Favorite Albums of 2012 - Number 2

Rock and roll is the proverbial young-mans-game. Slogging through a tour, night after night, eating garbage, sleeping little, wearing dirty clothes, sitting around all day waiting to play for anywhere from 30 minutes to 90 minutes looks like it would be drag for someone old and tired like me. When my band does a show it is exhilarating, but I think doing it every night for three months would get taxing. Unless you are the Rolling Stones and fly around in your own jet and stay at the Plaza, but any life out of a suitcase even if you are Mick Jagger can get tiring.

Bob Mould - Silver Age

Bob Mould is 52 years old. He became known as the front man for Hüsker Dü, went solo for a bit, did Sugar, did more solo, became a DJ, came out as gay somewhere in there, then did this record, the best guitar pop record of the year. If you heard Sugar before then you know what is happening on this record. Last year he did a guest spot on the Foo Fighters record and it must have re-awakened the loud guitarist in Bob because this record just roars. It comes out firing and just doesn't stop. Thirty-eight minutes of power pop heaven. Bob has only a handful of tour dates in 2013 and that is sad because I would love to see him do this record on the road. But then again, he is 52 and he paid his dues with the Dü, so maybe we should appreciate him taking it easy. He's doing a bunch of shows in Australia and that isn't too bad.

Here's the lead track "Star Machine." It is in a word frakkinawesome.

Up next: Steve unveils his number one record of 2012. He is pretty sure you have NOT heard of it.