Author: bigbadburch

Iron Maiden – Somewhere In Time (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week10 Comments

Iron Maiden gets to bookend the week this go around. On Friday the live album series launches. For today it’s the studio album they released after their first live record and the band’s two-album dive into the world of synth.

Iron Maiden – Somewhere In Time

Released September 29, 1986 via EMI Records

My Favorite Tracks – Stranger In A Strange Land, Wasted Years, Alexander The Great

Maiden had just wrapped up the Powerslave tour cycle and were absolutely wiped out, so they took a break while Steve Harris tinkered with new equipment, including guitar synthesizers. These synths would be present on all but one song for this next record.

Songwriting came down to Harris and Adrian Smith, with only Dave Murray getting an additional credit. Bruce Dickinson was especially absent for writing purposes – he was said to have been the most burned out of all band members after the mammoth tour. Bruce showed up with a handful of acoustic tracks, which the rest of the band were not at all into. It would all work out as Bruce would really get in on the action the next go round.

Any discussion of Somewhere In Time has to involve the striking cover art. A cyberpunk Eddie graces the front and the background was absolutely loaded with references to everything from the band’s own Charlotte The Harlot to Doctor Who, Blade Runner and many other things. Derek Riggs spent 3 months doing the cover and found the process exhausting, though the result was worth it. Also of note – this was my top cover back when I ranked all of the Maiden album covers. And the album itself came in at number 3 in my Maiden album rankings.

This one is pretty simple to get into – 8 songs that run 51:18. Nothing to worry about in terms of alternate versions here, there is only one reissue series with bonus tracks and those aren’t easy to come by, so 99% of the time people will run into the exact same album.

Caught Somewhere In Time

It becomes clear very early on into this album that the addition of synth was not going to be a massive shift in Iron Maiden’s musical presentation. This song sounds like a Maiden song – galloping bass, guitars going all over the place, Bruce singing out of his mind and body and Nicko McBrain holding a clinic on the drums.

This one is about time travel of some sort, and apparently time travel involves a lot of guitars because Adrian Smith and Dave Murray shred out on an extended solo section. The duo’s work had always been rock solid to this point, but it is taken up another notch here. Spellbinding stuff.

Wasted Years

One of the album’s singles and the only song not to use synth. Wasted Years offers a pretty simple message of living for the moment and not getting caught up in wasting time worrying about what’s already come and gone. The intro riff here is pretty signature stuff, as is the iconic chorus. This would become another of Maiden’s most recognizable songs and is a frequent guest on setlists.

Sea Of Madness

This one slams in pretty hard, though still has the bright and melodic touch that the band would employ throughout this album. It’s a nice contrast of almost thrash-like guitar and drum work against the soaring chorus Bruce provides. This song could literally be about madness or possibly “sea of madness” as a metaphor for civilization, no real telling.

Heaven Can Wait

More fast-paced frenzy here as Bruce fires off verse lyrics in a machine-gun fashion. The plot of the song is about someone who has died but winds up back in mortality after not getting access to any sort of afterlife. This is one of a few songs Maiden have played live a fair bit in the years since this album’s release.

The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner

This one features a bit of sad and sweet guitar work, which compliments the subject matter well. The song is directly based off a 1960’s story of the same name, about a British kid caught in a life of poverty who starts running as a way to escape his crappy life. The song doesn’t touch on a lot of the background in the story and instead focuses more on the running itself. The galloping rhythm does lay a nice soundtrack for the act of long distance running, not that I personally know what the hell that is.

Stranger In A Strange Land

The album’s second single appears with a more mid-paced approach. This song is not about the book it shares a name with – rather it is about being an Arctic explorer and the obvious trials of that occupation, including finding a frozen corpse. This was based on a real story relayed to Adrian Smith from an actual Arctic explorer.

This song works very well with its twist of pace and the synth sitting in the background through the chorus. I know I’ve mentioned it before and likely will again, this is my second favorite song Maiden have done. Excellent stuff.

Deja Vu

This has a beautiful and mournful intro before jumping into the typical Maiden gallop. This was the one song written by Dave Murray, with additional help provided by Steve Harris. This song slices through the idea of deja vu, it’s pretty self-explanatory lyrics-wise. This is a nice one to bob along to, or headbang to, or whatever.

