I was honored to be asked for the debut episode of The Distortion Den’s Retro Rewind. Thanks Deke for inviting me along for the ride. We talk Aerosmith’s “Toys in the Attic” vs Kiss’ “Dressed to Kill” both albums now only 50 years young!! See who wins.
This is Deke’s write-up on the show…
Welcome to the first episode of Retro Rewind. The concept is rather simple, pick two albums from the same year and put them in head to head vinyl match. Every episode we will score each album out of 10. Scoring will be based on front cover, back cover, the compositions, lyrics, musicianship, productions etc. Basically geeking out over some classic albums in our collection and then rating them and declaring one a winner at the end.
John T Snow was one of the first guys I reached out to and we decided that Episode 1 should be between two albums that are turning 50 years young this year.Aerosmith with “Toys In The Attic” Vs. KISS with “Dressed To Kill”
To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of one Def Leppard’s biggest albums, ‘Pyromania’, they give the album the justice it needs and released an awesome box set in 2024. And what a great set it is. It has 4 CD’s, 1 Blu Ray and even includes a hard back book. It is all housed in a cardboard box that is of great quality and the images are fantastic. The housing of the CDs & Blu Ray is not a gate-fold, but instead an incredible tri-fold. The original album is remastered, there is a disc of unreleased demos and mixes, a live set from Germany and the famous live show from 1983 at the L.A. Forum. It is splendid and I have to say that as this is one of my all-time favorite albums.
But before we get to the set, what was going on in the Def Leppard world at the time of the album? Well,…here it is…The tide was changing, Def Leppard’s success was palpable at this point, but not quite there…YET! Robert John “Mutt” Lange was back as producer and the band hit the studios in January 1982 and went through November of that year at Park Gates studio in London. All didn’t go smoothly, there was one big issue and that issue was Pete Willis.
Pete’s drinking problem was…well, becoming a problem. It was causing issues that were impacting his work and the band. It got so bad that on July 11, 1982, mid-way through work on the album, the band fired Pete. This was not a rash decision as it was discussed fully amongst the band because on July 12, 1982, the very next day, the band announced his replacement in the likes of Girl’s guitarists, Phil Collen. By this point in recording, Pete had already recorded all his rhythm parts and those are still on the album. Phil came in and added a few guitar parts and as well as some solos, he had it easy.
Record companies like to release compilations long after a band has broken up as it keeps the band relevant and another opportunity to grab some cash. Unlike most greatest hits compilation, this one has some meat on the bone. EMI records released ‘Anthology’ on February 25, 2003 and it isn’t a one disc type of compilation. No! You get 3 CDs of goodness. The booklet gives us a nice biography of the band plus credits for all the songs on the 3 discs. And it also gives 51 tracks from the Generation X catalog.
But before we get in to the music. Who is Generation X? Well, if you didn’t follow my Billy Idol series, then I will let you know who they are (but go back and read all the reviews in the Series after you are done with this one). Generation X were a punk band out of England that ran from 1976 until 1981 and consisted of Tony James, Bob “Derwood” Andrews, Mark Laff and of course, Billy Idol. That is how discovered them is digging through Billy Idol’s musical history and I am so glad I did. They had 3 albums and went from Generation X to Gen X when there was a line-up change. But I liked most of what I heard so this was easy decision to grab this one…okay…now on to the music included in this set.
At one time in their career, Def Leppard made a statement that a band only releases a live album when they have run out of ideas. I’m not sure the actual count, but we are on maybe the fifth or sixth live album they’ve released now. And based on ‘Drastic Symphonies, I would say they are out of new ideas. With that aside, I’m still a massive fan and buy everything. In fact, back in April 2024 for Record Store Day, I got in line to get the very limited vinyl release of ‘One Night Only: Live at the Leadmill’ which was a Record Store Day First (not exlcusive) release and limited to only 6,000 copies. And I was able to grab one.
That is what we are reviewing today. It came in a beautiful gatefold with a great live shot of the band at the club and is on 2LP’s of a cool silver cover that coincides with the album cover. The LPs are housed in a thick cardboard like sleeve with some great pictures of the band members taken at the show. They later released it on October 11, 2024 in CD format that either had a DVD or a Blu-Ray included. And, I have the CD/Blu Ray combo as well as I like to have at every format (I know I didn’t get the DVD but the Blu Ray is better visually so that is all I need).
Is it technically a re-issue if the album never saw the light of day. That is what we have here with the album ‘Back Jack’ by the band Back Jack. As a band, they only ever released a 45 single back in the early 70’s. Back Jack was around from about 1970-1975 on various different names. These recording compiled by RidingEasy Records are the bulk of their output and recorded around 1974-1975. The vinyl only has 8 tracks while streaming has 13. The vinyl only includes the best recordings as the others weren’t the best quality sounding tracks, however, still great.
