Category: Album Review

Kiss – ‘Animalize’ (1984) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)

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With the success of ‘Lick It Up’, Kiss was back on top…well as close to on top as they were going to get for awhile. They were somewhat relevant again, but things weren’t easy. Vinnie Vincent was officially out of the band by around April 1984 and they needed a guitarist quick as it was time to record a new album. They settled on a guitarists by the name of Mark St. John. He was a proper shredder which was typical of the time thanks in large part to the late, great Eddie Van Halen. Now fully staffed again, they went in to the studio in May and worked through July on the album.

I said “they”, but that was a loose term. This project was really more Paul’s than Gene’s. Gene was out doing movies, trying to produce new rock bands and pretty much anything else that wasn’t Kiss. Paul Stanley ran the shop and actually ended up producing the album. Gene Simmons showed up on occasion to give us a handful of a mediocre songs. But he didn’t play on all the songs.

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‘Masters of Metal’ – Various Artists – Album Review

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I was digging for records while on vacation down in St. Augustine, Florida and at one of the stores, I came across a vinyl that brought back so many memories.  I had this on cassette and I remember loving it and listening to it constantly.  I had to get it and at only $5, it was a no brainer.

The album is not something I normally buy and that is because it is a compilation album mixed with numerous artists.  The album was K-Tel’s “Master of Metal”!  Now, don’t let the name confuse you because it isn’t really that heavy or metal, but it was full of songs that I loved from bands that sometimes do much heavier stuff.  The album is from 1984 and had hit songs from some of the biggest bands at that time.

There were so many bands on here that had connections with each other.  Such as Black Sabbath is on it with Ian Gillan on vocals, Dio is on here and Ronnie James Dio used to sing with Black Sabbath, Rainbow is on here with Joe Lynn Turner and Dio sang with them as well.  Kiss is on here and so is Rush who opened for Kiss.  All pretty cool, but back in 1984, I had no idea about these connections.

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You Picked It! – The Police – ‘Synchronicity’ (1983) – Album Review

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Alright…You Picked It! And here it is. The one you picked was The Police – ‘Synchronicity’.  The votes were as follows:

  1. The Police – ‘Synchronicity’ – 11 votes
  2. Patti Smith – ‘Horses’ – 7 votes
  3. The Struts – ‘Strange Days’ – 3 votes
  4. Lauryn Hill – ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’ – 1 vote
  5. Prince – ‘Purple Rain’ – 0 votes (this surprised me)

And thanks to being on The LeBrain Train live stream a couple weeks back, we had 2 write-in votes for Tommy Lee’s ‘Andro’ based on my absolute disdain for this new album. The write-in votes are a first for this series and if there was enough votes, it technically could’ve won!!

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

THE POLICE – ‘SYNCHRONICITY’:

It turns out, I wrote about this album some 3-4 years ago. I think I need to keep better notes. But, you guys voted for it anyway and therefore I will update my review where my thoughts might have changed or where I have better information.

My first album for The Police was ironically their last.  MTV had played their previous songs quite often and I loved “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” and “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic”, but it wasn’t until “Synchronicity II” that I finally decided to actually buy one of their records.

I picked up the cassette for ‘Synchronicity’ back in 1983 and later I did pick up their entire collection on CD by buying their box set which had all their albums.  I have since sold all the previous copies and when I was out vinyl shopping several years back, I found ‘Synchronicity’ and snatched it up.  It cost $8 which was about the same price I probably paid for the cassette back in the ’80’s.

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Kiss – ‘Lick it Up’ (1983) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)

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Right after the Creatures of the Night Tour, the band went back in to the studio to complete the follow-up album. Michael James Jackson would stay on board as the producer as the sound he got on “Creatures” was amazing and the band wanted to continue that harder sound. Vinnie Vincent was now an official member of the band as he was on the cover. However, he actually wasn’t an “official member of the band” as he never signed his contract which became an extreme soar spot with Vinnie and the band which we will discuss a little later on in our story.

The ‘Lick it Up’ album, which came out on September 23, 1983, garnered way more attention than ‘Creatures’ for one main reason. The band finally took off the make-up which is something they had been talking about doing since at least the ‘Music from the Elder’ era. They finally did it and the big reveal was on MTV during primetime. I remember this vividly as this was event TV for me as I was a lifelong Kiss fan at the time (and still am today). I remember seeing each member in make-up and then without and I remember thinking, “PUT IT BACK ON!!! OOOOH THE HORROR!!!” No, it really wasn’t that bad. It was actually pretty cool. And just like that Kiss was back in the public eye and they had some songs that could back it up.

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Van Halen – ‘Women and Children First Sessions’ (Bootleg) – Album Review

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I was out for Record Store Day in September and while waiting in line to buy my RSD purchases, this was sitting at the top of the shelf staring at me. I swear I heard it calling my name…”John, buy me!”. I stopped, looked around, no one else in the store heard it, but it said it, I know it did!! Now who was I to argue. I grabbed it, give it a quick once over and when I saw that it was a bootleg of demos from the Van Halen album “Women and Children First”, SOLD!! I mean look at the cover. They took the original album cover and made it way cooler. And to match the cover, the vinyl is even red to go with the stripes. Sweet!

I took it home and couldn’t wait to hear it. Now, I just bought several record store day items and I was way more excited about this album then the RSD purchases. And after listening to it, I am still more excited. Being a bootleg, I was worried about the sound quality of the demos and let me tell you, it was fantastic. These demos have been floating around for awhile and they are normally very muddied down and a little rough. These have been cleaned up nicely. The sound is crisp and clear and though they do sound like demos, they are also pretty damn cool.