Alexander The Great

The final song is a Maiden epic again culling from history, this time the unbelievable conquests of Alexander The Great. The Cliffnotes version is that Alex took over a great deal of the known world at the time, then he died one day. The song’s lyrics truly are a pocket guide to Alexander’s life, as the verses do simply recount his life and deeds.

This was another triumphant Maiden epic and one that occupied an odd spot for a long time – the band found the song too challenging to play live, so they never did. That finally ended this year as Maiden has played this as part of their Future Past tour.

Somewhere In Time was a success for Iron Maiden. The album charted at number 12 in the US, 3 in the UK and had good spots in many other countries, including a number 1 spot in Finland. The album has been certified platinum in the US and Canada, and gold in 4 other nations.

Maiden would tour the album on the “Somewhere On Tour” trek, playing 151 shows in roughly 8 months’ time through 1986 and ’87. This is where the story of Somewhere In Time gets a bit cloudy and lost, as the band quicly re-entered the studio to do the next album. Songs from this record were not played live much at all beyond the tour, with only Wasted Years and Heaven Can Wait getting extensive time after ’87. The album would get a new focus in 2023, as songs from here were paired with stuff from Senjustsu to form the Future Past tour. It was nice that Maiden finally shined a new light on this album live after all these years.

In the end, Somewhere In Time was a success both commercially and critically for Iron Maiden. There were no issues with synth being around, it wasn’t like Maiden went A Flock Of Seagulls with everything. It was just a tool that the band used to great effect. And the whole album is a great collection of songs – bright and melodic, yet still anchored with the things that make Iron Maiden stand out from the metal crowd. It was my first Maiden album and it’s no wonder they went on to become my favorite band.

Don Henley – The Boys Of Summer (Song of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week14 Comments

Summer seems to be slipping away, both on the calendar and weather-wise, so it’s a good time to look back on the big Don Henley hit from 1984.

The Boys Of Summer is probably Henley’s most recognizable solo song, though not his biggest hit – that was Dirty Laundry. Today’s song was the lead single from Henley’s second solo album Building The Perfect Beast, which is a weird title since the album cover is just Don Henley. Not entirely sure what he’s getting at there but I was 7 at the time so it’s probably not for me to figure.

The song has quite a history involving a few music luminaries, the tale I’m telling today can be found in this 2022 article on loudersound.com.

This song was brought to Henley by Mike Campbell, known for his day job as the guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Campbell had written up the music and offered the song to Tom. Petty turned it down because he didn’t feel it fit the mood of the album they were making, which was Southern Accents. That’s a fair assessment, though Petty would later regret not cutting the track after he heard Henley’s finished version.

Campbell was in luck though, as Southern Accents producer Jimmy Iovine knew Henley was recording a new record, so Iovine suggested Campbell pitch the song to Henley. Campbell and Henley hadn’t met before, but Henley was receptive to the track and cut it after writing lyrics and changing the song’s key. Fellow Heartbreakers Benmont Tench and Stan Lynch would contribute other songs to the Henley album as well.

The Boys Of Summer is a total ’80’s tune, far removed from the country-rock of Henley’s beloved Eagles. This song doesn’t even have real drums on it, Campbell programmed a machine to play those. There is guitar on this and also a generous helping of synthesizer. This is a nice, soft and atmospheric song that flows without issue and adds a moody air to the lyrical fare.

The theme of the song is very simple, it’s all about looking back at the past and longing for lost people and moments. The song and video make it all about a girl, and it’s often past lovers who bring out that longing the most. It’s fairly relatable stuff to anyone who’s at or around middle age, though the degree to which it’s relatable would vary from person to person. The third verse really brings the whole point home, it’s one that gets me nearly every time I hear the song even though I’ve heard it hundreds of times by now.

There’s also a bit to the title itself – the “boys of summer” was originally a phrase coined by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. I have no clue what Thomas was on about in the poem and I don’t like poetry so I won’t dig for an answer. In 1972, author Roger Kahn used the phrase for the title of his book about the Brooklyn Dodgers, and since then “boys of summer” has usually been taken to mean a reference to baseball. It wasn’t the case for this song but the song and the sport have been intertwined at times.

The Boys Of Summer would go on to number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and chart significantly in many other countries. It is just off the number 3 high set by Henley with Dirty Laundry a few years prior. The video won huge accolades, taking home Video of the Year from the 1985 MTV VMA’s. As Henley quipped, he won the award for riding around in the back of a pickup.

