Links

• Operation: Mindcrime, by Queensrÿche
• Rage for Order, by Queensrÿche
• The Warning, by Queensrÿche

Backwards from their peak seems to be the best way to hear Queensrÿche.

• '70s Soft Rock Essentials: Feeling a little melancholy, here's a whole decade of melancholy.

Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what is wrong
Was I unwise to leave them open for so long?
—Jackson Browne, "Doctor My Eyes"

One album a year (a couple of these are more hard rock, but I steered it away from hair metal mostly):

• Ace of Spades, by Motörhead: 1980
• Diary of a Madman, by Ozzy Osbourne: 1981
• Number of the Beast, by Iron Maiden: 1982
• Show No Mercy, by Slayer: 1983
• Defenders of the Faith, by Judas Priest: 1984
• We Care a Lot, by Faith No More: 1985
• Peace Sells, by Megadeth: 1986
• Appetite for Destruction, by Guns N Roses: 1987
• Operation: Mindcrime, by Queensrÿche: 1988
• Conspiracy, by King Diamond: 1989

I started off today with Sound System, by The Clash, but quickly dumped it. Aside from their top 40 hits, they all sound the same and their lack of singing talent and failure to discover anything past three chords on the guitar, really gets on my nerves. They're like the worst caricature of "punk" you'd do as a joke, but carried on for a decade and roughly 500 "best of" albums. You can't listen to any '80s playlist without 25% of the songs being Clash, 25% being teeny little Prince (or whatever he called himself as he crawled further up his tiny butthole), neither of whom I want to hear more than one track a day from ever. And I suppose my Anglophobia doesn't help; English wankers preening about English mob politics. I ain't even mad right now, or this rant would go on longer.

• Stillbirth, by Oneiroid Psychosis
• Forever is Forgotten, by Oneiroid Psychosis
• Unquiet Grave, VA
• So Comes the Yawning Darkness, by The Unquiet Void
• InBetween, by The Unquiet Void
• The Secrets of Vanished Aeons, by The Unquiet Void
• Darkness and the Machine, vol II, VA

a previous Unquiet Void playlist

• Isolation playlist by Apple Music: One of the better incarnations of this downbeat playlist. Like they say in the description, it updates often so save any songs you want to hear again.

"I've been looking so long at these pictures of you
That I almost believe that they're real
I've been living so long with my pictures of you
That I almost believe that the pictures are
All I can feel"
—The Cure, "Pictures of You"