The Real Concert King's Top Albums of 2021

Welcome! It's that time of the year again, hanging stockings, getting the Xmas tree ready, preparing for the coming of a new year...Wait, no that was almost half a year ago. This list isn't timely at all anymore...Between working 7 days a week and going to concerts and working, it's taken me a lot longer to put this together than I would have liked. Well, here it is anyway...

I like to compile a list of my favorite releases every year and share them with whoever stumbled across it.  The rankings are semi-arbitrary as it's difficult to compare different kinds of music against each other, the order is mostly just my own gut reaction and a reflection of my many personal biases and favoritism, but I do try to elevate releases that I feel the most connection to and feel drawn back to time and time again.  Every single album and artist on this list is worth checking out, so if you haven't heard of some of them, I hope you give them a chance.  I've selected a track or two from each album to highlight as what I think best represents the album, or is just one of my favorite songs from it.  I used to put links to Spotify for each album and make a playlist of my "Check Out" songs, but since that company is problematic and fascistic, I don't have any interest in that now. So feel free to search for these on your music platform of choice and give them a spin.  

I wish I had the time and ability to write about what makes each of these albums special, but I don't and I'm not great at expressing what I love about music so I picked a few to write blurbs about.

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Honorable Mentions

JoJo - "Trying Not to Think About It" EP

Check Out:  "Spiral SZN"

Olivia Rodrigo - "Sour"

Check Out: "Good 4 u"

Plush - "Plush"

Check Out: "Hate"

Spiritbox - "Eternal Blue"

Check Out:  "Circle With Me"

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The Top 20 Albums of 2021

The Real Concert King's Top Albums of 2020

Welcome! As usual, my top albums list is coming out at a totally appropriate time and not awkwardly late, like almost halfway into the next year.  2020 was a truly crazy year for everyone, but there was still a lot of really great new music released.  I always love showcasing what I felt was some of the best I came across, so I've spent some time carefully compiling this list.  As I always say, these lists are my opinion at the time I finish them but sometimes those views change over time so this list might have been different a few months or years later.  

I chose a song or two from each release that I think you should give a listen if you're unfamiliar with the album/artist and maybe you'll become a new fan.  If you like that song, check out the whole album as well as the rest of that artist's work, and of course go support them in any way possible.  Buy music or merch if you are able to, and go see a show when tours come back.  

I like to share some thoughts about the top few albums, but I am not always particularly good at turning what I think and feel into words, so I do my best to get some of it out there to hopefully help explain why I felt they were the best.

I made a Spotify playlist of all the "Check Out" songs embedded below that you can find here.

Feel free to let me know what you agree or disagree with and which albums you think I missed and might need to check out.  Without further ado, I present my list of the top albums of 2020! 

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Honorable Mentions

Amaranthe - "Manifest"

Check Out:  "Viral"
Stream on Spotify

All Time Low - "Wake Up, Sunshine"

Check Out: "Some Kind of Disaster"
Stream on Spotify

Covet - "Technicolor"

Check Out:  "Nero"  

Stream on Spotify

Long Distance Calling - "How Do We Want to Live?"

Check Out:  "Immunity"

Stream on Spotify

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The Top 15 Albums of 2020

The Real Concert King's Top Albums of 2019

Well another year has come and gone and that means it's time for my not-at-all-timely Top Albums of the Year list! This year I'm actually going to do something different, since it marked the end of a decade, I decided to also do a Top Albums of the Decade list. Due to being busy with my two jobs and the other list also taking a fair amount of work, I made this list a little shorter than the usual 20-25 albums, and I usually write about a handful or so of the albums but I scaled back on that this year because I find it difficult to describe music and these lists have already taken so long to publish. 

As usual, I picked a song (or a few) from each album that I recommend you give a listen to get a feel for the album and hopefully entice you to check out the whole thing. 

These lists are always tricky to put together because inevitably I feel like things could have been shifted around later, or I'll discover stuff that I wasn't aware of when I put the list together.  This is by no means a comprehensive list of all the great albums that were released last year, there was some incredible music that didn't make the list.

I made a Spotify playlist of all the "Check Out" songs embedded below that you can find here.

Feel free to let me know what you agree or disagree with and which albums you think I missed and might need to check out.  Without further ado, I present my list of the top albums of 2019! 

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The Top 15 Albums of 2019

The Real Concert King's Top Albums of 2018

Well here it is, finally!  My list of the top albums of 2018!  It's always difficult putting these in order, down the road after listening to them more I usually end up feeling like I should have ordered them differently, but I think this is pretty much how I feel it should be at the time of publishing.

I like to highlight some of my favorite albums by writing some semi-coherent sentences going over my thoughts and feelings.  Some people are very gifted at being able to creatively and eloquently describe music, but I don't think I'm particularly good at articulating what I like or don't like about music, especially in technical terms.  I just like to give a little bit of insight into why I chose that album, some background info and what kind of impact it had on me.  

I doubt many people are familiar with every album and artist on here so I highly encourage you to check out the highlighted songs if you're unfamiliar with them and if you like what you hear, then use the link I provided to listen to the full album (or look it up wherever you listen to music) and support the artists if you can. Buy the albums, go to shows, do whatever feels right.

For the first time ever, I've made a Spotify playlist featuring all of the "Check Out" songs linked below! You can check that out here.

EDIT: I realized far too late that I forgot to include "Epitaph" by God is an Astronaut, so I squeezed it in.

Honorable Mentions

Amaranthe - "Helix"  Stream on Spotify
Bayside - "Acoustic Vol. 2"  Stream on Spotify
Covet - "effloresce EP"  Stream on Spotify 

This Will Destroy You - "New Others Part One & Part Two"  Stream/Buy: Part 1  Part 2

Brent Walsh - "Are You Even There At All?" EP  Stream on Spotify

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TRCK Archives: My Top 20 Concerts of 2011

From the archives, here's a list I made of my top 20 concert experiences in 2011: 

There are many many many amazing shows that aren't mentioned here for various reasons, but these are the ones I think I'm going to think about most when I look back at 2011. Some of the spots are occupied by more than one show, but they are from the same tour and most are from consecutive nights or near consecutive. Warning: A lot of these are probably going to end up sounding very similar, there's only so many different ways you can say you like something.

TRCK Archives: My Top 20 Concerts of 2012

From the archives, here's a list I made of my top 20 concert experiences in 2012:

I ended up seeing 96 shows last year and these are the most memorable ones for me. It's not exactly a list of the best live performances, but of the all around experiences. I'm also grouping multiple shows together if they were from the same tour. I'll have more to say about some shows than others, so please excuse me for being pretty lazy and generic with some of them.

TRCK Archives: Marilyn Manson concert review 10-31-2014

From the archives, here's a review I wrote of the Marilyn Manson concert on Oct 31, 2014: 

Marilyn Manson surprises fans on Halloween at The Roxy

When: October 31, 2014       Where: The Roxy |  Hollywood, CA

Controversial rock star Marilyn Manson may not be as shocking as he once was, but on Halloween night he shocked a sold out Roxy by bringing out his good friend Johnny Depp to perform on one of his most iconic songs.

The rock legend treated hardcore fans in Southern California to three intimate shows around the end of October, one at The Observatory in Santa Ana and two at The Roxy in Hollywood. Not surprisingly, tickets for the concerts sold out literally in seconds.