The Ultimate Sinner
For Father’s Day, my wife and son purchased me a subscription for Sirius XM. It’s a pretty killer gift—something I’ve considered getting for a while—considering that for my job I drive around all day (don’t worry, I make up for the carbon footprint in other ways). Not long after my subscription started was I listening to the Ozzy’s Boneyard channel, which plays 70s hard rock and classic metal, that I heard the DJ announce a contest in which they were summoning their listeners to create the Ultimate Sinner Playlist consisting of five ultimate hard rock/classic metal songs and the winner would get a spot on the air to play theirs, announcing each song. Right away, I was in. I’ve had a longstanding fantasy about being a radio DJ. Not that I am possessed with the gift of gab, not at all. But if there’s one thing I can talk about, it’s music. And I feel like I know a lot of music that should get radio airplay; bands that others would love if they heard it. This was my big chance, so I got to work.
It took me about two weeks to come up with the playlist that my brain deemed perfect. I would add songs to the list, scribble down a blurb on why the band/song deserved a spot on the Ultimate Sinner Playlist, and then the next day would realize that Slayer was too heavy for Ozzy’s Boneyard listeners, that the heavier stuff got played on the Liquid Metal station. The process of weeding out. I was still new to Sirius XM; learning what bands got played where. For a few days I listened exclusively to Ozzy’s Boneyard and while they did play the occasional Metallica song, the station tended to stick to the classic stuff; the kind of hard rock and metal that influenced all the really heavy stuff that would come later. I was surprised at how much love Van Halen got on the station.
Without further ado, here is what I came up with. My playlist and my reasoning. I haven’t heard back from Sirius XM yet but with a little luck you’ll get to hear me announce these over the airwaves. Until then, you’ll just have to read about it.
Judas Priest- Living After Midnight
KISS- Makin’ Love
AC/DC- Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
Thin Lizzy- Jailbreak
Motorhead- Born to Raise Hell
This, my fellow Ozzy’s Boneyard listeners, is the Ultimate Sinner Playlist. I say this with confidence as I am one of you. Rock n’ roll is my religion. What regular folks view as sins, we view as a good time. Sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. Okay, so truth be told I’m 42 years old, married with an awesome son—a budding metalhead—so the sex and drugs part is a thing of the past for me. But rock n’ roll still steers my ship. Always has, always will. When I heard that Ozzy’s Boneyard was looking to their listeners to put together the Ultimate Sinner Playlist, filled with five ultimate hard rock and classic metal songs, I put on my thinking cap. In my mind the criteria was as such: first and foremost it needs to rock. Without that, we’ve got nothing. Next I needed to make sure the bands on this are all classic hard rock and metal bands. I love me many an obscure metal band but that’s not what this playlist is all about. This one needs to be filled with heavy hitters that the people know and love. And finally, each song needs to be about sinning and since I was raised Catholic until the eighth grade when I got confirmed and was allowed to make my own choice (spoiler alert: I never went back) what qualifies as sins was imprinted on my brain since I was young so I know what to look for. In short, if it’s fun they probably think it’s a sin. So here it is…my Ultimate Sinner Playlist for Ozzy’s Boneyard on Sirius XM.
Judas Priest- Living After Midnight
This is the Ultimate Sinner Playlist and there’s no better way to open it up than with the metal gods: Judas Priest. It would’ve made a whole lot of sense to go with their song Sinner off of their Sin After Sin album. As good of a tune as it is, opening up a playlist with a 7 minute song is a good way to get someone to turn off said playlist. So instead, I jumped ahead a few years.
Living After Midnight was a smash hit for Priest off their 1980 album British Steel.
My dad used to say that nothing good happens after midnight. Of course this prompted my teenage brain to set its sights on venturing out after midnight to see what he meant by that. I did my fair share of living after midnight in my teens and twenties and looking back, my dad was right. But the rules of a father to his suburban teenage son do not apply to one of the biggest heavy metal bands of all time.
One of the many amazing things about Judas Priest is that very few, if any, can out metal the metal gods. Songs like Rapid Fire, Screaming for Vengeance, and Painkiller are blasts of power intended to melt the face of the listener. But they could also write a kickass, hook-laden hard rock song that would lodge itself in the ears of all that crossed its path for days. That’s what Living After Midnight is: a bonafide hit, rockin’ enough for the metalheads yet hooky enough for the normies. Play it at any backyard BBQ and you won’t get any complaints. And the fact that the metal god himself, Rob Halford, is singing about the debauchery that takes place after midnight is shared with a wink amongst those in the know.
So let’s get this Ultimate Sinner Playlist started. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and get that caffeine flowing through your system so you can crank up Judas Priest and do some Living After Midnight.
KISS- Makin’ Love
Many religions state that promiscuous sex or sex before marriage is a sin. If that’s the case, there’s a spot in hell for each of the members of KISS and I sure do hope they’re still making the rounds on the End of the Road Tour when I eventually get down there. No one wrote more songs about doing the nasty than KISS. In truth I didn’t get into KISS until I was older. I came of age in the nineties so by that decade there were bands—many of them influenced by KISS—that were a whole lot more dangerous than they were and I didn’t want to hear songs about courting women, I wanted to DESTROY. But the older I got the more my appreciation for KISS grew. No one was more dangerous than Paul, Gene, Peter, and Ace in the seventies and no one had as many ladies. And on top of that, very few other bands could pen as catchy a tune as KISS.
