Welcome to another series on 2 Loud 2 Old Music. This time we are going to go through all the Albums that were in ‘The Complete Albums Collection’ Box Set that I received as a gift for this last Christmas. Here’s the thing, I have only really ever listened to the 80’s singles for Priest. I don’t know much about them other than who they are and maybe a couple albums, but I thought it was time to take a deep dive in to the Priest World and see what all the fuss is about. I also have Rob Halford’s new book ‘Confess’ that I am dying to read to learn even more. When I do something, I am not going to do it half-ass so we are going to start with the first album and work our way up to the final one. Now, this box set was missing the Ripper albums and the two most recent Priest albums, plus I am sure some live albums, but we will have 17 albums to go through that I am hoping to have done by the end of the year. Once I am done with those, we will go back and do the ones this set missed.
Judas Priest is out of Birmingham, England and were formed in 1969 and what I learned quickly is that Rob Halford was not the original singer of the band. That role was filled by Al Atkins. In fact, when the band released their first album in 1974, Ian Hill was the only original member. K. K. Downing didn’t come on board until 1970, Halford and John Hinch was 1973 and the Glenn Tipton was 1974. The classic line-up of the band was complete just in time for their first album. The main four guys less Hinch would go on to be together until 1992 then back again in 2003 up until 2011. Quite an impressive run.
After the MTV Unplugged special that ran on August 9, 1995, the fan reaction was huge. People were itching for the original line-up to get back together in make-up. Now Kiss is not one to generally miss a good opportunity. While they were in the studio with their current line-up of Bruce Kulick and Eric Singer recording their next album (Carnival of Souls), Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons were contemplating their next move. Well, the noise was getting too hard to ignore and so was the money.
The Carnival of Soul album was shelved (for the time being) and Bruce and Eric were pushed to the side as Peter Criss and Ace Frehley were back in the band. The Kiss Reunion was going in full force. The band decided to get back together, the make-up was re-applied and the Tour was scheduled. This tour would be called the 1996-1997 Alive / Worldwide Tour. If you want to read about my concert experience a little and see the Tour Book…click TOUR BOOK.
In support of the Tour, Kiss decided to make a massive cash grab and released a Greatest Hits compilation of sorts. This one was released on June 25, 1996 and was called “You Wanted the Best, You Got the Best” and consists of all live tracks from the band with Ace and Peter. The name of the album, of course, stems from the opening line of all the Kiss shows when most famously, roadie JR Smalling would scream out “You Wanted the Best, and you got it. The Hottest Band in the Land…KISS!!!”
Before we get to the music, let’s talk about what was inside the Album. Not much, sorry. When you bought this album, inside was simply order forms for Kiss merchandise because Kiss never missed an opportunity to sell you something…
Alright, back to the music on the album. Did this album offer anything new and different. Well yes, it actually did it. But it mostly consisted of songs taken from the albums ‘Alive!’ and ‘Alive II’. There were, however, 4 previously unreleased tracks as well. You get four songs that were taken from those eras that were outtakes or leftover tracks. Now, if you were in Japan you got a bonus track. Let’s be honest, this is a total and utter cash grab. There is nothing real special. This is pure & simple, Kiss trying to profit off the new found interest in the band. But at least you got some unreleased stuff which is still way more than you get on from the next release. I’m getting ahead of myself, let us talk about what you get on this one.
RECORD 1:
The first record has the most unreleased stuff. The first three tracks are all unreleased. First up you get “Room Service” recorded in Davenport, IA in 1975. Then you get “Two Timer” which was recorded at Cobo Hall in Detroit MI on May 16, 1975. The third track is “Let Me Know” and it was recorded at the same Cobo Hall show as the previous track. These are cool tracks as they aren’t normally played live so that much is awesome about them. But here is the crazy thing. They were overdubbed and remixed in 1996 with not Ace on guitar or probably not even Peter on drums. Bruce Kulick has admitted he worked on the overdubs and those drums sound pretty damn good and clean…and a little modern. I’m just saying. The crowd noise also sounds so fake and it doesn’t really feel that live. Who knows what to believe.
The remaining of Record 1 are three tracks from ‘Alive!’ which are “Rock Bottom”, “Parasite” and “Firehouse” and one track from ‘Alive II’ which is “I Stole Your Love” and “Calling Dr. Love”. If you don’t have those two albums, then these songs are classic and worth having. But if you don’t, you aren’t really a Kiss fan are you…sorry I’m judging and that isn’t nice…but seriously why don’t you own those two albums…better than this crap!!
RECORD 2:
The second record kicks off with another previously unreleased track and that one is “Take Me” which was Los Angeles, CA and recorded in 1976. Again, this was overdubbed in 1996 as well. It at least has more of a live feel than those first three. Paul is a little rougher around the edges and there is a better energy so I won’t bash this one. Now most of the rest of the album are tracks from the two classic albums again. The tracks are “Shout it Out Loud”, “Beth” and “Rock And Roll All Nite”.
