Category: Album Review

Cheap Trick – ‘One on One’ (1982) – Album Review (The Cheap Trick Collection Series)

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The band waited two years to record their follow-up to the George Martin produced album, ‘All Shook Up’. During that time, their record label, CBS, sued the band for a whopping $10 million alleging the band was holding out recording a new album to get a better deal. By 1982, the lawsuit was settled and the band started working on their sixth studio album, ‘One on One’.

The band had a new bass player after original member, Tom Petersson left back in 1980. His name was Pete Comita. Well, Pete didn’t last long and was replaced rather quickly during the early recordings of the album. In fact, he doesn’t appear on any of the album. They replaced him with bass player, Jon Brant. Jon came in so late, he is only on three of the songs. Guitarist, Rick Nielsen picked up the slack and played bass on all the other tracks. And the other two members, Robin Zander and Bun E. Carlos were still able to their jobs and quite well.

One thing I found interesting about the album is the cover. You have a new member and yet if you look at the cover, his face is obscured unlike anyone else’s faces. I think this was done on purpose because hadn’t been in the band very long and didn’t contribute much to the album.

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Aerosmith – ‘Night in the Ruts’ (1979) – Album Review (The Aerosmith Collection Series)

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Drugs…wives…tension. Those three things were all starting to boil over with Aerosmith during the recording of the band’s sixth studio album, ‘Night in the Ruts’. What is a night in the ruts anyway? Actually, it is a play on words for “Right in the Nuts”. Pretty funny actually. But wasn’t funny was the drug use was immense at this point. The band could barely function. Steven wasn’t writing lyrics, Joe owed the band money for his room service bills and he hadn’t been in the studio for months, longtime producer Jack Douglas was fired and Gary Lyons was brought in to produce, and the album was taking forever to finish. The band’s relationship with their label was strained as well. At this point, the band was completely and utterly out of control.

The album was taking so long, the band was forced to go out on the road and that was not a good place for them to be. More drugs meant horrible shows. Horrible shows meant more tension. More tension bled over in to the wives starting to fight and things got really ugly in Cleveland, OH on July 28, 1979 when Joe Perry’s wife through milk at Tom Hamilton’s wife. The band I believe already hated Joe’s wife so after the show, Steven and Joe got in to a nasty altercation and by the end, Joe Perry was no longer in the band. He was done and he was out!

Well, that didn’t bode well as the album wasn’t even finished. The band brought in Richie Supa to help on the guitars as well as Jimmy Crespo to finish others. Jimmy was the one that stayed and toured with the band until 1984. The album finally was finished and released on November 16th, 1979. It didn’t do well at all. It did got to #14 on the Billboard Charts but barely went gold. They had one single, “Remember (Walking in the Sand)” which didn’t even break the Top 40 landing at #67.

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You Pick It! – Which Album to Review in December?

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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! Now, if you want to cast more than one vote, comment on the Twitter and Facebook post and you could get up to 3 votes on your favorite pick.

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 – The Darkness – “Motorheart”

  Never Heard Before – The Band – ‘The Band’

  Not My Normal Genre – Dusty Springfield – ‘Dusty in Memphis’

  From My Collection – Stryper – ‘Against the Law’

  From My Collection – David Bowie – ‘Let’s Dance’

Let me know which one you would like to see and sometime in December, 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.

Thanks for participating!!

Cheap Trick – ‘All Shook Up’ (1980) – Album Review (The Cheap Trick Collection Series)

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Cheap Trick was in high gear and on a tremendous pace of album/tour, album/tour and it was getting relentless. After the massive success of Budokan and Dream Police, they went to work on the next album, but this time around they were wanting to try something different. The first thing they did was part ways with long time producer, Tom Werman, who had produced everything except the debut.

The band had always been considered an American version of the Beatles and since they were huge fans of them, why not work with the one of the most famous producers, the fifth Beatle, George Martin. So off to London they went and recorded the album at Air Studios in London. Of course this was a big change for the band and their sound. Gone were the radio-friendly singles and in was a more experimental sound. They took chances and tried new things and whether for the better or not, we will shortly find out.