If sins were guitar amplifiers, this one would go to eleven. Makin’ Love has got all of the ingredients that make up a perfect KISS song: a kickass riff, a gnarly bassline, a killer solo, a driving drum beat, and a vocal melody that’ll have you singing along, even if the lyrics do make you blush. So grab your greasepaint, enlist in the KISS Army, and get ready to rock out. This is Makin’ Love off of 1976’s Rock and Roll Over by the one and only KISS.
AC/DC- Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
I have this non-contextualized memory of the first time I ever heard of AC/DC. I was a kid, probably 8 or 9, at a BBQ at the house of one of my dad’s coworkers. You know those parties where you don’t know the other kids but they’re around your age so you just fall in line and start playing with them? The movie Like Father Like Son with Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron was on the TV and I forget how AC/DC got brought up (it’s likely that their song was playing on the radio out back where the adults were) but one of the kids told me their name stood for Anti-Christ Devil Children and it scared the living daylights out of me. For years I thought they were devil worshippers and played heavy metal music. It scared me until one day a switch flipped and I thought that notion was rad and instantly became a fan.
I’m a riff guy more than a lyrics guy. In the nineties I was heavy into the hardcore scene and most of those bands screamed their brains out. I had no idea what they were saying and I didn’t bother trying to figure it out. I focused on the crushing riffs and pounding drums. That said, it took me a long time to realize that the narrator in AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap was a hitman inviting people to give him a call or pay him a visit at home where he would offer his services to resolve their problems. The list of services he offers are: concrete shoes, cyanide, TNT, neckties, contracts, and high voltage. Murder is definitely a sin, this song—like the majority of AC/DC’s songs—rules, and Beavis and Butthead gave this jam new life back in the nineties introducing it to a whole new generation of metalheads.
So strap in and let’s go down under with AC/DC. This is Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.
Thin Lizzy- Jailbreak
Thin Lizzy are not a metal band. They are a rock n’ roll band. But they seem to be the rock n’ roll band that most metalheads can agree upon. Where Black Sabbath is a metal band—what most consider to be the first metal band—they are one that many metalheads turn to when they are looking to chill out. Sabbath are heavy as hell but they’ve got that stoner, doom vibe which makes their version of metal perfect for zoning out (or zoning in, as it were). In much the same way, when we heshers need those rare breaks from the crushing riffs, but when we still need a soundtrack to our day, we turn to Thin Lizzy.
Jailbreak is a perfect rock n’ roll song. It’s got a memorable riff, a solid beat, a ripping solo, an anthemic vocal melody, and lyrics about rebellion. It’s not clear what the narrator did to find himself in jail, but no doubt it was something sinful. What is clear is that the power of rock n’ roll compelled him to bust out of those iron bars, gather his friends, and wreak havoc on this town that’s done him no favors. That may not be so great for the townspeople but it sure is for us as Jailbreak is as classic a hard rock song as you’re going to find so without further ado, let’s hear it: this is Jailbreak from 1976 by Thin Lizzy.
Motorhead- Born to Raise Hell
The early era of Motorhead gets so much love, and deservedly so. The classic lineup of Lemmy on bass and vocals, Fast Eddie Clark on guitar, and Philthy Phil Taylor on drums had magic. But I started discovering music—my own music—in the 90s and back then a lot of it came from the radio, MTV, or movie soundtracks. So the first time I became aware of Motorhead was from the movie Airheads which starred Brendan Fraser, Adam Sandler, and Steve Buscemi. There’s a famous scene in which Fraser’s character, Chazz, asks an undercover cop posing as a record label executive “who would win in a wrestling match: Lemmy or god?” The cop, who also played Egon in Ghostbusters, telling him what he wants to hear answers: “Lemmy” and then Buscemi delivers the classic line: “Wrong, dickhead. Trick question. Lemmy is god.” Then and there I decided I needed to find out who this Lemmy character was and lucky for me I didn’t have to search too hard as they had a song featured in the soundtrack, Born to Raise Hell.
So my intro to Motorhead was the second incarnation with Phil Campbell on guitar and Mikkey Dee on drums behind Lemmy. I’m not trying to make any enemies but it’s hard to beat Mikkey Dee banging on those drums. Plus, this lineup had the benefit of that amazing 90s production when things sounded huge but Pro Tools hadn’t taken over yet so it still sounded completely organic. No need to compare and no need to choose a side but I will say this: if your only reference point of Motorhead is Ace of Spades and Overkill (both amazing records) I urge you to check out the album Inferno from 2004 and also Bastards from 1993, which is where you’ll hear Born to Raise Hell.
Motorhead’s often imitated, never duplicated style perfectly blended hard rock, heavy metal, and punk with some heavy blues influences in its bones. Back in the late 70s metalheads and punks often drew a line in the sand that you were one or the other, there wasn't a whole lot of crossover…until Motorhead came along. They were the band that metalheads and punks could agree upon. Both wanted to claim them as their own but Motorhead was in a genre all their own. Motorhead embodies the spirit of rock n’ roll. It’s their religion and the number one rule of faith in the religion of rock n’ roll is that sinning is not only allowed, it’s encouraged. So turn that volume knob to the right as far as it’ll go and raise some hell with Motorhead.
