Kerrang! The Album ’08

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publisher

impulse buy

Rhino
Produced by Kerrang!

Just as chart institutions like ‘Smash Hits’ and the ‘Now! That’s What I Call Music’ series, Kerrang!, probably the most recognised rock magazine in the UK, have been weighing in with their annual review compilations since 2001.

Perhaps more so than ever before the 2008 instalment is a diabolically shallow and short-sighted set aimed squarely at generating maximum sales to the rock-chart buying masses, sacrificing the sole responsibility of the music media; to inform. Amidst bold claims to have been leading the World of rock for all these years, they have somehow managed to drag behind with this release, not even attempting to present would-be listeners with the wider picture of rock music in 2008, or even to give them something new to listen to.

Culled entirely from the latest releases on an inadequately small collection of labels we get mega-hits American Idiot by Green Day, All Summer Long by Kid Rock and Rockstar by Nickelback (thanks for those revelations, Kerrang!), the latest singles by heavyweights like Slipknot, Machine Head, Linkin Park and Bullet For My Valentine, and second-rate pop like Fall-Out Boy, Good Charlotte and Panic At The Disco.

Even HiM are on here. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Every blatantly obvious rock band openly popular with young listeners you can think of. If you went to your local high street, jotted down names of the bands on the button badges on some rock-kids bags and looked up their latest singles you could compile this compilation yourself.

There’s nothing unexpected, nothing revolutionary and nothing to indicate any effort whatsoever has been put into giving people something they might not already know. This makes them no better than the pre-packaged pop media they’ve desperately tried to prove they’re antithesis of for 27 years.

Leading the World of rock? I do not think so. Disgraceful.

“ shallow and short-sighted ”

Tracklist:
CD1 – Kid Rock All Summer Long / Nickelback Rockstar / Weezer Pork And Beans / Biffy Clyro Saturday Superhouse / Good Charlotte Keep Your Hands Off My Girl / Pendulum Propane Nightmares / Slipknot Psychosocial / Enter Shikari Sorry, You’re Not A Winner / Linkin Park Given Up / Serj Tankian Empty Walls / Airbourne Runnin’ Wild / Black Tide Warriors of Time / Killswitch Engage Holy Diver / Dillinger Escape Plan Black Bubblegum / Scars On Broadway They Say / Bullet For My Valentine Waking The Demon / Slaves To Gravity Mr. Regulator / The Gaslight Anthem The ’59 Sound / The Nightmarchers I Wanna Deadbeat You / Coheed & Cambria Feathers / 30 Seconds The Mars The Kill
CD2 – Green Day American Idiot / My Chemical Romance Welcome To The Black Parade / Fall Out Boy This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race / Elliot Minor Parallel Worlds / Simple Plan When I’m Gone / Panic At The Disco Nine In The Afternoon / Alkaline Trio Love Love Kiss Kiss / The Blackout Spread Legs Not Lies / Funeral For A Friend Waterfront Danceclub / Madina Lake House of Cards / You Me At Six If I Were In Your Shoes / Billy Talent Red Flag / Fighting With Fire Everyone Needs A Nemesis / HiM Wings of A Butterfly / Avenged Sevenfold Afterlife / Machine Head Aesthetics of Hate / Atreyu Falling Down / Kids In Glass Houses Give Me What I Want / Kill Hannah Lips Like Morphine / Cancer Bats Hail Destroyer / Gallows Orchestra of Wolves

Written by Andy Lye
More: 2008, Alternative, Compilation Albums, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal (Extreme Vocals), Various