Essential Danzig Songs

10. "Snakes Of Christ" (Lucifuge)
Maybe more of an honorable mention of sorts, since I had a lot of songs floating around as potential choices for #10. I leaned toward "Snakes Of Christ" because it seemed to have inspired songs by KISS and Stone Temple Pilots. Maybe I'm hearing what I want to hear, but I can't resist thinking of the heavy riff from "Snakes Of Christ" when I hear KISS' "Unholy" and "Sex Type Thing" from Stone Temple Pilots.

9. "Brand New God" (Danzig 4)
I've went back and forth over how much I actually like Danzig 4. It has a few misfires, although there's an equal amount of stand-outs that I do enjoy. "Brand New God" is among the good tracks and features a few Sabbath-esque twists and turns.

8. "Thirteen" (Danzig 666)
Danzig doesn't hide his influences- such as Elvis and Johnny Cash. In fact, he even wrote a song for Johnny Cash when they were label mates on Rick Rubin's American Recordings Label. Then Danzig recorded his own version years later for his 6th album, or 666th album. I think this version even made it's way into one of the Hangover films, which was a pleasant surprise to hear a Danzig song in a major Hollywood movie over a decade after it's release.

7. "Devil's Plaything" (Lucifuge)
Although this track from the second Danzig album doesn't even crack the top half of my list, I do have an overall stronger opinion of the second album after revisiting it during this digestion of Danzig tunes. Lucifuge appears to have aged the best with it's weaving of blues and metal, making it feel less dated than a bunch of metal songs about demonic nonsense. I still feel the same as I did when I first listened to Danzig, that he has a knack for writing melodies, but he was too set on some kind of tough guy Satan image to breakthrough the mainstream. The whole Lucifuge album is a "killer" wolf, and now it easily ranks among my favorite metal albums of all time.

6. "End Of Time" (Danzig)
I used this song in a community college class, for a project where we added sound effects to a movie clip. The movie clip was from North By Northwest, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Cary Grant. I thought the quiet opening blended well with Grant's character exiting a bus in a desolate area before he comes under fire from a crop duster plane. "The streets are filled with a hollow song..."

5. "Deth Red Moon" (Deth Red Sabaoth)
EASILY the best Danzig song since the "classic" first 4 albums! I had no idea this album was even being released, I just happened to be in the record store waiting to check out, when a guy in line asked about the release date for the new Danzig album. My ears perked up like dog's ears, "DANZIG!!!" This whole album has a back-to-basic feeling, after dipping into industrial metal and other misfires, Deth Red Sabaoth feels like it picks up right after 1990's Lucifuge.

4. "Sistinas" (How The Gods Kill)
Revisiting this Danzig album after so long has felt like a double-edged sword. It used to be my favorite of the classic Danzig era, and some tracks that were once my favorites are no longer even in contention for this list. Yet, the status has risen for "Sistinas."

3. "Mother" (Danzig)
This had to make the list because it's his sole "hit" song, though that's actually a live recording, which was released 5 years after the original album. It's still a bonefide rocker to this day, although now when I think of Danzig, it's more of his cartoon parody on Aqua Teen Hunger Force, than when I was in high school and thought he was a bad ass. I believe even Ryan Adams spoofed this video for his own "Gimme Something Good" music video.

2. "Anything" (How The Gods Kill)
The summer leading into senior year is when I finally received my drivers license, and a few times I was able to borrow my parents' car on the weekends. That fall, a local theater started showing classic 80's movies for $3 on the weekends, so I was usually the driver on those occasions. I don't know which movie it was I was seeing, but this album and song in particular, takes me back to driving around on those nights.

1. "You & Me (Less Than Zero)" (Less Than Zero soundtrack)
Definitely not a typical Danzig song, since I believe this predates the line-up for the original Danzig debut album. I think it falls somewhere between Samhain ending, and Danzig forming, ending up on a soundtrack for the movie Less Than Zero. I believe Glenn Danzig even penned a song for Roy Orbison for this soundtrack too, with Danzig's song falling in line with the same throwback ballad style.