Back in 2013, Legacy, Epic Records and Sony released a CD box set that contained all albums in Epic Records from the band’s debut album all the way up to 1990’s album ‘Busted’. In 2022, the box set was reissued on Music on CD, Legacy, Epic & Sony and that is the box I have in my collection. You get 14 CDs in all including the full Budokan show on 2 CDs along with the E.P. ‘Found all the Parts’ that was only available on Vinyl and cassette until 2003 when there was a Japanese release on CD.
The albums from the debut up to ‘All Shook Up’ were original remastered and reissued back in 1998 with bonus tracks and that is what we have here with those albums. If what I am reading is correct, the remaining albums were remastered for this box set but there is a debate on whether or not that is true as the sound quality isn’t as great as the earlier albums. For me, it doesn’t bother me one way or the other as I’m not going to sit and listen to all 14 discs in a row where I would notice and differences. I am just happy to have all the albums on CD as I had them all on vinyl, so I needed the CDs.
For those of you that need to know this, Cheap Trick is from Rockford, Illinois and consists of Robin Zander on Vocals, Rick Nielsen on guitar, Bun E. Carlos on drums and there are two different people on bass. First is Tom Petersson from Discs 1 – 8 and then back again on 13-14 while Jon Brant is on Discs 9-12 as Tom left for a spell and thankfully returned. They have been labeled as the American Beatles which is high praise especially considering the band was heavily influenced by The Beatles.
The first half of their catalog is amazingly strong and they have one of the best live albums of all time with ‘At Budokan’. The last half of their catalog is a little weak at times, but still some great classics on each album. The band is still going strong today and still frequently releasing quality material that any band would be proud to call their own. They have not rested on their past and always strive to be better. This is a large taste of the band if you aren’t familiar and unless you buy the Vinyl, this CD set is pretty reasonable as I picked it up for around $45. Not bad for 14 CDs. Let’s take a look.
When an artist has been around as long as Billy Idol, there are bound to be a ton of Greatest Hits Compilations. Billy is no exception to that rule. There are legitimate, very well thought out compilations and then there is not. This is the later. ’10 Great Songs’ is a Budget Compilation by the record companies that has been released over the years and a ton of artists have their own version. This particular package was originally released in 2009 on EMI with a different cover and slightly different track listing. My version is from 2010 on Capitol Records and it actually has the same track listing and even order as the 2014 issue that was called ’20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection’.
The 10 songs here are all from his prime period, The 1980’s. There was a collection released in 1988 in the UK called ’11 of the Best’ and that set has all the songs ’10 Great Songs’ does plus one extra (“Don’t Need a Gun”). That should tell you that this collection is nothing special and nothing you haven’t already seen before. There are only two people that buy this type of CD. One – the very casual fan that is willing to spend a lot of money for a basic set of hits to whet their appetite. Two – people like me who collect everything from an artist. I already have the ’11 of the Best’ CD’ and if I saw the 20th Century Masters’ one, I’d buy it too.
The opening track is the title song “Rebel Yell” which actually opened the ‘Rebel Yell’ album. It is a scorcher of a song, high energy and attitude. The opening of the song is all done with the guitar even though it sounds like both a guitar and a keyboard. Steve is showing off right out of the gate. Vocally, Billy is on fire and you can see his lip curling up while he is signing which is amazing as it is on vinyl. “Rebel Yell” was actually inspired by the Rolling Stones according to Billy on VH1 Storytellers. Billy was at a party thrown by the Stones and everyone was drinking Rebel Yell Bourbon Whiskey. I guess he loved that whiskey (along with a lot of drugs at the time).
The first single on ‘Whiplash Smile’ was a cover of William Bell’s “To Be A Lover” which was co-written by Booker T. Jones back in 1968. Billy completely modernized the song and turned it in to a dance track. It has some great soulful female backing vocals and fancy piano riffs and an all around fantastic track. The song is actually quite poignant in that with his longtime girlfriend leaving him since he “forgot to be a lover” with his drug use and sexcapades with other women. It felt like he was confessing that he screwed up.
Talisman is no more since Marcel Jacob passed away in 2009. The former members of Talisman wanted Marcel’s legacy to live on and as a tribute to him and all he did for Talisman, they released a 2 CD compilation called ‘Vaults’. The album features demos from every person Marcel used to record demos for songs that wound up in Talisman. It includes Jeff Scott Soto, of course, but also has demos from Matti Alfonzetti (Jagged Edge, Skin, Skintrade), Thomas Vikstrom (Candelmass, Brazen Abbot, Stormwind), Stefan Berggren (Company Of Snakes) and Goran Edman (Malmsteen, John Norum, Kharma).
