The best Dio albums, spanning his full career. For about a 10 year period from the mid-70s into the mid-80s, Dio fronted prime years of 3 of the greatest metal bands to ever walk the earth. Ronnie Dio recorded quite a few records in a long career, but these are the only 10 you need to hear unless you are a die-hard, although there are moments on Black Sabbath's "Dehumanizer", "Live Evil", and the 3rd Dio album worth hearing. Call it a Dio primer or a Dio record buying guide. RIP RJD - you were one of a kind as a vocalist. And you gave us the "horns". Metal wouldn't be what it is today without you. Also just a note, if you want to see more stats about these albums just click "change display" button. Neat, huh? -for anyone interested, Sabs are #7, Rainbow #45, Dio #192 on my alltime list http://www.ranker.com/list/top-500-musical-groups-and-artists-of-alltime/clark-benson

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Sure, we've all worn out our Ozzy and Iron Maiden albums - but if we dig a little deeper there are some real gems out there, just waiting to be discovered.

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Hot techno girls in bikinis are a staple of Ultra Music albums. These are the techno hotties and raver girls that graced the covers of the Ultra Dance series, ranked by their hotness. You can click on the image of these hot babes in their shiny bikinis to expand the size of the pic. Back when record stores were around, the Ultra Mix/Ultra Techno hot girls were a way to catch someone's eye as they were perusing the aisles, now they're just a pleasure to have around. Here are the hottest girls from any Ultra Dance Music compilation ever.

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"i think the ziggy/aladdin sane/diamond dogs period, as well as low/heroes/lodger periods were very interesting and productive. of course the one-two punch of 'the man..'./hunky dory wasn't too shabby. i really do like the glitzy/glam aladdin/diamond dogs period quite a bit. have you ever seen "The 1980 Floor Show" that was on The Midnight Special back in the mid-70's??????? "Time" - one of the greatest guitar solos ever recorded. thanks mick - you live on forever if that was the only one you ever laid down. i could bore you forever. i was a very heavy bowie fan. many acid trips to aladdin sane. that one may is tied for first with me."

"for me, Dogs was easily the most elaborate, theatrical of them all (including 'Ziggy' + 'A Lad'). Of course it was 1974 - he had just got done with Raw Power, the Dolls had In Too Much Too Soon Out, T Rex had put out The Slider, and Elton John had put out Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Kiss had completed Dress to Kill (still their finest studio LP in my view) and everyone was running around fucking and taking drugs - oh shit - how humiliating - i forgot (i knew i had) one of the finest of all the Bo LPs (drugs reminded me because he was blasted out of his mind living in LA on tons of cocaine at the time, shortly after DDogs - Station To Station (see revised list now) ! Anyway - i can remember unfortunately - the '70s were out of control and truly sucked in most ways. Despite the pseudo-hipness of this 70s revival these days, in reality those days were a bore: The Brady Bunch was real - that actually reflected our culture. Bell bottoms were real and NOT thought to be funny and cool. It was the status quo. You couldn't BUY straight leg Levi's - they were all flared. I remember buying what they called "Student Flare" Levi's. Plus the greatest (for me) Queen album came out in 74 (perhaps 73) - Sheer Heart Attack. Some pretty good music - It's Only Rock N Roll. The Rock Music Awards - Keith Moon rides out on the stage with Ann Margaret strapped to the back (Tommy was out). Alice Cooper. wow - i can't seem to stop. Transformer. stop. stop. Roxy Musix - Country Life, Siren. stop. Hues Corporation - Rock The Boat. STOP STOP STOP. Carl Douglas - Kung Fu Fighting. The Stylistics - You Make Me Feel Brand New. Rufus. War. AWB. a white kid in a black city. STOP STOP STOP STOP STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP."

