It seems like the days of flipping through vast vinyl, cassette, or CD collections is a thing of the past. And while there’s no denying the convenience of having all your favorite albums on a mobile device, it’s becoming more common for recordings to get lost in the shuffle and/or completely forgotten about.
Author/journalist Greg Prato is willing to provide some assistance, with his 12th book overall, Overlooked/Underappreciated: 354 Recordings That Demand Your Attention. Inside, you will find countless albums that you may have completely forgotten about or perhaps have never even heard of before.
Starting with AC/DC’s Flick of the Switch and wrapping up with Zombi’s Surface to Air, countless styles of music are represented in between – rock n’ roll, hard rock, heavy metal, alternative, new wave, punk, hardcore, grunge, jazz, fusion, psychedelic, prog, folk, blues, funk, soul, rap, spoken word, power pop, big band, glam, experimental, instrumental, soundtracks…the list goes on and on. But the selections stay strong!
Greg Prato is a Long Island, New York-based journalist, whose writing has appearing in Rolling Stone, among other outlets. He is also the author of several acclaimed books, including Grunge is Dead: The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music, A Devil on One Shoulder and an Angel on the Other: The Story of Shannon Hoon and Blind Melon, The Eric Carr Story, and MTV Ruled the World: The Early Years of Music Video, among others.
Now available as paperback ($12.99, 256 pages), Kindle ($9.99, 287 pages), and Nook.
($9.99, 256 pages) versions.
114 Responses
Alice Cooper – From The Inside
Rush – Hemispheres
From The Inside has always been one of my favorite albums ever!!
Just off the top of my head:
ICON – their self-titled debut
ROUGH CUTT – Wants You
BLACK N’ BLUE – Any of their first 3 albums
HELIX – Debut and Walking the Razors edge
KROKUS – Headhunter
DOKKEN – Tooth and Nail
WASP – Self titled and Last Command
STRYPER – To Hell with the Devil
ARMORED SAINT – March of the Saint
I’m sure I’ll think of more after I post…haha!!
You guys are getting carried away with FLICK OF THE SWITCH. Yes, there are good songs on it and it is a consistent record with good guitar playing but it is not a masterpiece. The production is bad and it sounds like it was made in someones basement. FLY ON THE WALL is even worse. POWERAGE is one of their best and is a classic so lumping that one in with those two for me doesn’t work. FLICK OF THE SWITCH may be a gem in the sense that it has been overlooked untill GUNS FOR HIRE was put on a soundtrack and people went back and gave FLICK …..a second look. Is it more interesting than 90% of new stuff coming out? You betcha but AC/DCs worst stuff still isn’t all that bad because of their greatness overall. Brett Farve was the best quarterback to play for THE JETS, but he is not THE JETS best quarterback by far. Namath, Testeverde, Esiason, Pennington and even Sanchez.
Richman,
I agree completely with you on Powerage. That album is amazing and it a VERY close second to my favorite AC/DC album, Highway to Hell.
Dana from ET.com 🙂
Anything Accept has released since Mark Tornillo jumped on board. And Staten Island Clown, no man, you’re not an idiot! IMO everyone of those are overhyped to a point,especially Nirvana….
more required listening: MONTROSE-MONTROSE, STARZ-VIOLATION,TRIUMPH-ALLIED FORCES,T.T. QUICK-METAL OF HONOR,ANGEL CITY-FACE TO FACE,CATS IN BOOTS-KICKED AND CLAWED,LOVE HATE-BLACKOUT IN THE RED ROOM,WARRIOR SOUL-SALUTATIONS FROM THE GHETTO NATION,METAL CHURCH-DEBUT,GIRLSHOOL-EMERGENCY(greatest female hard rock band of all-time-just ask Lemmy!) And speaking of awesome female bands PHANTOM BLUE’S “BUILT TO PERFORM” is the single most kick-ass album from an all-female band-check it out immediately! THIN LIZZY-THUNDER AND LIGHTNING(masterpiece) SAVAGE-LOOSE AND LETHAL,UFO-STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT(holy grail of musicianship-no better live album has ever been made!) TROUBLE-MANIC FRUSTRATION.