Whether you’re a fan of country music or not, there’s no denying the musical talent and songwriting skills of countless country artists from the past century. From Johnny Cash to Dolly Parton, Kenny Chesney to Shania Twain, the genre has made a marked cultural impact.
I’m no country music scholar, but I am three hours into a layover at the Nashville airport and Trace Adkins’ 2005 hit “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” is booming through the speakers of the saloon next to my gate. So let’s give it a listen while I wait for the Southwest agent to call boarding group B.
The song opens with a bass line that sounds like it was taken from the Seinfeld theme, over which Adkins speaks to his fellow country boys in a thick drawl. “Turn it up some / Alright boys, this is her favorite song / So, if we play it good and loud she might get up and dance again / Ohh, she put her beer down / Here she comes.” To summarize: He devised a scheme to get the ladies movin’ and it worked immediately. If only Southwest Airlines could figure out how to execute a plan so efficiently.
The first verse launches into a faster tempo and Adkins starts singing, “Hustlers shootin’ eight ball / Throwin’ darts at the wall / Feelin’ damn near ten feet tall / Here she comes, Lord help us all / Ol’ T.W.’s girlfriend done slapped him out his chair / Poor ole boy, it ain’t his fault / It’s so hard not to stare.” Who knows who T.W. is, but it’s safe to say it was his fault.
Chorus time! “At that honky tonk badonkadonk / Keepin’ perfect rhythm, make ya wanna swing along / Got it goin’ on like Donkey Kong / And oo-wee, shut my mouth, slap your grandma / There oughta be a law, get the sheriff on the phone / Lord have mercy, how’d she even get them britches on / That honky tonk badonkadonk” If this song isn’t the rural man’s “Baby Got Back,” then I don’t know what is. When they were in the studio recording, do you think they laughed at all or kept things serious the whole time? More importantly, do you think my flight will get delayed another hour?
In the bridge, Adkins advises his friends, “Boys, you better keep your distance / You can look but you can’t touch,” which is solid feminist allyship by 2005 standards. Then he closes the song with this declaration: “That’s why we do what we do / It ain’t for the money, it ain’t for the glory, it ain’t for the free whiskey / It’s for the badonkadonk.” Such a shame no one writes lyrics like that anymore. Maybe backwoods chivalry really is dead.
Hopefully, one day artists of all genres will start writing entire songs about butts again. But it looks like pre-boarding just started so I’d better line up to get my badonkadonk on this plane.
First off, I’ll admit that this isn’t a Slayer album that I listen to a whole lot. Well, by that I mean I listened to it once when I was like 7 years old. But as a more mature adult, with more refined taste, I thought, “It can’t possibly be that bad. It has evil satanic Powder on the front, and the Slayer logo is written all cool-like.” Slayer was not only bitten by the Nu-Metal bug when this was written, it laid its eggs inside their brain and what hatched was this. Best to just avoid.
This album being released on September 11th, 2001 really solidifies the fact two tragedies occurred that day: the 9/11 attacks, and Leftöver Crack releasing their first record…..wait, no, that doesn’t make sense. Make that three tragedies. This album is one of them.
Five years after “God Hates Us All,” Slayer is back and as not exciting as ever. I feel like this record was their way of saying, “Alright, no more tripp pants or ‘bugga chugga’ riffs, let’s get back to our thrash roots.” Plus, Dave Lombardo is back behind the kit. It is an okay effort, and much more enjoyable than the previous two on this list, but it still has a little too much of that ’90s-era stink on it.
This record is more than likely the last Slayer full-length we’ll ever get. Gary Holt replaces Jeff Hannemen (RIP) on guitar and Paul Bostaph returns as the band’s drummer once again. Not the worst record of theirs, but it really isn’t worth carving their band name into your arm over either.
This is the last Slayer record to feature Jeff Hanneman (RIP) on Guitar and Dave Lombardo on drums. The most solid of the 2000s era records, it still just barely sets itself apart from the previous two records on this list. Good records, but just sorta one big ball of open “e” strings, bad words and cover artwork that I’ll always forget goes to which albums.
This was the album we saw Slayer sorta veer off in a different direction musically. While not necessarily massively different from “Seasons,” you can tell they were into experimenting with their sound a bit. Some might call it “evolving” or “progressing” their sound, and I suppose you could look at it that way. But Tom uses that weird “megaphone” effect on his vocals everyone was doing at that time on some parts. It’s still a really solid record, regardless.
