The votes came in across Substack and Patreon. We got arguments about “One in a Million,” reservations about L.A. Guns’ consistency, a few strong Tesla defenses, and more than one person discovering Holland in real time.
And after all that?
A tie between two records with very different stories behind them.
The first-round results
Holland — Little Monsters | 31.25%
L.A. Guns — Cocked & Loaded | 31.25%
Tesla — The Great Radio Controversy | 25.00%
Guns N’ Roses — Lies| 12.50%
Tesla made a serious late push. Joe Royland made a persuasive case that The Great Radio Controversy avoided the sophomore slump and improved on Tesla’s debut. But prior Dig Me Out coverage of Mechanical Resonance clearly factored into some voting. And while Guns N’ Roses had their defenders, Lies could not overcome the record’s dated, controversial material for several voters.
Which leaves us with the two albums that sparked the most interesting argument.
The case for Holland
Holland is the record on this ballot that feels like a genuine Dig Me Out mission: a riff-heavy Chicago hard-rock album that seemed built for bigger things, then slipped away before enough people got the chance to hear it.
Scott Halgirm put it simply: “So Holland.”
Gavin called Little Monsters “pretty good,” but said its obscurity was what tipped the scale: “Which leaves Holland for the win, plus it’s pretty good.”
Kyle Bittner had never heard the band, but the mystery—and that cover—was enough: “Rolling with the majority and going with Holland. Never heard of them and the cover is wicked.”
For Mike Androff, it was more than a discovery. He remembered Holland getting regular play on Chicago’s Real Precious Metal radio in the mid-’80s, especially “Gotta Run” and “Wake Up the Neighborhood,” and called the album formative to his growing metal and hard-rock tastes.
Joe Royland also pointed out that Little Monsters features the lead guitar work of future shred fixture Michael Angelo Batio. That is exactly the kind of loose thread Dig Me Out likes to pull: a band with the songs, the players, and the regional momentum—then no obvious second chapter.
The case for L.A. Guns
Then there is Cocked & Loaded: not a mystery, exactly, but a record with enough hooks, grit, and guitar swagger to keep earning another listen.
Jacob Miller got right to the point: “Only reason I am not doing Tesla is because Mechanical Resonance was already done. gimme LA Guns.”
That is the L.A. Guns argument. If Holland is the band that might have been huge, Cocked & Loaded is the record that knew exactly what it was trying to do and did it with a sneer, a chorus, and a guitar riff that arrives wearing sunglasses indoors.
Scott’s critique is fair—“Cocked n Loaded has its moments but pretty inconsistent”—but it still made enough of a case to finish tied for first. That is why we need the runoff.
Vote in the runoff below. It stays open for 24 hours.
The winner becomes the next full Dig Me Out episode and Substack post: the band’s story, the album review, the ratings, the community score, and the comments that helped put it there.