The band was still in tact with Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen, Tom Petersson and Bun E. Carlos. They finished up the album, but by the time it was done, Tom Petersson was exhausted. He was done as well. The non-stop touring and add to the fact he was not thrilled with the direction of the band and he didn’t even bother showing up in London when it was time to mix the album. And by August 26, 1980, Tom left the band to go record his own album with his wife. Who I think the band feels was part of his problem. Maybe she was their Yoko. The band pressed on and the album saw its release on October 24, 1980.

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The Fixx – ‘Reach the Beach’ (1983) – Album Review

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It is time for a throwback album review. I was flipping through the stacks and saw this and grabbed it. I hadn’t heard it in a long while, but suddenly I wanted to hear it. So, I played it then the next day, played it again. I then said, heck, let’s play it again and then decided I want to write about it so here we are.

The Fixx were a big New Wave band out London, Engalnd from the early 80’s and consisted of Singer Cy Curnin, Guitarist Jamie West-Oram, Drummer Adam Woods and Keyboardist Rupert Greenall. There was no bass player for this album, per se, as they went through a couple. Their regular bass player Alfie Agius quit before the album was complete and then they brought in Dan Brown but he wasn’t made a full fledge member until after the Tour I believe. Oh yeah, that Dan Brown is not the writer Dan Brown of ‘The Da Vinci Code’.

The Fixx were huge on MTV and their videos were in constant rotation. I really enjoyed the songs and after the album came out on May 15, 1983, I eventually bought it. I didn’t catch them on tour with this album, but on November 20, 1984 I caught them on tour with their next album ‘Phantom’, but the only reason I was going was from this album, ‘Reach the Beach’.

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You Picked It!! – Television – ‘Marquee Moon’ – Album Review

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Alright…You Picked It! And this one was really, really close. This was the most tightly contested one we have had so far and maybe even the most votes. Quickly, Duran Duran jumped out in first thanks to the Twitterverse, but the others caught up shortly thereafter. I had a 4 way tie for first up until the last few votes which pushed the winner ahead. There were only 3 points between first and last. The winner is Television and their album ‘Marquee Moon’ which was listed as a genre I rarely listen to which is because I thought they were Punk, but they didn’t sound like I thought they would so I was way wrong on that listing. They were more rock and garage rock to me and I should’ve been listening to them a long time ago. Here are the results.

  1. Television – ‘Marquee Moon’ – 7 votes
  2. Duran Duran – ‘Future Past’ – 6 votes
  3. Big Star – ‘#1 Record’ – 5 votes
  4. Dokken – ‘Tooth And Nail’ – 5 votes
  5. Stevie Ray Vaughan – ‘Soul to Soul’ – 4 Votes

Thanks to all for participating. The December choices will be up on Saturday!

TELEVISION – ‘MARQUEE MOON’

As I had said above, I thought these guys were punk and a lot of people say they are. However, punk to me is really short songs with guys (or gals) that can’t really play all that great and just make a lot of noise quickly and haphazardly. This isn’t it at all. The songs on here are well constructed, thought out tracks that can go as long as 10 minutes. This doesn’t have the urgency of punk. This to me is more garage rock and straight up rock with lots of great guitars. This was not what I expected.

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Aerosmith – ‘Live! Bootleg’ (1978) – Album Review (The Aerosmith Collection Series)

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The band had been recording / touring and recording / touring non-stop for years now and it was taking its toll. The drug use was rampant as Tyler and Perry became known as the “Toxic Twins” if that gives you any indication of the toxicity of their drug use and relationship. The record company and management felt the band needed a break so they decided to put out a live album. I believe the record company wanted a clean, studio overdubbed album like every other band was doing at the time, but the band wanted it to sound real and raw.

Luckily for us, the band won out and we got a rough and raw record that was more representative of how the band really sounds live. They even took it a step further and made the album cover look cheap and dirty like a real bootleg album would look. You have coffee rings on the back cover and everything looks stamped and very unprofessional. One great thing about bootlegs are they are usually riddle with mistakes so the band purposely left the song “Draw the Line” off the setlist although it is really after the song “Mother Popcorn”. They were meticulous to make it look like a real bootleg. And to go even further with the bootleg theme, they recorded a couple songs on to a cassette and used that version so you get a slight hiss like a cassette usually has. I love the authenticity they were shooting for on this record.