For some of these tracks, Back Jack consisted of Kim McKinney on bass, Hans Myers on drums and Mike Collier on guitar and lead vocals. The rest included a slightly different line-up though still Mike and Kim, you also get Jeff Ballew on guitar and Mike Lusher now on drums and that is the line-up pictured on the front cover. The name Back Jack came from Kim McKinney whose dad was running for mayor and the bumber stick said “Back Jack” for Mayor…and thus the name change from the original name of Trellis.
They were out of Missouri and are a heavy rock band with some psych elements. Over on Rate Your Music, A Rider in the Storm described there as music as follows…“The music is like if Blue Oyester Cult and Lynyrd Skynyrd had a child, and said child was raised by Grand Funk and Led Zeppelin with Uncle Poobah and named Back Jack!”. I think that about sums them up. You can get the full story of the band on the album insert pictured above. The flip side had the lyrics to the songs. The version I have is from Noble Records which was limited to only 300 copies and on Orange translucent vinyl that matches the orange in the cover. Great color coordination!!
If you read my site, you know Def Leppard is one of my all-time favorite bands, if not the #1 band on my list. And for that, this list was extremely hard for me to do, yet easy as well. I will already go ahead and say it, there is not a horrible album in this bunch only some I like more than others and yet a few that are absolute no-brainers as the top choices. And yes, I am biased.
Speaking of top choices, my Top 5 is my Top 5 because each album is completely different. The band completely changed up the sound and style on each of these albums and when the band does that, for me they hit it out of the park.
From the very beginning in 1980 with their debut and all the way up to today, the band has been mainstay in my musical journey. In 2019, they were inducted in to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and all I can say is it is about damn time!!! They received the highest public vote so I am not the only one that things these guys from England are pretty darn great. And their last studio album was 2023’s ‘Drastic Symphonies’…so they are still going strong…sort of.
So, let’s get to it. Here is my favorite Def Leppard albums from the worst one to the very best. I hope you enjoy it.
WORST – DRASTIC SYMPHONIES (2023)
This album is basically dreadful with some shining moments. There are only 6 tracks worth listening to in my opinion and the rest was waste of time. They did at least experiment with a few tracks, although some were so bad they hurt, at least they tried. The problem was they should’ve “Tried” on all the songs rather then simply add orchestration to a lot of the original tracks. That is laziness. Keep “Turn to Dust”, “Paper Sun”, “Hysteria”, “Too Late For Love” and “King of the World”, skip the rest.
Universal Music did not care about over saturation of an artist as they released a ton of Kiss Compilations and Canada received the brunt of them. This one was released in April 2008, I believe. It was part of the Green Series that Universal was releasing which had a number of bands. The Green Series means the packaging was all done with recycled paper and even used a plant based ink. Good on them for trying to save the earth, but with the shipping of the product and I am sure was wrapped in some sort of plastic, it was really all for naught. Plus, the cardboard digipak would tend to show wear and tear after awhile. However, the copy I received was in pretty darn good shape.
The album contains 15 tracks and really only covers the 70’s with the minor exception of “Lick It Up” from 1983. The rest is only from the original band members of Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley. With “Lick It Up”, you add Eric Carr and Vinnie Vincent. Wait, this isn’t all entirely true as the song “Cold Gin” is live and is copyrighted from 2001. More on that later. There is a write-up in the booklet by Don Winkley giving a brief history of the band only going up to the reunion (and this was 2008 when released so I would say they missed some years). If you like the 70’s material, then at 15 tracks, not a bad comp…but not a great one either. A pure cash grab from the label. Let’s get to the music…
“Shout It Out Loud” was the first single off ‘Destroyer’ trying to capitalize off the success of the live version of “Rock and Roll All Nite” that was released previously. The title of the song comes from the Hollies song “We Want to Shout It Out Loud” which Wicked Lester demoed years earlier. The song is sung by both Paul and Gene and that chorus of “Shout it, Shout it, Shout It Out Loud” is pure rock gold.
Ace is finally on lead vocals with “Shock Me” and might be my favorite Ace song. The song is based off an incident that is well documented where Ace touched an ungrounded metal railing and had the life shocked out of him. No, he didn’t die, but he was thrown back a little. He continued the show with no feeling in his hand and I believe the show was December 12, 1976, at the Lakeland Civic Center in Lakeland, Florida. Ace having little confidence wanted Gene to sing and Gene, thankfully, talked Ace in to singing. Ace finally agreed and actually recorded the song lying down on the floor. I hope that method has changed. The song is utterly brilliant and the guitar work is some of Ace’s best. In fact, he does all the guitar work on this one, both lead and rhythm. This defines Ace Frehley in my book!!
