Garth Brooks – ‘Legacy’ Box Set – Album Review

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Now I am not a huge Country Music fan, but there are some artist that I can’t help but like. I grew up in the South so Waylon, Willie and Johnny are staples. But there was one artist I gravitated towards and that was Garth Brooks. I actually don’t own anything he has, but I did at one time or another. When Amazon was doing their Black Friday Deals, these Legacy Box Sets popped up so I took a look. Normally these sets run for about $60 and that is way too much for me to spend as a casual fan (I say casual, but I did drive to Greensboro, NC from Charlotte, NC to see Garth live and it was worth it). The price on the box set was $19.50…SOLD!!!!

What did I get for that price? I got 7 LPs and 7 CDs all housed in a wonderful box…thus the name…box set. Here is the Hype sticker to give you an idea of what I got for my money…

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My Sunday Song – “Mz. Hyde” by Halestorm

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For My Sunday Song #231, we kick off this 10 Set of Halestorm songs with “Mz. Hyde” off the band’s second album ‘The Strange Case of…” The song was the 5th single of this incredible album and went to #15 on the Rock Mainstream Chart. It helped push the album to #15 on the Billboard 200 album chart and brought the album to Gold status of over 500,000 copies sold. If you haven’t heard the album, prepare to have your head explode at its awesomeness!

The song was written by Lzzy Hale and songwriter Scott Stevens who you might know as the lead singer of The Exies. Lzzy wanted to capture in a song the fact she has two totally different personalities. One is her personal life and the other is her stage life. They took the theme from the fantastic novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. Lzzy was very shy when she was younger and yet she wanted to be a rock star. She created this “Mz. Hyde” personae to turn in to the rock star she wanted to be. I know a lot of people that their work personae and personal life personae are totally different so I believe a lot of people have this dichotomy in their lives.

Musically, hold on to everything as this song explodes out of the gate with an awesome drum opening from Arejay Hale that then rips into an electronica “Mz. Hyde” before Lzzy comes in like a monster with the verses and the chorus. It is an extremely uptempo rocker that has all the elements you want in a rock song. Powerful drums fro Arejay, rip roaring guitars from Joel Hottinger, thumping bass from Josh Smith and a powerhouse vocal performance from Lzzy. If this song doesn’t get you moving, I don’t know what will.

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

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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 – Wig Wam – ‘Never Say Die’ – Their back!!

 Never Heard Before – The Velvet Underground – ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’

Not My Normal Genre – Chris Stapleton ‘ Starting Over’

  From My Collection – The Rolling Stones – ‘Tattoo You’

  From My Collection – ZZ Top – ‘Eliminator’

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

Friday New Releases – January 15, 2021

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We are now only 2 weeks in to the New Releases and there is nothing I really care to hear this week. I know things are about to pick up and we are going to have a lot of new music to play. Can’t wait for that. Let me know what you want to hear or if there is anything I missed. Drop it down in the comments so everyone can read other artist new releases in case they want to go check it out. Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!!

  • 71pNn0yz-nL._SS500_  Matthew Sweet – Catspaw – (Matthew Sweet / Omnivore)
  • 81tdtqB532L._SX522_  Crack the Sky – Tribes – (Carry On Music)
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Kiss – ‘Hot in the Shade’ (1989) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)

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It had been two years since the last studio album, ‘Crazy Nights’ and still the band wasn’t working on a new album. Gene Simmons was out producing bands on his record label and Paul Stanley decided that in early 1989, he was going to go out on a solo tour. People were freaking out as was this the end of Kiss. Paul’s solo band on the tour had two major Kiss connections. On guitar was Bob Kulick and on drums was future Kiss drummer Eric Singer who would take over after the death of Eric Carr. Paul even went so far as to sing and record the title song to the Wes Craven movie ‘Shocker’. Kiss in my eyes, seemed doomed.

But it wasn’t the end. In mid-1989, the band got back together and finally started working on the new album. They had a very small budget for this album so instead of going in and fully recording a new album, they grabbed a bunch of demos and re-worked or even overdubbed them to turn them in to the album we have here. ‘Hot in The Shade’ has a crazy number of songs with 15 and the album was about an hour long. This was the late 80’s when bands felt they needed to fill up the entire CD and as a result, we got a lot of bloated albums at that time. If you knocked a few songs off this album, it would be a lot better but still suck.

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Joey Scarbury – “Theme From The Greatest American Hero (Believe It or Not)” – 45 Single

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Do you remember the TV series ‘The Greatest American Hero”? It ran from 1981-1983 and was about an ordinary guy named Ralph who was given a superhero suit from a group of aliens…you know the space aliens, not the illegal ones. The suit gave him super human abilities like a super hero. Of course, Ralph loses the instructions manual and has to figure things out on his own which is where all the fun begins. Ralph Hinkley was played by William Katt, Robert Culp played FBI Agent Bill Maxwell and Connie Selleca played Ralph’s girlfriend Pam Davidson. The first season of this show is basically an origins story and the origin stories are usually the best.

One of the really great things about the show was the theme song. Do you remember theme songs for TV shows? They don’t really do those much nowadays. This one was called “Theme From The Greatest American Hero” or better known as “Believe It or Not” as the other is just too long to say. It was written by TV theme songwriters Mike Post and Stephen Geyer, but performed by Joey Scarbury. The song appeared on Joey’s debut album which was called ‘America’s Greatest Hero’ so it doesn’t steal directly the shows name exactly.

