For My Sunday Song #406, we tackled Concrete Blonde’s “Dance Along the Edge”. Harrison’s pick takes us back to 1986 and the band’s debut album called ‘Concrete Blonde’. The song was the third single from the album and released in 1987. It was written by singer and bassist Johnette Napolitano. The album went to #96 on the Billboard Charts and brought the band in to the spotlight. I remember when they came out, but honestly, there were not what I was in to back in 1986 as I was in to much harder and heavier bands and not the alternative stuff of the time.
The song is a pretty powerful statement about relationships how we dance along the edge of issues within the relationship and never communicating with each about them in fear of hurting the other person or the relationship crumbling. The fear builds up and makes it all that much worse. You’ve seen relationships fall apart before and don’t want it to happen to you. You are happy and in love with the person, but the lack of communicating is ruining everything.
Johnette has crafted a really cool track. She lays down a great bass line that is the driving force for the song. There is a darkness and moodiness to the song as the bass drips with sadness. The guitar work is minimal from James Mankey, but the riff is really cool and accentuates the song perfectly. The drum beat from Harry Rushakoff adds more texture and flavor to the song. But the shining point is Johnette’s vocals. They are sensual yet a tinge of grit that blends so well together. She sings with so much feeling and so little effort that she makes it sound easy. She puts the right amount of sadness in to the words you feel the couples emotions and understand what they are going through. A really nice track.
We are to the end of another month and it was a great month of new music for me. I’m glad though it is ending in a whimper as I need a break for the wallet and time to catch up on what I already picked up this month. So, nothing for me this week. What are you wanting to hear. Let us know and what we may have missed. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
Sum 41 – Heaven :x: Hell – (Rise Records)
Aaron Lewis – The Hill – (Big Machine Label Group)
Michael Schenker Group – Is It Loud Enough? Michael Schenker 1980-1983 – (Chrysalis)
“Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” is yet another ballad from ‘Adrenalize’ and there were a bunch. It was the third single off the album and the highest charting as well going all the way to #12 on the Hot 100 and even #7 on the Mainstream Rock Chart. The song was written by Phil Collen, Joe Elliott and Robert John “Mutt” Lange who might not have produced the album but he was involved thus the “Executive Producer” title.
The song is a tale of unrequited love, I mean, the title sums it up nicely. The person on the song longs for this woman so much that he aches for her. She seems to be there, ready for the night, but by morning she is gone. She doesn’t want to commit and he is ready to go all in. Almost to the point of stalkerish, but not sure he has crossed that line yet.
SIDE 1:
‘Adrenalize’ was an album filled with so many ballads and you’d think they all can’t be good, but you’d be wrong. This is yet another masterpiece. The ballads Def Leppard were doing all sounds so sophisticated, so pure. They seem to spend a lot of time making them perfect. ”Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” had that flair of “Love Bites”, that emotive quality, it felt meaningful and honest. I love how the guitar solo mirrors the emotions and you can feel the sadness he is feeling not having his love returned. The band really seems to connect with this song on all fronts. Brilliant…just brilliant.
“Silent Lucidity” by the progressive metal band Queensrÿche will be the point of discussion today. The song was released on Valentine’s Day in 1991 and was on their triple platinum selling album ‘Empire’. “Silent Lucidity” was the band’s top selling single ever in the U.S. where it reached #1 on the Album Rock Tracks and all the way to #9 on the Billboard Top 100. The song was even nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Song.
The version I have is a 2 CD set out of the UK. It was released individually each a week apart, but the version I have has them both compiled in to one set. In the UK, it doesn’t look like this was released until August 1992. There is supposed to be a Free Fold-Out Banner Poster, however, my version does not have it included…darn it. In the 2 CD set, “Silent Lucidity” kicks off both discs so we will only discuss the song once. The set then has three songs from ‘Operation: Mindcrime’ all performed Live and one bonus track called “Last Time in Paris”.
“Silent Lucidity” was a ballad, which was not something the band was known for doing. The song is absolutely beautiful with the whole lullaby feel, the wonderful orchestration added and lastly, Geoff Tates vocals perfectly fit the mood of the song. It felt like you were in a dream state while listening to the song which was exactly the impact the band was intending.
