* - 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

K

Kenny Rogers - A Love Song Collection (2008, Capitol) - This is another one of my wife's CDs for mature adults who don't just listen to Satanic nonsense. But it reminds me of the time when I was a child, when my mom had an apparently very vivid dream about Kenny Rogers - dressed in a bright Hawaiian shirt for some reason - chasing her with a butcher knife and murderous intent. My mother has hated and distrusted Kenny Rogers for something like thirty years now as a result, and that story will be the first thing that comes to mind at any mention of the dude, just ahead of that Seinfeld episode.

Kiss - Destroyer (1978, Mercury) - You know, I never really got into Kiss whatsoever, and that always seemed weird to me, because they at least seem to be a universally-loved band. So this popped up somewhere weird, a bargain bin somewhere, and I was all "Hell, why not? It's got 'Detroit Rock City' and 'Shout it Out Loud,' and it has to at least be tolerable otherwise, right?" And, well, no, it isn't. This is Kiss at the top of their game, and it still kinda sucks for the most part. I think holding this opinion now legally disqualifies me from ever owning an airbrushed van, and I am saddened.

*Kool & The Gang - 20th Century Masters: The Millenium Collection (2000, Mercury) - AW HELL YEAH. IT'S LADIES NIGHT, AND WE'RE GONNA HAVE A CELEBRATION. WE'RE GONNA GET DOWN ON IT WITH SOME HOLLYWOOD SWINGING AND CHERISH THE BIG FUN AND IT WILL BE BOTH FRESH AND TOO HOT AND... Wait, what the hell, "Misled" isn't on here. The hell are you people trying to prove here? This isn't the Millennium Collection, it's the Collection of Shit. This disk is only 40 minutes long, "Misled" is like a four minute song, and y'all can do better than this, Mercury Records. I DEMAND JUSTICE.

Korn - Korn (1994, Immortal/Epic) - ~AAAAAAREEEE YOOOUUU REEEEADDAAYYYYYYY~ Anyway, yeah, this. I'm not sure if this is an album that hasn't aged well or if it's a case where it was fine as a novelty amongst alternative rock, but became problematic once a whole damn movement had started. If Korn had just dropped one CD and disappeared forever, and we didn't have to deal with about eight years of resulting garbage like Limp Bizkit, Coal Chamber, or the next two decades of shitty Korn albums, maybe people would still like this? Who knows, maybe if my early internet experiences hadn't revolved mostly around 13 year olds in gigantic pants calling me a "faget," I'd have been more open to Korn and the like, and all the terrible, terrible music they all produced. Ha ha, no, seriously folks.

L

L7 - The Beauty Process: Triple Platinum (1997, Slash/Reprise) - This was one of those times when Columbia House would have a list of newer stuff that wasn't ~SHIFTING THE DAMN UNITS~ so they'd put it on sale for 99 cents, and given the choice between this or paying upwards of $3.99 for something like Bricks are Heavy that I knew would at least have one song I liked, I got this. and boy, this isn't good, and I shoulda saved my almost-a-dollar. I think the other one I almost got from the same sale was that Prong Cd from 96 or so, and that was a dodged bullet right there, because I downloaded it like a decade later, and it sucked, too. Stupid bargains. Anyway, it's weird to go through my CDs and revisit both how heavy metal as a mainstream thing was killed by grunge, followed by grunge being completely annihilated as a genre by The Spice Girls, nu-metal, and at least one gruesome suicide.

Lacuna Coil - Comalies (2002, Century Media) - The early 2000s were completely awash in bands like this, what with the lady singers and the vaguely gothic overtones and the keyboards and the "didn't they used to be a death metal band?" and whatnot. Then, Evanescence happened, and in a couple short years of Hoobastank fans and Republicans rocking that "wake me up inside" song, it killed that shit faster than when your parents start using THE HIP SLANG OF TODAY'S YOUTH on the World Wide Web. Which is just as well, because legit 75% of bands like that have singers that are on a "seventh grade Christmas play" level, (see: Evanescence) and even residing in the upper 25%, this was probably the last actual good record by these guys.

