lists 57

Best Guitar Teams

Typical Best Guitarist rankings are not usually fair to the "team players" of great guitar bands. This list is for them - usually duos, but sometimes even triple-threat guitar teams. Some of these teams are "dual lead" guitars (they ...

The 5 Albums in My Heavy Catalog Rotation the Longest

Albums that have never lost favor in my rotation, ranked by their longevity since i obtained them. I will be on my deathbed and still be listening to these, probably via some implanted computer chip. Criteria - it's hard to pinpont exactly what ...

Best Cover Songs of Recent Memory pt. 1

How often do you see a non hit song with a killer original version get covered multiple times, by artists in totally different genres, with the end result of 3 unique definitive versions? "No One's Gonna Love You" by Band of Horses, produces ...

Best Albums of the 00's

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 ...

FYF Fest 2011 Review- FYF Festival Rankings

Reviewed FYF Fest 2011 in downtown Los Angeles on-the-fly liveblogging as it happened, ranking the highlights. Videos and setlists of the performances to hopefully be added as well. The show went off incredibly well - no hassles, great setup where you ...

Men I Suspect My Wife Would Probably Leave Me For

Why Do "Supergroups" Have Such Crap Names?

List of horribly-named Rock Supergroups. Why this trend? Do they not have access to a thesaurus? Is it because the bandmembers don't have shared-life experiences and can't agree on anything cool? Do they all just completely lack a shred of a clue living ...

The Most Beautiful Eel In The World

Until recently I never understood the bond people had with their pets. Let's be honest - I have openly mocked it. I have scoffed as friends had to decline a last minute weekend trip because of their precious little pooch. Etc. But now I understand. I ...

Coachella 2011 Review - Coachella Festival Rankings

Reviewing Coachella 2011 on-the-fly liveblogging as it happens, and ranking the highlights. Videos of the performances as well. Friday's Coachella was pound-for-pound the best day of music at Coachella yet, and I've been to them all. Overall the 2011 ...

Best Albums of 2010

For the first time, I'm going with an unranked year-end list. Worst year for albums in ages (perhaps in my lifetime). There is always good new music though, and I did add streams to a few highlights you may not have heard (check out the Sufjan EP for the ...

Companies I Have Founded

I am a serial entrepreneur. Ranker is my 5th startup in 15 years, and I'm not looking to start anything else for awhile - Ranker is pretty ambitious, and there is a LOT more that we will be doing with this platform, I think it will keep me happily ...

The Best At What They Do

I give Maximum Respect to all on this list. Criteria: Must be currently active (at What They Do So Well). Though I am allowing some fuzziness to allow for their whole career as long as they haven't become a hack and are still at least showing flashes of ...

Fave Bands to Ski To

I have a very carefully chosen skiing playlist w 100s of diverse tracks. But this year I didn't get to update it quite enough, and God forgive me if I would listen to the same song over a 3 day period, so I found myself going back and listening to albums ...

Tiger Blood.

List of famous men most likely to test positive for what Charlie Sheen refers to as "Tiger Blood" in their veins.

Rocktober 2010

For some reason, probably related to Global Tour Routing Schedules + The Weather, the month of October is always filled with more great pound-for-pound rock shows in LA than any other month. This has been the case since I moved to Los Angeles in 1992, ...

18 Reasons Why 'Exile On Main Street' Deserves Its Rep

"Exile" is one of those rare records where every year or two a different song on it will become a special talisman to be played when I really need a fix of something deep. This list explains why this 18-song masterpiece deserves every bit of ...

Ronnie James Dio's Greatest Album Moments

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 ...

Bonnaroo Review and Rankings: 2010

Manchester, Tennessee June 2010: Reviews of all the sets I could manage to catch at Bonnaroo 2010. Except for the first Bonnaroo in 2002 I have attended, and loved, every Bonnaroo Music Festival. 2010 lineup was not as strong as previous years line-ups, ...

My Top Albums of 2009

UPDATED in early 2011. In retrospect, 2009 was a decent year, especially compared to the rock debacle that was 2010. The Top 8 records on this list all have turned out to be more consistently strong than ANY album of 2010, though there are a few 2010 ...

Coachella 2010 Review - Coachella Festival Rankings

Overall, an excellent Cochella, though the huge crowds definitely added a bit more strain to the experience. Adding Coachella videos to the reviews as soon as they arrive on YouTube - great to see so many fast uploads. List is ranked by how much I liked ...

