VARIOUS

Metal Blade Records 15th Anniversary Compilation 2CD (1997, Metal Blade)- Possibly due to their habit of putting out reasonably cheap (or free) label sampler CDs, I was all about Metal Blade back in the day. So when this popped up in the Columbia House catalog for 15 bucks (double CDs still trended closer to 40 usually - and for the record, there was another cheap 15th anniversary set called "Taste the Blade" or something like that, but I think it was BMG exclusive) But man, there is so much cool shit on here, and I don't know how I've gone this far without owning anything (legally) by Armored Saint, Trouble, or Helstar.  Seriously, Helstar was so good, and no one has ever given a shit about them, it's weird.  Also, I'm pretty sure the first two Flotsam and Jetsam albums are the only two good ones, and for some reason, I've never been able to find Doomsday for the Deceiver while I was in a Cd-buying mood, and I found No Place for Disgrace on the used rack once, but bought something else that was probably stupid. Oh well.
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: One (1): Be My Slave by Bitch (and in the interest of honesty, I can think of at least three illegal downloads this led to.  IT WAS A DIFFERENT TIME)

Metal Blade 2000 Sampler (2000, Metal Blade) - Metal Blade had (or maybe still has) a cool thing where they'd toss in a free sampler CD whenever you'd buy stuff, but man, this came out at a bad time for me.  This was right in the thick of nu-metal ruining everything, and it was like the actual heavy metal scene had a violent reaction to that nonsense, so death metal, black metal, and other various "extreme" sub-sub-subgenres exploded, so that was roughly 99% of what Metal Blade had at the time.  And most of it is just not for me, so most of this CD is similarly not for me, and it makes it really jarring when a song by a more relatively chill band like Armored Saint or In Extremo would pop up.  Still, it's not all bad, because Amon Amarth has always been good, and despite being pretty generic bands, the track by Lobotomy is still pretty good, and the Fleshcrawl one was amazing. (still wish I hadn't bought that Cd, though)
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: One (1): As Blood Rains From the Sky, We Walk the Endless Path of Fire by Fleshcrawl

Metal Blade Summer 2006 Sampler (2006, Metal Blade) - Hoo boy.  The New Wave of American Heavy Metal was underway, and Metal Blade went all in on that shit, so most of this Cd sounds exactly the same, and it's mostly absolutely terrible. God, what was (and remains) wrong with you people?  This does have "Pursuit of Vikings" by Amon amarth on here, with is one of the best things they ever did, but god damn, the rest, just... I don't know, man.  What kind of person listens to As I Lay Dying and thinks "boy, not only should I listen to this a second time, but I wish there were 7,000 more bands like this"?  Y'all are a bunch of weirdos.
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: NONE.

Metal Hammer Razor (Summer 2006) (2006, Future Publishing) - I don't remember most of this, but boy, there's a lot of awful bullshit on here.  In addition to the usual 2006 metalcore like All That Remains, they kick it up a notch and put songs by stupid Stone Sour and 36 Crazyfists. Jesus. My god, this had to be one of the all-time lowest points in heavy metal history, which is hilarious, because this whole thing is still going on, and remains extremely popular.  Again: NO, IT IS THE CHILDREN WHO ARE WRONG. Had another Fleshcrawl/Metal Blade 2000 Sampler thing happen here, where the Chrome Division song they put on here ruled, so I went out and boght the Cd, and that song was the only good one on there.  Stupid sampler CDs. Cellador is a really frustrating band, because the singer legit sounds vaguely like Bruce Dickinson, but it sounds like Bruce Dickinson singing over As I Lay Dying or some shit.  It's okay to slow down sometimes you guys, seriously.  Just save the double bass for the parts of the song that need it, instead of leaning on that shit for 5 solid minutes, until the whole track is one straight line, with no ups or downs.  Fuck's sake, y'all. (It is the children who are wrong)
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: Two (2): Katorz by Voivod (although I'd have probably bought it anyway) and Doomsday Rock 'N Roll by Chrome Division

