Tag: Stay With Me

Whitesnake – ‘Restless Heart’ (1997/2021 – 25th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition) – Box Set

Published on by 2loud2oldmusic12 Comments

Whitesnake remained dormant for quite a while after ‘Slip of the Tongue’.  But in 1994, the band released a greatest hits album and ended up doing a short tour that included David Coverdale, Adrian Vandenberg, Warren DeMartini (RATT), Denny Carmassi (Coverdale/Page) and Rudy Sarzo.  The tour was short and the band disappeared again shortly there after.

Now on to the next Whitesnake album.  Okay, not really.  This isn’t a Whitesnake album.  It is a David Coverdale solo album that the record company made him add the Whitesnake name in to the title and that is why it reads David Coverdale & Whitesnake on the original release of the album which was on March 26, 1997.  When you hear it, you will agree, this isn’t Whitesnake. The album does have Adrian Vandenberg and we finally get an album that he actually plays on with David.  But it is not what you expect.  The dual guitars of Whitesnake are not there.  The playing is very understated on most of the songs and it is not a guitar heavy album at all.  No sir.  It is back to the early R&B and Blues roots for this one.

Adrian and David wrote most of the album together and the band for this album included Carmassi on drums and then added Guy Pratt on bass and Brett Tuggle on keyboards.  The band had a label in Europe and Japan, but the U.S. market never had an official release of this album. After the tour of this album, Whitesnake would end yet again.  David decided to shelve the band one more time and it would be 10 years before we got another Studio album from the band.  I don’t know what happened, but it can’t be good for David to hang it up so fast.  He wasn’t happy at all with the turnout of the album and tour.

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Def Leppard – ‘Yeah! II’ (2021) – Album Review (The Def Leppard Collection Series)

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On June 11, 2021, Def Leppard finally released The Collection, Vol. 3. It had been 2 years since the released of Vol. 2 in part probably due to Covid-19. By 2021, things were slowly starting to get back to normal. This was a crucial collection because these albums were not available on vinyl prior to this. So, it is is a must have set for you vinyl collectors. Ok, not really because they are available now individually…well…except for the bonus material. This is the only place for those. And we are going to talk about one of them here now called ‘Yeah! II’.

‘Yeah! II’ is a collection of cover songs throughout Leppard’s career including all the bonus tracks from ‘Yeah!’ so no need to buy 3-4 different versions of that album as you get them all here in one set. The set includes some B-Sides and other rare tracks from Leppard and there are a total of 19 songs in this splendid collection. I love how they used a variation of the cover of ‘Yeah!’ and added the ‘II’. It is also a 2LP set and includes a gatefold with some great shots of each of the band members, Rick Allen, Rick Savage, Joe Elliott, Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell. This is a lot of cover songs that is for sure, but what an awesome treat to have them in one collection.

SIDE A:

The album kicks off with a cover for the Mick Ronson song, “Only After Dark”. Originally this song appeared as the B-Side to “Let’s Get Rocked” and it is a raw, headbanging rock song from the band. It has a great, catchy groove, a swing to it and it basically kicks ass. They did a different version for ‘Retro Active’ that added more guitar parts, but this version might be better.

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Def Leppard – ‘Yeah!’ (2006) – Album Review (The Def Leppard Collection Series)

Published on by 2loud2oldmusic22 Comments

If you follow Def Leppard at all, you know they really are a 70’s band. Their influences were definitely 70’s and the whole glam rock scene. You can hear it in their songs as well and their side projects like Cybernauts where it is really obvious they have a passion for that style of music. Def Leppard now felt it was time for a covers album. The label brought it up to them, but Joe Elliott had already wanted to do one so it was an easy decision to agree on. Wow! Has a label and band ever agreed on anything before? This must be a first.

They had a few rules, the songs had to be hits and had to have been released prior to the band signing their record deal. And, the songs had to be British. They didn’t stick with that rule entirely as we will see on the next review, but for this album they did. Each band member brought a list of 20 songs each so they had 100 songs to choose from. I imagine they had some overlap which would easily help narrow the selection if more than one person picked it. And what a wide variety of artists they picked and what a great set of songs. I am not a massive fan of cover albums, but there are a few I have liked and luckily this turned out to be one of them. The album came out on May 23, 2006 and the album did okay. It did chart at #16 on the Billboard 200 and the singles charted on these types of charts I am not familiar with but they can say it charted.

One really cool thing about this record is the packaging. Inside you had individual pictures of each band member recreating an iconic image from a 70’s album. They are as follows:

  • Rick Savage – Freddie Mercury from the album Queen II
  • Vivian Campbell – Marc Bolan from T. Rex’s Electric Warrior
  • Joe Elliott – David Bowie from the rear cover of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
  • Rick Allen – Lou Reed, Transformer
  • Phil Collen – The Stooges, Raw Power

The pictures are down below. I love that you also get the original Def Leppard triangle logo with light shining through it giving the rainbow affect from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I love when some thought actually goes in to the packaging and this one is A+ material. Now, does the music match the packaging? Let’s find out.

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