The song would pop up again in conversation years later, as rock band The Ataris did a cover in 2003. This version was a hit, getting number 2 on the Billboard Modern Rock chart and 20 on the Hot 100. While it was a career moment for The Ataris, Henley was not really amused by their version, pretty much calling them out years later as a flash in the pan. Mike Campbell was far more complimentary of The Ataris and their cover effort.

Don Henley’s solo career would go on into the early 1990’s where he was derailed by lawsuits between he and his label Geffen Records. This would cause Henley to become very involved in issues concerning musicians and their rights, as well as an Eagles reunion. But he truly struck gold with this 1980’s hit, both in music and theme.

Death – Leprosy (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week10 Comments

The argument over who, where and when death metal started is one that has raged since its inception in the 1980’s. I won’t be arguing all of that today, rather I’ll be looking at the second album from one of death metal’s pioneers.

Death – Leprosy

Released November 16, 1988 via Combat Records

My Favorite Tracks – Leprosy, Pull The Plug, Left To Die

Death had a very curious and drawn-out early history, with founding member Chuck Schuldiner releasing a series of demos under different names and with various casts of band members. In 1987 Death released their debut album Scream Bloody Gore. A year later found Death with Schuldiner and a totally different line-up to record the next album. Rick Rozz, who had played on some early Death demos, was back in on guitar. Bill Andrews came in on the drums. Schuldiner handled bass on the album as well as his usual guitars and vocals, though Terry Butler was brought into Death to take over bass after recording. Butler is credited with being the bassist in the album’s liner notes, however.

The album was recorded at Morrisound Studios in Tampa, Florida. This would become the home of early death metal as the first concentrated scene was centered in Florida. Dan Johnson was the album’s producer and Scott Burns its engineer, Burns would go on to be involved in many early death metal classics.

This album comprises 8 songs at a 38:37 runtime. All songs are credited to Chuck Schuldiner and Rick Rozz jointly, except for Leprosy and Pull The Plug solely to Schuldiner, and Primitive Ways only to Rozz. All lyrics were provided by Schuldiner.

The album opens with the title track Leprosy. This one is a bit longer than anything else on the record and burns a fair bit slower than a typical thrash song, thrash being the direct progenitor of death metal. As with a lot of death metal, there is a “still fast even when slow” quality to it.

Leprosy is a non-scholarly look at the affliction, with people cast out of their towns to literally rot away of the disease in exile. The song switches up tempo and inserts movements to keep things fresh, this is not simply a “thrash on steroids” offering. While it would be a few more albums before Schuldiner took Death in a truly progressive direction, early indications were already present on songs like this.

Up next is Born Dead. This one is a “thrash on steroids” track that shreds through a dystopian world where people are basically disease fodder and existence is about useless. Forgotten Past is next and is a straightforward chugger that sees someone use the occult to learn that they were a horrible person in a past life. After that is Left To Die, a song that exemplifies the sound of early death metal as it offers an account of what is likely a front line soldier whose life is forfeit.

Up next is one of Death’s standard-bearing songs with Pull The Plug. This is a perfect marriage of brutality and technical proficiency. As the shock value of early death metal wore off, the underlying technical aspects would become a main driver of interest in the music. Lyrically it is an awful tale of someone on life support who can hear people making the decision about what to do with him. The title offers up exactly what the subject wants to happen. Pull The Plug has been a crowd-pleaser with Death audiences since its release and it remained a staple through the span of Schuldiner’s career.

Another straightforward pounder comes next with Open Casket. The band shreds through another burner with a few tempo changes thrown in for variety as the lyrics explore the simple yet creepy concept of open casket funerals. The pounding continues on Primitive Ways, which is a look at the (generally wrong) idea that prehistoric people were bloodthirsty savages who lived in a kill or be killed environment. Not scientifically accurate stuff but suitably brutal for the proceedings at hand. The album closes with Choke On It, a song that offers the same brutal thrashing technical fare as the rest of the songs and explores the horrific concept of someone dying due to hyperventilation.

Leprosy marked a shift for Death from the absolute raw brutality of Scream Bloody Gore to a more refined thrash-centered sound that offered up a fair few technical leanings as well. The stylistic shift would become a hallmark of Death’s career – while the next album Spiritual Healing is similar in tone to Leprosy, subsequent albums would continue pushing the technical and prog envelope and leave the old school death metal sound behind just as quickly as Chuck Schuldiner and company had helped establish it.

