Tuesday, August 11, 2015

The Best Rock Albums of 1996

Today's post in 50 Years of Music, a section of my blog devoted to the best rock albums of the past fifty years, will include the best albums of 1996. I have covered 30 years of music in other posts (1965-95), which can be found by typing the year into the search bar at the top of my blog. Each post in 50 Years of Music is updated frequently, with new albums recommended by readers added to the posts. What's your favorite?
  • Tool- Aenima
  • Rage Against the Machine- Evil Empire
  • R.E.M.- New Adventures in Hi-Fi
  • Soundgarden- Down on the Upside
  • Korn- Life Is Peachy
  • Metallica- Load
  • Social Distortion- White Light White Heat White Trash
  • Pearl Jam- No Code
  • Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers- The Greek Songs and Music from "She's the One" (Soundtrack)
  • Beck- Odelay
Rush- Test for Echo (1996)
Test for Echo is the sixteenth studio album by the Canadian progressive rock group Rush released on September 10, 1996. The album reached #5 on the U.S. Billboard 200 Chart and charted at #25 on the UK Albums Chart. The album has been certified Gold in both the United States and United Kingdom.

Test for Echo includes five singles-- "Test for Echo," "Half the World," "Driven," "Virtuality," and "Resist." The title track of the album was a success for the band and reached #1 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock Chart, with all the other singles excluding "Resist" reaching the top 20 of the same chart. Other notable songs on the album include "Limbo," "Carve Away the Stone," and "Dog Years."

Notable of the album is that it is the final Rush album released before the tragic events occurring in Neil Peart's life, which put the band on hold for several years. Also, Test for Echo is the first Rush album where Peart used the 'traditional grip' with his drumsticks for the majority of the album after receiving lessons from jazz instructor Freddie Gruber. Finally, the picture featured on the front of the album is of an inukshuk, which is a stone figure in the shape of a human created by the Inuits to mark a food cache, hunting group, or place where someone died. The inukshuk is native to the band's home country of Canada.

Alexander Schwartz - JPageFan71
The Antagonists

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