Albums of the Year: Honorable Mention Edition

First of all, let me make it clear that these are not necessarily the best or most popular or most significant albums of 2015. These are my favorite albums that I have listened to more than once or twice. It's my list.

I'll link to the album spotlights and interviews from this blog. There won't be any commentary in this post.

The list would be shorter if I were genre specific or only listened to mainstream stuff. This is about good music that I like. And I don't listen to much of anything mainstream. I listed my favorite albums of 2015 and came up with 24. This honorable mention list will include the 14 that didn't make the top ten.

The artist's name will link to my posts, the album name will link to the artist's web site.

In no particular order:

Plastic Rhino - Recondition

Jonathan Tyler - Holy Smokes

Lindi Ortega - Faded Gloryville

Frankie Bourne - Californicana

Samantha Fish - Wild Heart

Koritni - Night Goes On For Days

Europe - War of Kings

Striking Matches - Nothing But The Silence

Allison Moorer - Down To Believing

Gretchen Peters - Blackbirds

Butch Walker - Afraid of Ghosts

Brandi Carlile - The Firewatcher's Daughter

honeyhoney - 3

Ray Wylie Hubbard - The Ruffian's Misfortune

Look for my top 10 coming out later this month.

Album Spotlight: Europe: War of Kings

I will freely admit that Europe fell off my radar after their sports stadium classic "The Final Countdown" ran its mainstream course. Sure the album of the same name had some other minor hits with "Carrie", "Rock the Night" and "Cherokee".  The album The Final Countdown and the songs from it never did that much for me. So I dismissed the band.

Fast forward almost 30 years and combine my rekindled love of discovering new music with Europe's March 2015 release of War of Kings and it's like I discovered a new band.

Europe the band is very popular in Europe the continent. And hugely popular in their native Sweden. It's a shame that mainstream radio in the United States has abandoned any and all good music for the sake of chasing the whims of 14 year olds. But I digress.

War of Kings is an epic album. And it's very European. With influences such as Deep Purple, Ronnie James Dio era Rainbow and Whitesnake shining through.

This record was also produced by Dave Cobb. Why is that significant? Only because he has produced some of my favorite recent albums from Whiskey Myers to Chris Stapleton.

I made the mistake of dismissing artists based on their past. Don't do that. You will miss gems like this.

Here is a track from War of Kings. Not released as single, but is so good.