hey writer-types, do you ever get any big label rock records that are worth listening to twice?

Opinions vary.

but the indies is more than sufficient for rock now.

Hard rock for people who don't like hard rock to thread.

huck johns (hideout, apparently distributed by capitol)
*aquamarine* soundtrack (if teen-pop counts, on epic)
damone (on island, and as great as george says above)
def leppard all-covers album (mercury/island)
stefy (not-out-yet better-than-no-doubt girl-led new wave on wind up, creed's and evanescence's label -- that can't really count as an indie, can it?)
flyleaf (octone, distributed by sony)
shooter jennings (universal; george doesn't like this but i do and so does don allred)
towers of london (okay, TVT, lil jon's label; technically an indie; also technically not out yet)
hard-fi (necessary/atlantic, kinda fun if you don't hate *combat rock*)

(i have no use for system of a down or korn though, and never will.)

the answer is no.

... and Chuck's right, it does seem like a lot of major-label "rock" is along the lines of Fall-Out Boy, Ashlee and Gretchen Wilson ... party-pop for purty people. Though a lot of it is nevertheless pretty good.

Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.

I also like the new CD by the Lordz, formerly Lordz of Brooklyn, which has covers of "New York Groove" and "People Who Died" plus good rock riffs in a couple songs plus Everlast and Tim Armstrong guest spots, and is on Perfect Game, apparently distributed by East/West, apparently distributed in turn by Warner Bros.

And the new Buckcherry album is actually not bad, but nope, not on a major, I don't think -- though, come to think of it, it's hard to believe the album would've hung around on the chart as long as it did without major distibution. So maybe it was in the fine print.

What about those Avenged Sevenfold guys? Their singles have seemed alright, but not great.
And didn't The Darkness put out an album not too long ago?

(For some reason, we only tend to get serviced with Christina Agulara and her knockoffs [which is fine], Christian rock, and bizarre hip hop/country hybrids. Which means that whatever mailing lists we're on have wildly misjudged our audience and scope).

I do remember talking to Scott ???, Alanis Morisette's manager, about a new rock act that he was promoting a couple of years ago. He gave me the rap about how they were going to "save rock" during the Detroit garage tsunami, and they've had a couple of promos that have shown up at my door. They seem to epitomize the inability of current rock to write decent hooks and the reliance on simulated debauchery for lyrical content. I mean, while I'm sure there were a couple of songs that are flitting through the mental net, I can't remember Guns n Roses, Poison or Motley Crue ever singing about wrecking hotel rooms. They sang their songs about chicks and booze or whatever, and then they just DID debauch themselves. They never had to gimme a buncha autotuned bullshit about how they were gonna be badass after the show, they just WERE badass after the show.

The new one dumped it all. It might as well be a different band.
As for being like Andrew WK. Hmmm, if they were like the first album with the fake bloody nose pic, I don't hear it. Damone don't have keys like Andrew WK. Second WK album I forfeited on, so I dunno.

"What We Came Here For" must have the Slade influence xhuxk is hearing because it stomps in a thumping, boot boy pop boogie manner. "On Your Speakers" is the best tune on the album. Preceding it is "Stabbed in the Heart" which is a ballad, but a very definitely rock-and-roll [!] ballad. Aside: "Everything," "Carousel" and "Cherry" fit the same classic rock, delivered major label-style, on Buckcherry's new one.]

Damone's record, although not the same, fits nicely side by side with Cheap Trick's Rockford, which is also no disgrace and imprinted strongly by MAJOR LABEL taint. As in, the best tune, "Perfect Stranger," was co-written and produced by Linda Perry. Now I don't give a shit about Linda Perry or her rep/legacy, but that song is a good one.

And all of these pale slightly in comparison to Def Leppard's "Yeah!"
Which also happens to be major label product. The cover of "Waterloo
Sunset" made me an Anglophile all over again.

also this week, and also on East West, i got the new album by *2 Cents*. and they are about 48 cents shy of being memorable. i don't even know how to describe their album. it's the epitome of something, but i don't know what. and half of it is remixes! just...oof...i'm at a loss.

Well, there are some in my piles. But they don't outnumber the major label ones filed in the same piles.

OTM X 10 jillion

but the new rock stuff I stream there tends not to be from big labels and frankly I spend most of my time rooting around in the past. Oh and do jazz labels like Blue Note, Impulse and CTI count?

I don't mind at all, as long as you promise not to use "compare" as a noun anymore. That really freaks me out, for some reason. (Maybe it reminds me of how the New York tabloids always say "gang slay" when they mean "gang slaying" in their cover headlines.) (So who the hell am I, William Safire??)

I get pretty great indie rock records all the time. But I live near Detroit and love The Dirtbombs, The Paybacks, The Muggs, etc.
The flip side of this coin, to me, would be looking for an indie pop album worth listening to twice. There might be some of 'em, but I never seem to get 'em. Rap also seems to benefit from big budgets anymore, though there are some exceptions.

OTM comparison. The band got/get a lot of rasio play over here, and though I don't like them at all, they do at least rock, and have a few memorable tunes.