The song was supposedly inspired by the book ‘Creative Dreaming’ by Patricia Garfield, PhD which explains how to control your dreams…which I don’t think I have ever been able to do that. The song is about lucid dreaming which is the where you are actually aware that you are dreaming and as the book states, you can actually have control over parts of the dream. During the song, there is actually a voice that is explaining how to do just that. They state…”Visualize your dream. Record it in the present tense. Put it into a permanent form. If you persist in your efforts, you can achieve dream control.”
The video is up now for Episode 6 of The Collection. When you have older siblings, their music taste can influence what you like and my brother, Gary, was a huge Kiss fan and that spawned me being one as well. From about 7-8 years old all the way til now at 55, I am still a Kiss fan.
For Part 3, we pick up with Kiss after the reunion and start with Psycho Circus and go all the way up to today and their latest Anniversary releases. We even through in a few Kiss Adjacent Vinyl. I was surprised by how many were still sealed. And I was surprised by how upset I got on some of their packaging choices. I give my honest opinion and don’t hold back.
I hope you enjoy this episode which goes “live” right now…Monday night, March 25th at 8pm. Please do leave a comment and I promise I’ll address them as soon as I can! Don’t forget to click “Like” and “Subscribe”. Thanks for watching.
We are in the year 2004 and Bon Jovi has now been around for 20 Years at this point. To celebrate their 20th Anniversary, they released a really cool box set of mostly unreleased tunes and a lot of little extras titled ‘100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong’. The Box Set is a collection of 50 songs spread over 4 CDs, 38 of which had never been released. The others were songs from soundtracks, remixes and/or B-Sides. This was a band dumping everything sitting by the wayside in to one set and I applaud them for that. Us diehard fans love this kind of stuff. And if that wasn’t enough, if you have the Japanese Edition, which i do, you get another CD of B-Sides and Japanese Bonus Tracks. That is another 10 songs.
This is a lot of music to absorb and we won’t be absorbing it all here. Nope. I’m going to go through each and every CD, track by track over 6 posts. We are now on the second disc which had a total of 12 tracks, 10 of which were previously unreleased. So let’s get started and dive into the music as that is why we are really here any way.
The album kicks off with the song “Garageland” which was written by Richie and Jon at Jon’s new York apartment. The song was written during the Crush era and was about where the members of the band were when they were younger. Now, the individual band members might have been in garage bands, but I don’t see Bon Jovi as ever being a garage band so this doesn’t feel authentic to me. There are some cool moments in the song and it does rock out at times, but it is in rough shape and needs a lot of work to turn it in to something. Jon’s vocals are rough and the bridge/chorus is not that good. For me, not a favorite on this disc and could skip it.
Like “Taking It Back” on Disc 1, “Starting All Over Again” shows the band with attitude and a chip still on their shoulder. Jon explained that the band had their mojo back in 1992 and realized it was the band against a new machine that was rearing its head in music, Grunge and Rap. They were competing against a whole new scene. This was them saying they were going to take it all back and rise to the top again. But it doesn’t sound like anything else on “Keep the Faith” stylistically so was left off the album. I actually like this track. It has some great attitude, I like the guitar tone and it rocks out really great. A vast improvement from the opening track. This song was on a Japanese Bonus Track for ‘Keep the Faith’, but this is actually an alternate version.
For My Sunday Song #405, we have Harrison’s next pick of “Lord of Light” by Iron Maiden. The song is off their 2006 album, ‘A Matter of Life and Death’. The song was not a single, but after listening to it, it easily could’ve been despite it’s over 7 minutes in length. The song was written by Adrian Smith, Steve Harris and Bruce Dickinson. The album itself, went to #9 in the U.S. Billboard Chart and #4 in the UK and #1 in Germany and several other countries.
The song has a very dark, disturbing view point…at least disturbing to me. Bruce Dickinson had this to say about it…
Just imagine there was a whole range of places between Heaven and Hell and that you got to pick, and that Lucifer is, in fact, the ‘lord of light’ downstairs, which is kind of what his name means. And all this stuff about the vengeful, eternal God wagging his finger and punishing you is all just a load of PR nonsense.” – Bruce Dickinson
It is an interesting viewpoint to take and one that would make you think really hard about it especially on a Sunday. The lyrics lead me to believe that is truly what the song is about as there is talk of Lucifer by name and hell and demons. If you could pick where you go, why would you ever pick hell, but I guess there are a lot of evil people out there.
