It’s getting to be that time of the year! Billboard has listed the top hard rock and top rock albums of the year and here are the winners!
Metallica‘s 10th studio album, Hardwired…To Self-Destruct, has topped Billboard magazine’s year-end Top Rock Albums and Hard Rock Albums charts. The disc, which came out in November 2016, sold 1.1 million copies in the 2017 chart year, the only rock album to top 800,000 units. Metallica also ranked second on the Mainstream Rock Artists survey for 2017. Five songs from the LP made the list in the chart year, with “Atlas, Rise!” topping it for two weeks in February.
Frontman James Hetfield told us a while back the band wanted to record an album that had something for all Metallica fans on it: “Making any record, you’re trying to get a broad paintstroke of everything that the band is capable of and loves to do. So between the ballady stuff, the extremely fast and extreme stuff, and super-heavy…there’s a bit of everything on this record.”
The Top Rock Artist of 2017 was Imagine Dragons, (who?) with the band earning the title for the second time since 2013. The Las Vegas act was also Number One on the Hot Rock Songs Artists, Rock Streaming Songs Artists, Rock Airplay Artists, Rock Digital Song Sales Artists, Alternative Albums Artists and Alternative Songs Artists rankings. Its third album, Evolve, topped the Alternative Albums chart and placed at Number Two on Top Rock Albums, while lead single “Believer” lorded over Hot Rock Songs, Rock Streaming Songs, Rock Airplay, Rock Digital Song Sales, Alternative Songs and Alternative Digital Song Sales.
Portugal. The Man also saw significant chart action thanks to the 15-year-old band’s breakthrough single, “Feel It Still.” The track was Number One on the Adult Alternative Songs chart, Number Two for the year on Rock Airplay and Number Three on the year-end Hot Rock Songs and Alternative Songs surveys.
Also making notable appearances on Billboard‘s year-end tallies were The Revivalists, who were named Top New Rock Artist of 2017, and Linkin Park, who were Number Three on the Top Rock Artist chart and Number Seven on the Top Rock Albums list with One More Light.
Linkin Park also surged on the Hot Rock Songs chart thanks to a sharp uptick in the sales, streaming and airplay for nearly two dozen of their songs following the July suicide of singer Chester Bennington.
Billboard‘s year-end music recaps are based on chart performance between the December 3rd, 2016 and November 25th, 2017-dated charts.
Top Hard Rock Albums Artists Of 2017:
1. Metallica
2. Linkin Park
3. Foo Fighters
4. Queen
5. Guns N’ Roses
6. Nickelback
7. Disturbed
8. Five Finger Death Punch
9. Led Zeppelin
10. Journey
Top Rock Albums Of 2017:
1. Metallica – Hardwired…To Self-Destruct
2. Imagine Dragons – Evolve
3. Twenty One Pilots – Blurryface
4. Soundtrack – Guardians Of The Galaxy, Vol. 2: Awesome Mix Vol. 2
5. Soundtrack – Suicide Squad: The Album
6. Panic! At The Disco – Death Of A Bachelor
7. Linkin Park – One More Light
8. The Lumineers – Cleopatra
9. The Rolling Stones – Blue & Lonesome
10. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – Greatest Hits
(Thanks Blabbermouth and The Pulse Of Radio)
Blabbermouth & The Pulse Of Radio also reporting Stone Sour and Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor will release a full solo performance online at TheCoreyTaylor.com on Dec 18th. The solo acoustic set took place at Koko in London, England and featured songs from Taylor’s entire catalog, as well as covers of tunes from The Cure, Van Morrison, the Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Kiss, R.E.M. and others.
Although he’s resisted recording a solo album for years, Taylor told us a while back what he thought a solo album from him might sound like: “For me, the stuff that I write is, it would be like a cross between the Foos, Social D. and the Replacements, you know. I mean, real Midwestern rock. Real, just open chords, good time rock, you know. And damn the critics, basically. That’s the stuff I write and that’s the stuff I’ve always tried to write.”
Taylor said in a 2016 interview with RockSverige it would be “super greedy” of him to launch a solo career, explaining, “I’m in two fantastic bands. Why would I ever? Unless I wanted to get super greedy, why would I try to split off and do something else. I’m very fulfilled by the music that I get to make with both bands. Is there a solo album in me? Yes. But it’s not gonna be for a few more years.”
In other news, Slipknot percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan hinted on the Jamey Jasta Podcast that the next Slipknot album could be his last. Crahan said, “I just spent four months thinking about my life and where I’m at now because I’m at a real honest place of admitting of what I don’t want to be . . . I feel like this could be it for me. We’re all getting older.”
Crahan and other members of Slipknot are writing music for their sixth studio LP now, although it’s unclear when they’ll record and release it.
Aw man! Tom Morello got to do what most of us WISH we could do! He got to hear the instrumental music recorded so far for the next Tool album! Sigh…..I love that Tom is a fan too! He is the best!
Morello wrote on Monday (December 11th) at his Instagram page, “Had the honor of being the first outsider to hear new #TOOL music today!! Still just instrumentals but sounded epic, majestic, symphonic, brutal, beautiful, tribal, mysterious, deep, sexy and VERY Tool. Really great. So excited to hear the record when it’s finished.”
Morello and the members of Tool have history together: he and Tool guitarist Adam Jones played together in band called Electric Sheep while they were in high school. And they remained close as they both moved to Los Angeles, and through Tom, met Maynard Keenan, who Tom asked if he wanted to be in the band that would eventually become Rage Against The Machine. (MJK said no.)
But that’s not where it ended. Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan later sang on the Rage Against The Machine track “Know Your Enemy” from the band’s 1992 self-titled debut.
Speaking of Keenan, he gave a one-word response on Twitter — “Burp” — to the news that Tool drummer Danny Carey said the band’s new LP would “definitely” arrive in 2018 when asked by a fan if the news was true.
Carey revealed to Loudwire last week, “Yes. I’m saying definitely. We’ll probably have it done in the first half (of the year) if things go as planned. There’s setup times and manufacturing — I can never predict all that, it seems like it’s constantly evolving. (What time of year it will be out), I can’t tell you.”
Tool has not released new music since 2006, although the band has reportedly been working on a new disc for at least the past year.
Ya know, this band has always had a special place in my heart. To most, they’re a one-hit wonder, I guess. But they’ve not stopped since they formed in 1989 in Red Bank, NJ. Blabbermouth reporting Monster Magnet will release its 11th album, Mindf*#ker, on Mar 23, 2018 via Napalm. According to a press release, the disc “is different, a step forward and a step back at the same time to the almighty roots of hard rock music, kindled by the unpretentious proto-punk era. Up-tempo, savage in both sound and spirit, ‘Mindf*#ker’ is the real deal! The album has the potential to surprise and to whip up the love for the genre, while still giving the sludgies and stoner freaks exactly what they wish for in a new Monster Magnet album.”
Commented Monster Magnet leader Dave Wyndorf: “Mindf*#ker’ is a fuzzed out, headbangin’ celebration of hard rock and 21st Century paranoia. Ten fuel-injected, nitro-burning tracks of fiery rock ‘n’ roll and garage psych madness, all done Monster Magnet style. It’s also an album that gets right to the point: the world is out of its f-ing mind and I’m livin’ it…. for better or worse. It’s simple, really. In these crazy times, I’ve been wanting to just drive my car at 100 miles per hour and howl, you know what I mean? So I wrote songs I can do that with. And with lyrics that don’t deny the times we’re living in. Feels good, feels right. Rock is alive, baby!”
Now go listen to “Space Lord” and have a nice day!