If you have the Japanese edition, your album would end with another unreleased live track. This one was Ace’s song “New York Groove”. This one is cool in that it was recorded from Australia back in 1980 and actually includes Eric Carr on the drums which is always cool. I actually like this track as well and glad I have it. I like it because it has the warts and all as they didn’t clean up the feedback or much of anything which makes it really live. On Side D of this album is a 17 minute interview with the band hosted by Jay Leno. Which basically makes it pure promotion, nothing but softball question and Peter is the only that sounds like he is having any fun (maybe Ace too). Gene and Paul are the same as they always are…stick to the point and sell it. Now the funny thing is Paul states that everyone is “Straight” and “Clear Headed”, but if I’m not mistaken that during rehearsing for the Unplugged, Ace would show up late and in a slight “haze” from possible drinking so not an honest comment completely.
And that is it, thank goodness. What a waste of product this truly is and is only for diehard fans and idiots like myself. However, I don’t own this yet as it is really expensive to get on vinyl. I will have it at one time, but right time, right price! As far as a score, it gets a 2.0 out of 5.0 Stars only because it does have 5 unreleased tracks at the time. If it wasn’t for that, this would be a 0!!
Next Up: Kiss – Greatest Kiss (1997)
Check out the rest of the series if you have time!!
Halestorm is one of the best bands to come on to the scene in the last 12 years. Fronted by the powerhouse, Lzzy Hale, the band brings it heavy and has no apologies for anything they do. The songs can be hard, almost thrash and the next minute they can be soft and beautiful and then everything in between. The songs are melodic at times and Lzzy can deliver the goods vocally. Joe Hottinger on guitar is sensational and it is nice to see that the guitar still matters in rock music as his sound is what I really love about the band. Then rounding out the rhythm section is Josh Smith on bass and Arejay Hale on drums and both are the driving force behind the band.
The heavier the band gets, the better for me and my ranking might reflect that so sorry but that is what I love about them. I know they only have 4 studio albums so far, but they need to be heard and ranked. To compensate for that shortfall on studio albums, I will rank their 3 Covers EP that they have done in their ‘Reanimate Series’ of albums. That way you hopefully feel like you are getting your money’s worth stopping by here…wait…you aren’t paying to come so I guess no matter I do, you get your money’s worth. Good to know.
So without further ramblings on and on about nothing, let’s get to the rankings.
For My Sunday Song #236, we are going to dig deep in to the song “Private Parts” by Halestorm. The song features Sixx A.M. lead singer James Michael and is off the band’s 2012 album ‘The Strange Case of…’. The album wasn’t a single, hell, it wasn’t even on the main album. The song was only on the Deluxe Edition of the album. Since I am a fan of James, this song really stood out for me and quickly became a fan.
The song is not a sexual song at all as you might expect with a song called “Private Parts”. No, the song is about something so much deeper. It is about a couple that has been together, but she is having trouble getting him to open up. She wants him to let her. Communicate. Be there in the moment. She wants him to show her his private parts…she wants what is inside his heart. She feels like she has done something wrong and is starting to feel like their love isn’t real. He loves her, but for some reason he can’t talk about it. It is actually quite beautifully written and played out in the song as you get the She said/He said approach to the lyrics.
The song opens and has a power ballad feel to it. It only has a piano playing at a slow tempo accompanying the vocals. Then the chorus explodes with a more rocking track. I love how Lzzy sings a line and James answers back as you get to see the conversation played out in the song. His voice compliments hers quite nicely. The song has a great melody and is so catchy it sweeps you up and takes you along for the ride. I find it to be such a beautiful song and nice to see the softer side of the band.
You, my reader, are going to pick an album for me to review each month. It is really simple…first, I will give you 5 albums to choose from and second, you will tell me which one of those you would like to see reviewed on the site. See…simple!
There are a few simple rules I have put in to place in my selections. They are…
One has to be a new release (within the last month)
One has to be one I have never heard before (new releases don’t count for this one)
One has to be from a genre I don’t normally listen to at all or very often
And the last two are choices from my collection that I haven’t reviewed before
What are the 5 albums you ask? Funny you should ask because I have those right here…
New Release – Durbin – ‘The Beast Awakens
Never Heard Before – Joni Mitchell – ‘Blue’
Not My Normal Genre – Outkast – ‘Stankonia’
From My Collection – Ozzy Osbourne – ‘Bark at the Moon’
From My Collection – Phil Collins – ‘Face Value’
Let me know which one you would like to see and sometime in March, I will post a review of the album that gets the most votes. You have one week to decide and from there I will start listening to the album and do a review.
Happy Friday and thank goodness we have reached another weekend. We have a bunch more new releases for you this week, but for me there is only one I have bought and I am interested in this go ’round. I have marked it in Blue and it is the first one on the list. There are a ton of rock, metal, alternative and hopefully there is something that fits your musical taste. Tell me what you want to hear and/or buy and what I might have missed on the list as it is not all inclusive. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a fabulous weekend!
