Tag: Come Undone

Def Leppard – ‘Songs From The Sparkle Lounge’ (2008) – Album Review (The Def Leppard Collection Series)

Published on by 2loud2oldmusic26 Comments

We are now to the 10th Studio album and you’d think that ‘X’ would’ve been a good title for this one, but they already used that title with their 10th album release including compilations. Nope, this time they named the album ‘Songs From the Sparkle Lounge’. A name in reference to a room at each of their live shows they used for tuning, for writing and overall creativity. It had a Christmas lights strewn about around the room along with some equipment such as a drum kit, some amps and even a tape recorder. Apparently, most of the songs, if not all, were written while on the road touring for the ‘Yeah!’ album.

This album saw the band try something new and have their first song featuring an outside party. They brought in Country singer Tim McGraw to assist on a song and yes ,the song has a country flair and we will bash the hell out of it later. I guess they needed to try something new. The album saw the light of day on April 25, 2008 and went all the way to #5 on the Billboard 200 selling around 55,000 copies out of the gate. They did reach #1 on the Hard Rock And Rock Album charts as well. Def Leppard still has some life left in them even after all these years. Joe Elliott, Rick Savage, Rick Allen, Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell were still going strong. But is the album strong or does it have any life left in it? We are about to find out.

The album opens with “Go” and it has a massive guitar riff that sounds menacing and powerful. The heavy track explodes with a metal energy and might be one of the best opening tracks the band has ever had. It harkens back to High ‘N’ Dry vibe where the riff was king. It also has a killer guitar solo and shows the talent of these two dynamic guitar heroes. Joe sounds great as well on vocals, but you can’t escape those guitars…damn this is exciting and has me desperate to hear the rest of this album.

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Robbie Williams – ‘The Robbie Williams Show’ (2003) – DVD Review

Published on by 2loud2oldmusic3 Comments

In 2002, Robbie was prepping the release of his new album ‘Escapology’. To help promote the album, he recorded a show filmed live in the Pinewood Studios for a television broadcast. The general public was able to buy it when the DVD was released in March 2003. The show contained songs from his upcoming album as well as a ton of hits and some of his Swing songs. It did fairly well as far as video releases go selling well over 100,000 copies worldwide. I was out at a place called 2nd & Charles and saw this and had to grab it. I think I got it for only around $2.50 and it is worth way more than that in my book. I am sitting here with it cranked on the 5.1 surround sound on a 65 inch TV and it sounds and looks amazing.

The show opens with a performance of “Trouble/Handsome Man” which happens to be the same songs that Elvis Presley opened with for his ’68 Comeback Special which Robbie has recreated the same stage set up except it has a big “RW” rather than an “Elvis” sign. When he goes out in front of the crowd it is a small round stage in the middle of the crowd with only Robbie and the bad was off behind the crowd. When he runs out and does “Rock DJ”, his energy and the crowd is electric. This was the firs time he had been on stage in 12 months.

“Strong” is up next and up on the screen comes the words to the chorus with a bouncing ball so you can all sing along during the chorus. He is interacting with the crowd poking fun at them with a change in the lyrics. He’s having a ton of fun and it shows. Then he played the song he originally sent to Tom Jones, but he changed his mind and did it himself. It is called “Something Beautiful” off the new album. The crowd clapped, the piano’s ivories were tickled and Robbie sang it wonderfully. And if that wasn’t good enough, he played one of my favorite songs of his called “Feel”. It is a new song and he joked if anyone was singing it, they obviously downloaded it from the internet illegally. They cut to a pre-recorded clip of him doing the song in front of the giant “RW”. It is a great live version and the piano and percussion on it are fantastic. Still my favorite song.

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