* - Asterisk means I already had a good mp3 copy of this album, but threw up a few words anyway in the name of having an internet-based chronicle of all my legally-purchased, store-bought music

- Beavis Having Rad Times means that this CD's purchase was directly or indirectly influenced by the Beavis & Butthead television show, STOP ALL THE DOWNLOADIN' means the CD was only bought after an illegal trial period

E

Earth, Wind & Fire - Let's Groove (1990, CBS) - I think my older brother originally got this (some sort of "a few greatest hits, but also some other stuff" style compilation - It doesn't have "Sing a Song" or "On Your Face") around 94 or 95 or so, and it eventually wormed its way into my brain as part of my precious memories of eighth grade and/or freshman year. Yeah, I know, I put forth a big metalhead display in my online lifestyle brand and all, but it's not a crime to groove every so often. Shut up, I can listen to other stuff besides heavy metal. *proceeds to list like 300 more metal CDs and nothing else*

Emmylou Harris - Pieces of the Sky (1975, Warner Bros.) - This another one of my wife's CDs, which is music for grownups with taste, as opposed my preteen hail-satan-and-kill-your-momma noise bullshit. Soooooo, I have no idea what to say about this while the CD finishes ripping. Apples sure are good sometimes.

Etta James - Love Songs (2008, Sony) - Sooooo, yeaaaaah, this too. Apples are still good. Honeycrisp are my favorite, but they are expensive sometimes. I like to eat an apple. Let's start an Apple Club. I wish for peace for all the world.

Exhorder - Slaughter in the Vatican (1990, Roadrunner - I have the 2003 reissue) - Hey, here we go. You know that Pantera ripped these guys off, right? I don't think I've ever mentioned that, especially not to such a level where I was pretty much "the Exhorder guy" on a reasonably large pro wrestling message board for a while. I'm pretty sure that like 75% of the people who will ever bother to read this knew me from such times, and I'd just like to say that I'm sorry that I was so annoying and repetitive, and that being the internet's leading Exhorder evangelist when I literally had never heard of them until they had been broken up for like five years was a pretty huge poser move. Also, I'd just like to say another thing. Hey. Hey guys. Hey..

PANTERA RIPPED OFF EXHORDER  FUUUUUUCK YOOOOOUUUU NOWHERE TO HIDE FROM HOOOOMIIICIIIIIIIIDE

Thank you for your patience in these trying times.

Exhorder - The Law (1992, Roadrunner - I have the original version and the 2003 one) - This CD marks my second greatest Ebay triumph. (The first greatest will come later in the M's.) Before the 2003 two-Cd reissue set of Exhorder's albums, they had both been out of print since the early 90s, and you had to pay out the ass for a CD copy. Slaughter in the Vatican is the better of the two, (seriously, it is amazing) so it always went for more than this one, but The Law would still go for somewhere in the neighborhood of forty to fifty bucks. So this popped up with a $10 starting bid, and I actually had some spare money handy, so I said screw it, I'll put in a $35 bid and see what happens. I got outbid pretty quick and other people started a damn war that spiraled out of control until it hit something crazy like seventy dollars. Then, one guy retracted his bid. Then another did. And another, and another. In the end, I picked this up for ten-dollar starting bid, because I AM YOUR KING. I AM THE KING OF THE WORLD.

Exhorder - Live in New Orleans '90 (year unknown, Sicko Videos/bootleg) - This is a bootleg live CD that comes from a "master tape" that's someone's camcorder footage, so it sounds almost unlistenably bad. It's a bummer, because there are a handful of crazy covers on here, with the universe's most insane thrash metal band doing stuff by Red Hot Chili Peppers and Fleetwood Mac. But like I said, unlistenable bad sound quality. The big lesson to take from this though, is that these guys must have *hated* Andy the bass player, because the opening and closing tracks are backstage audio of the band clowning on him for being an idiot, and the cover is a picture of him butt-ass naked with what are probably other members of the band trying to barge in on him and a woman in a similar state of non-dress. Also, that dude literally had a white man afro, and it kinda freaks me out.

*Exodus - Bonded by Blood (1985, Combat) - One of the times when I was the most irrationally pissed-off online was back in the early days of internet piracy, when we had 56K modems and Kazaa lite, so we just searched for songs one at a time, and people would play real fast and loose with the file info, like the time I got what was supposedly Sacred Reich doing "Blind Justice" by Agnostic Front, but it ended up being some other band I never managed to identify. Anyway, someone had listed a "rare unreleased Metallica song from the Kill Em All sessions" and it just ended up being "Piranha" off this record. Buncha turds trying to trick me into downloading one of the best songs off one of the best albums ever on the basis that it was a different song off a different best album ever. The fuck, dog.

*Exodus - Pleasures of the Flesh (1987, Combat) - So this was originally advertised with a different album cover than the one we eventually got, and haha holy shit, whoa, that is problematic. No, seriously, Google Image Search it, it is wild. I'll wait. At least they had the shred of self-awareness to think that coloring the jungle cannibals green as a "get out of racism free" card wasn't going to work and just threw together a photo of the dudes at a bad with some skulls instead. M.O.D. would've just run with the original cover and claimed they did it while roleplaying a character or some shit. Then again, they did just re-release it with the original cover, so I dunno man.

*Exodus - Fabulous Disaster (1989, Combat) - I just remember one time in 90-ish when my cousin David came down to Mississippi, he had on a "Toxic Waltz"-related Exodus t-shirt, and without ever having heard them before, I decided that they had to be the heaviest, most evil band ever. Getting rid of toxic waste as a heavy metal aesthetic is one of the biggest mistakes anyone ever made, and someone needs to bring that back. Toxic waste and gas masks for the metal CDs, brick walls with neon day-glow graffiti for the rap CDs. Then, America will truly be great once more.

*Exodus - Good Friendly Violent Fun (Live - 1991, Combat) - Man, this has the guy from the aforementioned Toxic Waltz t-shirt on the cover, and another big mistake was for Exodus to do whatever ol' bullshit they ended up doing, instead of making that guy their official mascot from then on into eternity. Toxic waste, gas masks, and band mascots. That's what we're missing. I wonder if anyone's ever combined all three before. Like I've seen Vic Rattlehead on a shirt in a pool of toxic waste, and Sacred Reich and Sodom both had gas masked mascots, (gas maskots?) but I dunno if all three ever happened at once. Must research further.

*Exodus - Another Lesson in Violence (Live - 1997, Century Media) - I started overthinking about the title of this one, and I really hope one of those hardcore bands that puts movie/etc. samples at the beginnings of their songs does something with that instructional video where Martial Arts Hero/actor/model/chef/etc. Bas Rutten teaches you how to violence the shit out of people that hassle you in bars. Like Madball or somebody could have a song that just starts like "Right straight BAOW and he's done" and then the guitars start. I dunno, I think it would be cool, shut up. Anyway, I'm glad there's a live album of Baloff-fronted Exodus.