I have been delving into Rock the past year once again after a long sabbatical.  I decided to make a detailed list of my absolute favorite Rock albums of all time.  While lists are the internet’s favorite way of getting a shit-ton of views and pissing people off in the process, I love sharing my favorite music with people. Hopefully, someone connects with my taste or opinion positively.  I am focusing on the traditional idea of Rock on this list, with a couple of Heavy Metal/Hard Rock albums on here.  I consider Rock to be entirely its own thing from Metal most of the time, usually containing more clean vocals, slow songs, and a strict time signature and song structure.  I don’t know if that’s a fair or correct observation of genre differentiation, but it’s just how my brain processes the deciding factors on what is Rock and what is exclusively Metal.

THIS IS NOT A BEST OF LIST:  These are just 20 of my favorite Rock albums.  It’s not me telling people what I think is better than anything else out there.  This is not a posturing of opinion and knowledge.  I’m just a writer who is ultra-passionate about music.  I like to get as personal and as real as possible with my writing, and this is such a good way to do so!  Do not get riled up because one of your favorites isn’t on the list.  It doesn’t mean I don’t love your favorite record.  Maybe I haven’t even heard of it yet, so please let me know your favorites in the comments below!  I would love to know what albums everyone holds most dear.   Always remember music is incredibly subjective, and that the taste is unique to the individual for a whole host of personal reasons.  

There are two parts, this is part one. Only 10 per post will appear.

1. Error- The Warning (2022)

I was sitting in my living room and having ice cream with my mom while we were checking out new music videos in 2023.  The Warning popped up on my Youtube feed with the live version of their cover of “Enter Sandman” by Metallica at CDMX.  I played the video, quite skeptical of what I was about to hear.  Little did I know, this video and the subsequent two videos we watched would forever change my life. This Mexican Rock Trio of the Villarreal sisters is the reason I started listening to Rock again. After so long of exclusively listening to Heavy Metal, Rock just seemed derivative.  This band brought back my sweet spot for Rock with soaring vocals, heavy riffs, and innate technical ability with explosive chemistry.  They’ve got that magic quality that the early Heavy Metal bands had but with modern twists and exceptionally profound lyrics and irresistibly catchy choruses.  They’ve got the “it factor” packed into a power trio, much like Rush, Muse, Chevelle, and Winery Dogs that came long before them.  It’s hard to articulate the specialness of this band.  They’re just something you truly have to experience for yourself. 

The Warning’s Error is one of the best Rock albums I have ever heard.  The songwriting, the mastering, the composition, and the supernova of complex emotions and deep cerebral lyrics make Error a cornerstone album in Rock to me.  It’s heavy, raw, real, and yet so perfectly refined with the help of legendary producer David Bendeth.  “The hits just keep coming” is a phrase that comes to mind often when I listen to this record.  Every song is unique, bombastic, catchy, and so well-written.  There are no gaps.  There’s no dragging on.  There’s no filler, just all killer riffs and insanely emotive vocals. Dany Villarreal is one of the greatest vocalists and frontwomen of all time.  The song Choke represents that sentiment so epically.  Error has elements that if it were released ten to twenty years ago, it would’ve been an instant classic.  A lot of that credit also goes to bassist Alejandra for holding this album together with insane grooves, riffs, and pitch-perfect rhythm.  The overall tone set by the bass on this record is spectacular, and it reminds me of the old Heavy Metal records from AC/DC, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin.  This level of talent from a bassist is just unheard of these days, sadly.   This album deserves Grammy and RCA recognition.  Being released in these times of Rock and individuality discrimination, it may never be truly recognized for its greatness.  The maturity and depth of this album are surprising from three girls, two of them not even out of their teens.  If you haven’t heard this album, you’re going to be blown away on the first listen, I promise.  I will never not be blown away by this record, and all of The Warning’s material.  Error will be in my play rotation as long as I live.