As Death’s styles shifted, so did its band members. Schuldiner would be the sole constant member and bandleader. Terry Butler and Bill Andrews hung around for the next album, but each Death album after featured a revolving door of musicians, many of whom became revered figures for their Death output as well as other projects. Death would continue until 1998, when Schuldiner ended the band to pursue a different progressive metal style with Control Denied. Schuldiner was diagnosed with brain cancer and died in December of 2001.

In the decades since Schuldiner’s death, his band Death has taken on a god-like status in the ranks of death metal and beyond. Leprosy was a formative offering that helped define the new genre of death metal and get Death notice as a band to watch. Over 20 years after Schuldiner’s passing, Death is still at the forefront of the genre that Schuldiner spearheaded.

Pre-Game – The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

On By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Live Album Series4 Comments

It is getting on time to launch the Iron Maiden live album series. I will kick it off on September 21st, or maybe the 22nd, I haven’t quite decided yet. I’m putting it off just a hair so that it’ll wrap up right before the holiday season toward the end of the year.

This series will be rundowns of the 13 official live albums. I’ve already covered most of the live EP stuff in my singles series, and bootlegs will be a separate thing I do a ways down the road. I’m not going to discuss the video stuff that’s been released, those have other content with them and I’ll give them their own series someday. This will only cover the audio albums, some of which don’t have accompanying video releases.

I have decided to go in order of album release rather than the year of the tour. It’s far easier to keep track of that way, though it does present a few odd issues with the Maiden England album. I chose to stick with the list I have and slot that one in on its 2013 release date even though both the video and CD had far earlier releases. I’ll go over that more on the actual post.

I’ve had almost all of these in my collection for a while, I’m only missing one. But I also haven’t listened to many of them in a long time so it was fun to go back through these. While a few don’t have sterling reputations I honestly wasn’t put off by listening to any of these. Though the Maiden live album machine didn’t truly get going until the reunion era when we almost have one from each album, it is nice to go over the stuff from different points in the band’s career. It does almost exclusively feature Bruce Dickinson on vocals, there is one album that has a bit of Paul Di’Anno stuff but that’s it for the other singers. Blaze Bayley never got an official live album and I would suspect there probably won’t be one, though I’d personally like to have one.

Next week I’ll have another post about Maiden live albums, that one will be a “wish list” of gigs I’d like to see released as well as a discussion about the Maiden live album process, which does generally get in the way of having a lot more live material. Then after I wrap this series up I’ll do a ranking that should wrap up the year.

My plan after that is to do a song ranking. That’s going to be a pain and I haven’t really got much into it yet so I don’t know exactly when it will kick off but it should get going sometime in early 2024. Other Maiden series will follow that, there is more than enough to talk about with this band who is only outpaced in marketing by the almighty Kiss.

That’s about enough to set the table for this series. Next week is the wishlist, then the proper series kicks off a week later. Until then, and during then and after then, up the irons.

The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

Live After Death

A Real Live One

A Real Dead One

Live At Donnington

Rock In Rio

BBC Archives

Beast Over Hammersmith

Death On The Road

Flight 666

En Vivo!

Maiden England ’88

The Book Of Souls – Live Chapter

Nights Of The Dead – Legacy Of The Beast Live In Mexico City

The Iron Maiden Live Album Ranking

The Maiden Live Album “Wishlist”

Jimmy Buffett – Margaritaville (Song Of The Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week10 Comments

A quick post today, and one to eulogize the recently passed Jimmy Buffett. For those unaware, Buffett died last Friday, September 1st at the age of 76.

Buffett was the king of a subgenre that might constitute country and yacht rock to a degree. Some called it Gulf and Western, others termed it “tropical rock.” Buffett had a number of recognizable songs, like Cheeseburger In Paradise, Why Don’t We Get Drunk, and his hit duet with Alan Jackson, It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere.

But no Jimmy Buffett song is as recognizable as the strains of Margaritaville. The song is from his 1977 album Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes and the song has gone on to immorality in the decades since its release. At the time the song got to number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 13 on the Hot Country chart, and it hit number 1 on the Easy Listening chart. This was Buffett’s highest charting song overall, though It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere was a big number 1 hit on the country chart.