Whitesnake – The Blues Album (2020 Remix) – (Rhino Entertainment): The final Coverdale release in the Red, White & Blue Series. The Red was Love, White was Rock and Blue is well the Blues. These are all Whitesnake songs that have been remixed for these releases and this one will be those songs that were a little more blues tinged in either style or theme. And the vinyl is well, it is Blue…did you think it would be some other color.
Ricky Warwick – When Life was Hard & Fast – (Nuclear Blast) – Shows it is the 18th for a release date, but close enough
Welcome back to Kiss Review Series and this time around we will discuss the album ‘Unplugged’ or is it ‘MTV Unplugged’, I wasn’t really sure. I stuck with ‘Unplugged’ as that is what it says on the spine of the vinyl cover. But it was recorded for MTV so didn’t know the right way to label this post. But enough of that garbage, let us get back to the Kisstory.
Kiss seemed in no hurry to do an album. It had been several years since ‘Revenge’. They have been putting out product as we have reviewed it, but yet no studio album. And with this review, still no studio album. In 1995, the band set out and did these Convention Tours as around this time, Kiss Konventions had started popping up. Kiss would go play these and they were all done as acoustic performances. They would even get some special guests to join them and one time Peter Criss showed up and jumped on stage with them. Kiss started to play lesser known songs at the audience requests and they seemed to be enjoying themselves. Well, around that time MTV came a calling and asked if they wanted to do an episode of MTV Unplugged and the band agreed.
Welcome to the new series on 2 Loud 2 Old Music. We are going to go through all the Studio Albums for the band Queen. And to do this, we are using the 40th Anniversary 2011 Remastered CDs as our source as I picked up the 3 Volume Box Set for Christmas. And with any good series, we will start with their debut album and work our way through all the studio albums in chronological order. I hope you enjoy this new series and note, they won’t be coming weekly like the Kiss Series is doing, these will come as I can get to them and my goal is to be done by the end of the year. With only 15 reviews, I think I can meet that goal.
We aren’t going to go through a detail history lesson of the band as this series focus is the studio albums only. But we will give you a quick rundown of their beginnings. Brian May and Roger Taylor were in a band called Smile in the late 60’s. Freddie Bulsara was a big fan of the band and asked to join the band as lead singer. May of course didn’t think their current lead singer, Tim Staffell would give up that role. Well, eventually he did as he wanted to go in a different direction than what Smile was doing. Freddie joined the band and they changed their name to Queen and Freddie changed his name to Freddie Mercury due to a line in their song “My Fairy King”. This was around 1970. Then in Feburary 1971, bass player John Deacon joined the band and Queen was ready to go.
When I hit up Noble Records for the big metal collection he was selling, it wasn’t all Def Leppard Singles I purchased. There was a Queensryche in there as well and it was a single from my favorite album ‘Operation: Mindcrime’. The single was for the song “Eyes of A Stranger” which was only moderately successful as it only reached #35 on the US Mainstream Rock chart. It was played on MTV, but for me it was played constantly as that album was on repeat for most of 1988 and has been played every year (multiple times a year) ever since.
For those that don’t know, ‘Operation: Mindcrime’ was a concept album and this song, “Eyes of a Stranger” was the final track on the album and a culmination of the whole album story. This 12″ Single is a Limited Edition Gatefold that contains a Video Story Board of the video shot for the song. The gatefold has pictures from the video and sums up the story as seen below.
If I thought the last album was a little daunting to review with The Beach Boys ‘Pet Sounds’, this one is just as daunting a task. This has also been called one of the greatest albums of all time and one of the most influential albums as well. Punk, grunge and numerous other genres all owe a tip of the hat to this album. With ‘Pet Sounds’, I found the album was really good, but I didn’t think it was one of the best ever although “God Only Knows” is one of the best songs. So how will this one fare? I will come out and just say it, I love this album! I mean this thing far exceeded any expectations especially since it has been labeled as art pop and experimental rock. I wasn’t sure what to expect and this wasn’t it. I have to say this thing kind of blew me away.
First up, what an awesome band. The Velvet Underground is the great Lou Reed and John Cale as well as Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker. And then you throw the German singer, Nico, in the mix and not a bad bunch of people to have sitting around playing music. And the strange part of the album is that Andy Warhol produced it. Andy does art, I didn’t realize he produced as well. The album came out on March 12, 1967 and sounds like a product of its time as you can tell it is an album of the 60’s, but there is so much more.
New Release – Durbin – ‘The Beast Awakens
Never Heard Before – Joni Mitchell – ‘Blue’
Not My Normal Genre – Outkast – ‘Stankonia’
From My Collection – Ozzy Osbourne – ‘Bark at the Moon’
From My Collection – Phil Collins – ‘Face Value’
Ricky Warwick – When Life was Hard & Fast – (Nuclear Blast) – Shows it is the 18th for a release date, but close enough
2 Loud 2 Old Music 