Favorite Tracks: Evolve, Animosity, Choke

2. Self Titled- Halestorm (2009)

Halestorm, the self-titled album of the American Hard Rock band, is one of the most dynamic bombastic albums I have ever heard in my life.  This album came out in 2009, but I didn’t discover it until a year later.  When I first heard this album, I was only sixteen or seventeen, it was nostalgic to my childhood harkening back to the 1980s when Heavy Music was king. It’s like the album Heart tried to make, but producers consistently discouraged women from writing heavy music.   Halestorm is a combination of melodic guitar lines underneath absolutely pristine soaring vocals by the one and only Lzzy Hale, and perfectly accurate arena rock drums from the “Animal” Arejay Hale.  It’s full of angst, anger, raw, and heartfelt with some down and dirty thrown in there.  It’s not over-produced, but it’s so clear and well-delivered.  Every riff, vocal line, and drum full makes sense and is perfectly crafted together.   It’s driven and hard-hitting, especially in the vocal department.  Lzzy’s vocals are the centerfold of Halestorm, and it shows on this record.  I feel like the self-titled says that this band doesn’t follow any tropes, genres, stereotypes, or eras of music.  It’s truly a standalone standout album.  There’s nothing like it, because of Lzzy’s voice, the unique deviation in the songs, and the mix of melodic and heavy riffs.  It just punches you in the chest soul deep in a very in-your-face loudspeaker way.  

Halestorm brought back a lot of heart to Rock as well.  I feel like Rock started moving in a more aggressive edgy direction at the time, losing a lot of character and warmth and just inserting random Rap lines and dubstep sounds.  The self-titled Halestorm is a perfect mix of aggressiveness, heart, and tasty riffs.  It’s catchy as hell without being derivative.  There are stories you can relate to.  Every song tells a story or a different emotion, going over the complexity of relationships and accepting how other people affect you.  The rhythm section is powerful without taking over the music and foreshadowing the melodic qualities.  To my ears, this album is nearly perfect, because it has its own identity and a ton of soul.  This band put everything they had musically and soulfully into every single song, and it comes across emphatically.  I’ve never heard anything quite like it.  Halestorm was and will always be incomparable.  I think this album is truly an essential Rock album that everyone should listen to.

Favorite Tracks; Familiar Taste of Poison, Nothing To Do With Love, What Were You Expecting

3. Self-titled- Evanescence (2011)

Evanescence was already a household name in 2009 following two classic Rock records with Fallen and The Open Door.  I grew up listening to these records, even basing my room decor on the aesthetics of The Open Door era.  Evanescence is a once-in-a-lifetime trailblazing band.  They pioneered the Goth Rock scene in North America and added Symphonic elements that lead to the popularity of bands like Nightwish and Within Temptation in the US.  Amy Lee has to be on the best singers in Rock list with her soaring multi-octave vocals and heart-wrenching soulful croons.  Nobody sounds quite like Amy still to this day, and she’s influenced thousands of young girls to go into the world of heavy music.  I always wonder how my music taste would’ve evolved without Evanescence.  They opened the door for me into darker music, and that has been a huge outlet for me for the past eighteen years. Amy Lee’s music is so personal and special to me.  Choosing one record of theirs for this list was nearly impossible, but I had to go with the Self-titled record.  Each records a point in time where music was changed forever, but the Self-Titled turned out to be a dark horse.

Self Titled Evanescence was one of the most anticipated records ever.  It had been five years since The Open Door was released and news of the band had been quiet besides a couple of member changes.  It didn’t chart as well as previous records, so I find it underrated.  I had no idea what to expect with this record because you never know what direction Amy will take.  She’s a true experimental pioneer of a unique blend of Rock and atmospheric sounds that are unheard of.  Evanescence, the record, is everything the band has to offer.  It’s odd, funky, heavy, and a roller coaster of emotions.   It’s beautiful from the soaring melodies to the pristine piano lines, but there is a grunge feel to it.  The guitars and drums are very grungy and raw, which is such a juxtaposition to the vocals, piano, and the level of reverb on this record.  It’s a solid Rock record with catchy riffs, but the opposite of mainstream or anything derivative.  The addition of Will Hunt on drums is what stands out to me.  His playing is so driven and so perfectly accurate for the feel on every track. It’s so vastly different from the previous records, but still so profoundly Evanescence.  This album is perfect, I love every single song on this record and find each one to be uniquely perfect while having this ethereal feel.  It has its own Evanescence aesthetic, one you can sink and disappear in.  This record echoes Mozart, Bjork, Soundgarden, and Nightwish all together somehow, but is still so vastly different from anything ever made before. 

My favorite tracks; are Made of Stone, Sick, and The Change.

