Number five is in this week and I took it easy a little on the metal and only blasted your ears with some Machine Head and one of my favorite Canadian bands of all time. My all-time top singer makes her first appearance on the list, some really focused rock n’ roll tracks and even a couple of definite top 40 pop hits to close it all out. Be warned, this is the first of guaranteed to be many Chevelle songs forced on you.
Track #1: Led Zeppelin – D’yer Mak’er – Houses Of The Holy (1972)
It was only a matter of time before one of the greatest bands of all time made an appearance on a playlist I put together but choosing their most reggae-sounding song is a definite choice. Heck, I didn’t even try to focus on their love of Tolkein at all! I love singing along to this song so much and Jimmy Page’s guitar riff is so groovable. I have to also mention that I’m a total nerd for John Bonham’s drum sound, not just on this song but on this whole album. Some really trendsetting stuff obviously.
“When I read the letter you sent me, it made me mad, mad, mad
When I read the news that it broke, it made me sad, sad, sad
But I still love you so and I can’t let you go
I love you, ooh, uh—baby, I love you, ah”
Track #2: Protest The Hero – Sequoia Throne – Fortress (2008)
I’m super excited about this pick as it is one of my favorite bands of all time featuring one of my top ten singers of all time, Rody Walker, and, the best thing about it, they are Canadian, from Whitby, Ontario. The first single off of the Fortress record, this song is a ferocious attack on organized religion as the destruction of humanity but from an alien point of view. Yeah, this song is as wild thematically as the shredding you are hearing in your ears but the idiosyncratic style of this magnificent five-piece.
“Stuffing corpses
Full of shit and faith
They bloviate about a future beyond the moon
To bring about another planet’s doom
To discover peaceful life
And beat our war drum to its tune
Unless my prayers are answered
Our end is coming soon”
Track #3: Queens Of The Stone Age – The Sky Is Falling – Songs For The Deaf (2002)
Queens is one of my favorite bands of all time and I was really weighing on which of their songs would be the first one I would put on a playlist but there’s something about the collection of tracks on this album that is undeniable. This song in particular has the best of everything, Josh Homme’s echoey vocals in that opening and his beautiful falsetto in the chorus, Dave Grohl’s hart hitting drums and a killer bassline from Nick Oliveri to pair with the grinding guitar from the Ginger Elvis himself. Oh, baby, this is an all-timer.
“I wanted something
Nothing blank I don’t know
It’s hard deflecting
Stones are easy to throw
Oh, in a moment, I notice
Hours, days left behind
Of wasted, useless
Selfless, none of a kind”
Track #4: The XX – Islands – xx (2009)
This Wandsworth, London, at the time of this release, quartet was put on my radar by my roommate at the time Matty as I heard the chill vocals and beats of their debut record coming down the hallway from his room. To me, they feel like the yang to the yin from the energetic Matt & Kim and I love to listen to them back to back. The beginning guitar riff to this song from Romy Madley Croft and her and Oliver Sim’s quiet vocals bring you in and don’t get me started on how incredible that last minute of the song is. Just put it on repeat.
“I don’t have to leave anymore
What I have is right here
Spend my nights and days before
Searching the world for what’s right here
Underneath and unexplored
Islands and cities I have looked
Here I saw
Something I couldn’t overlook”
Track #5: Lana Del Rey – Carmen – Born To Die (2011)
The goddess of vocals makes her first appearance on the playlists but make no mistake, Lana is usually a daily listen at some point as she is my favorite singer and songwriter in the world at the moment. Born To Die is a no-skip masterpiece but the flightiness of Carmen always enchants me to no end, which is a weird thing to say about a song that tells the story of a seventeen-year-old girl with substance abuse problems, I know. Lana just makes it come through this song filter because she is undeniably the best songwriter on planet Earth today.
“The boys, the girls, they all like Carmen
She gives them butterflies, bats her cartoon eyes
She laughs like God, her mind’s like a diamond
Audiotune lies, she’s still shinin’
Like lightning, oh-oh
Like lightning”
Track #6: Faith No More – Epic – The Real Thing (1989)
Faith No More is a special band to me because it was the first band that I felt I discovered on my own, a love forged from all of the music appreciation tools that I had developed thanks to my parents and those close to me. Mike Patton immediately became my number one frontman of all time in his introduction as the lead singer for the band, replacing Chuck Mosely from their debut record Introduce Yourself. This song put me on the journey for that cassette tape and will always be a meaningful track in music history in my mind.
“Can you feel it, see it, hear it today?
If you can’t, then it doesn’t matter anyway
You will never understand it, ’cause it happens too fast
And it feels so good, it’s like walking on glass
It’s so cool, it’s so hip, it’s alright
It’s so groovy, it’s outta sight
You can touch it, smell it, taste it, so sweet
But it makes no difference ’cause it knocks you off your feet”
Track #7: Machine Head – From This Day – The Burning Red (1999)
Rob and Machine Head are one of my all-time favorite bands if not simply for the fact that they are one of the heaviest and most entertaining live acts I have ever seen. This album’s tour and performance of this song in particular at the Croatian Cultural Centre makes it probably the song of theirs that resonates the most with. When it comes to a random playlist, I always crank the sound big time. That intro build-up, that riff, that energy, how could you not love this song?
