What a movie!.
So there was no way I could not buy the soundtrack. But these kinds of soundtracks don’t work for me, because the music sounds epic with the imagery, which makes you either want to go to war or cry.
So even though I have the CD, I experience the music via the DVD.
Michael Sweet is one of the hardest working musicians these days. The arena days of the 80’s are long gone, but if creating music was all about playing arenas, then Sweet would have packed it in a long time ago. From his work ethic, the need to create is more important than anything else.
And each album has a track which makes me pay attention.
“Shine” is the one on his newest solo album “Ten”.
The riffage, the chorus vocal melody and the music under the Chorus, are all very similar to the songs he writes for Stryper. In other words, Michael Sweet is Stryper and Stryper is Michael Sweet.
Times are tough
The waves get rough
And it’s hard to see the land
Man, times are tough, especially if we let our small lizard brain control everything. You need to remember, the human body is designed to fight or flight.
In other words, it’s designed to survive. It’s been that way from the sabre tooth days and it’s still wired that way, even when you lay down in the comfort of your bed. So when those times are tough and your mind is telling you to give up, remember that you are designed to survive.
You’ve seen it all
And taken falls
And you’ve stood the test of time
You’re a conqueror, a warrior
And your spirit is sublime
Living makes you experience failure and success.
How you deal with setbacks and success, is how you survive.
Hey – there’s only one of you
Hey – don’t let life run you through
Hey – you’re one of a kind
You don’t have to hide
All you have to do is shine
Damn right, you only have one life, so don’t throw it away focusing on past wrongs or allowing toxic people sap your energy and light.
And the Guitar solo by gunslinger Ethan Brosh, is worthy of attention. But will anyone care in our noisy society.
And straight after “Shine” comes “Let It Be Love”, a stellar ballad with one of Sweet’s best vocal performances, which goes into “Never Alone” and “When Love Is Hated” (with its “Immigrant Song” from Led Zeppelin groove merged with the “Lady Of The Lake” from Rainbow groove), basically the four best songs on the album, back to back.
This is the final 1984 post where everything else fits in. This is the music which came into my life from music television, movies and the older siblings from my friends, or my brothers friends.
And if you look at some of the sale numbers from the albums, these albums became so big it was hard to avoid the songs on them as radio played em and music television played em.
Here is the playlist.
Footloose
The movie was everywhere.
It’s music was everywhere.
There wasn’t a person alive in 1984 that could have missed this cultural phenomenon.
And it’s funny how the same repeat offenders appeared on the same big soundtracks.
Kenny Loggins delivers a stellar title track, with roots in the 60’s Rock and Roll movement. He also wrote “Danger Zone” for the “Top Gun” movie in 1986 , “Hearts On Fire” for “Rocky IV” and “Meet Me Half Way” for Stallone’s “Over The Top” which also had a killer Sammy Hagar track in “Winner Takes It All”. Stan Bush was another artist who had his songs appear in movies.
Ann Wilson (from Heart) and Mike Reno (from Loverboy) deliver a stellar ballad in “Almost Paradise”.
Bonnie Tyler’s anthem, “Holding Out For A Hero” appears while “Somebody’s Eyes” by Karla Bonoff is very Police like; just think of “King Of Pain”, even Gotye would have been inspired by it.
“The Girl Gets Around” from Sammy Hagar is on the soundtrack, but it’s not on the Spotify version of the soundtrack, but then again, a lot of the Sammy stuff is missing from Spotify Australia.
The original soundtrack ended with the song “Never” from Moving Pictures. And that synth lick to kick the song off, sounds heavy on distorted guitar. Plus it has a galloping riff in the verses which reminds me of “The Trooper” verses.
In 1998, a 15th anniversary edition was released and it added “Bang Your Head (Metal Health)” from Quiet Riot, “Hurts So Good” from John Mellencamp and “Waiting For A Girl Like You” from Foreigner. To me, it’s a triple home run and almost 10 million in sales in the U.S alone.
Huey Lewis And The News – Sport
This album really came out in 1983 but its success came in 1984.
Over 7 million in sales in the U.S. plus extra royalties, when Huey Lewis put in a copyright complaint against Ray Parker Jnr for using, “I Want A New Drug” and renaming it “Ghostbusters”.
And “Walking On A Thin Line” could have come from John Mellencamp, so it was no surprise that the album crossed over to different styles.
But overall, I couldn’t relate to any of the other songs.
Weird Al Yankovic – In 3-D
“Weird Al” found a niche.
What a great concept to make parodies of popular songs, all the way to platinum sales.