Jimmy Buffett would cultivate an audience through touring, gaining a fanbase known as Parrotheads who followed Buffett from town to town similar to followings like what The Grateful Dead had. He gigged pretty regularly through the years, stopping only in spots when the cancer that would eventually claim him took too much of a toll.

Margaritaville is not just a hit song, and not just a song that took on a significant cultural status – it’s also become one of the most lucrative songs of all time. It’s not the song itself that made a mint, but Buffett would extend Margaritaville branding to a chain of resorts, booze, cruises and other stuff that would net over a billion dollars.

The song Margaritaville is fairly simple in origin – one day Buffett was on the beach in Key West and wound up having a bad day – he lost a flip flop, which led to him stepping on a beer can and cutting his foot. He also lost the salt for his margaritas. He worked the incident into a song, combined with some other stuff, and Margaritaville was born.

Jimmy Buffett and Margaritaville came to exemplify the beach bum, or “island escapism” lifestyle. It became the obligation of every suburban dad in the US to plan summer trips to a beach, no matter how far. While beaches are obviously quite appealing on their own, Buffett was responsible in no small part for a boom in resort and coastline tourism through the 1980’s. The industry has only grown since then, and Buffett himself cashed in nicely on it.

Though Jimmy Buffett has now passed on, Margaritaville remains an immortal tribute to a day at the beach. I myself was never a parrothead or anything, but I can appreciate the simple joy of this song as I recall that it’s been a few decades since I’ve seen a beach or coastline. Don’t lose your salt shakers, and have one for Jimmy.

Mötley Crüe – Saints Of Los Angeles (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week10 Comments

This week I’m on to one I’ve meant to talk about for a while – what today remains the most recent studio album from Mötley Crüe. This album occupies a weird spot in the catalog – it was a long-awaited comeback after 8 years of no albums and also released in the same year as 3 other long-awaited comeback albums from legacy rock acts. This one is equal parts gushed over and glossed over and divides fan opinion sharply at times.

Mötley Crüe – Saints Of Los Angeles

Released June 24, 2008 via Mötley Records

My Favorite Tracks – Saints Of Los Angeles, White Trash Circus, Goin’ Out Swingin’

Crüe had not released a full album since 2000’s New Tattoo, a record that did not feature drummer Tommy Lee. SOLA was the first full band action since 1997’s Generation Swine. The band had been on ice for a bit in the early 00’s but then were able to pull off a highly-publicized “reunion” despite only being gone for a few years. The tours with the original four were big hits and the band eventually got together to record this new album.

When I say “the band” got together, what I mean to say is that Nikki Sixx got together with Sixx AM guitarist DJ Ashba, Sixx AM singer James Michael and longtime Aerosmith collaborator Marti Frederiksen to make the new Mötley Crüe album. This grouping is credited with writing every song on the album, while Mick Mars has credits on 7 of the tracks. Neither Vince Neil or Tommy Lee appear in any songwriting capacity. I do presume that a few of the names in the songwriting list might also appear in audio form on the album to a degree, but again I don’t know.

As for who actually played on the record, well, there’s no telling. Recent news and gossip involving the ugly Mick Mars split indicates that a lot of people who aren’t on the Crüe roster have played on the albums. I don’t know who, when or where and I’m not going to bother guessing since the whole affair is pretty gross and hard to track the accuracy of.

The album has a lot of songs, with 13 tracks coming in at 44 minutes. The album has been reissued a handful of times since 2008 but there are no bonus tracks or deluxe versions to concern one’s self with, at least to my knowledge.

L.A.M.F.

This is an intro piece that sets the stage for the music to come. This is a pretty cool little deal, it highlights the issue of Los Angeles with scores of people flocking there to hit it big in acting or whatever, but 4 out of 100,000 actually making it. This sets a gritty tone early, Mötley Crüe will not simply be writing love letters to their beloved City of Angels.

Face Down In The Dirt

The first song proper is a simple yet very hard-hitting banger that covers the theme of not wanting to be a worker drone in society. It might seem a bit odd for a band who’d been successful for 27 years or so to write a song like this but the song works 100%, so there’s nothing really to argue with here.

What’s It Gonna Take

This one goes back to the band’s early days before they were successful, talking about living with girls and being rejected by record labels. It’s a pretty cool song and it’s nice to look back for a minute on those early days before Crüe broke out and helped set the table for 1980’s music.