As we discussed earlier, Talisman stems from when Marcel was working with John Norum and as Marcel was prepping songs for that album, he had Goran Edman record the demos. Goran was also in John Norum’s band. Norum rejected the songs, Goran was offered a gig with Yngwie Malmsteen and now Marcel was left with all these songs and no singer. That is when Jeff Scott Soto was brought into the picture. Jeff was with the band Eyes and came and did the songs with Talisman as a favor to Marcel. After the album cycle was done, he was back in Eyes.
Then shortly thereafter, Marcel ran in to an old grade school pal, Matti Alfonzetti, who would join as the singer. They wrote and put some demos together for the label. However, there was some management change at the label and they didn’t care about the success of the debut album as it wasn’t their baby so Marcel packed shop and left. They shopped the album around and after six months of nothing, Matti decided to leave and pursue other things. Marcel was not deterred and kept shopping the demo around without a singer. Finally Dino Records was interested in the band with one big catch. They wanted Jeff back on vocals. They knew about the success of their debut with Jeff and they loved that sound. That wasn’t a terrible thing for Marcel. Marcel decided to reach out to Jeff and catch up. And within 3 weeks of that call, the two were together again in the studio to record the next Talisman album.
As far as Thomas Vikstrom goes, Thomas was the keyboard player for Talisman from 1990-1992. I am assuming that during this time, Marcel was working on songs and Thomas do the vocals. These songs never appeared on any Talisman album with any other singer so not sure if they were ever used anywhere else prior to this release.
Yngwie Malmsteen brought back his first three singers for his next album which was a tribute album of all the songs that inspired Yngwie to do what he does. The aptly titled, ‘Inspiration’, is his ninth studio album and was released on October 14, 1996. The album charted in Finland and in Sweden but nowhere else that I can find. It did go Gold in Japan selling over 100,000 copies. It has been reissued a couple times over the years, but my copy is the original Japanese released on Pony Canyon from 1996 with OBI strip and booklet written all in Japanese.
The singers on the album are Joe Lynn Turner, Mark Boals and the reason we are here, Jeff Scott Soto. If you remember after ‘Marching Out’ when Jeff left the band yet again, I told you he would pop back in the Yngwie Universe. Joe and Jeff get 3 songs each while Mark gets 4 on the album. Yngwie even handles the vocals on one song which give us the 11 songs in total. The Japanese Edition that I has a bonus track that gives us 11 tracks in total. The normal release of the album only had 10 tracks.
Surprisingly, there are no instrumentals for Yngwie to show off which I think is pretty mature of him. There isn’t a lot of variety as we get 5 Richie Blackmore songs with 4 from Deep Purple and one from Rainbow. We also are treated to 2 Jimi Hendrix tracks. The remaining 4 tracks are from Kansas, U.K., Scorpions and Rush. But based off these tracks, he was influenced by a lot of guitarists and bands so many others were as well. Who doesn’t love Richie Blackmore or Jimi Hendrix.
The album opens with a cover of Kansas and their hit “Carry On Wayward Son” and wouldn’t you know that Jeff Scott Soto is also first up with the vocals. The song sounds like it should, but the riffs you know from the original are not on here as Yngwie changes them to suit Yngwie. Even the solo is all his own. Jeff handles the vocals with no problem. There are great harmonies and Jeff stuck with how the song should be done. He saves the song from veering too far off the rails.
Joe Lynn Turner handles the reins on “Pictures of Home” which is a Deep Purple cover off ‘Machine Head’. Turner is an impressive vocalist so no issue with the vocals on this one. And this isn’t even his best performance on the album. The guitar riffs are fast, frenzied and frantic as only Yngwie can. If you only heard the guitar, you would never guess this was a Deep Purple track. Now, the Yngwie bass playing on this one is badass and one of my favorite parts. The ending of the song is a crazy keyboard instrumental with some guitar thrown in. Very cool and helped make the song better.
“Gates of Bablyon” has a killer opening with its Indian style sitar work and then when Jeff jumps in, the song is taken up a notch. This might be the best vocal performance on the whole album. He has that raspiness at times that really adds some texture to the song. At the same time, his vocals simply soar. He does Ronnie James Dio proud with this Rainbow cover. Yngwie’s guitar playing is over-the-top for the song, but still really smokes. I actually don’t mind it all. And his picking at the end, sensational. The sum of this songs parts are what makes it one of the best songs on the album.