“Eat It” kicks it off, a parody of “Beat It” by Michael Jackson. The clip was doing the rounds routinely on the music video TV shows so there was no way to avoid it.
There are some misses, and then “King of Suede” starts, a parody of “King of Pain” by The Police, about a discount sale happening for suede.
The “Theme from Rocky XIII (The Rye or the Kaiser)” is a parody of “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor and hits the mark about a boxer who purchased a deli and is asking customers, do you want the rye or the Kaiser roll.
Billy Ocean – Suddenly
Now here is another artist that sold a lot of product, with over 2 million in sales in the U.S.
From the first four albums, that is close to 20 million in U.S sales.
“Caribbean Queen” hits the mark. Just check out the chorus vocal melody.
“Loverboy” has some cool single note pentatonic riffs in the verses and a Chorus that sounds like “Pour Some Sugar On Me” and “I Love Rock N Roll”.
“Suddenly” is a power ballad. It’s a massive song and it would work in a hard rock context. Replace the piano riffs with acoustic guitars and the song will start to sound like a Beatles/ELO blend.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Welcome To The Pleasuredome
Here is another artist that couldn’t be avoided. The film clips for “Relax” and “Two Tribes” were in constant rotation.
“Two Tribes” had this riff that reminded people of Pink Floyd and suddenly, they are crossing over into the Floyd’s fan base.
And the cover of “Born To Run” from Bruce Springsteen does the original justice.
Madonna – Like a Virgin
Regardless of your viewpoint, Madonna knew how to market herself and bend the media to her will. The film clips to “Material Girl” and “Like A Virgin” will be forgotten with time, but for anyone who lived through the 80’s they still remain in our memories from over exposure.
And my neighbour, she was into Madonna, so I kept hearing the songs mentioned along with “Dress You Up” and Stay” over and over again. And Madonna built a career on this album, with over 10 million in sales in the U.S and over 20 million in sales worldwide.
Billy Squier – Signs Of Life
Just forget about the video clip and the visuals and let the ears guide you.
“All Night Long” is a rocker, with a catchy guitar riff and vocal melody, with a hedonistic guitar solo.
“Rock Me Tonite” has a keyboard riff which sounds like it came from a Queen album and a guitar riff that decorates it nicely.
“Reach For The Sky” has this “King Of Pain” feel from The Police, like the song “Somebody’s Eyes” from the Footloose soundtrack by Karla Bonoff.
“Can’t Get Next To You” has a guitar riff that feels like it’s got a bit of “Long Way To The Top” and in the Chorus it’s a bit of “All Right Now”. Music is a sum of influences.
Wham – Make It Big
There was no escaping Wham and their hit songs like “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” on music television and radio.
But the song on this album is “Careless Whisper”.
Listen to it, it’s a bonafide hard rock song and it crosses over easily. It’s one of George Michael’s best songs.
Seether covered it in the 2000’s and did a stellar job with it, especially how they translated the saxophone solo into a fuzzed out guitar solo.
Zebra – No Telling Lies
It didn’t do great commercial business compared to the debut and it got the label worried. It’s not a bad album, it’s just not as good as the debut. The material feels like more filler than killer.
In saying all that, how good is the intro riff to “Wait Until The Summers Gone” and that exotic Arabian sounding lead break?
“I Don’t Like It” is a good listen.
And then the intro riff starts for “No Telling Lies” and I’m stopped in my tracks. Once the vocal melody kicks in, I’m hooked. It’s not a track for the charts, it’s a track for the artist. And these kind of tracks hook in the real fans.
Armored Saint – March of The Saint
One song defines this album to me and it’s “Can You Deliver”.
It’s perfect and timeless.
The pedal point intro riff kicks it off and it gets doubled for the verses. The vocal melody starts off in one register and goes higher as it builds.
Even CC DeVille was listening intently, as it seems he used the riff for “Look What The Cat Dragged In”.
The Angles – Two Minute Warning
If you like AC/DC then you will love this album. I guarantee it or your money back. They had a bigger selling album towards the late 80’s, but this one is my favourite.
They are rock and roll royalty in Australia, with their street brawling rawk and roll.
“Small Price” has a groove reminiscent to “Long Way To The Top” from AC/DC.
“Look The Other Way” is another foot stomper in the vein of AC/DC.
“Underground” has a vocal delivery that Bon Scott delivered from the grave and “Razor’s Edge” continues the AC/DC spirit.
Running Wild – Gates To Purgatory
It’s basically Metallica’s “Kill Em All” merged with the fast songs from Iron Maiden’s catalogue, merged with the fast songs from Motorhead’s catalogue with a touch of Scorpions thrown in.