Metal Massacre 8 & 9 (1994, Metal Blade - originally from 1987 and 1988) - Okay, so I bought this back at the height of some sort of Sacred Reich madness, where I just had to have everything they had ever done.  And that Surf/Ignorance set was still a decade away, so the Draining You of Life demo was unattainable (true story: a dude from Italy who claimed to be selling off his CD/tape collection swindled me out of fifty bucks over that tape in 1998, when I was a sweet summer child who didn't know not to trust anyone online.  Fuck you, Roberto Cannovo. I remember your name, you sonovabitch. Also, the fuck was I thinking, trying to spend fifty bucks on a damn tape, plus a couple Motörhead bootlegs) Anyway, this has Sacred Reich's second demo version of "Ignorance" on here, and it's a real shitty version from back before Phil Rind learned how to sing. And that's all that's on here.  The rest is 17 tracks by bands who probably had to list an appearance on Metal Massacre 9 as the height of their career.  Seriously, the only other band I had heard of from this was Faith or Fear, and that was from some website making jokes about obscure bands. Weird part is that most of this is actually really good, but I can still see how 99% of this got lost in the shuffle, at a time when the earth was blanketed in third/fourth-tier thrash metal bands. Anyway, the Cd still has the old order form for Metal Blade merch inside it, and I thought "oh man, those are cool shirts, too bad they don't make them anymore," but then I looked it up and holy shit, I'm gonna buy the hell out of this someday when I have fifteen dollars again.
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: NONE

The Metallic-Era (1996, Neat) - Sometimes, it's easy to forget just how vastly huge Metallica is, but then you remember that there's a market for compilation CDs of original versions of songs they've covered.  This covers all of the (mostly-NWOBHM, plus Killing Joke and the Anti-Nowhere League) stuff Metallica did on Garage Days Re-Revisited and various singles from Kill 'Em All to the Black Album, minus the two Misfits songs, but plus a couple more ("Let it Loose" by Savage" and "Sucking My Love," one of four diamond Head songs on here) that only exist as garage-recorded demo versions. On the surface, most of this is insanely good, and a young boy's first introduction to how much Metallica changed in their versions. (Mostly removing any instance of the phrase "ooh baby") The only problem is that a lot of this isn't actually the original version of the song, but updated 1997-ish versions that started popping up when old bands would get back together to cash in on people knowing who they were because of Metallica.  It's not a total loss, though, because the new version of "The Small Hours" is great, the new "Blitzkrieg" is a lateral move at worst, and an updated version of "Killing Time" means you don't have to cringe when the dude drops an N-bomb, like he did in the early 80s.  Savage's decision to faithfully recreate the busted-ass equipment sound of the original is kinda weird, though.
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: TWO (2) - Loose 'N Lethal by Savage and Killing Time by Sweet Savage

Metalmeister: A Metal Blade Compilation (1996, Metal Blade) - I think this may have been my first cheapo metal compilation CD, (it actually says "DO NOT PAY MORE THAN $5.98" on the back) and a big part of why I was super into what Metal Blade was doing in the post-grunge, pre-nu-metal period, when heavy metal had gone from dead to super-dead on a commercial level.  This allowed them to fortify their existing lineup of groups like GWAR, Mercyful Fate, and Cannibal Corpse with major label refugees like Sacred Reich, Galactic Cowboys, and Armored Saint.  Hell, even the stuff on here I didn't like is mostly either still tolerable (Skrew) or at least highly-regarded by those more metal than I am. (Cannibal Corpse, Immolation) Also, I know absolutely nothing about the band Wardog, where they are, who they are with, what they're thinking, are they thinking about me?  But their song on here is super-good, and I swear, I've almost bought their CD like 25 times over the last 22 (oh god) years.  Someday.  Someday. The exclusive track is a 1989 Armored Saint demo of a song they didn't actually record as a full-on song until some time in the 2000s, so that's cool.
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: THREE (3) - Swallow the Snake by Desultory, Deathshead Extermination by Crisis, and No I.Q. by United (I either had or was already planning on getting the Sacred Reich and GWAR CDs)

