As 2011 draws to a close we all start casting our minds back over the best music of the year. Mainstream or obscure, metal or country, rock or jazz, everyone’s got a Top 10 list in them. Gibson.com asked Machine Head’s Flying V playing guitarist Robb Flynn for his best-of list for 2011. Thanks to Robb for getting the ball rolling!
1. Times of Grace - The Hymn of a Broken Man
This record is unreal. Unbelievable album. SO inspiring. Goosebumps throughout. The passion, the vocal harmonies, the lyrics, SO meaningful and real. Songs about LOVE on a metal record... and they’re great??!! Crazy. What I’ve always loved about Jesse Leach’s voice is that it sounds like dude has PROBLEMS!! And I relate. I was really disappointed with where music was going when this came out... and this record literally saved me.
2. Ghost - Opus Eponymous
It took me about 4 listens, but when I “got it,” man, it hit me like a ton of bricks, this record simply RULES.
3. Ray LaMontagne & The Pariah Dogs - God Willin’ & The Creek Don’t Rise
Normally I hate this kind of music, but our drummer Dave McClain turned me onto this, and it’s seriously an absolutely incredible folk/Americana record. I could not stop listening to it. Ray’s voice has so much ache and sadness. “This Love is Over” is a masterpiece.
4. All Shall Perish - This is Where it Ends
Our Bay Area brethren deliver an ambitious and staggeringly heavy piece of work here. These guys are the undisputed kings of the Death-Core genre, and the main reason is the songwriting. This isn’t Tech-Death-Arpeggio-Core with a 3rd rate Meshuggua riff; these are songs, GREAT songs, with great lyrics. “The Past Will Haunt Us Both” is simply incredible. They just might be putting the nail in the coffin to this genre, while at the same time transcending into something greater.
5. Tyler, The Creator - Goblin
Sick, sick, SICK man!!! So dark, and [expletive] up. Warped! Underground rap at its finest. Thank you, Mark from Chimaira.
6. Trivium - In Waves
Best album since Ascendancy, hands down, and probably a better album overall. Great songwriting, great production, great hooks. “Watch the World Burn” is amazing. Love it.
7. Kanye West & Jay-Z - Watch the Throne
I love my mainstream hip-hop, I can’t help it. Going back to the “sound collage”-style of early ’90s east coast rap, this record, sonically, was incredible. Ridiculously good rhymes from both rappers, and the dark political undertones only deepened the beauty of it all.
8. The Beatles - iTunes Catalog
I’ve heard every one of these songs a million times, and yet getting them all together made me fall in love with The Beatles all over again. The guitar tone at the beginning of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” is one of the heaviest, raunchiest things ever put down in history. And while many bands have tried to cover “Helter Skelter” and make it heavier, none have come close to the apocalyptic proto-punk, garage-rock feel they captured. “Eleanor Rigby,” forget it!
9. Anthrax - Worship Music
I wasn’t expecting much out of this to be honest – the long public train wreck that unfolded with our friends was a bummer. Plus, I really liked John Bush’s voice, but man, this record is just so unbelievably good it stopped me in my tracks. Great songs, great, production, great lyrics and [expletive] me if Belladonna didn't deliver the vocal performance of his life. Hands down the best he has ever sounded, and the freedom he was allowed (insisted on?) made it all the better, soaring vocal harmonies, power, the quality of his vocal tone, dude had to deliver a Hail Mary and he did. “In The End” and “Fight ’Em Til You Can’t” are TWO of the best songs Anthrax have ever written. GREAT job dudes!
10. Darkest Hour - The Human Romance
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