themusicaddict's "The Greatest CDs Of All-Time": Halestorm's "The Strange Case of..."

Hello,

Of all of the CDs that in my opinion are Greatest CDs Of All-Time, this is the one that's most recently released. "The Strange Case of..." just barely celebrated its second anniversary, it was released on April 10th, 2012. I only knew about this band because my brother was able to see them in concert and was a fan. For the longest time I thought they were from Europe, before realizing they are from Philadelphia. Slowly but surely I listened to more and more of their music and became a huge fan. I'm now a Halestorm fan especially of their second CD.

I usually don't say that a CD that has been released so recently is a classic. Classic usually implies something has been around for awhile and has stood the test of time. In that sense, this isn't a classic. But in the sense of it being so good that it's a classic, then this is definitely a classic.

Again thanks to Spotify for helping me expand my horizons and discovering Halestorm. As I've said many times before there's just as much great music being released now as there ever was. Also it's a lot easier to discover with Spotify and other music services. It's too bad you won't discover great music on MTV or the radio any more, especially in this time of all flash and no substance proudly exhibited by people like Miley Cyrus. (Note I was a big fan of Cyrus's "Can't Be Tamed", but her recent twerking and riding a wrecking ball naked shows how unimportant the music is. When I think of great music and wrecking ball, Bruce Springsteen is the person I'm thinking of.)

Halestorm introduced themselves to the world in 2009 with their self-titled debut CD. They continue the proud tradition of Led Zeppelin and other bands, great albums full of great songs but no hits. "Halestorm" includes such great, should be classic songs as: "It's Not You", "I Get Off", "Bet U Wish U Had Me Back", "I'm Not An Angel", "Better Safe Than Sorry" and "Nothing To Do With Love".

Following "Halestorm" the band released "Live in Philly" in 2010. This is basically a live version of their self-titled CD, with the new song "Tell Me Where It Hurts".

Here's Halestorm live at The Webster on July 14th, 2013. The sound starts out a bit rough, but does get better:

Halestorm is made up of Lizzy Hale on killer vocals. Joining her is drummer Arejaye Hale, guitarist Joe Hottinger and bassist Josh Smith. In 2012 they released the kraken known as "The Strange Case of...". (Thanks to wikipedia.org for biographical information, all opinions are mine. Feel free to disagree in comments.)

Listening to these songs again reminds me of how great this CD is, every song is absolutely great. A modern day classic. 

The times listed to the right of the songs below are when each song begins in the above video. Then I'm also adding the individual tracks for each song below the song's title. 

1) "Love Bites (So Do I)" (Lizzy sings "love bites, so do I", why don't I have a hard time in believing that?)

"Love Bites (So Do I)" (Live in Germany):

 2) "Mz. Hyde": (3:11)

"Mz. Hyde" (Live in Atlantic City)

3) "I Miss The Misery" (6:35) (Here's a song meant to be played at maximum volume and intensity):

"Mz. Hyde" & "I Miss The Misery" (Live):

4) "Freak Like Me": (9:37):

5) "Beautiful With You" (13:18) (Not only can they rock you out, but they also have a soft side.)

6) "In Your Room" (16:35)

"In Your Room" (Live):

7) "Break In"(19:22):



8) "Rock Show" (24:09):



"Rock Show" (Live):



9) "Daughters of Darkness" (27:27):



10) "You Call Me A Bitch Like It's A Bad Thing" (31:23)



11) "American Boys" (34:36)



12) "Here's To Us" (38:07) (The language in this song will offend most.)



13) "Don't Know How To Stop" (41:16)



14) "Private Parts" (featuring James Michael) (45:13)



15) "Hate It When You See Me Cry" (49:12)



"Hate It When You See Me Cry" (Live):

themusicaddict