The Fire Note Blazing Top 50 Albums Of 2023
2023 was a great year in music! Solid release after solid release made this year’s list one of the hardest to put together in TFN’s 17-year history. The simple fact…
The Fire Note Writer Edition Top Albums of 2023
At The Fire Note, our writers are the heart and soul of what we do. We want to give a big shout-out to these amazing folks (past and present) who…
The Blazing Top 50 Albums Of 2022
The music world has been slowly uncoiling from the pandemic which gave us another onslaught of great 2022 releases this year. This created another tough think tank around what albums…
The Fire Note Writer Edition Top Albums of 2022
The Fire Note would not be possible without the talented writers that share their educated thoughts and true enjoyment of music with our readers. The time and commitment that goes…
Prog 2022: The Year In Review
2022 was a banner year for us here at The Fire Note as we rolled out a new section on the website – The Prog Corner! In addition to that…
The Blazing Top 50 Albums Of 2021
2021 was great year in music! Solid release after solid release made this year’s list one of the hardest to put together in TFN’s 15 year history. 2021 brought us…
The Fire Note Writer Edition Top Albums of 2021
The Fire Note would not be possible without the talented writers that share their educated thoughts and true enjoyment of music with our readers. The time and commitment that goes…
Prog 2021: The Year In Review
It is with great sadness that we present this year’s Prog Year In Review. The world of progressive rock lost one of its leading lights when David Longdon of Big…
The Blazing Top 50 Albums of 2020
Well, 2020 has certainly sucked for so many reasons but TFN has found some silver lining in the fantastic music that was released this year. From the surprise album releases…
Top 25 Artists Of The Week 2020 – Discover, Support, Share
TFN Artists Of The Week is one of our favorite features and probably is the one which gets the most attention. In 2020, we featured 125 artists that deserved your…
The Fire Note Top Albums of 2020: Writer Edition
The Fire Note would not be possible without the talented writers that share their educated thoughts and true enjoyment of music with our readers. The time and commitment that goes…
Prog 2020: The Year In Review
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Dickens himself couldn’t have explained this year any better. With a global pandemic virtually shutting the music industry…
Still Standing: First Generation Rockers & Musicians Need Love Too!
The recent death of Little Richard Penniman was a stark reminder that the founders of rock and pop music are not getting any younger. It’s been nearly 70 years since…
The Blazing Top 50 Albums of 2019
#50 Steve Gunn The Unseen In Between Matador Records [2019] Steve Gunn is a well-known industry talent that really took a step forward in 2016 with his Matador Records debut…
Top 25 Tracks of 2019
Music has been good this year! Each week, I tried to sample at least a song from each new single, EP, or album. As I did so, I created a…
Top 10 TFN Artists Of Week 2019: Discover, Support, Share
We brought back one of our favorite features this year with several small tweaks and over the last third of 2019 we highlighted 33 artists that deserved your indie ear….
The Fire Note Writer Edition Top Albums of 2019
The Fire Note would not be possible without the talented writers that share their educated thoughts and true enjoyment of music with our readers. The time and commitment that goes…
Prog 2019: The Year In Review
The apocryphal, and often repeated, origin story of Prog has it that in 1969 King Crimson released In The Court Of The Crimson King and a new genre had been…
Prog 2018: The Year In Review
As another calendar year comes to an end it seems like 2018 was full of yardmarkers – elections, mass shootings, North Korea, etc. But it will be remembered in the…
The Blazing Top 50 Albums of 2018
#50 Ty Segall & White Fence Joy Drag City Records [2018] It wouldn’t be a good year if there were not plenty of Ty Segall records to spin. Joy brought…
The Fire Note Writer Edition Top Albums of 2018
The Fire Note would not be possible without the talented writers that share their educated thoughts and true enjoyment of music with our readers. The time and commitment that goes…
Honorable Mention Albums 2018
The simple fact is that TFN receives hundreds of albums every year for review. In regards to our annual best of list -The Blazing Top 50, TFN follows the rule…
The Blazing Top 50 Albums of 2017
#50 Old 97’s Graveyard Whistling ATO Records [2017] Drinkin’, whiskey, cars, trouble, women, God and Texas – Dallas, Texas that is. That has been the story of the Old 97’s…
The Fire Note Writer Edition Top Albums of 2017
The Fire Note wouldn’t be possible without the talented writers that share their educated thoughts and true enjoyment of music with our readers. The time and commitment that goes into…
Prog 2017: The Year In Review
Progressive Rock is not dead. It’s been relegated to the back of the line but it refuses to go away. And this is the time of year I get to…
The Blazing Top 50 Albums of 2016
#50 M Ross Perkins M Ross Perkins SofaBurn Records [2016] It was a good year for Dayton, Ohio native M. Ross Perkins. He had a track premiered by the High…
Honorable Mention Albums of 2016
Let’s face it – not every album we enjoyed can end up in our year end Blazing Top 50. Many times, there are records that almost make the cut and…
Prog 2016 – The Year In Review
It’s been a rough couple years for Prog with the losses of Chris Squire of Yes, Keith Emerson and Greg Lake of ELP, Nektar’s Roye Albrighton and Daevid Allen of…
The Fire Note Writer Edition Top Albums of 2016
The Fire Note wouldn’t be possible without the talented writers that share their educated thoughts and true enjoyment of music with our readers. The time and commitment that goes into…
The Blazing Top 50 Albums of 2015
#50 Radioactivity Silent Kill Dirtnap Records [2015] Punk rock has been getting a bad rap over the last decade or so for not being creative, fresh or even fun. What…
The Fire Note Writer Edition Top Albums of 2015
The Fire Note wouldn’t be possible without the talented writers that share their educated thoughts and true enjoyment of music with our readers. The time and commitment that goes into…
The Blazing Top 50 Albums of 2014
#50 The Safes Record Heat Wee Rock Records [2014] #50 is one of the hardest positions to select because there are plenty of albums that just missed the list. What…
The Fire Note Honorable Mention Albums of 2014
We will admit that we are only human. 2014 flew by and as always there were plenty of albums that never hit our review page that should have been included…
The Fire Note Writer Edition Top Albums of 2014
The Fire Note wouldn’t be possible without the talented writers that have signed on here to share their educated thoughts and true enjoyment of music with our readers. Our year…
The Blazing Top 50 Albums of 2013
#50 Joanna Gruesome Weird Sister Slumberland Records [2013] Boy/girl vocals, teenage angst, noise pop, loud guitars, high energy, feedback and double time drums are just some of the great rock…
Top 20 Guitar Riffs of 2013
The Fire Note never claims to know all about the mighty guitar riff but we’ve given a listen to plenty of albums this year. I’m even sure there are some…
Honorable Mention Albums of 2013
Let’s face it – not every album can end up in our year end Blazing Top 50. Sometimes there are records that almost do make the cut and honestly probably…
The Fire Note Writer Edition Top Albums of 2013
The Fire Note wouldn’t be possible without the talented writers that have signed on here to share their educated thoughts and true enjoyment of music with our readers. Our year…
The Blazing Top 50 Albums of 2012
#50 Nada Surf The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy Barsuk Records [2012] The combining of Nada Surf’s focus with their high spirits made The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy one…
The Fire Note Writer Edition Top Albums of 2012
The Fire Note wouldn’t be possible without the talented writers that have signed on here to share their educated thoughts and true enjoyment of music with our readers. Our year…