My favourite track is “Soldiers of Hell” because of the harmony guitar solos. “Preacher” sounds like a song a more popular band copied and made popular. “Prisoner Of Our Time” has a kick arse hard rock riff.
And that’s a wrap for 84. I started this series in March, 2018 and it’s finally done.
Here are all the other posts.
The song “Explosive” was used as the Australian theme song, during the 2004 Athens Olympics TV coverage in Australia, so without a doubt, it sent this album and the song to Number 1 and platinum sales.
And “Classified” is the third studio album. The band still performs to this day, only changing one member, who left to have a child.
The performances are top notch and credit needs to be given to Croatian songwriter Tonci Huljic who wrote the score to the song.
To me it’s a melodic rock instrumental done in a way which is very accessible.
When artists get into a situation when their life feels like it is out of control, how much blame should be levied at management or band mates?
Sometimes a simple conversation over coffee can change things. Sometimes, a simple question, “are you okay?” could change things. But people need to ask those questions like the band mates.
But without good managers, it’s an uphill struggle to world domination. And you don’t get good management if you are not making money. So in order to keep the good managers, you need to be making money.
And Metallica is a worldwide cultural phenomenon. I was at a fundraiser last night for Beyond Blue, a Call centre which deals with mental health and a guitar signed by the Metallica members was the highest auctioned item.
And the people who in most cases start the downward spiral are the main people, like James Hetfield.
If Hetfield wants, he could really fire all of the other band members and it will still be Metallica. He is the riff meister, the singer and the lyric writer (well ignore that album called “St Anger” when others were made to contribute lyrics because a life coach said so and because the main writer wasn’t really interested).
So is it any wonder that James Hetfield is back in rehab. The reality is, without James Hetfield, Metallica cannot tour. And if they cannot tour, they don’t make money. And if they don’t make money, band members and management don’t get paid. So they tour, until something breaks.
But Metallica is a corporation, a business, with employees. It needs to roll on.
The band owns all of their masters, so they negotiated favourable license and royalty deals with streaming services.
A movie is released about S&M 2. They will eventually license that to streaming services and DVD/Blu-Ray replications.
They form partnerships.
Metallica with Billabong for a special run of surf clothing. Metallica with a football sporting team for a special run of jerseys with the Metallica logo. Metallica watches. Metallica whiskeys. Metallica with lipstick and nail polish companies. Metallica mugs, glasses to drink from and glasses to put on your eyes. There are other licensing deals with other companies to have their T shirts in various stores around the world.
But the main person is in rehab. And until they fix that, they are in trouble.
Anyone been following the Seinfeld episode known as Nikki Sixx vs Steel Panther?
It’s another hilarious episode about nothing.
It started off with a simple interview question to the guys from Steel Panther about “which artist would they like to bring back from the dead?”
The singer Michael Starr (great stage name as well) responded that he would like to bring back Vince Neil; the earlier version.
Nikki Sixx then posted on Twitter that “The singer in Steel Panther can go and fuck himself… wanna be band, putting down Vince Neil.”
Blabbermouth was all over it, reporting a few tweets here and there for click bait.
Fans of Motley Crue kept responding about “who is Steel Panther”.
And Blabbermouth kept on finding tweets to report and kept the click bait coming everyday with headlines like, “NIKKI SIXX Slams ‘Wanna-Be Band’ STEEL PANTHER: ‘They Are A Holes” and my favourite one because it didn’t even include the person’s name (because I am pretty sure they don’t know it), “STEEL PANTHER Drummer Responds to NIKKI SIXX; “Sounds Like Someone Needs Some F Attention”.
Steel Panther are a parody band and they are having a lot of fun doing what they do. Singer Michael Starr whose real name is Ralph Saenz has a PhD. in English.
So he knows a thing or two about marketing, so it was no surprise that the band then posted a tweet that said BACKSTABBERS, and featured a video of Motley Crue Corabi era laughing hard, when they were asked what their thoughts are about how Vince Neil broke so many ribs in a boating accident.
They laughed so hard and Mick said something like “is the boat okay”.
Remember Vince Neil and Axl Rose feud. Even the VH guys said they would foot the bill for a Vegas showdown. Great marketing for both bands. Same deal here.
And the saga continues. A cool interlude and laugh for our crazy days.
It’s hard to believe that in 2019, I still listen to albums released in 1978, 41 years ago, but in the 80’s like 1986, I couldn’t fathom listening to music from 1945. And I still cant.
My eldest one, who is is 14, listens to 70’s music. Last night, “Free Bird” from Lynyrd Skynyrd was cranked. The middle child, who is 13, has been cranking “Sultans Of Swing”, “Aint Talkin Bout Love” and “Eruption” as they both fumble around the fretboard learning the songs on guitar. So the 70s are back baby.
