Women ruled the night at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, with Beyoncé and Taylor Swift leading the pack at Los Angeles’ Staples Center. Both Swift and Beyoncé, both apparently immune to overexposure, left little room for other contenders. Jay-Z’s wife pulled the most awards, taking six trophies — the most ever for a female artist on a single Grammy night — including Song of the Year and Best R&B Song for Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for Halo. Somewhere, Kanye was undoubtedly jumping up and down with a bottle of cognac. So now we can officially put that Single Ladies song away, right? Can we never hear that shit again please?

Swift became the youngest musician to win Album of the Year, for Fearless. She won four awards overall, including Best Country Album (also Fearless), Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance (both White Horse).

Other big winners included Eminem, who won for Rap Album (Relapse) and Best Rap Duo Performance (Crack A Bottle), Jay-Z who won for Rap Solo Performance (D.O.A.), Rap Song (Run This Town), and Collaboration of the Year (Run This Town with Rihanna and Kanye West), while Lady GaGa won for Best Dance Recording (Poker Face) and Dance Album (The Fame).

Disappointingly, several of the most interesting awards were given prior to the telecast. Bruce Springsteen’s Working on a Dream was named Best Solo Rock Performance, Jeff Beck took Best Rock Instrumental Performance for A Day in the Life, the Beatles took Best Long Form Video and French electro-poppers Phoenix took the Best Alternative Album award for Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. AC/DC finally won their first trophy for War Machine, pulling Best Hard Rock Performance. Neil Young, who took his first award for Best Boxed Set Or Special Limited Edition Package, deserved at least to have his win televised.

Kings of Leon grabbed three awards, all involving their hit Use Somebody, which has officially earned itself a right to go the hell away now. Stephen Marley won Best Reggae Album for Mind Control – Acoustic, while Ziggy Marley captured Best Musical Album for children for Family Time.

The Black Eyed Peas won three Grammys, including Best Pop Vocal Album for The E.N.D., and I suppose there’s no getting around that. But for all the flash, glamour and back-patting, some oddly-chosen performances lent the hyperbolic congratulatory nature of the event a little bit of a circus air.

Gaga, the walking space-cadet rotating wardrobe herself, opened the show with the song Poker Face before a memorable two-song duet with Elton John. Green Day, who unjustifiably won Best Rock Album for 21st Century Breakdown, turned in a solid performance of tired station-changer 21 Guns with the American Idiot musical cast. Beyoncé lost some sheen and showed that she’s overdue for a break with her performance, backed by a SWAT team of dancers. Pink spun from the ceiling, soaking wet, during an acrobatic performance of Glitter in the Air. Put that girl on “Dancing With The Stars” and be done with it, alright?

Lil Wayne, Eminem, Travis Barker and “Hi, I’m overhyped” Drake issued a profanity-laced medley of Rebirth’s Drop the World and Forever, after Jeff Beck led a special Les Paul tribute while Jamie Foxx’s Blame It managed somehow to mix T-Pain, opera, Doug E Fresh and Slash performing the November Rain solo into one strange melting pot performance. I still can’t figure out what the hell I was watching.

An overwrought 3-D tribute to Michael Jackson followed, featuring Celine Dion, Smokey Robinson, Jennifer Hudson, Usher and Carrie Underwood singing along with the King of Pop’s Earth Song. Prince and Paris, Jackson’s two eldest children, accepted their father’s posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award (but Blanket was in the house!!).

Fleetwood Mac star Stevie Nicks, a beautiful portrait of idiocy, also joined Taylor Swift to duet on Rihannon and You Belong With Me. It was an unsuccessful collaboration, with the two having absolutely nothing in common with one another, and no chemistry to speak of. Nevertheless, Swift was beaming throughout the performance – though seeing and hearing are two different things entirely.

Below are the most important/noteworthy awards:

Best Alternative Music Album: Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Best Solo Rock Performance Vocal: Bruce Springsteen – Working On A Dream
Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals: Kings Of Leon – Use Somebody
Best Hard Rock Performance: AC/DC – War Machine
Best Metal Performance: Judas Priest – Dissident Aggressor
Best Rock Instrumental Performance: Jeff Beck – A Day In The Life
Best Rock Song: Kings Of Leon – Use Somebody
Best Rock Album: Green Day – 21st Century Breakdown
Record Of The Year: Kings Of Leon – Use Somebody
Song Of The Year: Beyoncé – Single Ladies
Album Of The Year: Taylor Swift – Fearless

First published as an installment of our Christmas Songs Mixtape series in 2008, this mix focuses on a batch of tracks that are either altogether on the side of laughably stupid shredding (Spinal Tap) or face-meltingly metal (King Diamond). Whatever the case, these are some of the best and brightest metal renditions of Christmas favorites you’ll find.

Rawkit. And have a very metal Christmas while you’re at it.

