegs? I don't mind a good quality bootleg of a hard to get/out of print/extremely expensive album, but bootleging new releases is a bit dodgy in my books.

There's dozens of on-line shops selling these things. They're probably making a shit load of cash from it as well.

I recall you mentioning this band in the past but still haven't picked up anything from them. Just had a listen to some of their new tunes. Excellent stuff. I really must pick up their latest album at least.

Ok, my 2nd rant for the day is about this current trend for people to pose in every fucking photo with pursed lips. Does anyone else know what I'm talking about? You look at the photos from work parties and social events of any kind and all the chicks have pursed lips. Do these girls know how stupid they look? What's worse is the growing trend of men taking part in this strange behaviour. I can understand this looking good when done properly by an attractive model, but when every single photo a person has taken of them shows this kind of pathetic posing, it really gets old after a while. I think its time people stopped this behaviour and started smiling again. A simple smile looks so much better. Examples: