A Chronological History of my Music Library

It's a double release day! On the same day as my last release and just 15 months since "Happiness...Is Not A Fish That You Can Catch", Our Lady Peace released their fourth album "Spiritual Machines" on December 12, 2000. This album is a concept album inspired by the book "The Age of Spiritual Machines" by Ray Kurzweil. Kurzweil actually speaks on several songs throughout the album and guitarist Mike Turner and singer Raine Maida were both really into this book obviously. Guitarist Jamie Edwards, who helped out on a couple songs on "Happiness...", became an unofficial fifth member and plays a lot of rhythm guitar on this album. Also, drummer Jeremy Taggart broke his ankle towards the end of recording and two of the songs actually have Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron, which is pretty cool! Let's check out OLP's concept album! The album begins with a six second track called "R.K. Intro" and every R.K. song has Kurzweil speakin

A week after my last release and a year and a half since "Triptych", The Tea Party released a greatest hits album called "Tangents" on December 12, 2000. I don't care for greatest hits albums, but there are some unreleased songs on here as well: one brand new single, two B-sides from their last album and one cover! Let's check out a few new songs by The Tea Party! The first song is brand new and was also a pretty succesful single and it's called "Walking Wounded". It's got a bit of an Eastern feel to it as Tea Party likes to do and it's a pretty simple and quiet main riff with Jeff Martin leading the way with his great voice. The chorus is a little louder with some interesting stuff going on in the background and Martin continues to lead the way with some more great vocals. Stuart Chatwood plays some quietly epic keyboards and Jeff Burrows shows off with a couple nice fills. Martin plays a solid "solo" (it's really just th

Three weeks after my last release and just a year since "The Battle Of Los Angeles", Rage Against The Machine released their fourth album "Renegades" on December 5, 2000. Sadly, two months before this album's release, Rage Against The Machine broke up and so this is their final album! It's a pretty sad development for such a unique and influential band, and it's a really weird way to go out, because this is a cover album! Rage cover a variety of different bands and artists that inspired them, and while I'm all for cover albums, it's just a weird way to end their career. Let's listen to some Rage covers! The albul kicks off with "Microphone Fiend", cover of hip-hop duo Eric B. & Rakim. Tom Morello plays a funky guitar riff, Tim Commerford adds some cool backing bass and Zack de la Rocha does a much if quick rapping that sounds pretty good as well. The chorus is a little repetitive but it's pretty catchy and Morello plays some

Two weeks after my last release and two years since the hit "Americana", The Offspring released their sixth album "Conspiracy Of One" on November 14, 2000. The Offspring's style hasn't changed and after another massive success they're here with another batch of catchy punk-rock songs. Let's dive in! The album begins with one of the shortest songs in my whole library, the five second "Intro". It's a clip from a Beach Boys concert way back in the 60s and we hear one of them say "when we're ready to sing, we step up to the microphones, and it comes out something like this...". It's a funny little way to kick things off and our first real song is fittingly called "Come Out Swinging". They burst into a pretty fast main riff that is very typical Offspring and Dexter Holland sounds like his usual self as he sings a solid verse overtop the fast music. After a couple fast rounds they slow it down a bit as Greg K. play

On the same day as my last release a new band briefly joins my library when Lifehouse released their debut album "No Name Face" on October 31, 2000. But who are Lifehouse? They are a three-piece alternative rock band from Los Angeles, California consisting of drummer Jon Palmer, bassist Sergio Andrade and lead singer/guitarist Jason Wade. I'm not a big Lifehouse fan at all, but the lead single on this album is a good one and it would become so popular that it would actually end up being the most played song on the radio in the U.S. for the whole year of 2001. That's pretty impressive, and that single is called "Hanging By A Moment". Andrade plays some simple, but very catchy and cool bass to keep the pace and Wade plays a nice light guitar riff overtop before he comes in to sing and he sounds almost like a Scott Stapp copycat with another very post-grunge sound. Things are quiet but catchy enough to start bit when they finally reach the chorus things explode

A day after my last release a new band joins my library when Godsmack released their second album "Awake" on October 31, 2000. But who is Godsmack? They are a four-piece alternative metal band from Lawrence, Massachusetts consisting of drummer Tommy Stewart, bassist Robbie Merrill, lead guitarist Tony Rombola and lead singer/rhythm guitarist Sully Erna. I'm not a huge Godsmack fan but I do have the title track off this album "Awake". They kick right into the chorus riff, which is a decent metal riff but nothing too special and Stewart plays some cool drums as they segue into the first verse. The stop and start guitar riff sounds cool and Erna shows us his very post-grunge voice that has elements of Scott Stapp from Creed and also elements of Layne Staley from Alice in Chains (whose song "God Smack" off of "Dirt" inspired their name), but he's definitely not as good as either of them. Things sound solid in the verse and the chorus is okay,