Volume 14 Music Composed

 As of today I have completed composing ten original songs along with the lyrics that will be Volume 14 of my music catalog. I have yet to name the album. I have two songs with titles that could work in a title. Longshot and Lockdown. As in Rockin' the Longshot, or Rockin' the Lockdown. Seeing as how this country is just emerging from a government mandated "lockdown" I might go with that. But I like the Longshot title too. It could depend on what kind of a cover design those titles can be matched to. That is a very important element, and I have yet to research any possible cover designs, as I have only just now finished with the lyrics. I had meant to make this a third album in a row that is a concept album. Like my last two albums, Volumes 12 and 13, which are both concept albums. And it is. So it could be I'll go with the Longshot. But that is not definite yet. At this point, the song list is as follows:

1 - Born in a Maze

2 - You Were Losin'

3 - Bad Boy

4 - Longshot

5 - Why Can't We

6 - Woman of Straw

7 - Penalty

8 - It's Money

9 - Lockdown

10 - Who's Laughing Now

I don't think you can discern the storyline from the titles. Maybe you can. Whereas Volume 12 was about a man in space, whereas Volume 13 is about the end of life. Volume 14 is about a man who starts from nothing, makes it big, falls back to nothing, makes it big again, and falls again to nothing. So it's not a rags-to-riches story, its more like a rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-riches-to-rags kind of story. And there is a love interest included with the song Woman of Straw. I went back to the love ballad genre for that one. I thought I had a good talent for those kind of songs as my Volume 1 displayed. Anyway, I'm pleased I was able to get the music written, arranged, and recorded during my summer break. I hope I can get the vocals added by next week. And once the vocals are done, I'll send the SD card to San Diego so all ten songs can be made into my fourteenth CD.  

Working on Volume 14

 Since my books are pretty much done or on hiatus, I'm really into my music now. As I've posted earlier, I have 13 total albums that I've written, composed, arranged, performed, recorded, and posted on SoundCloud. You can click on any one of them in the right margin of this blog.

I believe every song on every album is great. If I were to rank them like I did for the Black Sabbath albums, there would be several tens, some nines, and nothing under an eight. That's what I think of my music. But note that I am really only ranking the songs. If I were to rate my singing on the songs, well, then, that would be a very different story. I am not a professional singer. Actually, I'm not a singer at all. But hey, it's my music, so I can sing the songs. 

But anyway, I had once thought I would stop at 13 albums, since that's a lot of albums. And a lot of songs. 135 songs to be exact, and all kinds of different songs. Fast, slow, love, ballads, rock, jazzy and more. Alternative rock is what I mostly call the genre of music I have there. And since I will no longer be writing any new books, I am back in the music mode.

So why stop at 13 albums. I had two songs left over from when I stopped writing music about fifteen years ago. So I had always had it in the back of my mind to write at least one more album and reach fourteen albums. At this point I have written nine of the songs that will go on Volume 14. I'm in the process of composing and arranging the tenth song at this time. And I'm very happy with how they have turned out.

Once this tenth song is done, I will write the lyrics and do my singing thing. At that point I hire a man in San Diego to put the CD together, and there you go. Of course, I create the album cover design, as I've done with all the prior albums. And I'll think of an album title. I like what I've done in that regard. Meaning I start the titles as Rockin' the.... So it will be Rockin' the something or other. Sometimes I use a song title to finish the album title, but sometimes I don't. We'll see. I hope to be finished by the end of the summer. At that point, it will be back to being a teacher in the California public school system. Oh, and by the way, I'm back to teaching piano and music now. Not just art. They even bought me a new Yamaha upright piano! How cool is that? No complaints here.

Black Sabbath Albums from best to worst

 I had rated every song on every Ozzy era Black Sabbath album, which brings me to the concluding post on the matter, which is ranking the albums from best to worst. (Worst being a relative term, as the word implies not good, which is not the case. They are all good.)

So we have a three way tie for first place. Black Sabbath, their debut album, Paranoid, their second effort, and Master of Reality, their third, all rate a ten, which is because every song on all three of these albums rate a full ten out of ten. Meaning every song is a great song. Note that I do not include that one song that was added to their debut album when it became a CD. I don't like that song much, but since it wasn't on there for the first twenty plus years, I won't consider it for THIS ranking.

The listing is as follows, with the overall rating in parentheses:

Album Title                            Rating        Ranking

Black Sabbath                     (10/10)        Tied 1st     

Paranoid                              (10/10)        Tied 1st       

Master of Reality                (10/10)         Tied 1st      

Vol 4                                      (9/10)            4th             

Never Say Die                     (8.5/10)           5th              

Sabotage                             (8.25/10)       Tied 6th     

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath  (8.25/10)       Tied 6th

13                                          (8/10)             8th

Technical Ecstasy               (7/10)            9th

So in conclusion, my favorite albums are the first three. Interesting to note is that all three of those albums were released within one year of each other. Black Sabbath and Paranoid both came out in 1970 and Master of Reality came out in 1971. So they must have had the songs written and compiled long before they made it big. Then, starting with Vol 4, they had to start writing songs to meet contractual deadlines. So that could be why the ratings are lower. Remember, these rankings reflect my preference after listening to these albums for close to fifty years now. Time has passed, the band is done, and that's what happens to everyone sooner or later. Too bad they were having problems with Ozzy during the recording of Never Say Die, and then with Bill for 13. But problems seem to happen with every band sooner or later. Such is life.