David Coverdale has really outdone himself with these Super Deluxe Editions Box Sets. First was the ‘1987’ album, then an UnZipped Box Set, then ‘Slide It In’ and the 1989 album ‘Slip of the Tongue’. Heck, He even did the 25th Anniversary Edition of ‘Restless Heart’ and even a 15th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition for ‘Good to Be Bad’ now called ‘Still…Good to Be Bad’. And they are all spectacular. Now, we get a new box set. This time around it is a collection of his 3 solo albums. Starting with the most recent, 2000’s ‘Into the Light’ and going all the back to his first 2 solo albums including 1977’s ‘Whitesnake’ and 1978’s ‘Northwind’. And you don’t get each album once, you get them twice. One with a remastered version and then a 2024 complete remix.
This special edition consists of 6 CDs, 1 60-page Book, and 1 Album Cover Poster. And it has over 91 tracks amongst all the CDs. Well…not really. Each album is repeated twice with the remixed and the remastered versions, but there is a lot of new unreleased stuff too which is great. So, this is why I say this is for the diehard fans as it is very repetitive…this is for the diehard fans as it is very repetitive! Yes, I said this twice to prove a point and yes, I did this joke on pretty much every box set review for Whitesnake because its true. Here are all the songs you get…it’s immense.
Universal Music was at it again in 2009 with yet another compilation. This one was called ‘Legends of Rock’ and was exclusive to Canada like so many others. They were pumping these out and trying to grab as much cash as they could since Kiss was no longer on their label. I do like the old photograph from the ‘Dressed to Kill’ era that was the cover. It was a decent set with 15 tracks, but nothing really special or unexpected. Same old, same old, you’d say. It is a bare bones set, but at least they had some write-up in the liner notes. It says it is a 4 page booklet, but don’t let that fool you into thinking there is anything cool in there because there is not. The only thing of interest is the songs and even those are not that interesting since most of the tracks are on every other compilation out there. What songs are on it? Let’s go through it and see.
First up is “Heaven’s On Fire” which is Paul Stanly and Desmond Child song and the first single off ‘Animalize’. Paul shows off with a little “Oooh Oooh Oooh” that I’m not sure he could not hit today as it is so high, but it is a perfect way to kick off the song The song is another rocker and a very typical 80’s sounding song. It was all over MTV and helped propel the album to Platinum status. On radio, it didn’t fare as well not breaking the Top 40 and hanging around #49. The song is one of the few 80’s song to actually get occasionally played live after they went back to make-up which is cool. Now sadly, this was the only video that contains Mark as he was gone before anything else was done, but at least we have this to remember him by.
“Lick It Up” is the band’s first single and first video without make-up and the song only went to #66. It opens with a nice little riff and a little scream from Paul. Paul’s second song on the album and it was meant for the radio. This is a pure 80’s, melodic rock song and no wonder it still gets played a lot. The video was so 80’s as well. Real cheesy and had the band in a post-apocalyptic world. It is a little comical watching it now. The song, however, is about a guy trying to talk his girlfriend in to doing the nasty so doesn’t really fit with the video. Really cool they kicked things off with 2 80’s songs, but that is all we get. The rest are from the 70’s.
The first song of their debut, “Strutter”. The song was written by both Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons and over the years, this would be a rare experience as they would wind up writing songs by themselves. The music of the song was based off an old Gene song called “Stanley the Parrot” which was recorded even before there was a Wicked Lester. The song has a great opening drum fill by Peter and is an uptempo rock song that was inspired by all the sexy women in New York. There is a great bass riff by Gene why Ace belts out the solo. Paul sings the song and shows all the confidence a lead singer should show.
I know, I know…I reviewed this album last week. But this is The Collection Series and since a Picture Disc is very different from the normal vinyl and other items, I figured it deserved its own post. So bare with me…
In 2023, Def Leppard did something they hadn’t done in years. Give us a new album a year after the last studio album. In 2022, we were given ‘Diamond Star Halos’ and in 2023, ‘Drastic Symphonies’. Now, ‘Drastic Symphonies’ isn’t technically a studio album. And it isn’t technically a greatest hits compilation. Instead, what we are given is a remix album. Yes, Def Leppard chased the trend (although rather late) and gave us a Symphonic album. They remixed or reworked their songs and added classical music orchestration to it. The album was released on May 19, 2023, one week shy of the one year anniversary of the prior album. In my opinion, they should’ve taken much more time with it and got it right. Why? Let me explain.
A proper Symphony album is done live as that is where you really notice the difference. This is not a proper Symphony album. Instead, Def Leppard did one of two things with the songs. They either completely re-worked the song with the symphony dramatically added in a well thought out manner (sometimes it works, sometimes not). Or…they took a song and put in some symphony in places on the original track. The second way is pure and utter laziness and never works. Wiki says they completely redid all the songs with the exception of the vocals…but listening to it…I disagree. Some of these songs sound exactly like the original with symphony added and all I can say to that is “What is the freaking point!!”
2 Loud 2 Old Music 