4. 5150- Van Halen (1986)

The stress of picking a single Van Halen record for my favorite album was a mountain to climb.  Man, they just simply don’t have a bad album.  In my opinion, all their albums are instant classics and essential to the world of Hard Rock.  They’re one of the greatest and most influential bands of all time.  I was probably listening to Van Halen as soon as I was born.  They’re a huge part of my family and my musical influences.  They’ve impacted millions of people like this, so my family is not unique in this influence, but not a lot of families listen to heavy music all together like mine, I don’t think.  We had listening parties before anyone knew what they were, and a lot of those were centered around Van Halen and Iron Maiden.  5150 is one of my mom’s favorites, so I’ve probably heard this record in full more than their other albums.  But, it wasn’t until I got older that I was able to appreciate the technicality and level of depth of this album.  It was between this and For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, and nostalgia won over heaviness in this battle.  5150 is larger than life, much like EVH himself.

I love every Van Halen album differently, but 5150 is my bread and butter.  This album is one I grew up listening to a lot, so there’s immense nostalgia when listening to it.  The technicality of this album atop epic Arena Rock sound and tangible emotion is why it has to be my favorite of theirs.  It’s so crisp and so light and airy, leaving so much room for each brilliant musician to come to the forefront.  Sammy Hagar’s vocals on this record still give me chills every single time.  He is always right dead center on every note while keeping emotion, grit, and tension that fits so undeniably well with Eddie’s guitar lines.  They can solo off between vocals and guitars, making Hagar the voice that can go toe to toe with Eddie’s guitars, and I don’t think he gets the credit he deserves for this feat.  Hagar’s vocals on Why Can’t This Be Love? are stunning.  His vocal scat solo on this blows my mind every single time I listen to it. I also think Michael Anthony is a highly overlooked bassist and I love this bass tone on every Van Halen album.  The whole band just really came together on this record and it flows so smoothly.  Other VH albums have bursting-at-the-seams chaos to them because Eddie’s genius is just so explosive.  5150 came together, and despite feeling a little short and unfinished, I think it’s one of their best.  If I’m in the mood for Rock of Van Halen, this is one of my favorite go-to albums. 

Rest in peace, Eddie. 

Favorite Tracks; Why Can’t This Be Love?, Dreams, 5150

5. AB III- Alter Bridge (2010)

One of my most listened-to records of all time, I had to include the incomparable Alter Bridge III.  This album got me into Alter Bridge in a huge way.  I wore this CD out in every player my family and I had.  My dad was a huge Creed fan when I was a kid, so Mark Tremonti’s insanely heavy and precise guitar playing wasn’t lost on me.  AB III is an album that brought this band together in a chemistry sense.  It sounds like they found their groove on this record with less dead air and less slow instrumentals that seemed to be out of place.  This album has a massive sound to it and hits hard immediately.  It’s an in-your-face Hard Rock album with incredible melodic vocals and unbelievably good guitars.  Every track kind of flows together, almost like a movie playing out in your head.  It’s expertly arranged and incredibly emotionally charged.  It’s an album that you have to sit down and dig into.  Listening to it in passing is not going to translate so well, because of its immense depth and layers.  It’s not Radio Rock, it’s not mainstream fluff or over-produced filler.  AB III is complex.  It’s both dark and bright.  It’s heavy but gentle.  It echoes the intensity of Guns N Roses, but it is so much more refined and pleasant to well-tuned ears.  This is one of my favorite albums for guitar work on this entire list and influenced me as a guitarist more than nearly every album I have ever listened to.  

Alter Bridge III is an album that I don’t see on a lot of lists, which is surprising to me because of its loud intensity and well-composed choruses.  This album is a classic to me in the realm of Hard Rock and put Myles Kennedy on a pedestal for vocals.  He is a one-of-a-kind singer with one of the largest ranges I’ve ever heard.  His guitar playing also kicks ass and he even plays some solos, going toe-to-toe with the beast that is Mark Tremonti.  I don’t understand the hate that Myles receives, specifically from the Prog world.  He is a fantastic vocalist who should be listed among the greatest of all time.  Yet, he is consistently ragged on for being too mainstream or mid-tier.  I simply think that not enough people have heard this record.  If they listened to AB III, they would find it impossible to hate such a well-composed Hard Rock album and epic humble vocalist such as Myles.  

