Best Rock Album Nominees for Grammy's 2016

The other day, I noted that the nominees for Best Rock Album were confusing, and because I have dedicated my life to you, I've now gone back and listened to them all to make an informed decision.  By the way, here is the rockin' winner of last year's award:

Smokin' hot mandolin licks, bro!!!  (Full disclosure, I love that album, but best rock album of the year?  Maybe not quite right.)

Here is what I said the other day:

"Best Rock Album:

• James Bay - The Chaos and the Calm
• Death Cab for Cutie - Kintsugi
• Highly Suspect - Mister Asylum
• Muse - Drones
• Slipknot - .5 The Gray Chapter

What the hell, man?  How would you not nominate any of the same bands for Performance and Album?  I've heard two of those albums (and have never even heard of a band called Highly Suspect, which is ironic).  I think four of the albums containing the nominations for Performance would whip these five albums easy. Weird.  I can't even provide any useful context here - I'll have to go listen to these albums and report back."

I still cannot fathom how in the world you would nominate Alabama Shakes, Florence, Foo Fighters, Elle King, and Wolf Alice for Best Rock Performance, and yet NONE of those folks would make the cut for best album.  And vice versa - if these five are the best albums of the year, how come none of them have a single up for Performance?  What is happening here?

As you read, here are the top tracks from each album so that you can taste test for yourself.


Who knows, I don't, but I'm still here to help you make sense of the world.  To get there, I would like to present my new Moneyball-esque rating system which will show the deep advanced metrics and statistical relevance of each of these albums.  This is deep stuff, so take your time and feel free to ask questions.

1. SPoB.  Long recognized as a deep look at the power hitters of music, this shows the Super Position on Billboard.  Loads of proprietary metrics calculated here.  Highest position, time on the charts, and length of time since release all factor in here.  By my measure, Bay takes this category with a 12, barely edging out Muse with an 11.5. This likely shows that my SPoB is flawed, since I had never heard of the guy, but if you can hang on the Billboard chart for 35 weeks, you are doing something right.  However, he never broke 15th of 200, so he loses some points to Muse and Slipknot who both hit #1
2. OWGf.  The all-important Old White Guy factor.  Springsteen consistently bats one million on this metric.  Looking back at the past few years, you've got Beck, Led Zeppelin, Black Keys, Muse, Foo Fighters, and Coldplay.  100% old, established white dudes.  Sadly for Slipknot, anyone over 35 is so terrified about their masks that they will lose this category in a landslide.  As for the other entrants here, Highly Suspect and Muse strike out, and while James Bay puts up a slightly better .100 average, Death Cab absolutely crushes it at .947 with 10 separate articles or interviews archived on NPR about them.  That is OWGf gold, right there.
3. OCwgitBLY.  A more recent advanced metric in the music world, this one stands for Oh Crap we gave it to Beck Last Year.  This one works like a bad call in basketball, where you know the other team is about to get a flagrantly wrong call to make up for that last outrageous call.  James Bay, with his smooth rock falsetto-fest, and Death Cab, with their gentle prettiness, both lose major points here, and although Slipknot would fit this category like an airtight gimp mouthpiece, I don't actually think that anyone is going to really vote for them.  I say Highly Suspect rides a wave of old voters trying to appear hip by voting for the thing they've never heard of, giving HS the advantage in this stat.
4. EBf.  Expert Bloviating factor.  This stat takes "expert" opinions and ratings into account.  In an interesting turn, no major publication rated all five of these albums. Does it seem like maybe they aren't the five best if people paid to review these kinds of things haven't even tried all of them out?  Hmmm?  Anyway, Rolling Stone picks Muse (4) over Death Cab (3.5) and Slipknot (2.5).  Pitchfork picks Death Cab (5.5) over Muse (4.5) - and both of those ratings are out of ten, so the cool kids don't like either of those albums.  Consequence of Sound gives a limp win to Slipknot at C+ over Muse (C) and Death Cab (C-).  Metacritic rates four of the five, which is the best I found, and it gives the win to Slipknot at 77 (but that includes a 100 from Kerrang!, which should be discounted), over Death Cab (67), Muse (63) and James Bay (58). No one rated Highly Suspect, BUT, even though they didn't rate the release, Rolling Stone hyped Highly Suspect before it even came out, adding to their expert bloviation rating.
5. PPRN.  The most important of all five Musicball statistics, the all important Personal Preference Right Now.  This is measured with 100% subjectiveness, based on my thoughts after listening to this music for a few days.  The following ranking is in opposite order of my enjoyment:
1. Slipknot.  Funny thing is that I like hard rock and metal at times, and some of this makes me want to jam it loud and crush baby skulls under my boots.  But the overall experience of listening to the whole album more than once is just too much (especially when jockeying a desk instead of planning an undercover drug raid with Johnny Utah and some meth-head bikers).  But one song at a time, I can dig this.
2. James Bay.  The songwriting is good, the music is nice, his voice is pretty, but I just finished each listen bored and uninterested in trying it again.  Unbelievable that the Grammy folks think that the Slipknot album should be in the same category as this blandly pretty music.  If one of these is rock, then the other is definitely not.
3. Death Cab.  I reviewed this album a while back, and didn't have too much to say about it.  On re-listen this week, I like it more than I remembered. This is a good album.  But the best rock album of the year?
4. Muse.  I also reviewed this album a few weeks ago and was pretty lukewarm about it. But on re-listen, it is better than I remember and worthy of jamming. Again though, the BEST?
5. Highly Suspect.  This is not a fair contest.  Without even playing anything for me, if you told me you would give me the following choices (using real descriptions from Spotify) then the game is rigged.  I already know which of those I want to hear:  
1. "mix of post-Korn alternative metal, Marilyn Manson-esque neo-shock rock, and rap-metal"
2. "moving and evocative folk-pop confections in the vein of Ed Sheeran"
3. "fusion of progressive rock, electronica, and Radiohead-influenced experimentation"
4. "one of indie rock's greatest success stories"
5. or power rock described as being "in the vein of Queens of the Stone Age, King of Leon, ... and Royal Blood,"

The Highly Suspect album is really good.  The Kings of Leon reference is spot on with the vocals.  And the QOTSA and Royal Blood references work well for the crunchy, thick riffs and groove.  If it wasn't for the guitar parts, you could have easily convinced me that this was a new Royal Blood project.  "Lydia," which I included in the playlist above, is their hit, with over 7 million listens on Spotify, but this one is also pretty tight.  "Lost."

Rock and roll, baby.  They win the prize if I had anything to do with the vote, but after reviewing my metrics detailed above, and running the candidates through the dulljack-o-meter, I think I would expect the prize to go to Muse.