Here is part one and now for Part two.
And here is the Spotify playlist.
Journey – Infinity
The wheel in the sky keeps on turning alright. Robert Fleischman was hired as the new vocalist before being un-hired and Steve Perry was in. Fleischman would resurface many years later as part of Vinnie Vincent’s Invasion.
This is Journey before the mainstream hits, but the start of what would become the commercial beast. And the bluesy Hendrix like “Lights” kicks it off.
How good is the guitar solo from about the 2 minute mark from Neal Schon?
“Anytime” sounds like an ELO/Eagles song merged with “Who Are You” from The Who. And I like it, especially when Schon comes to town with his bends and legato during the solo.
“La Do Da” comes from out of nowhere, a speed rock track, the anti-hero to the laid back Southern Rock vibe of the first three tracks.
“Patiently” is one of my favourite tracks from Journey, especially from about 2.10 and to the end. Listen to Schon wail with a bunch of sing along licks. And it’s progressive in its song writing.
And the piece d resistance is “Wheel In The Sky”. It hypnotised me to pick up the guitar and start learning it, from the opening notes. And Perry’s vocals are perfect, sorrowful and emotive.
How good is the intro to “Winds Of March”?
It’s like “Battery” from Metallica to me. And I am sure Dave Meniketti was listening and being influenced here, for “Winds Of Change”. Then it changes into a rocker from about 2.50 minute mark and I am tapping my fingers, and Schon begins to wail about the 3.50 minute mark and its beautiful and inspirational.
Whitesnake – Trouble
David Coverdale is rolling along with his post Deep Purple career. “Trouble” is known as the first Whitesnake album, however after the success of the 1987 album, the David Coverdale solo albums “White Snake” and “Northwinds” got re-released and some still see those as the beginning.
The album is a product of its era.
“Take Me With You” kicks off the album and it’s a blast. You just need to listen to it for the lyrics. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Slash was listening to this track, as it sounds like certain riffs made their way into “Appetite For Destruction”.
“Love To Keep You Warm” ended up as a lyric on the road to “Judgement Day”.
“Nighthawk (Vampire Blues) will never sound dated. It’s one of those tracks that sounded good in 1978 and it will still sound good in 2019. Greta Van Fleet should cover it.
“The Time Is Right For Love” is a good track that is relevant in any era and I thought it would have been re-recorded for a Whitesnake album in the 80’s, going into the 90’s, but after “Slip Of The Tongue”, Coverdale, dissolved Whitesnake to team up with Jimmy Page, and then when Page went back to Robert Plant for a side project, Whitesnake came back with Adrian Vandenberg and Warren DeMartini on guitars. (Takes a breath).
“Trouble” is very Bad Company like, and I like it, especially the lyrics, “on the road again, looking for a place to hide, everywhere I look, there is trouble, trouble always coming my way.”
“Free Flight” is a jazz fusion blues rocker that could have come from “Come Taste The Band”. And while it doesn’t contain the hits, the album does contain some serious riffage and jamming, which I dig.
Judas Priest – Stained Class
This album was really ignored by the media and the fans, until the 80’s satanic panic and subsequent lawsuits brought it back into the public conversation.
For those who don’t know the story, and according to Wikipedia, Judas Priest got taken to trial in a civil suit, by the family of a teenager, James Vance, who entered into a suicide pact with his friend Ray Belknap after allegedly listening to “Better by You, Better than Me” on 23 December 1985.
Belknap succeeded in killing himself, and Vance was left critically injured after surviving a self-inflicted gunshot to the facial area, eventually dying of a methadone overdose three years later.
In this case, the events and outcomes are tragic, but there is always someone looking to blame someone else for their predicament. And there are always people (like lawyers and prosecutors) looking to prey on people’s weakness and sense of loss.
A lawyer tried to convince a judge that the “Stained Class” album and the song “Better by You, Better than Me” (which isn’t even a Judas Priest song, it’s a cover) had subliminal messages on it, that said “do it” and that would make kids take their lives. In the name of free speech and the ludicrous nature of the suit (seriously, why would a band want to kill the very people who would buy their product), it was dismissed.
But the album is important in a few ways;
“Exciter” kicks off the album with double kick and speed pedal point riffs. “Stained Class” has a cool “Barracuda” pedal point riff. “Saints In Hell” is not in the live repertoire of Judas Priest, but the song has a lot of movements, which keeps it interesting.
