Mickey Ratt (feat. Stephen Pearcy) – ‘Ratt Era: The Best of’ (2020) – Album Review

In a time where the Ratt gang is battling on who owns what, who is suing who, it is no wonder Stephen Pearcy took it upon himself to re-record a bunch of Ratt classic songs. Why it is called Mickey Ratt is beyond me because most of these songs do not come from the Mickey Ratt era…some of them do though. Plus, he couldn’t call it straight up Ratt with all the lawsuits now could he.

The LP version is what I have which was released back in 2020. My copy has the pretty cool Pink LP and the album has 16 re-recorded Ratt songs with a little help from some of his friends including George Lynch and Tracii Guns. The cover is bad, the picture on the back is bad and the sound of the record is…well…not that bad. The early Ratt / Mickey Ratt songs sounded rough, raw and almost garage style, so these were recorded with that old sound and songs that dated back to the Mickey Ratt time frame, but recorded by Ratt sound like the old Mickey Ratt sound and not the polished production Ratt albums had. And I kind of dig that.

George Lynch plas on about 5 songs including the opener “Round And Round”. The song sounds good enough, but I hate to say this, George is no Warren DeMartini so I don’t like the guitar sound on the re-recording much at all. Sorry George, I’ve never really been a fan although you are superbly talented!! And the overall recording is no where near as good as the original…the same goes with most of these.

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Ratt – ‘Collage’ – Album Review

After the disappointing sales of their album ‘Detonator’, Ratt seemed to be falling apart.  Robbin Crosby would leave the band due to his substance abuse problem and the dominos would fall from there.  The band went on “hiatus” in 1992 and it felt like the band was done.  Well, the weren’t just year.

In 1997, reunion talks began with the five original members.  However, Robbin Crosby developed HIV due to his substance abuse problem and was in no shape to carry-on.  Juan Croucier would soon afterwards decide he didn’t want to re-join the band.  So that left Stephen Pearcy, Warren DeMartini and Bobby Blotzer and they decided to continue as Ratt and the set out to go on tour.  Before they did that, the decision was made to release a compilation album of B-sides, alternate recordings and even re-work some old Mickey Ratt tunes.

I wasn’t planning on reviewing any compilation albums in my Ratt Review Series, but this one was different as it wasn’t a greatest hits collection.  Being that most of the songs haven’t been on any Ratt album, I decided it was worth getting a review of it’s own.  I will warn you, this is a collection of songs that is strictly for Ratt fans.

RATT-Collage-CD-1997-DeRock-Records-10-Tracks-EXCELLENT-_1

Continue reading “Ratt – ‘Collage’ – Album Review”