Thanksgiving and metal

Thanksgiving is coming up next week and for this site I have two traditions for the holiday. Back in 2006 I begin doing two posts with the positive being five things in metal that I am thankful for. I have given this honor to bands,individuals, record labels, forms of technology just anything I am thankful that is metal or music related from the past year. The negative is I give out one Big Turkey of the year award. Pretty self- explanatory, it goes to a person, band, event or anything that I think was the top joke or lame item from metal for the past year. The past big turkey award winners are as follows.

2006-Axl Rose
2007-Rocklahoma
2008-Judas Priest
2009-Lita Ford

So I am thinking hard about these awards and will likely post both the day before Thanksgiving. So stop back to find out who wins.

Golden Turd Award for 1990

I always like to explain what this award is. It's not a worst album award, but more a combination of being bad and disappointing in some way. I have given one a year for each of the years of the 1980's and now am on to another decade. Now when I was thinking about the award for 1990 I first thought it would be Slayer and they put out a poor album in 1990 for certain. However the disappointment factor had me thinking that Iron Maiden was the more likely choice here. Slayer were coming off of two great albums and two good ones before that. However Iron Maiden had done seven albums in the 80's and I think five were great and the other two were very good plus they did the greatest live metal album of the 80's and maybe ever. So for them to put out an album like No prayer for the dying was stunning. "Hooks in you" and "Bring your daughter to the slaughter" are painful while several other songs come across as filler. Even the epic "Mother Russia" is corny and forced which is something that Maiden had never been not even for a minute in the 80's. Unfortunately the 90's was going to get even worse for Maiden and their fans. Although the band has certainly turned it around this decade.

What's coming up?

I hope to have the Bruce Kulick review up this weekend. Then on Sunday I'll start in with some 2009 awards and follow with the top 25 albums of 2009 countdown during the week. So stop by and check them out.

Top albums of 2009 coming soon

In looking at the calender it looks like I am going to devote the week of December 13th to awards for 2009. So on the 13th I'll do best re-issues and best album covers. Then starting the 14th I'll do the top 25 abums of of 2009 as a countdown and I'll reveal five per day and wrap up with the final five on the 18th. I already knwo the top five or so, but for the others I need to do some more listening between now and then to figure who is in and what the order will be. Hope you will stop by and check out my lists.