The band pieced together songs from numerous shows over 1977 and 1978. They also threw in 2 songs from a radio broadcast from 1973 and those songs are obvious as they don’t sound anything like the other tracks and it does disrupt the live feel they established over the rest of the album, but we will get to that later. The album includes the same ol’ crew of Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer but that would soon come to an end…more on that with the next review.

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Cheap Trick – ‘Found All The Parts E.P.’ (1980) – Album Review (The Cheap Trick Collection Series)

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The 70’s were a huge decade for Cheap Trick. In just three short years, we were blessed with four studio albums and one of the greatest live albums of all time with ‘Cheap Trick at Budokan’. Not a bad run. Now we are in to the 80’s and this album was sort of a way to end the 70’s with a nice little bonus. The four-song E.P. was released on 10″ Vinyl and was part of Epic Records series called Nu-Disk, but that series was rather short-lived and I don’t know if I’ve found another album from that series.

If I remember correctly, it was believed that some of the songs on here were from a Cheap Trick album that was canned and never released, especially when more songs from this time frame were released as bonus tracks on other releases/compilations down the road. I believe there were 7 other tracks with all but 1 being released. However, I don’t think that was ever confirmed or denied. Most likely, they were working on an album and decided to shift gears in to a new direction which then became the album ‘All Shook Up’ which we will get to next time.

The album was released on June 2, 1980 and contained four tracks. Side 1 were both live songs (cough, cough, sort of) and side 2 were brand new studio tracks (thus the rumors mentioned above). I don’t see any chart information on them so not sure how well the E.P. did, but doesn’t matter to me as I love finding this kind of stuff.

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Stone Temple Pilots – ‘Tiny Music…Songs From the Vatican Gift Shop’ (25th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition) – Album Review

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The band’s third album saw a dramatic change in their music. Gone was the grunge and rock sound of their first two albums and in its place was a more experimental sound that was a mix of glam and psychedelic, but still rooted in the STP vibe. The band rented a mansion in Santa Barbara, California where they holed up with producer Brendan O’Brien and on March 26, 1996, ‘Tiny Music…Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop’ was born. And there is nothing “tiny” about it. It is huge in sound and in packaging. The album went all the way to #4 on the Billboard charts and spawned 3 #1 songs on the Mainstream Rock Charts. I would say it was fairly successful selling over 2 million copies in the U.S. alone.

And here we are 25 years later celebrating the album with a Super Deluxe Edition done in the same style as the first two albums ‘Core’ and ‘Purple’ which you can check out their Super Deluxe Editions by clicking on their album name. I have to say, they are great sets to have and I can’t wait for ‘No. 4’ as I hear there is some great stuff unreleased for that album.

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Aerosmith – ‘Draw the Line’ (1977) – Album Review (The Aerosmith Collection Series)

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Drugs…Addict…What do these words describe? It is simple. They describe Aerosmith! Rock band certainly doesn’t describe them because at this point, drugs were way more important than being musicians as that was what they spent most of their time doing..drugs!

As a result of this massive drug problem, their manager, David Krebs, thought he needed to get them away from the drugs so he shipped the band to an old Convent in Armonk, New York. But what David didn’t take in to account that drug dealers are basically Grubhub, especially if your names are Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. Place an order and they will deliver and that they did…in droves. So much so that Tyler and Perry were less involved in this album than any other. But it did give the rest of the band, Tom Hamilton, Brad Whitford and Joey Kramer more say in to what was going on with the album.

Producer, Jack Douglas, was back and did the best he could. The music is pretty straight-forward blues rock & roll and far less fancy stuff than prior albums. Heck, he was lucky to even finish recording the album with everyone still alive. The album took forever as they worked on it from June to October of 1977 as Joe and Steven were so drugged up all the time that they could only record in little increments of time. The album finally saw its release on December 9, 1977 and although the album did sell over 2 million copies (by 1996) and went to #11 on the Billboard Charts, it is still perceived as a lesser album than the prior two. It is also believed to be the beginning of the end as the tensions and drug use would eventually reach a breaking point.

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