{"id":18485,"date":"2024-01-03T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-03T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=18485"},"modified":"2024-01-02T18:26:50","modified_gmt":"2024-01-02T18:26:50","slug":"roll-over-2023-and-rock-on-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2024\/01\/03\/roll-over-2023-and-rock-on-24\/","title":{"rendered":"ROLL OVER 2023 AND ROCK ON \u00b424"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ROLL OVER 2023 AND ROCK ON \u00b424<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Norman Warwick<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What constitutes a \u201crock\u201d album in 2023 has never been more unclear. I\u2019ve long been under the impression that it has something to do with guitar-driven, strong-beat arrangements. But even then, with the addition of new subgenres every passing year, the line gets more and more blurred. Luckily, Paste has quite a few more genre lists to put out this year, so narrowing down what\u2019s this and what\u2019s that is a much simpler task around these parts. For this ranking, we are looking at our definition of \u201crock music,\u201d and our criteria is likely going to be inconsistent in some places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And even then, narrowing this down to just 30 \u201crock\u201d entries was a nearly impossible task. But we\u2019ve assembled a list of more than two-dozen of the best guitar-driven, face-melting projects we could think of without stepping too far into the orbits of country, punk and pop\u2014which means you\u2019ll see familiar faces like Geese, Bully, The Rolling Stones and more in here. So, without further ado, here are details of 2 of Paste<\/em>\u2019s best rock albums of 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Guided By Voices: Nowhere To Go But Up<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With their third album from this year (and 39th overall), Nowhere To Go But Up<\/em>, Pollard takes a lyric from an older song in the repertoire, \u201cFine To See You\u201d (from the band\u2019s Who\u2019s Next<\/em>-sized 2001 opus Isolation Drills<\/em>). It\u2019s interesting to consider the source, as the completion of that line in the song is: \u201cYou know that for I tell you.\u201d In context with the absolutely unprecedented winning streak Pollard and the current version of Guided By Voices have been on, he wouldn\u2019t be wrong in feeling that way with the strength of this collection of songs. It\u2019s like he pointed to left field and launched a home run that connected with a U.F.O. trying to get closer to all of the beautiful commotion. The album is an unabashed, bombastic and unapologetic statement of purpose from one of America\u2019s greatest living songwriters. Songs like \u201cPuncher\u2019s Parade\u201d and \u201cFor The Home\u201d are small triumphs in melody that provide sleight of hand over the building arrangements underneath. Before you know it, you\u2019re humming along to the tune and pumping your fist rather than noticing just how many complex parts are moving all at once. \u2014Pat King<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Rolling Stones: Hackney Diamonds<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re tapping into Hackney Diamonds<\/em> and expecting the Stones to reinvent the wheel, you\u2019re not going to be satisfied. If you\u2019re tapping into Hackney Diamonds<\/em> hoping to hear something on par with Sticky Fingers<\/em>, you\u2019re wasting your time. The treasure trove of this record resides in the fact that it emblazons what The Rolling Stones do best while resisting the temptation to turn the band into something they aren\u2019t. \u201cGet Close\u201d employs the same percussion as something like \u201cCan\u2019t You Hear Me Knocking,\u201d but the construction of the arrangements taps into a funkified bravado that you might hear on \u201cTops\u201d or \u201cStart Me Up.\u201d James King\u2019s sax solo on the track is gorgeous and sensual, and it melts into a delicious watermark guitar lick from Richards. Oh, and that piano part? It\u2019s played by the great Sir Elton John\u2014a generous and subtle inclusion that helps parts of the song flirt with power-ballad status, that is until Richards and Wood obliterate it with their six-strings, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hackney Diamonds<\/em>\u00a0is worth returning to because of how confident Jagger seems to be throughout\u2014a great shift from\u00a0A Bigger Bang,<\/em>\u00a0where it felt like he was mostly phoning the whole thing in. Here, he\u2019s not shying away from throwing the word \u201cbitch\u201d around like it\u2019s 1971 (\u201cBite My Head Off\u201d); he\u2019s also pretty vulnerable about his own mortality, singing about still being too young to die and feeling hardened in the wake of his own interpersonal dependency (\u201cDepending On You\u201d). More than anything,\u00a0Hackney Diamonds<\/em>\u00a0gets mad when it needs to, soft whenever it pleases. Sure, who would ever expect the Rolling Stones to sugarcoat anything? But, it\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0refreshing to hear these guys sing like they\u2019re 30 years old again and sleeping with all of England\u2014with the added, mature flavor of then, the next morning, still feeling a tad bit morose about how much closer they are to kicking the bucket. Imagine\u00a0Exile on Main St.<\/em>\u00a0if its protagonists truly bought into the last days of their own destinies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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acknowledgements<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The primary sources for this piece was written for the Paste On line print and on line media Authors and Titles have been attributed in our text wherever possible<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Images employed have been taken from on line sites only where  categorised as  images free to use.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a more comprehensive detail of our attribution policy see our for reference only post on 7th<\/sup> April 2023\u00a0 entitled Aspirations And Attributions.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prime source for this article wsas an an article written by Matt Mitchell, and published by Paste on line magazine,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hackney Diamonds\u00a0is worth returning to because of how confident Jagger seems to be throughout\u2014a great shift from\u00a0A Bigger Bang,\u00a0where it felt like he was mostly phoning the whole thing in. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,45,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture-and-tradition","category-music","category-performing-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18485"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18635,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18485\/revisions\/18635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}