Lacuna Coil - Karmacode (2006, Century Media) - Lacuna Coil has always been on Century Media as far as I know, but this one really felt like a major label release, for some reason. It's got a way huger, major-sounding production level, it had those annoying internet ads that would expand to take up the whole screen, and you could even find the damn thing at Walmart for a minute. Like this was going to be Lacuna Coil's time, when they'd get on the radio, sell a million records, snatch Amy Lee's weave, and take the crown. And it just didn't happen. This thing's got Major Label Syndrome in full effect, where everything *sounds* better, but for the most part, it's just not as good. Also, the world has enough "dark" covers of "Enjoy the Silence," so y'all can all stop now.

Lady Gaga - The Fame Monster (2CD - 2009, Interscope) - (In case y'all were worried about my personal brand, this is one of my wife's CDs.) Honestly, I really just do not care about Lady Gaga's music one way or another. I just have no reaction to it. This sort of dance pop is not made for me; it's made for other people, and that's fine. Other people listen to other things, and it's good that there are other things that make them happy. So with all that being said, it freaks me out to no end the sort of visceral hatred this woman causes in some people. It's not as bad now as it was ten years ago, but Lady Gaga would show up somewhere, and people would get straight-up ANGRY, like it was an affront to everything they held dear. I never understood it, was it the silly name or that time she wore a meat suit or something? They're still going to make country music and black metal you guys, calm down. Also, apparently The Fame has a song called "Paper Gangsta" on it, and I really wish it was a cover of the Blood for Blood song, but deep down, I know it isn't. WHY DON'T YA GO WHITEWASH A PICKET FENCE OF CLEAN YA DADDY'S CAR, YA FACKIN' SURBURBAN NERD.

Lamont & Tonelli - Drop Your Pants... (and Jacket Off) (unknown year, probably self-released?) - I can't remember the exact details of how I ended up with this, but it's really convoluted and weird. Like someone I knew from ye olde heavy metal chatroomes had this and wanted an MP3 copy of it, but had no computer. (They had a WebTV, you see) So they mailed me a copy of the CD so I could rip it and upload it to whatever shitty Tripod site I had at the time. Yeah. Anyway, this is your typical WACKY MORNING ZOO CREW kind of stuff, and even though I'm pretty sure these guys are the grand masters of such a comedy style, (I'm pretty sure they're from L.A. or San Diego or somewhere like that, and I'm pretty sure I've heard some of the "Shirley Q" stuff played by Oklahoma and Mississippi DJs claiming it as their own) it's still mostly just annoying and racist. Not like full-on 14 Words racist, but that softer kind of "people from different races are inherently stupid and funny because they're not like me!" racist that used to be called "political incorrectness" before legit Nazis co-opted the term to represent "advocating the death of entire groups of people" or whatever. Anyway, fuck these guys, if only for veering this thing dangerously close to the stupid Discourse.

Leadbelly - Leadbelly (2004, Echo Bridge) - Man, there are some mysterious-ass releases near the checkouts and discount clothing stores. Like even all the usual sites for finding out what something is, like Discogs or Rate Your Music, seem to say absolutely nothing about this. Is this what happens when something is so old that it's passed into the public domain? Like so many shitheads compile your stuff that even nerds can't keep up with it? I wonder if someone out there has tried to collect one of every shitty DVD horror movie compilation that has Night of the Living Dead on it. That would probably encompass like five thousand DVDs, with a cost of nearly seven thousand dollars, probably.

Legit  - It's All in the Game (1999, Big Mouth Records) - This is one of the most inexplicable things I own probably, where I bought it for two dollars, because I was curious to hear what a rap track with Terrell Davis would sound like. This was only to realize that I had no idea what his voice even sounded like, so I wouldn't know which guy he even was, and also that I didn't give a shit about the Denver Broncos. Also, that guy on the cover just looks way too much like someone's dad to be a rapper in 1999. Like he's probably supposed to look like some kind of pimp or hustler or something, but he really looks more like he's enjoying a cocktail on a cruise with his wife that he got to celebrate their 15th anniversary or something.