Yngwie now takes turns on the vocals with The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s own “Manic Depression”. The groove on this one is simply sweet. Wrapped around that groove are little guitar fills that add some layers. Now, Yngwie isn’t the best singer, but neither was Jimi. I think he holds his own here and his guitar parts aren’t too flashy and actually fit the song pretty well. They keep great song is still being great.
I don’t remember the band U.K., but hearing the song, I remember it. “In the Dead of Night” sees Mark Boals get his first vocals on a song. The song opens with some keyboards, guitar fills and then a solid beat that propels the song forward. Mark’s voice sounds great. The higher pitched of the three singers. Very melodic and when he hits the chorus, they hit that sweet spot and sound so good. About half way through the song, we get the guitar solo and it is very tasteful and plays for the song. It is nice to see Yngwie play reservedly sometimes and show us that he isn’t one-dimensional.
“Mistreated” is the final of the three Soto songs and this bluesy treat sees Jeff pull out his best David Coverdale from the Deep Purple years. What I love is that they left the blues aspect of this song as it gets a little down, dirty and nasty with that riff. But Yngwie, being Yngwie, throws in some wild, extra-curricular riffs. And it works. The solo is not as restrained as the last song, but it isn’t over-the-top either. A nice mixture of both that still sounds like the original, simply some extra flair thrown in for good measure. Soto has no missteps on his three songs, even if I’m extremely biased towards him…it is still true.
“The Sails of Charon” is the only Scorpions cover and I the do keep to the feel and vibe of the original with the main groove, but the riffs are all Yngwie. Wild, crazy and blistering fast. Does that hurt the song? Yeah, it does a little as it is a favorite of mine as far as early Scorpions goes. Uli is missed on this one. Mark Boals is back and he is trying his best Klaus Meine and he does a great job. At times, he sounds a little like him. I might have preferred more of sounding like himself, but I’ll take it. The solo here starts off while Mark is letting a long, drawn out scream. Yngwie attacks the frets at break-neck speed. Flashy and wild. Not a bad song, but not the best on the album.
Yet another Deep Purple cover is upon us with “Demon’s Eye”. Joe Lynn Turner is back this time around. Man, what a voice he has. He seems to be the main focus on this one and I love it. The groove on this one is solid, as good as the original. The solo is again, tasteful. I do like it when he shows he can rein it in for the song.
“Anthem” is up next and we are finally to the Rush song. I’ve been waiting for this one. Anders Johansson is the drummer on this one (and all the songs) and let me tell you he does a great job. Not an easy one to play. The guitar playing by Yngwie is as flamboyant as he is at times. Some really cool effects and some pure mastery at times. Mark Boals is back and he is a chameleon with his vocals. He sounds so different then the last track he was on. Might be his best performance on the album here. The guitar solo is wildly entertaining and so Yngwie. The energy around this song is electric and another favorite on the album.
The final track on the original album is a Deep Purple song…go figure. This time it is “Child In Time” and has Mark on the vocals. A great opening on the keyboards by David Rosenthal to open the track. It was nice to see him not try to duplicate Jon Lord (can’t be done). Mark starts off with a reserved vocal before he goes all crazy and delivers the screams that this song requires. It is good, not Ian Gillan good, but Mark does a respectable job. I guess we should mention Yngwie as it is his album. His solo is what you’d expect some resemblance to the original, but lots of dashes of his style thrown in for flavor. The solo is long and explosive and so Yngwie. And sometimes, that is a good thing.
“Spanish Castle Magic” by The Jimi Hendrix Experience is the Japanese Bonus Track. Like “Manic Depression” it captures that Hendrix Experience sound. Joe Lynn is on vocals and does a respectable job. Yngwie keeps to the spirit of the song and throws in his style to make it his own as best he could. To be honest, I’m not a fan of any covers of this song. Ace Frehley tried to do it and I didn’t like that one either. It isn’t a bad cover, the song doesn’t do anything for me. But you’d probably like it as this is not my personal taste.