Favorite Tracks: Make It Right, All Hope Is Gone, Zero, Life Must Go On

6. Appeal To Reason- Rise Against (2008)

As a pre-teen in the 2000s, I was very stereotypically a huge fan of Punk Rock.  I liked everything from Blink 182, Misfits, Ramones, Yellowcard, Good Charlotte, Fall Out Boy, and of course Paramore who is also on this list.  Pop Punk and Punk Rock were at the pinnacle of their popularity in the 2000s, with Warped Tour becoming one of the best-selling festivals in the world.  I was exposed to this scene through Fuse and MTV, and I fell in love with the fast-paced-light-heartedness of these bands.  I was a goofy teen with a huge sense of humor, a lot of energy, and a huge liking for girls.  These bands catered to those things in a big way, but the Metal Head in me eventually reared its head, and I wanted something darker.  Rise Against came along with their video for “The Good Left Undone” which was way darker, heavier, and had an edge to it that nothing else had at the time.  I was obsessed with this song but never purchased the whole album.  It wasn’t until I heard Reeducation Through Labor that I truly became a Rise Against fan and picked up Appeal To Reason when it came out.  It was a massive album in Colorado because it was recorded and produced in Fort Collins, CO.

This album is a whole different animal to any Punk album I have ever heard. Even to this day, I haven’t heard anything close to it.  It’s essentially about the collapse of America and the entire world and humanity losing its way because of war, social conflict, and out-of-control nihilism.  It’s a very complex socially charged album that I can still very much relate to today.  Rise Against tackles the hardest issues humanity has to deal with, and I commend them for aggressively tackling these.  I hate politics in music.  I find politics to be too much of a distraction from the actual issues of humanity.  But, this album is an exception and hits me right at my core every single time I listen to it.  The idea that America “has fallen from grace” isn’t lost on me and is still relevant today.  But, the politics and differing ideals aside, this album is sonically perfect to me.  Every riff, every snare and hi-hat and crash, every scream, every group vocal is attacking, in your face, and so perfectly placed.  The energy doesn’t stop.  It doesn’t let you off the rolling train of disappointment, anger, inspiration, desperation, and hope with excellent driving guitars and clarity.  Listening to it again, I am reminded that this is one of my favorite albums ever made.  Savior is such a beautiful track and is part of why I fell in love with this band. Tim Mcllrath wears his entire soul on his sleeve for everyone to see and projects it with a perfectly raspy voice.  He’s an underrated vocalist in Rock, and this album will be a testament to why that is so true.

Favorite Tracks: From Heads Unworthy, Long Forgotten Sons, Savior, Whereabouts Unknown

7. Human Clay- Creed (1999)

As I mentioned in the paragraph about Alter Bridge, I am a fan of Mark Tremonti’s 18-wheeler truck-sized riffs.  He plays the hell out of his guitars, and you can hear that unfiltered on Human Clay.  This album helped Rock and Metal get away from Grunge and Hair Metal and started an entirely new more melodic and cleaner sound.   This album is so well refined, but not overproduced to just be pushed on the radio.  It is a workhorse of riffs, catchy chesty vocals, and insane bass lines.  It’s not formulaic or simplistic.  It’s blue-collar Rock and Metal that makes me feel as if I can do anything; like sledgehammer a wall, punch an elitist, or deadlift my goal weight like a beast.  This album gets a lot of hate from being overplayed possibly because of its ties to Christianity or Scott Stapp’s public battle with alcoholism, but I think it’s one of the best albums ever recorded to this day.  The internet is a hot box vacuum of negativity and undesired hate.  I tend to ignore what they say and form my own opinions based on musicality and emotion.  If everyone approached music this way, the better musicians would be popular and not work day jobs just to tour and release albums.  Maybe more people would exude the positivity that Mark Tremonti’s music tries to impart.  Even just posting my love for this album may hurt my viewership on this site, but it’s worth it to talk about one of my favorite albums that changed my music taste.

Human Clay. It’s a breath of fresh air after the depressing Grunge Era, Human Clay is powerful positivity, and self-worth.  It exudes such a large hopefulness that I long to hear in other albums.  I like dark music, but I also love positivity through heavy music, something liberating to the mind, body, and soul.  Creed opened up this door and so many post-nineties bands followed.  They brought back the untouchable invigoration that Van Halen, Whitesnake, and Scorpions helped create, but didn’t compromise on absolute unbridled instrumentalism.  The talent in Creed is still unbelievable to me.  Every time I hear one of their songs, I have no idea why they aren’t all on the “Greatest of All Time” lists.  Scott Stapp is such a solid, gritty, powerful vocalist with a burst of emotion and charisma.  He is an idealistic frontman and a storyteller.  He can belt a seemingly impossible length of time, he can soft speak, he can growl out with a load of raspy character, and sing perfectly in the pocket.  I have always loved his voice and long to have that amount of power in my voice.  Brian Marshall, the bassist who you never hear about, is a monster bassist.  This guy’s lines are so clean, perfectly tight with both the melody and rhythm and boomy in the right places.  He is one of my absolute favorite bassists, and yet nobody ever talks about him.  What a fantastic rhythm section record with Scott Phillips holding it down on drums as well.  Again, Phillips is never mentioned, but has some of the best rhythmic accents in Rock.  His use of open hi-hat, ride, and crash accents is so eloquently done and fits so well with the energy of the band.  Human Clay is a record created by four brilliant musicians, and it should be highly regarded as such, despite what the internet may say.  This album is a 10/10 album for me and is timeless.  