The song itself, starts of slow with an acoustic guitar and it is all dark and a little eerie. Bruce, softly speaks the lyrics and it makes it quite haunting. Then the guitars come screaming followed by Bruce at full voice. He does have one of the best metal voices out there. Nicko McBrain’s drums are pounding with an electric intensity. It goes soft again, almost gentle as Bruce softens his tone again. It builds and then the explodes out with a guitar solo that will leave you holding on for fear life. It is a wild ride of riffs and shredding with a barrage of gun fire drumming. Then it is full on solo with fiery fingers flying over the frets. You are out of breath when it finally ends. A killer song even if it is something I don’t want to think about.
March keeps flying by and we have another long list of releases for you this week. The last two weeks for me have been huge with a ton of releases I was dying to hear and some I bought. This week, there is only one I want to hear and it is the new album by Gary Clark Jr. He has impressed me a lot and so I want to see what he has in store for us this go around. And who am I kidding, I’ll probably stream Alestorm because who doesn’t need a little Pirate Metal in their life. Let me know what you want to hear this week or what we may have missed. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a great weekend!!
Gary Clark Jr. – JPEG Raw – (Warner Records)
Cruzh – The Jungle Revolution – (Frontiers Records)
Alestorm – Voyage of the Dead Marauder E.P. – (Napalm Records)
After the Tour in support of their album, ‘Hysteria’, Def Leppard didn’t want another 4 year gap between albums, but nothing was easy for these guys. Something always happened. This time it was Steve Clark. His alcoholism was getting worse. He was in and out of rehab and in September of 1990, the band granted Steve a 6 month leave of absence to try and sobered up. Sadly, it did not help and on January 8, 1991, the world lost an incredible guitarist too soon as Steve Clark passed away in his home.
The band was devastated. However, they didn’t want to stop and kept going, but only as a four-piece. No new member was added for the record. It took months after Steve’s death before their heart was back in to it. The band also ended up having to do the album without long-time producer, Robert John “Mutt” Lange, as he was busy working with Bryan Adams and his ‘Waking Up the Neighbors’ album. Mutt did wind up as the “Executive Producer” on the album. Mike Shipley helped the band as both engineer and co-producer as he had worked with the band for years.
Most of the songs had already been demoed prior to Steve’s death, but they were all re-recorded and Phil mimicked Steve’s playing as best he could for the solos Steve was meant to play. And after months of working on the album, they were finished. The album came out on March 31, 1992 and it debuted at #1 in the UK and a week later was #1 in the U.S. It sold over 4,000,000 copies worldwide and had 6 singles off the album.
I bought the album on the day of release but it was not easy. I was down in Cairo, Georgia working for the State of Georgia on an audit. After work, I borrowed the company car and drove down to Tallahassee, Florida and bought the CD and Tape and listened to it on the trip back to Cairo. It was about a 45 minute drive each way so wasn’t too bad. Did I like it? Well, let us find out.
The opening track, “Let’s Get Rocked”, was the first single off the ‘Adrenalize’ album and did pretty good going to #15 on the Billboard charts and #2 in the UK. The song is a mindless fun track about a teenager disobeying their parents and yet it was filled with sexual innuendo after sexual innuendo. “Let’s Get Rocked” does just that with the heavy guitar riffs, Rick’s pounding drum beat and even filled with orchestration and some nasty violins. The most important thing about this song is the question is asks you at the very beginning…”Do You Want To Get Rocked?”. And the answer is always…YES!
This was one of the last songs written for the album as the band had finished riding the song “White Lightning” which is about the loss of bandmate Steve Clark. After coming off such a dark song, the band needed to cut loose and have some fun and as a result, we got this bundle of joy. Despite my tiring of the song, it is pretty great even if it is overly corny. The video is a CGI filled rocking good time and is the only video the band has ever done as a four piece. Steve had passed and Vivian hadn’t yet come completely in to the picture.