“Before you see the light…..you must, diiiiiiieeeee.” -Tom Araya
“Hell Awaits” is the record when Slayer decided to just play all their instruments as fucking fast as they possibly could. And to be quite frank, it turned out really goddamn cool. Kinda boring, but not too much, but also really goddamn good. Plus that cover art is iconic, and cool as fuck.
This is the EP when Slayer decided to just play their instruments as fucking fast as they possibly could. Now, I’m not allowed to rank comps or EPs on this list, and if I could, this would probably be higher up, but I don’t make the rules nor have the know-how. But I do know “Captor of Sin’ fucking rules.
“What poser puts ‘Seasons’ in their top three Slayer records,” you say? Well, me, I guess. But it’s a fucking great album. It takes the slow heaviness of what they did on “South of Heaven,” and mixes it with the ferociousness of “Reign in Blood” to make what I think is one of the best metal records of the 1990s, even though it was still basically the ’80s when it was released. Highly underrated and overlooked mostly by posers who still like to call people posers.
“Reign in Blood” is one of, if not the best thrash metal record of all time. From beginning to end, it’s a relentless onslaught of no reverb and iconic riff after iconic riff. That one dude with the really long beard along with Slayer themselves nailed it with this one. There isn’t much else to say here other than if you haven’t heard this then I’m surprised you’re reading this.
Slayer’s debut, and their best. Not one other record of theirs compares to the fast, evil, cult heavy metal sound of “Show No Mercy.” It was a game changer for thrash and made Metallica look like Peter, Paul, and Mary in comparison. Each song is memorable, heavy as fuck, and written with pure aggression. Tom’s vocals are by far the best on this album, and so is the overall production. I can honestly say, without hyperbole, that this is the greatest heavy metal album to feature Kerry King on guitar. A total essential.
It would be remiss of me not to give a nod to the 2019 single that launched Ghost into the hearts of young people on TikTok everywhere. The A-Side of “Mary on a Cross,” a decidedly ’60s sounding double-entendre-fest, is their most-played song on Spotify, and you can tell why. Shit’s catchy and very accessible to fans who may be turned off by their songs that lean closer to metal than standard rock.
“Infesstissumam” has the unfortunate honor of winning the “Ghost Album with the Most Tracks that Sound Like an Evil Carnival” award. This album is pretty long as it contains an EP in the deluxe version, and although it has one of their most viral hits with “Year Zero,” the rest falls pretty damn flat into a mess of samey-sounding spooky-scary, without the sick riffs to back it up.
Ghost’s debut album “Opus Eponymous” is a pretty great album overall. It’s quick, consistent, and brought them roaring into the spotlight when “Ritual” started getting banned from the radio in the southern US, which is strange. Usually people in the south are so tolerant and open to new ideas. Despite all that, some folks find this album to be lacking in production quality, and the songwriting is not quite as elaborate as later albums, which leads to many tracks blending together.
On the other end of the spectrum entirely, we have Ghost’s 2022 chart crusher. It’s tough to deny that “Impera” is a bit over the top. It’s got a certain Black Parade quality to it that hits the nostalgic theater kid button, but at the end of the day, it’s a very large and dramatic album that sometimes leans towards the aforementioned overproduction. However, there are really some bonafide ’80s hair metal bangers on there, which balance out the insane Danny Elfman Haunted Hayride energy that a few of the lesser tracks bring.
“Prequelle” is probably Ghost’s most straightforward album. It’s big, it’s loud, it has some kooky instrumentation, and yet, there are very few weak spots that come to mind. The combination of fuzzy hard rock riffs, stacked vocal harmonies, and hooks so catchy they were probably made in a K-Pop lab works to make this album solid as a rock and extremely fun to sing along to in the car when your cooler friends aren’t around.
Man, this shit goes hard. You’ve got your retro ’70s hard rock fist-pumpers, your fake gospel ballads, some Scooby-Doo sounding shit, actual genuine metal, and of course, “Square Hammer.” There’s something for everyone on this record. “Meliora” has multiple songs with over 100 million plays on Spotify, and honestly, it deserves that honor. This is an endlessly replayable album, buffed up by the inclusion of the “Popestar” EP, that really reminds me of finding music like this as a teen and clinging to the CD for dear life. It fucking rips.