Track Listing:
Carry On Wayward Son (Kansas Cover) – Keeper
Pictures of Home (Deep Purple Cover) – Keeper
Gates of Babylon (Rainbow Cover) – Keeper
Manic Depression (The Jimi Hendrix Experience Cover) – Keeper
In the Dead of Night (U.K. Cover) – Keeper
Mistreated (Deep Purple Cover) – Keeper
The Sails of Charon (Scorpions Cover – Keeper(1/2 Point)
The Track Score is 9.5 out of 11 Tracks or 86%. I have to say, I liked this way more than I thought I would. I can see how Yngwie’s style can get tiresome, but he did hold back on some songs and let loose on others which kept it interesting. The songs themselves are all awesome so great song choices too. The vocalist? I mean you have Mark Boals, Joe Lynn Turner and Jeff Scott Soto, what is there not to like. They all did a great job. I think Mark has come in to his own, Joe is a legend and the most seasoned of the bunch and Jeff is nothing but sensational as usual. Rarely does he not sound good to my ears. Songs like “Anthem” and “Gates of Babylon” are worth the price of this album alone and the rest of the songs just make it that much better. My Overall Score is a 4.0 out of 5.0 Stars. Again, this one surprised me how much I liked it. And to get three songs from Jeff I didn’t have before, that is just icing on the cake.
Kiss is one of those bands that there are hundreds upon hundreds of bootlegs. Each time I go to Repo Records for Record Store Day, I always seem to find bootlegs. It has been Kiss and Van Halen almost every time. This time it was more Kiss. I discovered three bootlegs at Repo Records and since I didn’t have two of them, I bought both. First up was ‘The Rock ‘N Roots of Kiss’ which we covered last week. This time around it is ‘Choppers ‘N Chicks’ from 2016 which is a Rock And Roll Tour Rehearsal from Camp Curtis Guild Armory in Reading, Massachusetts on November 15, 1976. A very famous bootleg that has been going around for years.
An interesting note of fact, that during the rehearsal, the band was filmed lip-syncing three songs that would be used on the Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. Those songs were “Hard Luck Woman”, “I Want You” and “Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em”. I believe this is an audience style recording from a tape deck and not a soundboard recording. There were several songs they rehearsed that I don’t believe were played very often on this tour, so it is cool to still have those. “Hard Luck Woman” is one of those songs.
The package we get here is pretty basic. The album jacket is almost rubbery in texture and sadly, I didn’t notice there is a blowout at the top. I can’t take it back and exchange for another one as there isn’t one. The record sleeve is nice and solid with better quality than the jacket. The picture on the front is Gene on his Chopper and on the back is a full band picture with a Chick. The sleeve has another Gene on his chopper picture and then the reverse has the track listing with individual photos of the band, each on their own bike. The vinyl is a splatter that is a rather dull reddish, brownish, orangish color. Not that pretty. The label is white and blank. But how does the music sound?
Kiss is one of those bands that there are hundreds upon hundreds of bootlegs. Each year brings us a new batch and 2025 is no different. I was out shopping for Record Store Day Black Friday and discovered three bootlegs at Repo Records. I didn’t have two of them, so I bought the two I didn’t already own. First up is ‘The Rock ‘N Roots of Kiss’. It is obviously, unofficial, and was released by a company called Rockin’ Bear Records. There are only 9 songs on here and they are simply a collection of songs from Radio Broadcasts in 1974 and 1975. Side A is all 1975 and Side B is from 1975.
Some bootlegs come with a lot of extra inserts, stickers and really cool pieces. This is not one of those releases. This is as bare bones as you can get. It does have a nice thick cover, but the vinyl is in a small clear plastic sleeve, no liner notes or anything to tell us what show these songs are from, but I think I figure it out some of it as we go through the album. It shouldn’t be hard as there weren’t a ton of radio broadcasts released, that I am aware. The only cool thing in here is the vinyl is a clear translucent color which is very nice. The artwork gives me AI vibes as someone got lazy and had the computer draw the cover. Still looks kinda cool though.
Some things Jeff has done that is so extremely rare, it is near impossible to find a copy. This is one of those for me. I would count this one as an official release as Jeff released this independently and sold them exclusively during his 2004 Tour for ‘Lost in Translation’. That is my belief anyway. Discogs has this listed as a 2003 release date. I’m not sure the 2003 date is correct as there are songs on here from the Queen Convention that was held in 2003 and not released on CD or DVD until 2004. I would be surprised if they were included prior to their release. With that being said, Jeff did do at least two shows in Eloyes, France as Nicolas Muller organized those two shows and supplied the pictures to this album as I don’t have it.
There are 9 songs on here and as you can guess from the title, they are all Queen songs Jeff has done over the years. You get live songs and studio versions. What you don’t get are anything that is exclusive to this disc. All these songs have been released previously so the only thing cool about it is that it is like a tribute album of Jeff to Queen. It is nice having all the songs in one place. And as a collector, it would still be cool to have.