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The rock album theme of the "00s"? Consistency. There were unquestionably less amazing records this decade than any other decade in rock. I probably listened to 3000 or so discs that came out in the "oughts" and gave just 3 "perfect" scores. But that doesn't mean everything sucked. Good, even great, albums came out in droves. By the same artists. Year after year. Maybe it's just the way I listen to music (I'm pretty loyal to artists I like) but it was fascinating going through this exercise and seeing the consistency - for example, finding that all of the last 3 Mars Volta records were clustered together, along with the last 3 or 4 MMJ albums, TV On The Radio, Doves, Kings of Leon etc. It's pretty much the case down the line, from the few credible superstar bands like Green Day, U2, Radiohead, to the old warhorses like Dylan and Springsteen on down to the many excellent bands that never get airplay in these fractured times. And those bands are really the heart of the great rock of the decade - the mid-level Bonnaroo/Coachella/Lollapalooza draws. Highly credible bands that play theatres and put out a bunch of records that aren't quite "10s". Soon, when I have more time to actually play with my own website, I'll be ranking my whole record collection. With far fewer "10s" in this decade, will I find that the overall number of great records (9+ ratings) are also lower this decade than in the 70's, 90s, 60's and even 80's? I can't wait to find out. I'm pretty damn sure the 70's and the 90's will blow this decade away, but not sure if the breadth of great albums was quite as consistent in the 80's or the 60's (I don't count jazz on this list - hard to compare apples to apples - so the 60's are hampered in my book by getting a pretty late start). It's also fun to revisit records that - great as they may be - just don't seem a part of this last decade at all. Fatboy Slim? The last studio record from Rage Against The Machine? It also underscores how 2000-2001 frankly just had some more interesting stuff going on. Strange that 2001 feels like sooo long ago. A very fun exercise, this. Wish I had time to write little blurbs about each record, but at the time of posting I just have too much going on. Blurbs/reviews will be trickling in. The rankings took a lot of time, even with the ultimate listmaking tool at my disposal. To clarify for you readers who have gotten this far- I listened to (and am pretty likely to own) the entire decade's output by all but about 2% of the bands on this list, so (if you care) you can safely assume that, for example, having Motorhead's "Inferno" on this list does not mean I'm just I am just some dude who scored the odd Motorheaad album, but rather that Inferno was a surprisingly high-quality album by a band that hadn't put out anything consistently memorable in a long time. And so on. I was originally planning a 200 or 250 item list, but some quality records would have gotten cut. So it's 300 - but in fairness, quality does start to drop around #275 or so. Criteria: Live albums and compilations of all sorts excluded. Had I included live albums, certainly Wilco, Warren Haynes, and many "official bootlegs" would have made the list. Other thoughts - Pearl Jam barely on the list, tho an absolute fave live band. Ditto for Phil and Friends, and Gov't Mule as well. Live versions are just better for these guys. When you make a list, you gotta have some rules (tho, when I do my 70's albums list, I don't see how I'll be able to exclude live albums - we humans are maddeningly inconsistent creatures). And when I find myself deep in the weeds of trying to slice whether, say, the Starsailor debut beats Gillian Welch's "Time", I ask "if i had to live without ever hearing one of these which would it be?" Not entirely fair, as one can burn out on a once-loved album so of course I try to take that into consideration as well. Such is how it goes, when Ranking

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Every band you love has one. You know what I'm talking about, that one terrible record which you still own because you must have everything, and maybe it has that one decent single on it, because it can't all be that bad. Oh, but it can.

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Here's my votes for the 20 best rock albums ever produced, at least as I saw it on June 9th, 2009

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These are my favorite hip-hop albums of all-time.

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Where is Tower? Virgin? Turtles? The Record Bar, Tracks? Where is there a decent record store anywhere within 10 miles of your house?
Do you miss the fun of discovery while browsing in a record store near your home. These days, a trip to the nearest decent record store involves Google Maps, a picnic basket and a full tank of gas. There is still some fun to be had locally, if you know where to look. I have discovered that Rite-Aid carries a surprisingly eclectic and ever-replenished selection of CDs at bargain prices! I stop at every Rite-Aid I see and discover wonders in their CD racks. Following are a few examples of the gems I've found for $7.99, or less!