“Beyond The Realms Of Death” is a favourite, especially with its nod to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” but also for its song writing and various movements. Chris De Garmo would have been listening very intently to this, as it sounds like “The Warning” album came from influences like this.
“Fire Burns Below” is the embryo of what Judas Priest would become in the 80’s.
The Metalian was starting to form.
Rush – Hemispheres
One of their best albums and their most progressive. They knew they had reached a pinnacle here and what would come next would be much shorter and concise songs, sort of like how Metallica reached a pinnacle with the “Justice” album and needed to strip it back, which they did with the self-titled and mega gazillion selling “Black” album.
And the reason why I call this one of their best albums is because of “La Villa Strangiato”, a song that took them longer to record than the whole “Fly By Night” album.
I didn’t give Rush a good shake until I really got into Dream Theater on the “Images And Words” album.
Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres
18 minutes and all the different musical movements are enough to get me interested for a few reasons. And it’s all because of Alex Lifeson.
Alex Lifeson’s use of open strings (the high E and B strings) with moving power chords was inspirational. It just made sections sound bigger than what they should. It was a style I incorporated straight away.
His combination of using palm muted arpeggios and single note riffs also proved to be very inspirational. At that point in time, I was very heavily into playing open string pedal point riffs with power chords underneath.
His use of acoustic guitars was unique, bordering on his Eastern European Serbian folk roots, Spanish flamenco, pop music and classical music.
Finally, his unique guitar solos made him sound very different to the blues rock and classical shred like soloists I was used to hearing.
“Circumstances” sounds like the hard rock I listened too, with pedal point riffs in the intro. But from about 50 seconds, the song morphs and I was entranced to pick up the guitar and learn the section. By a 1.15 seconds, 25 seconds later it was all over.
And that’s how my Rush relationship is. Sections of certain songs hook me in.
Like the intro to “The Trees”. It’s acoustic intro sounds like it came from medieval England. And after 40 seconds, the song changes into a rocker. The lyrics made me laugh when I was younger, and they still make me laugh now, especially when Geddy Lee sings, “why can’t the maples be happy?” or “the maples scream oppression” or “the maples formed a union”.
Goddamn Maples, they can never be happy.
And that section from about 2.20 when Lifeson starts to play this repeating arpeggio lick/riff. Again, I was picking up the guitar to learn it and jam it, but then I started learning Geddy’s bass riff, as it sounded so good on distorted guitar and very different to Lifeson’s guitar riff.
“La Villa Strangiato” sums up everything about Rush which I love and I am so glad they didn’t try to repeat it or try to rewrite it for another album.
It stands out as the RUSH song for me, and if anyone asks what’s the big deal about Rush, I play them this song and I comment about each section and movement for a few seconds and allow them to bask in the sounds filling the room.
It’s an instrumental but there is no way you could ever be bored by it. It doesn’t have any guitar wankery. It just grooves and rolls until it comes up to the 3.18 minute mark where the song slows down.
This is when Alex Lifeson becomes a god.
He starts off the solo with volume swells.
It’s eerie, before he brings in a few blues licks to make it sorrowful.
At 4.27, it gets louder, and his bending those strings, bleeding pain out of those frets. In the background Neal Peart, is building the beast.
At 5.15, Lifeson starts this palm muted Am to F arpeggio. Peart is double-time on the drums, and Lee is playing the bass synth until they all join in and start the Swinging 30’s section. This is when Bugs Bunny is running away from Elmer Fudd. That is the memory I got from it.
Then there’s a bass solo.
Then a drum solo.
Then an unconventional guitar solo at the 6.50 minute mark.
At 7.29, it changes again.
At 7.53, the Swinging 30’s is back. First at half time, then at full speed.
And the song transitions back to the main intro riff to close out a 9 plus minute song in perfection.
And the album is over.
Until I dropped the needle again onto the last track.
Scorpions – Tokyo Tapes
I got this dubbed on a cassette from a mate, who had dubbed it onto a cassette from a cousin, who dubbed it onto a cassette from his girlfriend’s brother. Quick, call the cops, piracy is on the loose and killing the recording industry.
The end of the Uli Jon Roth era on guitar and a band in top form.
Stand out live performances along with fake crowd noises and claps are “Pictured Life”, “In Trance”, “Well Burn The Sky”, “Fly To The Rainbow”, “He’s A Woman – She’s A Man”, “Top Of The Bill” and “Steamrock Fever”.
Scorpions – Taken By Force
The last studio album with Uli Jon Roth, kicks off with “Steamrock Fever” and I like the music a lot more than the lyrics. “We’ll Burn The Sky” is better lyrically and musically.