Up next is “Heaven Is” which was the 5th single from the album reaching #13 in the UK, but didn’t chart in the States. The song is about a woman…a very fine woman and you can figure the rest. It is a pop song, no doubt. Massive choruses, probably bigger than they have ever done. It is a little cheesy at times, but it is kinda catchy. Not the best thing they have done, but not the worst…that is coming later.
“Make Love Like A Man” which is actually one of my least favorite songs they have ever done, but not as bad as another one on this album. Yes, it is catchy, has a good beat and memorable, but it is generic and stupid at the same time. Now, Joe Elliott has stated that the song was the band having some fun and it was all a joke. They weren’t trying to be big bad boys, they were only joking. The song was the 2nd single off the album and did fairly well, going to #36 on the US Billboard Hot 100 charts. The album was starting to sound very generic and a Hysteria 2.0…yeah…don’t like that.
The sixth and final single was for the song “Tonight”. Written back during the ‘Hysteria’ Tour as a possible B-Side, but instead it was held on to for an album years later. The song charted in the U.S. going to #62 on the Hot 100 and #13 on the Mainstream Rock chart while it also charted in the UK at #34. The song is a ballad and it sees the singer longing to be with the woman he loves and have some very passionate, satisfying sex. THe band was overdoing it with ballads now, but this one reminds me of “Love Bites” and “Hysteria” which are two of their best and for that I like this one. It is sophisticated sounding with some great melodies and the music is emotive as is Joe on the vocals. This is how you do a ballad.
“White Lightning” was written about Steve Clark and his addiction and his untimely death. Steve’s nickname from the band was White Lightning as he normally dressed in all white on stage and ran around the stage like a bolt of lightning. It is such a heartfelt tribute and you can feel the love and passion the band had for this man. The song opens with a guitar solo by Phil Collen that was played in the style of Steve as a personal tribute to him. The solo starts off slow, with an eerie feel to it…a sadness. In fact, Phil played all the parts and even with the dual guitar parts he played as if it was he and Steve going at it together. It is very touching.
The lyrics spell out Steve’s troubles how he was burning the candle at both ends, always had to have that taste, but always unable to let it go and walk away. He was consumed by his addiction and in the end, the addiction won and took his shining light from us way too early. Sadly, this is a story played out everyday with people of addiction. It is a horrible disease with no end in sight that touches millions around the world.
“Stand Up (Kick Love Into Motion)” was the fourth single off the album and it did really well going to #34 on the Hot 100 and #1 on Mainstream Rock Chart. And there is a reason for it as it is another great ballad by the band. This one was actually written for Hysteria, but it sounded too similar to the song “Hysteria” so it was scrapped and held on to for later use. Another reason why this album feels like ‘Hysteria 2.0’. The song is about a guy that is so in love with this woman and not sure she is feeling it, but he calls out to her to kick this love in to motion and then have some serious sex. He says it better than that though. A great ballad, very sophisticated and able to connect with you emotionally has who hasn’t felt this way at one time or another.
Then we get to the what is probably the WORST SONG the band has ever done (at least up to this point). “Personal Property” is totally utter trash lyrically and musically. The most generic, piece of crap they have ever put to tape (or digital in this case probably). I can’t describe how bad this song is so you just need to go and listen to it yourself.
“Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” is yet another ballad and the third single off the album and the highest charting as well going to #12 on the Hot 100 and #7 on the Mainstream Rock Chart. An album filled with so many ballads they all can’t be good, but you’d be wrong. This is yet another masterpiece. A tale of unrequited love, I mean, the title sums it up nicely. I love how the guitar solo mirrors the emotions and you can feel the sadness he is feeling not having his love returned. The band really seems to connect with this song on all fronts. Brilliant…just brilliant.
Then we get “I Wanna Touch U” which finally gives us a rocker as it has been awhile since a decent rock song on this album. It is still pretty basic of a song and another about sex. I will say the writing on this album lyric has been singularly focused with the exception on anything written about Steve. This has left a pretty boring album at times for the rockers. No depth here whatsoever. But at least the song will get you moving.