That being said, welcome to the first installment of our Christmas Songs Mixtape series. We’ll be posting a new batch of songs every few days until the big X, each mix pulling from a different genre or style for your aural delight. 

This collection is, quite obviously, a heavy metal Christmas mixtape, focusing on a batch of tracks that are either altogether on the side of laughably stupid shredding (Spinal Tap) or face-meltingly metal (King Diamond). Whatever the case, these are some of the best and brightest metal renditions of Christmas favorites you’ll find.

After all this time, all fans east of psychotic had the common sense to at least suspect that the big secret had been built up too much, that if and when the moment of truth finally came, it would likely be an anticlimax. Of course, the most amazing thing about this album is that it’s in our hands. At this point, what it sounds like barely matters- especially since that cat has long been out of the bag, more or less.

By the time I finally got my hands on Chinese Democracy, there was only one song that I hadn’t heard one way or another; This I Love. And it’s easily the most skippable track on the album. Which is a nice way of saying it’s a shit sandwich. It’s so bad that I need to remove it from the scope of this review; From here on out I’m just going to pretend it isn’t there, like I’ve been doing with the new Indiana Jones movie since seeing the first trailer.

The other thing we need to at least try to put aside is the hype. It’s impossible to separate the album from the legend, but let’s try. Let’s imagine that instead of the band splintering over Axl’s egomaniacal shenanigans, Slash died in a plane crash (or got thrown in jail for life for stealing or something), and an emotionally devastated Axl went into seclusion and he stayed there. Didn’t speak a word, didn’t take any rough copies of his decade-plus-in-the-making album to strip clubs. Let’s assume for a moment, that we all just forgot about Axl Rose. Let’s imagine a world where the Wikipedia entry for Chinese Democracy discusses a political movement.

Then, suddenly, Guns N’ Roses’ infamous frontman releases a new album. And it’s these fourteen thirteen new songs.

Then it’s a pretty damn good album. Some of these songs are of classic caliber: Better for sure- which should have been the lead-off single, no question. If The World, which sounds like a cousin of Album Of The Year era Faith No More; every bit as fervent and timeless. There Was A Time, which sounds like the first single from Use Your Illusion III. The epic, unweildy penultimate (as far as I’m concerned) track Madagascar actually manages to be as good as the outrageous production seems to want to deserve. And of course, there’s my lawyer’s favorite track, IRS. All of these tracks are thoroughly good, and will surely withstand the test of time. I’ll still be rocking these songs when the next Guns N’ Roses album hits shelves. Even if it takes another seventeen years.

Of the remaining not quite classics, most are still light years ahead of any of the hit singles by the top 40 rock and roll bands on the scene today. Hinder’s never going to fucking ever come close to penning anything as good as even the least perfect track, Catcher In The Rye. No Nickelback power ballad will ever be as good as Prostitute.

I got a call Friday night from an old “industry” contact that has been following the legal dogfight I’ve been engaged in since that day in June. He asked me for my “prediction.” I laughed, told him that all that shit was for the squares & geezers to bicker over, that I’ll never be one of those corporate cocksuckers that care more about the SoundScan sheets than the music on the albums on them. I remember watching first week interns studying those fucking numbers as their souls escaped through their noses. I busted his balls for a bit, but then put it aside and approached his question seriously. I said it would do better than AC/DC’s Black Ice- which would be huge in today’s market- and probably better than Kanye, because 808s & Heartbreak is likely to be, at least initially, misunderstood- and it’s already being trashed by critics who are rushing against editorial deadlines to pass judgment. But we’ll see. Unfortunately, the music industry still judges its success, or lack thereof, by CD sales. And even with Best Buy essentially buying every copy, to give away to potential big screen TV shoppers, no album is a respectable meal ticket compared to what the pigs used to enjoy at their old troughs.

Meanwhile, around the proverbial water cooler, among the casual fans- most people- it’s the old gripe that this isn’t Guns N’ Roses, that it’s Axl’s solo project, that it just isn’t GNR without Slash. My response? Bullshit. Not because Slash doesn’t like me. Because Slash isn’t the only dude on the planet who can play the guitar. Because Velvet Revolver sucks. Because the “new” Guns N’ Roses kicked my fuckin’ ass in Universal City in ‘06.

The hardcore fans get it right: It’s Izzy Stradlin that’s most obviously missing from Guns N’ Roses these days, and there will never be another Appetite For Destruction without him. Fortunately for everyone besides Slash & Duff, he seems to be the original member most likely to return someday, and our fingers remain crossed.

