Compilations: The Hard and the Heavy

I remember vaguely buying this compilation. Hard rock was enjoying a resurgence. MTV was playing a special music video block called "Return of the Rock" and this CD was released. I think I liked it okay at the time, but man, there are not a lot of good tracks on here.

So, to torture myself the morning after an all-day trial, here we go.

INTRODUCTION
Spoken word into from Dave Wyndorf of Monster Magnet. Skippable.

KID ROCK: "I AM THE BULLGOD"
This is some weird mix with random keyboard effects. This is one of Kid Rock's better rock-oriented tracks, which isn't saying all that much really as most of his stuff is terrible. He's proven to be quite the chameleon, at this time he was mostly associated with hard rock, whereas now he's mostly associated with country and southern rock. NFM.

MONSTER MAGNET: "GIMME DANGER"
I always liked this band really. This is kind of a smoky-sounding seductive song. Interesting, but not one of the stoner rock band's best. NFM.

POWERMAN 5000: "SON OF X-51"
Rob Zombie's little brother Spider hit it big with this album, made another one like it that was never released in the U.S., freaked out that all his stuff was sounding the same (it was), and changed his entire sound, for the worse (if possible). I was shocked when I saw this band was still around. NFM.

SEVENDUST: "BLACK"
I have a soft spot for this band too, despite not being a metal band. This was the first band I officially saw in concert. This is a live version of their first "hit", if you can call it that. It's not bad. Lajon Witherspoon has a very good voice. NFM though.

MINISTRY: "BAD BLOOD"
Well, only six tracks in and we have the first metal band. This is when the band was experimenting with equal parts industrial metal and thrash metal. This is one hell of a song. It's like an organized chaos attacking the ears. Decent, but not one of the band's better songs.

FU MANCHU: "OVER THE EDGE"
Here we come to the stoner rock portion of the album. Each of the next two tracks fall under this genre. These guys were supposed to open for Sevendust when I saw them, fell through though. It's not terrible, NFM though.

QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE: "AVON"
Guitarist Josh Homme, formerly of Kyuss, decided to form a new band after the aforementioned band split up. He wanted to make it different though. It had to be terrible, less-talented, and more mind-numbingly boring. Sometimes that's difficult for stoner bands. But Josh Homme, through intensive effort, passed with flying colors. We all applaud him with a collective yawn. NFM.

P.O.D.: "HOLLYWOOD"
I nearly forgot about this band. Just your average bunch of San Diego multi-ethnic, rastafarian Christian rap-rockers. And yes their music is as awesome as that description. Even for them, this song is terrible. NFM.

ONE MINUTE SILENCE: "STUCK BETWEEN A ROCK AND A WHITE FACE"
I have no idea who this band is (was?). After hearing this song, I don't fucking care. NFM.

FEAR FACTORY: "EDGECRUSHER"
This is some weird trance/hip hop version of the Fear Factory song from their Obsolete album, an album I loved in high school. And yes, it's as weird as it sounds.

MACHINE HEAD: "FROM THIS DAY"
I've made my feelings on this band known. At this time, nu-metal was popular, thus Machine Head was a nu-metal band, complete with semi-rapped vocals. *Sigh*

PUYA: "FAKE"
Puya was a minor phenomenon for about six weeks back in 1999 or 2000. Blending rap rock with latin jazz music was something not many bands contemplated before. With good reason. Mixing Spanish with English lyrics makes this one schizophrenic mess of a song. NFM.

SEPULTURA: "CHOKE"
This is off Sepultura's first album without Max Cavalera. Derrick Green provides the grunting this time around. Altogether, not a bad song, definitely sounds a lot like the band's last album with Max though.

NEUROSIS: "UNDER THE SURFACE"
I never got into this band. Now that I hear this song again, I'm not surprised. It's eerie sounding, but that's about the best I can say about it. This band is all about the atmosphere, and they do a good job with that. I just can't say it's particularly metal and I really don't hear enough to get me to check out an album.

NEVERMORE: "I AM THE DOG"
Excellent song. This is the best song on the entire two-disc compilation. Not difficult competition though. It still took me quite awhile to get into this unique power/thrash/progressive metal band. How they turned up on this compilation, I will never understand.

LIMP BIZKIT: "COUNTERFEIT"
What the fucking hell? NFM.

ROB ZOMBIE: "LIVING DEAD GIRL"
I think this song was on literally every movie soundtrack for awhile. I think it might have even been on the soundtrack for Waiting to Exhale. I could be wrong though and I don't have time to verify that. NFM.

COAL CHAMBER: "BIG TRUCK"
Big truck huh? This band sounded exactly like Korn at this time. How we got DevilDriver out of this, I will never truly understand. NFM.

STAIND: "RAW"
This is a rare faster track for the mostly somber, woe-is-me rockers. Proving that they can't play fast convincingly either and that Aaron Lewis really cannot sing at all, Staind should have probably given it up awhile ago. But, what fun would that have been? NFM.

SLIPKNOT: "SPIT IT OUT"
This is Slipknot at its rap-rock best (worst?). Still, surprisingly one of their better songs. You can tell I like Slipknot can't you? NFM.

STATIC-X: "WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP"
I always had a soft spot for this band too, even though they really only play industrial rock. I won't complain too much about this song. NFM.

MEGADETH: "ANARCHY IN THE U.K."
This song was nearly 15 years old when this was released. What the hell caused them to dig out a Megadeth song from their third fucking album? And a bad punk cover too.

ORANGE 9MM: "WHEN YOU LIE"
I don't remember this band at all either. Maybe I'll block this back out after today. Some things should never be remembered. NFM.

VIDEODROME: "TY JONATHAN DOWN"
This is ridiculously awful. How did bands like this get record deals? It sounds like an unholy mix of Marilyn Manson and Korn, and I think Korn's singer is moaning in the background. What the fuck? NFM.

SPINESHANK: "DETACHED"
Another industrial rock band. I don't have much of a problem with them. Their singer has since formed Silent Civilian, a groove metal/metalcore band thus going over to the dark side. This is NFM though.

SOULFLY: "EYE FOR AN EYE"
This song was everywhere too. This is Max Cavalera's first big song after leaving Sepultura. It's mostly nu-metal at this point. NFM.

GRIP INC.: "ISOLATION"
Kind of a weird side project for the drummer of Slayer and the guitarist for little-known German band Despair, a progressive thrash metal band I covered earlier. This is definitely groove metal. It's fairly decent too, although I would probably not pick up an album by these guys, I'm not too big on groove metal.

MOTORHEAD: "OVERNIGHT SENSATION"
Ah Motorhead. You know exactly what to expect out of this band and they never fail. I'm not sure this group has ever written a bad song or album. Great band.

NOTHINGFACE: "BREATHE OUT"
How dare this band soil the name of the great Voivod album. For shame. NFM.

AMORPHIS: "DIVINITY"
At least this thing ends on a high note. I saw this video on MTV at some point. That same day, I rushed out and picked up the album. Great move as Amorphis is still one of my favorite bands.

Well, that's it. Thankfully. Now I can listen to something decent.