Tag: Mane Attraction

My Sunday Song – “Lights and Thunder” by White Lion

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For My Sunday Song #459, we are going to discuss the epic White Lion song “Lights and Thunder”. The song was the first single off their fourth album ‘Mane Attraction’ and the song came out in March 1991. It was an unusual song for a single due to its length at over 8 minutes long. By far, their longest song up to this point in time. That would change in 2008 when they released “Sangre de Cristo” from their album ‘Return of the Pride’. “Lights and Thunder” actually charted in the UK at #95, it charted, I didn’t say it charted very high.

The song was written by Mike Tramp and Vitto Bratta and talks about a Utopian society where there is no fighting, no religion, no kings and only peace, love and happiness. Yep, a make believe world that will never exist. It was a statement that the world is really fucked up (imagine if that was written today as it is more so now) and there is too much fighting, too many wars and simply too much.

Musically is where this song is so badass. It was inspired greatly by Led Zeppelin’s “Achilles Last Stand” and is full of very complex moments, tempo changes and full on rock epicness. This was the opening track of the album and what a way to kick things off. It starts off with some weird keyboard sounds, some drum fills echoing in from all sides and a little Vitto guitar solo…totally wicked. The song explodes in to full band mode, the drums are heavy as hell and the barrage of snare hits is crazy almost like machine gun fire. Mike Tramp sings with an almost angelic-like vocal delivery welcoming you to the utopian world. He goes all gritty during the chorus. Before one of the instrumental breaks, there is a lot of spoken words from various leaders around the world including Martin Luther King, George Bush, and many others all letting us know how bad things are down here.

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You Pick It! – What to Review in November?

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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! Now, if you want to cast more than one vote, comment on the Twitter and Facebook post and you could get up to 3 votes on your favorite pick.

There are no longer rules for my selections.  I’m just picking albums in my collection. Well, I guess that is a rule. And maybe a theme on the five. This time they are all from the same genre I guess. And what are the 5 albums you ask?  Funny you should ask because I have those right here…

   White Lion – ‘Mane Attraction’

   Winger – ‘Pull’

    Cinderella – ‘Long Cold Winter’

   Poison – ‘Look What the Cat Dragged In’

   Night Ranger – ‘Man in Motion’

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

White Lion – The Albums Ranked Worst to First

Published on by 2loud2oldmusic16 Comments

When Danish musician, Mike Tramp moved to New York in 1983, he met this guitar whiz by the name of Vito Bratta and a little band was formed by the name of White Lion (I am sure I over simplified things).  A bass player and drummer were added, a record label was signed and the debut album was ready.  The debut, ‘Fight to Survive’, was finished and the record company hated it and refused to release it.  Oh yeah, they dropped the band as well.  The album eventually was released and then the bass player and drummer were added, labels went bankrupt and it all started all over again.  Not the most auspicious start.

The band’s classic line-up was set with Mike, Vito, James LoMenzo (bass) and Greg D’Angelo (drums).  A record deal was in place with Atlantic and in 1987, the band released ‘Pride’ and success was finally had…at least for a few years.  One thing the makes the band a little different than other bands of the era is that every album has at least one (usually more) song that is political in nature or at least some social commentary to it.  Where this worked on some albums, it totally didn’t work on others.  As a kid, I could care less about political or socially conscious songs, give me Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll.

I was a fan of White LIon’s in the late 80’s and early 90’s so I thought I would rank their albums as I have some familiarity with all their stuff and felt I could judge them properly.  With only 5 studio releases, this one isn’t as long as some of the others I have done which is a nice change of pace for me.

Sit back and see how the albums are ranked and maybe it will spark an interest to go listen to some White Lion.

WORST – RETURN OF THE PRIDE (2008):

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