Two of my favourite Scorpion tracks are up next in “I’ve Got To Be Free” and “The Riot Of Your Time”.
“I’ve got to be free to live my life alone” is the catch cry, a very Hendrix inspired song musically and it doesn’t sound dated at all. And the acoustic guitars in “The Riot Of Your Time” are perfect, but the chorus, musically and lyrically is brilliant. Listen to it if you don’t believe me.
The piece d’resistance from a guitar point of view, is “The Sails Of Charon”. But I listen to “Your Light” more, because of its sexy groove, which makes me want to pick up the guitar, especially in the verses. And the way it rolls, it’s a rock song, but I feel like I’m sipping Pina Colada’s on an island in the Caribbean’s.
“He’s A Woman – She’s A Man” has got some Metallica like breakdowns in it, which is cool.
Black Sabbath – Never Say Die
It’s not like it’s such a bad album, it’s just that they lost their darkness. “Never Says Die” sounds like it could have come from Thin Lizzy or ELO or Styx. “Johnny Blade” musically sounds like a Rush song, hell, the riff in the verses sounds like it came from “La Villa Strangiato”.
“Junior’s Eyes” is classic Sabbath in everything except the title. “A Hard Road” sounds more like a Status Quo track but it’s roots are from the placenta of “Children of The Grave”. “Shock Wave” is a Sabbath song through and through.
The best track on the album is “Air Dance”. It has this harmony intro which is too good to not like. Then it morphs into an acoustic/piano piece for the verses. It’s progressive in its song writing and as fans of artists, you want them to grow a little bit and add some different textures.
Especially at the 3.56 mark, it goes into a prog rock style piece, which is some of the best stuff Sabbath has written. Because that is what Sabbath was/is. A band that pushed boundaries and defied categorisation. Hell, there is a synth lead in it, as I start to cough out the sweet leaf.
“Over To You” was re-written and called “Little Dolls”. If it works for Ozzy’s solo career, it works for Sabbath for me. “Breakout” has the brass instruments, but there is no denying the power of that riff as it sludge’s sleazily along.
Styx – Pieces of Eight
I like Styx as a progressive rock band which has a few “simply” rock songs here and there. This album is a favourite, because it hits both those points for me. It’s progressive in its song writing and it has “accessible” songs.
“Great White Hope” gallops along in the intro and it’s a product of its time.
“I’m O.K” is interesting with its major key uplifting riffs, and “Walk This Way” style drums in the intro, and then the verses sound like a church sermon.“Sing For The Day” has a progressive synth intro which I dig. And the multi-layered Chorus melody is cool, but I’m more of a fan of the music.
“Blue Collar Man (Long Nights) has a riff which is tasty to play on guitar. And how good is the Chorus, musically, lyrically and melodically. Makes me press repeat instantly. “Queen Of Spades” is a combination of progressive song writing and accessible melodies. And the breakdown section from about the 3.20 minute mark is perfect.
But the piece d resistance here is “Renegade”.
First the acapella vocals and it sounds like it’s coming from the Mississippi Delta.
Then the funk rock fusion riff kicks in and it’s time to rock and funk.
And the solo. The music stops, and a dirty sounding guitar unleashes a flurry of pentatonic lines which wash over me. Then the band comes in and it’s all systems go. And when you think it’s over, it keeps going for a little but more.
Then the drums and vocals section. Jon Bon Jovi would have been listening intently as “You Give Love A Bad Name” has a similar set up after the solo.
Play that funky rock and roll, I say.
“Pieces Of Eight” is a brilliant piece of song writing. It has so many movements in the song, especially from the 2.20 minute mark. It’s pure bliss.
The Alan Parsons Project – Pyramid
Alan Parsons got no love in Australia or non that I could remember. I started to hear his work in the early 2000’s. And I became a fan. I got what he was trying to do, I really enjoyed the song structures, the jams and atmospherics.
The way “Voyager” starts off in the first 20 seconds, it’s how thrash metal acts build their clean tone intros. And the song segues into “What Goes Up”, a laid back tune which segues into “The Eagle Will Rise Again” and one of my favourite acoustic arpeggio riffs because it sounds so powerful.
Play four notes, stop and let them ring. But the rest of the song is not as strong as that verse riff. At one stage, I swear I thought “Listen To My Heart” from Roxette came from this song. “One More River” has a clean tone single note riff, which sounds wicked when played with distortion.
“In The Lap Of Gods” is a cinematic instrumental. Well, that’s what I call it. It feels like it’s written to moving pictures and I like it. Especially from the 4.10 minute mark when those Latin style “Excalibur” voices come in, along with the violins.