As you can see, the back cover of the 45 sleeve is almost exactly the same as the front with the exception being the record label and producer information. I found this at an antique shop down in St. Augustine, Florida back in the Summer of 2020…yes, I travelled away from home during the pandemic. We rented a house near the beach with a pool so as to socially distance from everyone so there! When I saw this in the guys stack of 45’s, it was a no-brainer for me as I loved this show (first season at least) and I loved this song.

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Kiss – Alive / Worldwide Tour (1996-1997) – Tour Book

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In my quest to get all the Kiss Tour Books in my collection, I have now come to my fifth in the Tour Book Series.  This is one of two that came from the Kiss Alive / Worldwide Tour from 1996-1997.  You might remember I already did one from that tour, but that was a special edition book during the 1997 part of the tour which included the Giant 1997 Poster Calendar and had a silver cover. It was a replica of the European Book. Plus, all the pictures were different.  This is original Tour Book with the Black Cover.

I bought this book right at the beginning of the pandemic. A friend of my brothers was selling it and so he reached out to me and I said, yes, buy it for me (I did pay him back). I asked my brother to hold on to it and I would grab it the next time I was down in Atlanta which would’ve only been about a month or two after I bought. 9 months later and I still hadn’t gone down thanks to Covid. I finally asked him to mail it on up to me and he graciously did.

One of the interesting things about this book is that it was bought at the October 1, 1996 show at the Omni in Atlanta. How do I know, the ticket stub was still inside. That for me is cool to know which show it was purchased because I was actually at that show. I can’t believe I have a book from the actual show I attended. What are the odds of getting one 25 years later. Our ticket stubs are below.

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You Picked It!! – The Beach Boys – “Pet Sounds” – Album Review

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Alright…You Picked It! It was the closest battle yet and here it is. The one you picked was The Beach Boys – “Pet Sounds”.  The votes were as follows:

  1. The Beach Boys – ‘Pet Sounds’ – 5 votes
  2. Miley Cyrus – ‘Plastic Hearts’ – 4 votes
  3. John Coltrane – ‘A Love Supreme’ – 3 votes
  4. Rage Against the Machine – ‘Renegade’ – 2 votes
  5. B-52’s – ‘Cosmic Thing’ – 2 Votes

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

THE BEACH BOYS – ‘PET SOUNDS’ (1966):

I will be honest, this is a daunting task to review an album that is so loved by critics and the world. It has been listed as one of the greatest albums of all time. No pressure at all to review this. When you start researching the album, there are pages upon pages of information and every aspect of the album and at times it is overwhelming. As a result, there is no way I am going to summarize any history and go in to much detail about the making of the album and all the nuances of it either. We are going to just dive on in to the music and what I felt overall about the album. Otherwise, this could easily hit 10,000 words or more and I am not up for that and neither are you.

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My Sunday Song – “Who Wants to Live Forever” by Queen

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For My Sunday Song #230, we are ending the Queen 10 song set with “Who Wants to Live Forever” off the 1986 album, ‘A Kind of Magic’. The song was from the movie ‘Highlander’ which I love that movie, but it doesn’t really hold up well when I watched it a few months back but I am getting off topic. The song only charted in the UK and sold well over 400,000 copies and is still a fan favorite as Queen still plays it in their shows today. It is one of my favorite Queen songs and so that it is why it is ending this set.

The song was written by Brian May and he wrote it in only 20 short minutes after watching a clip of the movie where Connor MacLeod’s wife, Heather, dies. You see Connor is immortal and he can’t die (unless he loses his head). The song is the backdrop to that scene in the final cut of the movie. Now in the film version, Freddy sings the whole song, but I am going off the album version where Brian actually sings the first verse and then Freddie takes over.

Musically, the song is a ballad, full of orchestration by Michael Kamen. The song is so haunting, the lyrics even more so and when you add the strings and the full orchestra it is a really moving song and can send chills up and down your spine. It does pick up a tempo as the song builds and the heavy drum beats come in. It keeps building until Freddie lays down that final massive vocal on the chorus. His theatrical talents bode well for getting the emotions across in the song. The song is so grand and so Queen.

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Friday New Releases – January 8, 2021

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Welcome to 2021 and the first Friday New Releases of the New Year! Oh how I have missed this post…I know it has only been three weeks since the final one of 2020, but I like these posts. For the first one of the year, there aren’t a ton of releases and there are only a couple I want to listen to so not a great start, but it is right after Christmas and this is usually a slow week anyway. My choices are highlighted in Blue. Let me know what you want to hear or of there is a release I missed that you think the world should know (or at least the couple 100 people that might see this post). Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

  • 91NHdl52uXL._SX522_  Sammy Hagar & the Circle – Lockdown 2020 – (Mailboat Records): During 2020’s Lockdown, Sammy Hagar & the Circle did a lot of covers and posted them, well now they are releasing them as a complete album and I am excited. Sammy Hager & The Circle was the one concert I had scheduled last year that got cancelled thanks to Covid. That bill also had Whitesnake and Night Ranger so I was really looking forward to it. Maybe they will come around some time soon.
  • 71iSduxl+OL._SX522_  Passenger – Songs for the Drunk and Broken Hearted – (Nettwerk Music Group): Passenger isn’t really a band name, it is the stage name for Michael David Rosenberg. I like his brand of folk and indie music. He has a pleasant voice and he’s a great songwriter. Give him a listen.
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