Metalmeister Volume #2: A Metal Blade Compilation (1997, Metal Blade) - This is the second annual Metalmeiser comp CD, which y'all probably could've figured out by the name, and it's [pretty much along the same lines, and a lot of the bands are the same, (GWAR, Galactic Cowboys, Cannibal Corpse, and Six Feet Under make up roughly a third of both CDs, pretty much, and King Diamond is obviously similar to Mercyful Fate) except less good.  Somehow, I've never delved into Grip Inc. after all these years, which is dumb, because their song on here rules.  Maybe at this point, I'm worried that I'll get super into them, and get all depressed because the singer guy died and the band will likely never happen again.  Bonus points to this Cd for introducing me to Anvil, which is another band I should've gotten into more, especially after that documentary got "Metal on Metal" stuck in my head for a solid year and a half.  The exclusive bonus tracks are live stuff by Cannibal Corpse and Six Feet Under, in a battle of the Bands Associated With Chris Barnes. I went to school with a guy who had the same name, and mostly all I remember about him is that he had the biggest head I've ever seen on a human being, and lots of people I knew hated him, but I didn't, because I'm pretty sure I never actually was around him for more than 30 seconds at a time, and I'm not that hateful.
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: THREE (3) High by Flotsam and Jetsam, Zoon by Nefilim, and Form of Release by Purged

Metalmeister Volume #3: A Metal Blade Compilation (1998, Metal Blade) -This is (I'm pretty sure) the final and least-good of the Metalmeister series, and after this, their label sampler strategy turned to just mailing CDs out for free, and I like like free stuff, but you kinda narrow your audience to people who already know your stuff that way, so I dunno, man.  Anyway, this has a lot of less-than-good stuff by a lot of really good bands, including both King Diamond bands and a track from that terrible live Sacred Reich album.  This is super death/black metal heavy, which normally sucks, but it's got Amon Amarth, a really good Six Feet Under song, and possibly the least-intolerable Cannibal Corpse song I've bothered to listen to, ("Sentenced to Burn") which is funny, because I'm pretty sure the album it's from was the one that everyone hated. They didn't put any exclusive bonus stuff on here, but they did throw in a Lizzy Borden track from 1984 for some reason.  Also, my copy of this came with the tray card from the companion "Deathmeister" comp, so I just cut the last page off the CD booklet and slipped it over it, so I could still have a track listing on the back cover. It's janky as hell, but has a certain charm to it. I wonder if Skrew could've hit it big if their only mainstream exposure hadn't been Beavis and Butt-head making fun of them, because this shit sounds so much like what Marylin Manson was doing at the time, and it sucks ass in all the exact same ways.
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: NONE.

Music From the 80s (2008, Rhino) - This is a four-track Cd that came stuffed inside the Night Court Season One DVD, and it includes music from the 80s, oddly enough. It's got "Lips Like Sugar" by Echo & the Bunnymen, "Chains of Love" by Erasure, "Need You Tonight" by INXS, and "Take on Me" by a-ha. Unless you're like nine, you've already heard all of these, so I can't think of much else to say.  I need to get more Night Court DVDs, because it was pretty much my favorite show when I was too young to understand all the jokes about Dan Fielding being a sex pest, and because the first season was easily the worst one, and was just a long string of Very Special Episodes.  When I make my billions, by big evil billionaire instead-of-actually-paying-my-employees vanity project will be using science to create invincible clones of Harry Anderson and Jim Varney.
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: NONE.

Nativity in Black: A Tribute to Black Sabbath (1994, Columbia) - This was kind of like the underground-ish version of one of those big 90s cultural event compilation CDs.  Like everyone had the Crow soundtrack or the Beavis & Butt-head Experience or that one with that Pearl Jam song, but only the actual metalheads had this one.  But it's got damn near every reasonably major 90s band that could fit on a 12-song CD, and outside of a shitty version of "Iron Man" by Therapy that couldn't even be saved by having Ozzy Osbourne sing it, pretty much everything on here is good. Also, all the album art and CD booklets and whatnot have all this stuff that looks like Satanic, Black Sabbath-inspired Rider tarot cards,and I just realized that the death of physical media in the digital age means the death of cool album art and aesthetics in general. Basically, I'm super-old now, and I still buy CDs, and I'm starting to understand why nerds and hipsters all still buy vinyl records.  Fuck you, though, I'm not paying forty bucks to have a GWAR CD's art blown up to 12"x12" that I'm just going to listen to with a digital download code, anyway.  You people will always be dumb for buying records at anything above Goodwill prices.
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: NONE.

N.I.B. Collector's Edition Radio Sampler EP (1995, Columbia) - I bought this off Ebay back during SACRED REICH FEVER 2000 to get their version of "Sweet Leaf," which is good, because it sounds like Sacred Reich playing "Sweet Leaf."  Other than that, it's just the Ugly Kid Joe and Sepultura tracks from the regular full CD, plus a version of "solitude" by Cathedral that sounds almost exactly like the original, making it kind of unnecessary.
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: NONE.

