Saturday, July 31, 2010

Top Rock Songs of 2010

10 'Splinter' Sevendust
Despite the welcomed return of guitarist Clint Lowery after a six year absence, this veteran alternative metal band reported that sessions for their eighth studio record were harder than any previous album, due to various personal issues. They certainly are exorcising some demons on this track, angrily demanding that a former lover cut them completely out of their lives.

09 'Fever'Bullet for My Valentine
The title track from the 2010 album of the same name finds lead singer Matt Tuck leading his fellow heavy metal loving Welshman in hot pursuit of a girl who's got him feeling feverish. The track builds speed as his thoughts get less and less rational, to the point where he's ready to trade everything for a girl he hasn't even met.

08 'Awake and Alive' Skillet
This 2010 top rock single features an anthemic, stirring, symphonic sound. Lyrically, the Memphis-based Christian band energize their fans while reminding them it's up to them to remain awake and alive, even when others are pressuring them to feel as though things are out of their control.

07 'No One Gets Left Behind' Five Finger Death Punch
The fourth single from the Los Angeles-based hard rock band's album 'War Is the Answer' takes military leaders to task for treating human lives like pieces on a board game. What happened, they ask, to the long-standing promise to never needlessly put a soldier in harm's way?

06 'The Good Life'Three Days Grace
After nearly five years of non-stop touring, these Canadian hard rockers took a break and returned to their family lives for a quick breather. This pause clearly influenced the theme of the their album 'Life Starts Now,' particularly the second single, 'The Good Life,' which revels in the simple pleasures of home.

05 'Lights Out' Breaking Benjamin
Quite hard to tell if the protagonist from the third straight top rock song off last year's 'Dear Agony' is real or a figment of someone's imagination. The lyrics are either about a monster, determined to punish people who haven't lived up to their potential, or, possibly, the manifestation of an extremely powerful wave of self-doubt that attacks when the lights go out at night.

04 'Nightmare' Avenged Sevenfold
Lead singer M. Shadows happily welcomes an evildoer to his new digs -- either hell or a mental home, hard to tell. He gives a full rundown of the pain that awaits on the churning verses, then uses the deceptively angelic, soaring choruses to remind the villain that their arrival is, well, their own fault.

03 'Crying Like a Bitch' Godsmack
With one song, Godsmack songwriter Sully Ema manages to take a rock star AND a football hero down a few notches. Without revealing names, he's admitted the song is about diva-like behavior from another musician who Sully toured with recently. But the song's title came about after the longtime Raiders fan watched rival Chargers quarterback Phillip Rivers cry after a loss.

02 'Another Way to Die' Disturbed
The anti-pollution message of Disturbed's first single from their upcoming 2010 album 'Asylum' couldn't be more timely, in light of the Gulf of Mexico's recent environmental disaster. The song's tightly coiled, urgent musical delivery gives the message even more weight. Too bad heavy metal can't plug a leaky well.

01 'Bad Company' Five Finger Death Punch
Five Finger Death Punch make their second appearance on our top rock song countdown, recording a studio version of Bad Company's self-mythologizing and self-titled anthem, after performing it in concert for years. Naturally, these war-obsessed metalheads ramp up the stakes both musically and lyrically.

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