Leona Lewis - Spirit: The Deluxe Edition (2009, Sony) - So this is another one of my wife's Cds, and it's really kinda freaking me out that I have literally not the faintest idea of who this person is. Like this has every appearance of being some major release that probably got on the radio and was a big enough deal to warrant a deluxe edition, yet it's not ringing any bells. Is it true? Am I out of touch? No, it is the children who are wrong.

Life Sex & Death - The Silent Majority (1992, Reprise) - These guys were kind of an up-jumped glam rock band who managed to create a buzz around themselves as an alternative band, owing to how their singer started method acting as a smelly maniac in the name of art. Like he'd go months without bathing and get shows shut down by pooping in front of the venue and stuff, and it was a real weird scene. Anyway, the video for "Tank" came on Beavis and Butthead, and it was pretty much the best and remains as such, so when I found out that the local Hastings (RIP) had about twenty used copies of this, I got one. And at first, I thought it sucked beyond that one song, but every time I revisit it, it grows on me a little more. Like maybe only age and experience can hip me to the subtle nuances of a song like "Fuckin' Shit Ass," I dunno.

Living Colour - Vivid (1988, Epic) - Aaaaaahhhh god dang, Living Colour was pretty much the best band ever for about a two-year period, and this is the best forever, jesus. The late 80s/pre-grunge 90s were amazing, where everything was like neon day-glo colors, and a dude could front a hard rock band while wearing a Body Glove surfing onesie thing. What a time to be alive. Then, I guess everyone kind of collectively realized that everything was going to suck forever, so we all collectively decided to stop surfing, and Corey Glover chopped his hair off, and everything is terrible. But at least we have old Living Colour CDs to comfort us as we slide screaming into hell.

living Colour - Time's Up (1990, Epic) - This is a thousand orders magnitude less good than Vivid, which is to say it's still awesome, but that Vivid was AWESOME, like in all capital letters. "New Jack Theme" is probably the secret best song on here, and evidence that subject matters normally covered in gangsta rap work really well in a metal-adjacent hard rock environment. Such a thing would never work though, probably, because metal is a scene mostly populated by hugely racist white guys, and even Body Count had to mix it up every now and then and sing about KKK bitches or Ice-T's dick or whatever. For some reason, the song "Elvis is Dead" really upset me as a nine-year-old.

Living Colour - Biscuits EP (1991, Epic) - The covers/unreleased tracks/random live stuff EP is another thing that's been nearly lost in the digital age. Now, you can't make money off that anymore, so they just release a two-disk version of an album you bought a month ago or some shit, and it's infuriating, because you'd like to hear the oddball stuff, but don't want to double-dip, and illegal download searches only turn up the version you have, for some reason. STOP ALL THE DOWNLOADIN', YA FUCKS.

Living Colour - Stain (1993, Epic - European version with bonus tracks) - I guess this has some good stuff on it, but I was not into this nearly as much as their first few releases. I mean, it still sounds pretty much exactly like what they had been doing, but just not as good. Maybe it was the abandonment of the "crazy brightly colored collage of weird bullshit" aesthetic in favor of a dark and gritty black-and-white cover that did it, I dunno. Grunge ruined everything, and we didn't realize what was happening until it was too late, probably because we were too busy enjoying grunge, I guess.

Lungbrush - Old School, New School (1999, Pavement) - I think I got this either from Ebay or a used rack after a glowing review in this Promethian Crusade 'zine I have around here somewhere, and it's tolerable, I guess? I dunno. Late 90s style metal/hardcore stuff that tends to kind of alternate heavy parts with quiet parts in a way that doesn't really sound like nu-metal, but could probably be appreciated by nu-metal people. I guess imagine a metalcore band with Everlast singing or something like that. It's a lot better than it sounds, but it's still not great. Also, the singer is called "Roach," and has one of those "mustache only at the corner of his mouth" situations and something weird going on with horseshoe male-pattern baldness, so either add or suibtract points for that.