Read Poets Society

Ranked: Underoath Oh God, here we go, I’m going to attempt to rank the diverse, polarising and in places iconic discography of the legendary Underoath. As some of you may know, Underoath are one of my all time favourite bands, so I found this list particularly challenging. I also realise that for a lot of you Underoath are a band you may not know particularly well, if at all, so hopefully this can serve as a guide to those of you who want to dive into either the band or a style of music you’re not so familiar with. 7) Act Of Depression (1999) There were only 2,000 copies of Underoath’s first album  Act Of Depression  available upon release in 1999, and was out of print for a long time until it was re-released by Solid State Records following the band’s disbandment in 2013. And look, it’s not fantastic. In fact, it’s nearly unlistenable in places. The production is very scrappy, but for me the thing that stands out is the performance from original vocalist  Da...

Ranked: Kendrick Lamar This is a new section for the blog, the idea being that I go through and rank different artists’ albums from worst to best. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the lowest ranking album is a bad album (take this list for example), but simply that in comparison to the rest of the artist’s discography it is the least strong. I have plenty more of these in the pipeline, but if there are any artists in particular that you would like to see me rank please let me know and I’ll add it to the list. Kendrick Lamar’s discography is a thing of beauty at current, proof of his being one of the most accomplished rappers of this generation, if not certainly the most critically acclaimed. Sorting this one out took a while for me, because as far as I’m concerned Lamar hasn’t released anything of even remotely poor quality, but I had to make a decision at some stage and so this is the list that I’ve come up with. I’ve only included his full length studio releases, meani...

   You know what's good? Music. 2017 had a lot of it, too - quite a lot of it was good, quite a lot of it wasn't, and some of it was excellent. I'll let you in on a little secret; music will be released in 2018. It will be available to buy, stream and listen to, and there are a lot of different records coming out this year that I am very excited to hear. Here are some of them: Tiny Moving Parts - "Swell" (Jan 26)     Swell will be the first Tiny Moving Parts album released since I became a fan of the band, and I'm uber excited to get my hands on it. There will be plenty of riffs to keep me busy on the guitar, and - if their previous output is anything to go by - a hefty dose of emo tunes to yell along to in the car. The 1975 - "Music For Cars" (TBA)    It's music from The 1975 - who wouldn't be excited? MGMT - "Little Dark Age" (TBA)    MGMT's comeback single "Little Dark Age" is the only confirmed t...

   I don't particularly like Linkin Park's  One More Light . In fact, I really don't like it. It's derivative, lukewarm and forgettable. This was my opinion on the album when it was released back in May, and it hasn't changed since.    It was by text that I heard the news that Chester Bennington, lead singer of Linkin Park, was dead. The day was July 20. His housekeeper found that he had hung himself in his California home. It was surreal for me, given how important Linkin Park's music was to me throughout early high school. Even though at no stage in the last five or so years I have been excited to listen to Linkin Park, there is no denying the impact Linkin Park had on me.    It prompted me to go back and listen to Linkin Park's previous work again, like I had done so many times between the ages of 13 and 15. Hybrid Theory , the surprise smash hit that sold 4.8 million copies in the US during it's first year alone, making it the highest selling...

    For those who read both top 20 albums lists that I did - one here on thatmusicnerd and one over at Kill Your Stereo - you will have noticed, I'm sure, that one had The Ongoing Concept's album Places at number 1, and the other had Brand New's Science Fiction at the top. Full disclosure, I initially had Brand New at the top of just the one list, but the readership of Kill Your Stereo reacted very strongly against the allegations of sexual misconduct against Brand New frontman Jesse Lacey and so I removed it entirely. In fact, none of the  KYS contributors' top 20 lists featured Science Fiction at all. Of course I was happy to follow the general consensus in regards to whether or not an artist accused of such things should be promoted by a music publication, but I still stand by my opinion that Science Fiction was the best album of 2017 and as such it was number 1 on my thatmusicnerd top 20 list.    2017 has been a pretty crazy year in terms of the ...