Favorite Tracks: With Arms Wide Open, Inside Us All, Higher, Are You Ready

8. Echoes, Silence, Patience, & Grace  by Foo Fighters (2007)

I have been a fan of the Foo Fighters as long as I can remember, and a fan of Dave Grohl in general.  It seems like everything Dave has a hand in is golden; Nirvana, Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures, and so many more.  Picking a single Foo Fighters album was no simple feat, either, since every album is much different from its predecessor.  The variety in the Foo seems endless, covering multiple genres, decades of music, emotion, and differing musicians.  The first Foo album was all Dave pretty much, and it was great at that.  But, one album stands out above the rest for me, and that is the epic Echoes, Silence, Patience, & Grace when Foo Fighters became a band and not just a solo project.  The whole band came together with multiple facets and influences to make one of the most iconic American Hard Rock albums of all time,  featuring a song that would explode beyond their expectations and spawn countless covers that would go viral much later on.  This is one of those albums that I can’t imagine music without.  

Echoes Silence Patience & Grace combines 1970s singer-songwriter acoustics and storytelling with a hard post-Grunge explosivity.  The Bomb album cover is so very fitting for an album that keeps building, and building, and then explodes when you least expect it.  This album is when the Foo Fighters became a great band for me, and not just a good Rock band.  This album is deep, dark, light-hearted, soft, and a stick of dynamite all in one interesting package.  It’s a sonic journey of the Early 2000s in America and when Dave Grohl became “comfortable” with his style of songwriting, throwing out the old constructs of heavy music and just writing something meaningful.  His heart is out and wide open on this record, and it becomes a really beautiful journey through his life.  It’s almost like a memoir of the past and a bridge to the Foo Fighters’ legacy at the same time.  This album is meaningful with every riff, every vocal break and lyric, and the incredibly hard-hitting drums from Taylor Hawkins.  Chris Shiflett’s solos and licks are vastly underrated, breathing life into the music and bringing a /Tom Scholz and Allen Collins Country Rock vibe back to American music.  The word masterpiece is so overused and deflated, but this album is truly Foo Fighters’ masterwork.  It’s an album I think should be taught in Band at schools around the world, because it is so meaningful, so central, and so exquisitely played on every instrument.  I love this album and it impacted me so importantly as a kid, it still feels the same every time I listen to it.

Rest in peace, Taylor

Favorite Tracks: The Pretender, Come Alive, But, Honestly

9. Whitesnake (Self-Titled 1987)

Yet another band that gets a lot of undeserved hate, Whitesnake is one of my all-time favorite bands.  Whitesnake combined the raw screams and guitars of Led Zeppelin with high-octane hooks.  Their self-titled album is timeless to me, still spin it a couple of times a month, it’s one of those albums I just love and can’t decide why I love it so.  Whitesnake has a magical quality as an album that surpassed most albums in the 1980s for me.  It wasn’t a try-hard overly aggressive Hair Metal record.  It’s an album that mixes Blues Rock, Soulful Vocals, and British Invasion vibes with 80s high-flying riffs from the one and only John Sykes.  A lot of people saw this record as an “Americanization” or Glam Rock foolery of Whitesnake, but I don’t see it that way and that definitely wasn’t the band’s intention.  I think the soulfulness of David Coverdale’s vocals, the orchestral instrumentals, and the complex chord progression proves this release was not aimed at the radio.  This album is deliberate in emotion, energy, and sublime composition.  It combined the depth of writing of Lez Zeppelin, Rainbow, and Deep Purple with the flashy catchiness of Van Halen in a seemingly impossible way.  Then, you have Neoclassical guitar solos thrown in there, giving Malmsteen a run for his money. None of those things fit together, but Whitesnake achieved it and more with this self-titled record.