Celebrities w/ Dishes Named After Them at Dan Tana's

Dan Tana's history is not just in the walls but on the menu. Dan Tana's restaurant, in West Hollywood on Santa Monica Boulevard, is an "Old Hollywood" institution. A number of old-school celebs or prominent entertainment industry execs have ...

Must Read Newspaper Pundits

These are columnists whose editorial opinions I find most interesting, whether or not I always agree. Requirement: they must publish regularly, ideally once a week or more. This list is only loosely ranked; I find that people writing regular columns tend ...

Alltime Best Bands from Illinois

Chicago bands and Illinois bands in general. As a native Chicagoan who went to school in Champaign, i feel entitled to weigh in on this matter. That said, i'm probably missing the boat on some less prominent Chicago bands of the late nineties and ...

Phish Festival 8 Set-By-Set Review

Reviewing Phish Festival 8; a live review of the Phish festival. Liveblog is ranked by Set Quality. Full coverage and wrapup of Phish Acoustic Set. for additional coverage: Jambase http://www.jambase.com/articles/story.aspx?storyID=20251

Bonnaroo 09 liveblog

“Liveblog” of Bonnaroo 2009. Bonnaroo 09 Reviews, some Setlists, etc. Listed in order of preference, not schedule order. Continually updated. 5PM Sat update: In the middle of a no-win situation; that would be the combo of Mule>Wilco>Volta (3 of my ...

Top Rock Bons

A silly list I made to test an interface change.

My Coachella 2008

A terrific, diverse year. Ranked them in order of preference but there were many highlights.

My Bonnaroo 2008

2008 Bonnaroo Review (sorta - mostly just rankings). 2008 was one of the alltime best Bonnaroos - huge headliner firepower, 2 days of Phil, and much more. Ranked in order of awesomeness.

My Lollapalooza 2008

My Lollapalooza 08 rankings and mini-reviews. Powerhouse lineup - great year, especially for the headliners.

My Lollapalooza 2007

An enjoyable festival, to be sure, but there just weren't many jaw-dropping sets compared to other fests. Ranked in order of preference, and including in many cases video footage from the show.

My Bonnaroo 2007

This was a Bonnaroo that I probably anticipated more than I actually enjoyed, mainly due to The Police being just OK. Ranked in order of enjoyment.

My Coachella 2009

As good as any year- maybe the best ever. was like a Bonnaroo as far as me cramming tons of different sets into 3 days. Definitely the most music I've seen at a Coachella to date, and I've been to all. Perhaps the best thing of all was that for my tastes ...

Women Who Have Gotten Hotter With Age

I suppose you could call this a CougList. But it's not just all Cougs, it's women that have not just kept it up but improved- at least for awhile. Impressive. And it's not all MILFs either. The definition here is that she has to have gotten noticably ...

2008 My Top Albums

NOTE: these are the rankings as they stood at the end of this particular year (typically produced in January, because it's important to give Q4 records a chance to breathe and i am not one to listen to a record over and over again right when i get it (i ...

My Coachella 2007 Review and Rankings

Not my fave lineup overall, though the Rage Against the Machine reunion was the all-powerful draw for me at the time. Lotsa bands on this list that I am not a fan of and only saw becuz I was with people who wanted to see them, or there was nothing else ...

2002 My Top Albums

NOTE: list is "as is" at the end of 2002; my opinions have definitely changed a bit since then and I will update a revised version of this at some point. There were a TON of damn good records this year, but I didn’t find any that completely ...

2003 Albums of the Year

My original 2003 list was a top 25 which i have pasted below - I decided in this case to rank the full list as I currently (late 2009) feel. Most of the mini-reviews or notes about the records are from the original list. In retrospect, a solid year of ...

1999 - My Top Albums

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 ...

2000 My Top Albums

NOTE: this is my list "as it stood" at the end of the year - time has updated my opinions since then and I will probably at some point publish a "revised" list (in retrospect, there are like 12-15 killer records that came out this ...

My Lollapalooza 2006

My first "weekend festival" Grant Park Lollapalooza (I attended most of the touring festival ones in the 90s) - a very solid show and one that has kept me coming back to Lolla. Great weather and the perfect location in Chicago, my hometown. Met ...

2006 Albums of the Year

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 ...

2007 My Top Albums

2007 Y/E list - NOTE this reflects my feelings at the end of 07; since then as albums breathe and I discover things I may have missed, opinions change and at some point i will regenerate a revised 2007 list. Not a great year for albums, but there's ...