I press repeat, to hear it one more time, and to close off Part 2 of 1978.
When I used to play and write in bands, there was always a discussion about quantity vs quality when it came to writing songs.
One band I was in between the years of 2001 and 2005, wrote all up 14 songs. The focus here was more on what we assessed as quality.
We had a white board in our rehearsal space and we would write down ideas we just jammed.
The idea was to bring in our top 3 riffs each week and we just jammed them and we recorded them as well. Whatever we didn’t use would go into the backlog and then get cleared after six months if we never returned to that idea.
We would listen to the tapes, from the session and start writing on the board the things we liked.
And we would give the bits we liked names, like Tool Riff, Maiden 2 minutes solo rip off, Dream Theater Learning To Live outro, thrash section, Groove section, Machine Head All In My Head drum intro and so forth.
Then we would structure these bits into a song, as certain sections stood out as verses and so forth.
And the working titles always sounded silly, like “That Dick Head”, “Missing One Shoe”, “Filth” and many different ones. The titles also came about based on abstract words the singer would use to demonstrate what kind of syllable words he wanted for that section.
“Filth” became known as “Faith” once it was all done and dusted. “That Dick Head” became D.N.A.
It was fun to do, but also frustrating and a very long process.
Because once we got the music down, the lyrics and vocal melodies would take just as long. We even took to the stage with lyrics unfinished, and the singer just mumbled his way as he had the melody down, just not the words.
And yes, sometimes, “Faith” and “Filth” got transposed, because the singer spent so long singing “you are nothing but Filth” and I changed the words to “you gotta have faith”, at a few of the earlier shows when we debuted “Faith”, he sang, “you gotta have filllllllth”.
Brilliant, hey. And a good laugh even to this day.
Personally during that period, I was writing a song a week, in so many different styles or a blend of styles as it was the only way I could remain happy in the band.
My view always has been that quantity will create quality.
In other words, the more bad songs you write, sooner or later, the good ones will come. There is a reason why “Slippery When Wet” moved a lot of product, and that’s not including all the hairspray boxes which got shipped.
Jon, Richie and in some cases Desmond Child, wrote over 50 songs for the album.
Working on songs, that others might think or see as a bad idea is actually a good thing. It’s the simple secret to good songs. Flesh out the bad songs and suddenly good songs will come to the fore.
The other is to get to a co-writer or for you to become a co-writer for someone else and share your ideas with others. Maybe those bad songs are not so bad to other people.
Music is such a subjective and personal experience, meaning each person will experience it differently.
Songs that David Coverdale had intended for other musicians ended up being Whitesnake songs. “Fool For Your Loving” was written for BB King and “Is This Love” was written for Tina Turner.
When Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora started writing with Desmond Child, the songs were meant to be shopped around for other artists, instead they kept them. And then after they didn’t make the “Slippery When Wet” or “New Jersey” album, the songs got shipped out to Alice Cooper, Cher and others.
And Bryan Adams let go of songs he wrote with Jim Vallance, which didn’t seem to fit his style, like “War Machine” which became a Gene Simmons sung, Kiss song.
Van Halen (when David Lee Roth re-joined) used musical ideas from their 70’s demo recordings to craft a new album in the 2000’s.
So keep those ideas flowing and never throw em away.
Once Skid Row went on hiatus, I never really heard from the band or Sebastian Bach. It’s like they dropped off the face of the Earth.
Then the Pirate Bay gave me the Skid Row albums without Bach on vocals, and it also gave me, the solo Bach albums, “Bring Em Bach Alive” and “Back 2 Basics”.
One day my wife brought home a box set of a TV show called “Gilmore Girls”. And I suppose Bach’s biggest gig between 1997 and 2004 was being the guitarist in the fictional “Gilmore Girls” band and doing Broadway musicals.
But by the mid 2000’s Guns N Roses was touring and Sebastian Bach was the opening act. And all of these separate events suddenly brought Sebastian Bach back into my life.
Time does go by fast.
Released in 2007, “Angel Down” is 12 years old. And it’s got a lot of songs about a relationship breakdown, so it’s no surprise that in 2010, his long term marriage was over.
“You Don’t Understand” is a brilliant track, starting off with harmony guitars like Judas Priest, before morphing into a rocker like “Forever” from Skid Row. The lyrics, “I’ll take a bullet for you in the night, Is what we’re fighting for wrong or right?, I lie awake in my tomb, so confused, Who wins the battle when we all lose?” speak truth.
No one wins an argument, when one person wants to be seen as being correct.
And since Sebastian Bach was opening for Guns N Roses, Axl Rose does guest vocals on three tracks, “Back In The Saddle”, “(Love Is) A Bitchslap” and “Stuck Inside”.