This is an album I can put on repeat for an entire day and not get listener fatigue.  Each track stands out from the next to me and stands out far away from the music of that era.  It’s got a depth to it that was lacking with the over-produced Rock of that era.  Bad Boys is a song that I find to be so underappreciated, as it conjures the melodic harmonies of Iron Maiden and the hard-hitting drums of Metallica even featuring pristine and fast double bass.  This is one of my absolute favorite songs ever written, and I don’t see anyone talking about it today.  It’s a song that doesn’t cater to the typical Radio Rock at all, and that’s maybe why it got swept under the rug compared to the monstrous Still Of The Night, Here I Go Again and Is This Love.   I fell in love with Coverdale’s voice on Is This Love, as it reminds me of fantastic vocalists Michael Mcdonald, Roger Daltrey, and Robert Plant but with more control than most Rock singers of his generation.    His voice and John Sykes playing still give me chills to this day, even though I’ve heard this album hundreds of times.  I understand if you’ve heard the singles too much on the radio, but seriously, sit down and listen to this whole record.  It is impressively good and somehow so ahead of its time in Hard Rock, but incomparable when it comes to matters of the heart and soul.

Rest in peace, John Sykes.

Favorite Tracks: Is This Love? Bad Boys, Still of the Night, Children of the Night

10. Riot!- Paramore (2007)

One of my most listened-to albums of all time, though it might be surprising to see it on a “favorite Rock album” list for someone who has been cranking Tech Death and Power Metal.  I was 14 about to turn 14 when this album came out, and it blew my mind.  A girl that angry and yet singing that well?  I hadn’t seen anything like it before.   Paramore’s Riot! Is an album that forever split the music industry.  People either loved this album or hated it.  It often got labeled as “Emo” or “Alt Rock” which were two highly controversial genres at the time.  Now, looking back on it, I think the labels and hate this album got were fueled by industry envy, because this album became so much bigger than other records in the same vein.  And it wasn’t bought and paid for hype, this was a real album and single sales.  Paramore created one of the most energetic, catchy, and hard-hitting albums in the 2000s.  This album was created in turmoil, and it sounds chaotic as their emotions were at the time, and somehow it sounds so damn good.  It became a timeless anthem for young adults and teens just trying to keep their heads above water whilst navigating an onslaught of changing relationships.  Riot!, to me, is an album that will never be replicated or matched.  It is a sign of the times classic album that everyone should listen to at least once.  It is not “bubblegum Rock”.  It is not just an “Emo Rock album with a young Shirley Manson”.  It’s a fantastic American Rock album with a ton of influence and amazing composition and energy.  Even though I’ve worn this album out, it’s still subjectively such a well-thought-out album. With perfect mastering, sound engineering, and an immensely unique tone.

The vocals on this record are fantastic, nobody can deny that Hayley Williams is one of the best front women in modern times.  I could go on and on about how pristine the vocal delivery is, but I’m not going to.  I want to talk about the drums and guitars on this album.  Nobody talks about how incredible the drums are on every single song on this album.  Zac Farro is one of the hardest-hitting most accurate drummers I have ever seen, and Riot! is still his best work.  The drums on this are perfectly crafted around a pretty complex song structure for an album considered to be “Radio Rock”.  It reminds me of Van Halen I drums because they’re just so hard, heavy, and flashy without a lot of effects like reverb or compression.  This is one of my favorite drum records of all time, especially on For a Pessimist. I’m Pretty Optimistic, which sets the entire angry, loud, crashing energy of this album.  On top of the drums, you have brother Josh Farro on guitar.  As controversial as he is as a person, he was the brilliant musician who wrote three fantastic Paramore albums and added some of my favorite guitar tones ever recorded.  His riffs are underappreciated, especially his work on “We Are Broken”, which reminds me of a Fleetwood Mac-level epic ballad.   I also have to mention Let the Flames Begin; This song is so underrated and is still their heaviest song to date.  The guitars, the passion, the perfect almost operatic scream vocals, and the breakdown is just breathtaking.  You HAVE to listen to the live version of this song.  Even if you’re not a fan, this song is incredible.  It was incredible to go back and just listen to this album again and appreciate all the tasty nuances that have influenced countless bands, including The Warning, who is my favorite band right now.  Hayley Willams and company are responsible for returning Good Rock to the radio once again.

Favorite Tracks: For A Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic, That’s What You Get When It Rains, Let the Flames Begin