After the moderate success of their debut album, the band went in to record their sophomore album with famed musician and producer, Ian Hunter. Yes, the Ian Hunter from Mott the Hoople. The album would come out just a few months later in January 1979. Before the album was released, the record company, Chrysalis, came to the band and basically told them, the album better succeed or they were to be dropped from the label…no pressure.
The album was quite different than the first album. It had some of the punk sound from the first album, but there were elements of some glam (thanks to Ian) and even more of an American sound ala Springsteen (or at least what they felt was like Springsteen). The songs were a little more complex than the first album and the writing was more mature, but I am not sure it was good yet.
The two writing contributors were Billy Idol and Tony James so everything was based around what they wanted. Heck, in fact when promoting the debut album, it was only Billy sent to America to promote it. That started putting thoughts in Billy’s head about what he could do on his own. However, on this album, most of the influence on the album seem to be coming from Tony (he even picked the producer). It was the start of things to come.
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2 Loud 2 Old Music 