Out of the Woodwork (1998, Grub) - This is a cheapo punk/ska/hardcore/etc. compilation on a very "cassette demo with an inkjet-printed and photocopied cover" level, and it's really bad, (as evidenced by extreme use of the Comic Sans font, Jesus) but also probably really good by the normal standard of what it is. Like I'm pretty sure this label was just some dude mailing stuff from his house or whatever.  This one band on here called Churl sounds like they probably roll cop cars into ditches, but everything else I can do without. It's mostly just dime-a-dozen late-90s bands, with the addition of one group that sounds like a shitty L7 clone who spent ten grand on their recording, and another group that I was super interested in, because one of their members actually frequented a chatroom I spent the late 90s hanging out in, and they ended up being the shittiest pretend-Korn possible.  Like they sounded like a band of dudes who self-describe as "sick freaks" and eventually died by suffocating inside their own pants. Awful, just terrible.
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: NONE.

Punk for $ale (1998, Lil' Punx Records) - This is along the same lines as Out of the Woodwork, and I'm pretty sure I got it in the same mail order spree.  And boy oh boy, it's really bad, and looking back twenty years later, (oh god) for a genre of music that had a thriving underground scene in the ate 90s, punk rock was in really awful shape.  All you had to do was think up a dumb pun for a name and some lyrics that were like the goofiest They Might Be Giants song, but without any of the cleverness or enjoyability, and you were good to go.  There's a band on here called Anything But Nothing that may be the worst attempt at music I've ever heard, and I've heard Lulu, the Disturbed cover of "The Sounds of Silence," AND Taylor Swift putting raisins all up in Earth Wind & Fire's potato salad, so I've been around the block of bad music a few times.  It's just a marble-mouthed dude trying really hard to not raise his voice, like he's recording vocals while his parents are asleep or something, over guitars and drums that are mixed to be heard on separate speakers, and it's the dirt worst.  I dunno, it's worse than it sounds.  They used the Comic Sans font on the back of this one, too.  Ugh.  In the same order of random crap, I also got this other compilation cassette called ¿Donde Es Tus Huevos? from a label called "Out of Your Ass Records," (That I'm 90% sure was just one guy, and I'm at least 25% sure was the only thing they/he ever released) and it really pisses me off, because that tape was actually really, really good, and I don't have a functioning tape player anymore.  All you can find now are those shitty cheap Walkman-style USB players that break when you look at them sideways, and anything else - even cheap crap and probably-broken used stuff - is always $40 or more.  Man, I can go to Walmart and get a damn Blu-Ray player for like a dollar or whatever, a cassette player that used to be twenty bucks shouldn't be a serious investment.
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: NONE.

Punk-O-Rama III (1998, Epitaph) - This is another one I probably haven't played in almost twenty years, (again - Oh god) but I seem to remember some of it being good.  I'm pretty sure the ones that made it to a mixed tape back in the day were the songs by Zeke, Agnostic Front, Wayne Kramer, and maybe H20, but I dunno, Epitaph had every "big" band that wasn't quite big enough to get on MTV at the time, so the stuff I wasn't super into was still of a certain level of quality, you know?  It's got All, Bad Religion, NOFX, The Dwarves, Voodoo Glowskulls, I dunno, a bunch of stuff, and if you're into the punk rockings of the time, I'm sure there's something here for you. I can't recall anything actually bad being on here, but man, I just never liked The Cramps.  There's just something that's always annoyed me about them, like they're the B-52s of rockabilly.  (I can't stand the B-52s, either)  My tastes are inscrutable sometimes, but they managed to hit a very weirdly exposed nerve somehow.  I'm sorry, The Cramps.  It's not you; it's me.
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: NONE.