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Kiss – ‘Creatures of the Night’ (1982) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)

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Kiss had to get back to their hard rock roots after the disaster of their last studio album ‘Music from the Elder’. The band had been on a downward spiral since ‘Dynasty’ with their sound going softer, Peter Criss leaving the band and now Ace was pretty much done. Due to his disillusionment the last few years with the band, the fact he had no say in anything, his alcohol problem and his prescription drug problem related to a car crash, Ace was done. He was so done in fact, he does not show up anywhere on this album. Well, that isn’t entirely true. Kiss still credited him as a member of the band, his picture is on the cover and he made some public appearances in support of the band including appearing in the music video for ‘I Love it Loud” which he didn’t even play on. After that video shoot though, Ace was no longer in the band.

Kiss was basically a trio for this whole album. Additional musicians and songwriters were brought in to help them write and record this album. Michael James Jackson was brought in as the producer and Michael had worked on the four new songs used on the ‘Killers’ album early in the year. They went in to the studio with the sole purpose of bringing back the heavy rock. Paul’s writing friend, Adam Mitchell, was back to help as well as Jim Vallance, Bryan Adams and Mikel Japp. All these guys co-wrote on the ‘Killers’ album, so it stands to reason that all these songs for both ‘Killers’ and ‘Creatures’ were part of the same writing sessions.

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Kiss – ‘Killers’ (1982) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)

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Kiss had released the ‘Music from the Elder’ back in November 1981 and it flopped. The record company was in a panic and needed to get something out so people could forget about the disaster that was ‘the Elder’ so what do they do? Well, they put out a compilation. Phonogram (the band’s European label) requested Kiss go back in and record some new songs for the compilation which they gladly did…well a couple of them gladly did. Ace was pretty much done with Kiss back in 1981 and wasn’t involved at all with any of the new songs. However, he wouldn’t leave the band until after the next album in late 1982. Gene played on them (I think), but didn’t sing or write as he was pretty busy either with his girlfriend Diana Ross or making movies.

The heavy lifting was left to Paul and Eric. Paul wrote or co-wrote all the songs and sang on all of them. The label and band brought in a bunch of outside writers including Mikel Japp, who co-wrote with Paul on his solo album, Adam Mitchell, who would write a lot on the next album ‘Creatures of the Night’, and lastly some guy named Bryan Adams. All the drum work was done by Eric Carr and the late Bob Kulick handled all the lead guitar work just as he did on Alive II, with rhythm guitar on one song done by Mikel Japp. So, I guess it is still Kiss.

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Needtobreathe – ‘Insiders LP, Vol. 3’ – Album Review

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As you know if you visit my site, one of my favorite bands is Needtobreathe.  I have everything they have put out on vinyl and now I am going after everything they have released on CD (that they don’t have on vinyl).  And the CDs I want the most are the exclusive fan club CDs they release each year.

If you join the Needtobreathe Insiders fan club (for $70 a year), you get a Live CD of tracks collected from the band’s live performances throughout their career (among other things such as a Needtobreathe Mug, a key chain and a free live track download ever month – that is 12 more songs or maybe the same tracks that will be on the CD, not sure yet on that).  Needtobreathe actually records every show they put on so they have a ton of tunes to choose from.  They have released 6 volumes and number 7 will be coming in December which I will get as I have now joined the club.  I had never joined prior so getting my hands on these has not been easy as it is not cheap. I am looking for the right price and most of the time it is too high.   I finally grabbed my first one at a price less than the membership fee which was Insiders LP Vol. 2 for $40 and 9 months later I got one even cheaper which was Vol. 5 and it was only $25. And then a couple days later got another for $27 which is this one Vol. 3. Sorry we aren’t going in order, but we are going in order of when I receive them.

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

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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!

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 Struts – ‘Strange Days’

  Never Heard Before – Patti Smith – ‘Horses”

Not My Normal Genre – Lauryn Hill – ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’

  From My Collection – Prince & the Revolution – ‘Purple Rain’

  From My Collection – The Police ‘Synchronicity’

Let me know which one you would like to see and sometime in November, 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!!

Kiss – ‘Music From The Elder’ (1981) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)

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Kiss came off a very successful Australian Tour thanks to Unmasked and the song “Shandi” being huge hits in that country, but in the States, Kiss had floundered significantly. They were now basically a joke. Peter Criss was no longer in the band, their music was no longer rock and things looked pretty dire for them. Kiss started recording for a new album and this album was going to get back to the hard rock roots of the band, however, things started to change. The thought of hard rock album wasn’t enough. The band had to do something drastic, something big, something artistic. In comes producer Bob Ezrin.

Bob had come off the success of doing a concept album with a band you might know name Pink Floyd. The album was ‘The Wall”. In January 81, the band had started recording at Ace in the Hole studio at Ace’s house and they were doing much harder, rock recordings. But when Bob came on board around March, talk started to change to maybe doing a concept album and Gene was immediately on board, Paul was somewhat, Eric was not thrilled about the direction, but he was thrilled about finally recording his first Kiss album. And Ace, well Ace wasn’t happy at all. Things with Ace would start to deteriorate even more. So much so while the album was being recorded in Toronto and New York, Ace stayed at this house in Connecticut and did his parts in his studio and mailed them out when he was done.

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