Let’s start with the modern rock remake of an Aerosmith classic “Back In The Saddle”. One thing is clear, when Axl Rose does hard rock, he is one of the best hard rock singers. You can feel the attitude in his tone, slap you silly.
“(Love Is) A Bitchslap” is the best Guns N Roses song released in the 2000’s that Guns N Roses didn’t write, with one of the coolest opening verses, “Rollin’ down the avenue, I got my fist in the air, Checking out of the rat race and I really don’t care.”
It captures the metal spirit and lifestyle. We like to look at the show but we don’t really care what is going on. We have our own shit that we need to deal with.
And “Stuck Inside” is one of the best Skid Row songs in the 2000’s, which Skid Row didn’t write.
Check out the lyrics. You can hear the pain in those words. “I feel you taking on, everything that I said that I want and then you said it’s over.”
Relationships are cruel. The other half, will ask you to be truthful and then suddenly, those words get used against you.
But the piece d resistance is “American Metalhead” written by guitarist Mike Chlasciak. It is a metal track for the ages, with its catchcry of togetherness and hive mind control like, “One soul, one mind, one heart, one life.”
Call it up, crank it, lay back and close your eyes.
Imagine the time, walking the streets, dressed in denim jeans and black t shirt with your favourite band’s artwork.
“Negative Light” is a speed metal track, with Bach throwing his voice into the wall during the verses. From a guitar point of view, this song is a blast to play, very Metallica like.
And that opening verse sets the tone for the aggression, “Nothing’ lasts forever, Nobody rides for free, For twenty years I took a stand, You’re not takin’ no chance on me.”
“Live And Die” sounds massive with its “Mississippi Queen” style riff.
“Like stars sky high, we live and die, free your body, your soul, your mind”
We all will die, its truth. So what matters is how we spend our days under heaven’s skies. Do we give in to hate, and allow stress and depression to rule our minds, or do we give in to love, and allow hope and love to rule our thoughts?
“By Your Side” is a ballad, but Bach knows how to deliver on ballads, with “Quicksand Jesus”, “Wasted Time”, “Breakin Down” and “In A Darkened Room” still up there as some of favourite ballads.
“Our Love Is A Lie” sounds wicked, angry and its pure hard rock while “Take You Down With Me” could have come from the “Black” album.
“Stabbing Daggers” combines all of the modern rock influences like Nu Metal, Alt Rock and Groove Metal into a concise metal song with a shred-a-licious solo. “You Bring Me Down” is a cross between Pantera and Stone Temple Pilots. Yes, I know, it’s pretty contrasting styles, but goddamn, it works.
“Falling Into You” is a co-write with Desmond Child and as you would expect, it follows the Desmond Child formula. But I didn’t expect the intro harmony lead, which reminded of “Tears Of A Dragon” from Bruce Dickinson’s solo album.
And Sebastian Bach has tried to re-unite Skid Row with the classic line up to capitalise on the anniversaries of their first two albums, but Rachel Bolan is not having it. So whatever went down between them, was pretty heavy.
But in typical middle finger Bach fashion, he’s gone out on tour as a solo artist to celebrate the 30 year anniversary of the debut Skid Row album, playing it in its entirety and he’s selling out the clubs and theatres.
Heavy Metal music was always described as primal and anarchistic and immoral and perverted and satanic and whatever else people could think off. The PMRC came out in protest against it, who saw it as the enemy to social order and social control. Like Freud’s observations, heavy metal lyrics are loaded with feelings of impulse and an “anything goes” attitude.
The “Satanic Panic” was then created by religious organisations to fill the bank accounts of the same religious organisations with millions of dollars in donations, because the deluded people thought that these various organisations would take up arms and fight against heavy metal. These institutions saw heavy metal poisoning their God endorsed truths with a differing viewpoint.
Sigmund Freud was probably the first ever metal head in attitude and lifestyle. And he was a master story teller, which is what Heavy Metal lyrics are all about. I learned about life from heavy metal lyrics and history.
Freud’s psychoanalysis theory explored the drives, wishes and fantasies that lurked in our subconscious, the same way, heavy metal lyrics in the early 80’s explored these topics.
Freud is seen as one of the main people to make a strong distinction between how things at first appear, and what might actually be going on under the surface. And people don’t like to hear or see their truths and morals questioned like religious authorities.
Love em or hate em, some of our favourite artists exhibited some interesting thoughts and ideas in their song lyrics.
And I haven’t even gone into the death metal and black metal styles and their lyrics.
Freud would have loved this era.
destroyerofharmony 