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you gotta
Stand tall and cut away the ties
Drop walls and hold that head up high
The world is fast and youth ain’t gonna wait
So grab a hold before it gets too late
Bare your soul and strip away the cold
For withered life that’s past so gray ya know
‘Cause all the pain that’s filled these eyes you see
Was only made to bleed just recently”
Track #8: Staind – For You – Break The Cycle (2001)
This is one of those songs that bring me back to an era of my life entirely and is part of a fantastic pack of songs that kick off this album. I definitely can’t say that the writer of the music and lyrics and I see eye to eye in everyday life and politics but this song is that angsty type of anthem I used to play so often and it was really great to get immersed in it again. I obviously revisited the record after this track popped up.
“I sit here, locked inside my head
Remembering everything you said
The silence gets us nowhere
Gets us nowhere way too fast”
Track #9: Mad Season – River Of Deceit – Above (1995)
With Alice In Chains being one of my all-time favorite bands, I’m a little surprised in myself that a song from Layne’s side project made its way to the list first but there is something incredible about this song that stops me in my tracks every time. With words given to music already written before he joined the band, Staley lightly touched on his addiction with lyrics inspired by Kahlil Gabran’s The Prophet. The song is so beautiful, reflective and, sadly, prophetic about his demise.
“My pain is self-chosen
At least I believe it to be
I could either drown
Or pull off my skin and swim to shore
Now I can grow a beautiful shell for all to see”
Track #10: Rainbow – The Temple Of The King – Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow (1975)
This is the song of a journeying warrior, or so it feels. Like the minstrels of sword and shield, Deep Purple great Ritchie Blackmore brings you into this world with a killer guitar riff and then the “rising to a soar” vocals of Ronnie James Dio come in and a legend was born. This song is so damn good that so many bands have covered it but the best version still belongs to these incredible musicians. I feel like Jack Black loves this song to death.
“There in the middle of the circle he stands
Searching, seeking
With just one touch of his trembling hand
The answer will be found
Daylight waits while the old man sings
Heaven help me
And then like the rush of a thousand wings
It shines upon the one
And the day had just begun”
Track #11: Nothing But Thieves – Honey Whiskey – Nothing But Thieves (2015)
The only reason I started listening to this Southend-on-Sea, Essex band was through a Spotify suggestion and I was immediately hooked. With a sound that I put in the same big category shoes of a band like Muse, they have fantastic grooves and so amazing vocals from lead singer and guitar player Conor Mason. They are on display in this song big time, a track off of their debut record, and I just love how he sings that chorus.
“This air is getting so thin
Go down, go down, go down
The honey whiskey’s kickin’
Go down, go down”
Track # 12: Chevelle – Well Enough Alone – Vena Sera (2007)
Chevelle is a band I listen to at least once every day and it seemed impossible to pick the first of their tracks that would end up on my playlist then this song burst onto my randomizer and I knew this would be it. With a fiery scream from lead singer Pete Loeffler, this song arrives heavy but has such an anthemic sing-along quality to it that I love it. The first single off of their fourth record, this song was actually a holdout from their previous record This Type of Thinking (Could Do Us In) and the bridge is absolute fire.
“And like before, makes no sense
Never coming, always leaving
Right before, hooked on substance
Digging deeper, can’t reveal”
Track #13: Lizzo – About Damn Time – Special (2022)
Joining Lana on this playlist as the only top 40 pop-ish hit on here, I love Lizzo’s work a lot. She is charismatic, an incredible workhorse and burgeoning with so much talent and I also just found out that she is a lifelong fan of Incubus as well. The first single off of her second album, the song is an obvious address that it has been too long since her last new solo music as Cuz I Love You was released in 2019 and her only other track between was the Cardi B collaboration, Rumors.
“It’s bad bitch o’clock, yeah, it’s thick-thirty
I’ve been through a lot, but I’m still flirty (Okay)
Is everybody back up in the buildin’?
It’s been a minute, tell me how you’re healin’
‘Cause I’m about to get into my feelings
How you feelin’? How you feel right now?”
Track #14: The Weeknd featuring Ariana Grande – Save Your Tears – After Hours (2020)
Like Taylor Swift’s Folklore and Chevelle’s Niratias, The Weeknd’s After Hours record was a collection of songs that not only got me through the pandemic but were part of the defining songs of that year, as weird as it was. Honestly, though, this song didn’t take off for me until this second version with Ariana Grande on it. My wife is a big fan of hers and I like a couple of her songs but she is the piece that makes this song come together, so much so that its my preferred version.
“Met you once under a Pisces moon
I kept my distance ’cause I know that you
Don’t like when I’m with nobody else
I couldn’t help it, I put you through hell”
Steve Stebbing 