Down At The Whiskey

This one is also an early nostalgia trip, obviously being about days at the famed Whiskey club in L.A. At this point the album is solid, though these sorts of “glory days” tracks are setting the table for an ok but unspectacular album. It could use a real kick in the ass to get it to the next level.

Saints Of Los Angeles

It didn’t take long, welcome to the next level.

The title track is a gritty, sleazy look at Los Angeles and the scene. This doesn’t “tell a story” so much as set the table for an experience in the seedier side of L.A. This song nails the feel of that and is just a massive, ass-kicking track. Gang vocals on the chorus are provided by a number of guests, including Jacoby Shaddix from Papa Roach, Josh Todd from Buckcherry, the aforementioned James Michael, and Chris Brown from Trapt. (Yes, the dude from Trapt is the same guy who turned Trapt’s social media account into his personal litter box a few years back)

Mutherfucker Of The Year

It’s a great song and also a new award at work. This one is all attitude, Mötley Crüe have been one of the bands with an actual reputation big and, at times vile enough to live up to the moniker. It is almost like a true theme song for them.

The Animal In Me

This one kicks the pace down a notch, it’s not a true ballad but it dances on that line a little bit. It’s a song about rough sex, kinky stuff, whatever. This one is pretty run of the mill, not my favorite by any stretch.

Welcome To The Machine

Here the pace ramps back up for a tune presumably about being a part of the record industry. It’s a bit ironic from Mötley Crüe, since they were one of a very few bands who were able to take control of their old album masters and gain rights almost no other artist has. But this song isn’t that deep, it’s just venting about the disposable nature of artists once they’re done, all just to make some shareholders rich.

Just Another Psycho

This one is a mid-paced affair that is simply about being nuts. This feels like a bit of a filler track but it’s listenable.

Chicks = Trouble

The fun factor ramps up big time here with this crazy song about a gold-digging woman spending the guy’s money. I’ve never had to deal with this problem because I’ve never really had money, but this song is really fun to play.

This Ain’t A Love Song

Another one that’s a whole lot of sleazy fun, it’s all about hooking up with a good time gal. This is the kind of song Crüe probably would have liked to write back in the ’80’s but it might not have gone over that well. 20 years later the climate was far more indifferent to this stuff so here it is, warts and all.

White Trash Circus

Heading toward the end and the hits keep coming. This is another sleazy song simply about how messed up the band has been over the years, and these guys have quite the stack of tales to tell about their misgivings and transgressions. One line mentions how they’ll never go away and that has held true, even when they themselves said they were going away.

Goin’ Out Swingin’

The closer is a total banger of a song. This hits hard and fast and doesn’t let up and is a great finale for the album. This one sets the band’s attitude of keeping at it until the bitter end, whenever that end might actually be.

Saints Of Los Angeles was an initial success for Mötley Crüe. The album hit the US Billboard charts at number 4 and sold 100,000 copies in its first week. It also charted in several other countries, pulling down a gold certification in Canada. Sales did not continue long after that first week, leading several in the band to become disillusioned by what they considered flat sales. Someone maybe should have briefed them on how album sales were going in general in 2008, I don’t know.

The album had a good reception from fans, though there is certainly divided opinion on it. Many did crow about the involvement of the Sixx AM members, feeling that this Mötley Crüe record is just a Sixx AM album. My take on it is this – if this is what the Crüe sounds like with DJ Ashba and James Michael involved, then write more Crüe albums with Ashba and Michael.

In the end this one holds its own pretty well in the Mötley Crüe catalog. I ranked it number 4 back when I did the Crüe album ranking. I feel like SOLA is the band truly realized with the darker and uncensored themes which they probably couldn’t have gotten away with in the ’80’s.

2008 was a year when rock heavyweights Guns N’ Roses, Metallica and AC/DC all released long-awaited “comeback” albums and it’s possible Mötley Crüe got a bit lost in the shuffle, but it’s also possible that this one did a better job. (Except for AC/DC, that album was excellent) We don’t know if there will actually be another Crüe album, they apparently don’t have a full album’s worth of material yet with new guitarist John 5. If this is the last actual full-length, well I feel like they got it right in the finale. If there is more material to come, I think there is a hard road to traverse to equal or better this one.

Pulp – Common People (Song of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week6 Comments

When Britpop gets brought up, it’s almost always a focus on the “Battle of Britpop” and the rivalry between Oasis and Blur. But when a “best songs of Britpop” list springs up, there’s often a whole other song at the top of it. If you are even halfway decent at guessing, you could probably figure that the song is Common People by the band Pulp.