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my top 20 indie rock albums of all time. the best of the 80's 90's and today includeing Radiohead, Elliott Smith and The White Stripes. alternative music made without the influence of major record lables. In my opinion these are the purest, strongest, soul filled indie albums. no fillers, no waterd down taste, no corporate hang-over. every one of these albums changed my life and i promise if you give them a open minded listen they will cuddle up inside your soul and grow like golden magic tumors or diamond crusted insect eggs with a carmael core. they will give you super powers.

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Arguments ahoy! It's the 10 best Side 1 / Track 1 according to one underpaid critic. Me!

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This is my list (and my notes) from the time - in retrospect I would certainly disagree with at least some of my summary about the year (not a lot of quality releases, BUT at least 6 or 7 EXCELLENT ones) as well as some Rankings, but the "revised look back at 1999" list will come later:

In general, 1999 was a pretty grim year for albums; probably the worst year since some dim period in the 80s . . . That said, there are still always some good records out there, though certainly a shortage of outstanding ones.

Probably the worst trend, of course, is that the big hit rock records that are actually artistically good are few and far between - in my book a couple of radio songs really help make a big rock record a classic. Unfortuantely this doesn't happen when A) the big great bands are breaking up or dormant, and B) the rock radio airwaves are dominated by Creed, Limp Bizkit, Lit, Oleander, Staind, and other such mediocrity. Oh well. There were a few pleasant surprises (whod'a thought the Chili Peppers actually had it in them, Ben Harper put out the best record of his career, and I was quite impressed with the Pavement record, having never really been much of a fan). But all in all, it was gruesome out there.

On the bright side, I saw many of the best live performances of my life in 1999, and so will have to mention those below so as we don't write the year off as a total loss. In fact, pound for pound I saw more amazing live music than ever - aided by lots of multiple-band and festival bills.

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NOTES: these were my rankings at the end of 2006; opinions have changed a bit since then and I will do an updated version of this list at some point (I've already cheated a bit because my original list only ranked the top 40; the rest were all "bubbling under"). My change in opinions would be the reason a higher-rated album may show below another. I’ve been saying all year it was a lame year for albums, but in retrospect it was a good one, especially when you think of it in terms of sheer tonnage. Nothing absolutely blew me away, but a truckload, or at least a humvee-load, of decent-to-pretty-great records came out this year. Trends: Most of my fave new bands of last 5 years or so put out good-to-great records that were nonetheless slight disappointments compared to the masterpieces they released just prior – Drive-By Truckers, Mastadon, ISIS, Volta, Strokes Another great year for metal. The youth of America have woken up and realized that Nu- and Rap-metal have the substance of are thankfully in retreat. All hail the old school (maiden, celtic frost) and the really creative younger extreme metal world (ISIS, Satyricon, Cult of Luna, Agalloch, Giant Squid, Mastadon) At different times, any of the top 7 on the list could be the #1, just as the 5 or 6 after those are pretty interchangeable, the 6 or 7 after that, and so on.

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And let's forget their newest "Black Ice", clocking in with no less than 4 songs with "Rock" in the title.

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My top albums of 2009, albiet posted on the late side - wanted to give them a little more time to breathe. I almost never listen to a record more than once a week, so it takes time to form a new opinion, and as usual a lot of good stuff came out at the end of the year. A below-average year for albums (and ditto for live shows). Only a handful of great ones. Overall verdict? "Meh+". But there is still good music, oh yes. A lot of my perrenials in my top 10 - the two big surprises were the YYY's (definitely the record that will most remind me of 2009), and of course Animal Collective, to some degree. The Animal Collective record wasn't at all a surprise in the sense that I had been DYING to hear these songs ever since they played a set of mostly that material at Coachella 2008, but it's certainly the first studio record of theirs that I've rated very highly. And the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were just one of those rare bands that I didn't want to like at all and over time have acquired Maximum Respect for. I might add more to these notes when I have time - sadly I am too busy to even use my site to make lists right now.

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These are the best Iron Maiden Albums. I've actually found a lot of the ones available aren't really worth Ranking. So here are the 8 Iron Maiden albums worth owning/listening to.

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my list of Indie and alternative rock albums that have saved my life. they are all beautiful works of art swollen with soul and passion from the first track to the last. if you open your mind and heart to them I promise they will bring warmth to a soul gone cold.

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