Bobaflex, Sophie Lloyd, Steel Woods, Doro and Rob Halford also find a home on Fred Phillips’ list of best 2023 songs.

Nita Strauss, Extreme, Overkill, Winger and Ad Infinitum are among the others who appear on Fred Phillips’ Best of 2023 hard rock and metal albums list.

Louder than Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Blue Cheer arrived 55 years ago this month as something radical – even by the era’s standards of anything goes.

Fred Phillips’ Best of 2022 includes Zeal & Ardor, Whiskey Mysters, Arch Enemy, Ozzy Osbourne and Skid Row, among others.

It’s no match for ‘Slave to the Grind,’ of course, but ‘The Gang’s All Here’ certainly belongs in the conversation with Skid Row’s early albums.

Fred Phillips’ Best of 2021 Hard Rock and Metal also includes Black Label Society, Durbin, Ad Infinitum, Cody Jinks, Unto Others and Iron Maiden, among others.

This year has been lousy for a lot of reasons, but as this Best of 2020 list shows, hard rock and heavy metal were not among them.

Ozzy Osbourne’s ‘Ordinary Man’ is extremely difficult to listen to – not because of the content, but because it sounds like utter crap.

I had misgivings based on my last lackluster experience with Kiss, but in the end, I was glad that I went.

Geoff Tate’s collaboration with Sweet Oblivion may be the closest thing we’ve gotten to the classic Queensryche sound since 1990.