The album ends with one of the band’s best rockers with “Tear It Down”. The original version of the song was used as the B-Side to the song “Women” in the U.S. and “Animal” in the UK. So, they re-recorded it, punched it up a little and modernized it a little to fit where they were sonically and you have a great rocking track. But imagine my disappointment when hearing this on the album. I mean come on!! What the hell Leppard? You’ve done this song, give us something new. You have had 5 years since the last album and we get 9 new songs. This completed the disappointment for the album. Don’t get me wrong, this song kicks ass, but I’ve heard it. It was one of my favorite B-Sides they have ever done.
Track Listing:
Let’s Get Rocked – Keeper
Heaven Is – Keeper (1/2 Point)
Make Love Like a Man – Delete
Tonight – Keeper
White Lightning – Keeper
Stand Up (Kick Love Into Motion) – Keeper
Personal Property – Delete
Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad – Keeper
I Wanna Touch U – Keeper(1/2 Point)
Tear It Down – Keeper
The Track Score is 7 out of 10 Tracks or 70%. As you can tell from the review, I am not a fan of this album for many reasons. One…lyrically, the song was lacking. The lyrics were overly cheesy and mostly about sex in some form or another. Two…too many ballads. Yes, the ballads were great that were one here…but it slowed down the album as there were way too many. Three…no real rockers that stuck with me (that were new songs). “White Lightning” being the best song on the album, the rest were stinkers really. Four…the whole thing sounded like ‘Hysteria 2.0’. This is the first Def Leppard album to not completely change their sound from the previous. Go back and listen to the first four albums and you will notice they don’t sound like each other…yet they still sound like Def Leppard. This felt like rehash. Maybe Mutt is the missing ingredient. My Overall Score is 2.5 out of 5.0 Stars. I hate this album today more than I did back then and I dislike it more with each listen as it bothers me so much with what they did with it.
NEXT UP: DEF LEPPARD – “HAVE YOU EVER NEEDED SOMEONE SO BAD” (1992) – CASSETTE SINGLE
Back in 2011, Whitesnake released a box set called ‘Box ‘O’ Snakes (The Sunburst Years 1978-1982)’. It was a massive 9 CDs, 1 DVD and a 7″ Single of ‘Snakebite’. And if you missed it, like me, you would have to pay the late tax which means you’d be paying a pretty penny to get it now. Probably over $200 with shipping if you were lucky. Luckily, in 2013, they re-released it and called it ‘Little Box ‘O’ Snakes’. This time around there are only 8 CDs, no DVD and no 7″. You also miss out on an extra live show. But you do get a lot of stuff.
As David Coverdale doesn’t own the rights to these albums from the Sunburst Years, we won’t be seeing those massively incredible Deluxe Box Sets he has been doing from ‘Slide it In’ and forward. For now, this will do. I already have all of these on vinyl, but I didn’t have the CDs so this was a cheap easy way to get them all in one bunch. I think I paid around $30 for the set. Much better than the $200 for the original set. For now, this will do.
The set comes in a sturdy card board box and each CD is housed in a cardboard sleeve similar to a vinyl album cover. No CD cases to house them. There is also a booklet accompanying the set. All-in-all, you get 8 albums which includes the first E.P., 5 Studio albums and 2 live albums. A ton of music to get through and an incredible line-up of songs and bandmates.
David Coverdale coming off of Deep Purple put together a stellar band with the likes of Micky Moody and Bernie Marsden on guitars and what a duo that would be. You also get a rhythm section like no other with Neil Murray on bass and Dave Dowle on drums for the first few albums then the incomparable Ian Paice thereafter. If that wasn’t enough, you had Jon Lord on keyboards/organ. What a beast he was and I don’t think there was anyone his equal at that time. Now, what’s in the box?
Sum 41 – Heaven :x: Hell – (Rise Records)
Aaron Lewis – The Hill – (Big Machine Label Group)
Michael Schenker Group – Is It Loud Enough? Michael Schenker 1980-1983 – (Chrysalis)
Gary Clark Jr. – JPEG Raw – (Warner Records)
Cruzh – The Jungle Revolution – (Frontiers Records)
Alestorm – Voyage of the Dead Marauder E.P. – (Napalm Records)
2 Loud 2 Old Music 