“Let Me Entertain You” is the opening track and off the Talisman album from 1998 called ‘Truth’. It was Jeff’s idea at the time to cover a Queen song. He thought this song would be great to kick off a live show so why not record their own version. Well, they ended up letting it kick off the album. And let me tell you, it kicks off the album with a massive bang. They stay true to the Queen vibe, but it is all Talisman with Marcel’s thumping bass leading the charge. Soto does his best Freddie Mercury and kills it. A fun song to start it all off.
‘Forevermore’ was originally released on March 9, 2011 and in modern Whitesnake times, a 3 year gap is like a week as the gap between ‘Good to Be Bad’ and the previous studio album was 11 years. David Coverdale and Doug Aldrich wrote the entire album together as David likes to sit with his guitarist and come up with the songs just as he did with Vandenberg and Sykes. The two tried to capture an album that was rooted in the early Snake albums with that blues rock feel and soak it in the modern rock of today. Of course, the sprinkled a little of the late 80’s in some songs to not alienate anyone.
The line-up to the band has some changes to it. Doug Aldrich and Reb Beach are still unchanged from the line-up of the last album. However, we have had turnover in the rhythm section as we now have Michael Devin on Bass and Brian Tichy on drums. A pretty lethal duo. One thing I noticed is that Timothy Drury has been relegated down to a Special Guest for this album when he was a band member on the last…Interesting. A one cool special guest on this is Jasper Coverdale, David’s son, who supplies some backing vocals….David must be proud!
Here we are a mere 14 years later and we get a Super Deluxe Edition box set called ‘Forevermore (Revisited, Remixed, Remastered)’. The album came out on September 26, 2025 and brings a 4 CD set and 1 Blu-ray to celebrate another Whitesnake release. You get the usual suspects on a David Coverdale box set including a brand new remix of the album, a remastered version of the album, a disc of alternate and unreleased tracks as well as the prized ‘Evolutions’ disc which we will talk about soon enough. You also get a Blu-Ray with lots of videos, a 60-page book, a replica tour book and a poster. Lots and lots of goodies so let’s dive right in to the set.
Norwegian rocker, Jorn Lande, turned 50 back in 2018 and to celebrate that fact, Frontiers Records released a collection of 9 of his studio albums and three bonus discs. That is 12 disc in all for a very reasonable price of about $60 ($5 per CD). I will take that deal any day! ’50 Years on Earth: The Anniversary Box Set’ is what we will show off this week. We will talk a little about each studio album and the 3 bonus discs. If you like David Coverdale, Jorn’s vocals will remind you of him and you won’t be disappointed in what you hear. Good melodic hard rock and metal. Lets get to it!
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During the early 2000’s, Marcel Jacob came forward and revealed he was suffering from chronic rheumatism and it would limit his live shows. By 2003, he must have felt up to it because the band played several festivals during that Summer and thankfully for us, a lot of those were recorded. ‘Live in Stockholm’ is the 4th live recording released by the Swedish-American band Talisman. The show was recorded at Club Mondo in Stockholm, Sweden back to August 4th, 2003. You have heard most of this show before as it was previously released as ‘Five Men Live’ back in 2005 which we talked about previously. It was also on the Talisman DVD called ‘The World’s Best Kept Secret.
This reissue was first released only on Digital back on August 17, 2015 and then during 2016, the CD was finally released. What is different about this release is that it was remastered and now include all 18 tracks. A full set and for the very first time the show includes ‘Here 2day Gone 2day’ which was left off the original due to time constraints. The CD set also includes the show on DVD which is also a nice plus if you don’t have ‘The World’s Best Kept Secret’.
The Club Mondo show kicks off with no introduction, just a killer guitar riff…a pause…and the same riff. The band goes straight in to “Break your Chains”. They rock it out and to keep it going they go in to “Color My XTC” which is a massive bass heavy track thanks to Marcel Jacobs. You get a great guitar solo, but that bass is thumping the whole time. It is a massive song. Jeff is in his element and sounds great (although backing vocals are a little weak). And no time for a break, “Fabricated War” comes roaring in and the heavy continues as they totally rock it out. More Marcel high in the mix and you know, he has to be as the Talisman sound is that bass!! And again, no break, no talking to the crowd as the belt out “Mysterious”. It is one banger after another and as a fan, just give me music, no talking necessary.
2 Loud 2 Old Music 