Chinese Democracy has a lot of really, really great songs. But they were great when we first heard them on bootlegs years ago. And they’ve since been mixed and re-mixed and re-recorded and re-mixed and re-worked and re-recorded and re-mixed, exhaustingly, to the extent that they can’t do what they must- they can’t do what all truly classic albums do: Capture the moment… If not define it. Appetite For Destruction will continue to sell for years because it defined the late 80s party rock scene with a relentless, religious abandon, and was the absolute, undisputed pinnacle. When I think of 1993, I think of Vs., Pearl Jam’s flawless second album. The grunge regime was at its most confident and powerful, and Vs. was the movement’s loudest battle cry, still echoing today. The Downward Spiral changed the musical landscape in 1994, shattering all restraints. It remains a snapshot of that revolutionary moment when everyone started taking hard rock seriously. Through it all, the snowball that is Chinese Democracy had been rolling along, picking up bits and pieces of all of these great moments- but now that it’s finally come to a stop a decade and a half later, It’s hard to know what to make of the thing. It feels like the best retrospective compilation of b-sides and rarities ever assembled. But the sum of the parts lacks something. It doesn’t- it can’t- express its moment. And that missing piece is one of the things we love most about music.

As a sidenote, when I went down to Best Buy to purchase my copy this morning, the cashier delivered the one-liner of the century. The computerized register spaced out on us for a couple of minutes. When it finally accepted the transaction, she looked at me, smiled, and said, “thank you for your patience.”

Chinese Democracy is finally here, and I’m beyond happy to have it. Two thumbs up, so glad to have you back Axl. Try not to take so long with the next one, and please do give Izzy a call.

P.S. What’s up with that fucking bicycle? Next time around, if you’re having trouble finding a graphic designer, let me know. I can totally make myself available.

But still, to this day, nobody does it quite like AC/DC. The snarly, sex-anthem party rock with swagger for miles that we grew up on is a stylistic entity all its own, a timeless symbol of nostalgic rock purity that’s stood the test of time. And while the modern relevance has diminished considerably, the legends’ return is anything but unwelcome.

I wasn’t a huge AC/DC fan as a kid, but I knew their records front to back. Everybody did. Some albums, like Houses Of The Holy or Thriller, were just a part of the foundation. That was the case for Highway To Hell and Back In Black. They were landmark albums from a simpler, happier time, soundtracks to the balls-out carefree youth of the seventies and eighties. Before TRL. Before Lou Pearlman. Before the Mouseketeers grew up and ruined pop music. Before the internet pulled back the curtain and exterminated the mystique of rock n’ roll. Before everything went to shit, basically. 

Some of us may still recall the smells and sounds of that long-dead purity, but only a select few bear the mark today. Somehow, though, Black Ice manages to escape nostalgia and doesn’t sound the least bit dated, due in part to the fact that they’ve abandoned the swamp-rock of their last two records and gotten back on their traditional tracks. 

Producer Brendan O’Brien did the right thing: he didn’t try to modernize the band’s sound or imprint his signature on this one. He got out of the way when it came to weaving their trademark sonic tapestry, but clearly went to lengths to up the ante on the crisp delivery. Rather than get lost in the rock mud, every one of Phil Rudd’s snare snaps and cymbal crashes, every low-end note of Cliff Williams’s bass, every power-soaked chunk riff from rhythmic guitar heroes Angus and Malcolm Young can be heard with clarity and precision. Just as audible is the fact that Brian Johnson’s voice is, somehow, more fluid and power-charged than memory recalls. Lyrically, we’re not covering any new ground with Black Ice - pretty girls, raging storms, going over the edge, etc. But the pipes are clean and polished. 

Album highlights:

Angus Young’s snotty six-string antics are in top form on Black Ice, but nowhere better than in Decibel, where his solos are spastic bolts of Aussie jive. It’s hard to say whether Johnson’s singing Decibel or Jezebel, but that’s irrelevant; it’s a great track.

She Likes Rock N’ Roll  is a sexy, sizzling piece of rock goodness that’s got a riff as memorable as any AC/DC has ever laid down. 

Skies On Fire is stripped riffage on a 4/4 beat with a bluesy solo, but it’s fucking mean.

Two interwoven rhythm guitar parts add an extra armor to Money Made, an average track if not for the awesome breakdown and ride out.

Anything Goes bursts in at a gallop, sounding more like Springsteen than ever before. Solid track from start to finish.

War Machine sports a similar chord progression to Givin’ The Dog A Bone, but with more bite and a solo that simply tears shit up.

Spoilin’ For A Fight slips an eighties Van Halen finger in, with pulsing bass in eighths standing high in the mix. This song could’ve been on Back In Black. 

Rocking All The Way locked my conviction that Mark Lanegan would be the perfect guest vocalist to compliment Johnson’s voice.

They saved the title track for last, possibly because it’s the weakest song on the album. The end is fantastic, however, and if that were the last note we ever heard from AC/DC, it wouldn’t be a dishonor. 

In short, Black Ice is the perfect album for rock fans who want the good shit with that classic feel, without having to resort to derivatives or records we’ve heard ten thousand times before. It’s a reanimation of testicular fortitude, a breath of wonderfully familiar air in a pungent atmosphere of mediocrity and irrelevance. There’s a reason they’ve sold over 200 million albums.