Songs From the Penalty Box (1997, Tooth & Nail) - I somehow vividly remember getting this, because there was not a single place to buy CDs in my hometown that wasn't either Walmart or somewhere that sells the same CDs as Walmart, so the rare (every few months, I guess) trip to the mall a few towns away was a big opportunity to stock up on random cheap-ass compilation CDs, in the hope that something on one of them would stick with me.  And uhh, I guess this isn't really bad, like all these bands sound like they're good at what they're doing, but yeah, nothing stuck with me.  I remember all the local punks absolutely freaking out over MxPx, like those were their absolute dudes, and this was the fist time I ever heard them, and just kinda thought "well, this isn't awful, but it sounds like the opening theme to a shitty Saved By the Bell knockoff," and it was one of the first huge red flags that maybe I should just stick mainly to metal when it comes to things made after like 1987 or so. I dunno.  A thing that always struck me as odd about this was that Tooth & Nail Records was theoretically a Christian label, but none of the songs on here seem to to mention our Lord and savior, the risen Christ.  The one hint of a kind of stereotypical Christian entertainment "we're desperate for anything that's not sexy or blasphemous, so we'll take whatever we can find" vibe comes from a random industrial metal band showing up on here.  Whatever.  Cut your flesh and worship Satan, kill posers 666.
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: NONE.

Thorp Records: Hard Working Music Volume 2 (2003, Thorp) - First of All, the name of the record label isn't actually part of the title of this; I just kinda lost this CD and didn't have it turn up until I had already typed up the page with the CDs that theoretically begin with H, so I gamed the system into maintaining alphabetical order.  I am nothing but honest, and this is why I'm America's foremost trusted source of information. Also, this CD was a casualty of a crazy "find as many CDs for less than five bucks" Hastings run in probably 2006, and I legit don't think I've ever actually listened to this beyond just skimming through it.  So much of this is generic 2000s hardcore, just loud, monotonous shit that I'm pretty sure is theoretically filled with great vengeance and furious anger, but somehow ends up sounding just completely dull and bloodless in how much the same as everything else it all sounds. The hardcore scene tried to warn us about metalcore, you guys, it's righ there in the name.  But it's got Madball and Blood for Blood, so that's something, and this song by a band called Stampin' Ground that's the most metal goddamn thing I ever heard, even I kinda suspect that they used a drum machine, but after listening to it later, (purely legally, I can assure you, NSA officer assigned to my case) their album as a whole kinda sucked.  Also, there's a band on here called Sugar Daddie that does a kind of rockin' bluesy thing with a singer that's somewhere in the neighborhood of Lemmy Kilmister and the dude from Antiseen, and my interest has been piqued.
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: NONE. (but I did already have the Blood for Blood CD that's got a song on here)

A Treasury of Sorrows 2004 5CD (2004, Lifeless) - Ah, Christ, buying this was a mistake, and I think it was only like seven bucks, used.  This is a five-CD - five goddamn disks, I tell you, FIVE - compilation of unsigned bands from one of the historical worst time periods even for bands that were considered good enough to get signed to a record company. It's just one shitty metalcore band after another across these five-ass discs, and I will hate this forever, and I will never be its friend.  I mean, this was such a bad idea, like even if there was something good hiding in here, it's impenetrably buried inside a NINEY-NINE track compilation.  Ugh, giant boxed sets should be for "best of" material, not just "here's a hundred bands who agreed to be on here and paid us seventy-five dollars to help get it manufactured" or whatever. Anyway, the only band on here that I've ever heard of is Trivium, so I can confidently say that there is nothing good hiding within its cavernous depths. Fuck.
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: NONE.

Victory Style II (1997, Victory) - Finally, to end this whole goddamn thing with a whimper - which is perhaps the only huge, dumb internet project I'll ever finish - is another CD I bought out of a three-dollar bin that I've never really paid much attention to. HELL YEAH.  I think I mainly bought this to have a version of "Let Me Down" by Cast Iron Hike that doesn't start with a minute of radio static.  Just skimming over the tracklist for stuff I know, Snapcase and Deadguy are both good, and Integrity is sometimes almost good, but I can't stand their singer, which is a huge obstacle, because he's the main guy in the band, I think.  Also, I've never understood what the big deal was about Earth Crisis, like they never sounded much better or worse than most other bands of the type, and the whole straightedge/vegan thing probably encompassed a good 75% of the scene at the time.  Maybe it's because they were assholes about it?  Controversy creates cash - I LEARNED THAT FROM PRO WRASSLIN.' I dunno.  I remember Baby Gopal being terrible, but I don't remember anything at all about them, so maybe not aggressively terrible, at least.
CDs bought as a direct result of this compilation: NONE.

AND IT IS DONE.