Common People was the lead single from Pulp’s fifth album Different Class, which released toward the end of 1995 in the height of the Britpop phenomenon. The single was released 5 months in advance of the full-length.

While Pulp benefited from the wave of British alt-rock, they themselves were not newcomers to the scene – Pulp were formed in 1978 and were on the indie circuit until the 1990’s brought their form of music more into style. This was a case of a scene finding a band, rather than a band finding a scene. Nor was the success sudden – Pulp were a rising star already through the early part of the decade as alt-rock became the new dominant form of rock.

Common People is an upbeat, keyboard-driven tune, which has been the general territory of Pulp through the years. Its dance-ability differentiates it from the more rock-oriented “Britpop,” though Blur did have moments of electro-tourism in their music. Pulp’s simpler, “retro disco” themed take on songs worked extremely well here and caught the attention of music fans the world over.

The song’s theme is a big one – it addresses the issue of “slum tourism,” where people of means want to live in squalid conditions as some kind of thrill seeking thing. And while the song was dramatized a fair bit for effect, there is truth behind the opening lines. Common People was inspired by when singer Jarvis Cocker attended St. Martin’s College in 1988. He ran into a girl who was Greek and was studying art, and the girl indicated an interest in living “like common people.”

Cocker did add a bit to the song, chiefly that the girl was pursuing him, while in reality Cocker was pursuing the girl and she was not at all interested. There have also been attempts to nail down who the woman was and a few interesting possibilities came up, though nothing has definitely been said about the matter.

Common People does accomplish its mission in railing against the idea of class tourism. For a well-off person to “slum it” for a bit is really nothing – all that person has to do is pick up the phone and call, as in the case of the girl in the song, she can call her father and he can stop it all. For the common person, there is no one to call to get a lift out of the despair of being broke and having no prospects for a better future beyond a winning lottery ticket that never comes.

This song became a huge hit in the Britpop era of 1995, the single hit number 2 in the UK and sold over a million copies, it also propelled the album Different Class to also move a million each in the UK and on the continent. Common People has endured as a top shelf tune since its release, it is often found at or near the top of most “Best of Britpop” lists and NME magazine even voted it the best song of the 1990’s. Many bands from all across music have covered the song, one very notable rendition came from 2004 and the tandem of William Shatner and Ben Folds. The pair were joined by Joe Jackson for a pretty unique and crazy version of the song that got a lot of attention and did a lot to kick off Shatner’s quirky music career.

For Pulp, Common People would be their magnum opus, though the band held serve through the 1990’s as their sound was more diverse and proved able to navigate the sudden closure of the Britpop shop. Pulp have split and reconvened a few times through the 2000’s, including having just been on a reunion run this year. But no matter what they do now, their crown jewel of a song will remain immortal and speak to the lives of many all over who know all too well what’s it like to live like common people.

Metallica – Kill ‘Em All (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week11 Comments

It was inevitable – I would someday write about the first Metallica album, as I’m pretty well assured to write about them all at some point. Today is the day for the first one.

Metallica – Kill ‘Em All

Released July 25, 1983 via Megaforce Records

My Favorite Tracks – The Four Horsemen, Jump In The Fire, Whiplash

There is a lot of history behind the rise of Metallica, and that can be accessed in any number of interviews, videos and books so I’ll spare a lot of it here. Essential to this album – A Metallica line-up of James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Cliff Burton and Dave Mustaine went cross-country from San Francisco to New York to record this album. Mustaine was let go from the band in New York and replaced by Kirk Hammett in what is probably the most discussed line-up change in heavy metal history.

Megaforce Records founder Jon Zazula (Jonny Z) had put up every dime he had to finance the recording, which is why Metallica hauled ass that far to record in the first place, as Metal Blade Records head Brian Slagel couldn’t quite afford the costs. After necessary re-mixing, Jonny Z was totally out on his ass financially and it took awhile for him to find distribution for this album. I guess many record label execs wanted “Passed on Metallica” as a line item on their resumes.

Metallica wanted to call the album Metal Up Your Ass but Jonny Z convinced them to rename it for marketability purposes, thus Kill Em’ All was born. Once Metallica’s stock began to rise they sold plenty of Metal Up Your Ass t-shirts as well as copies of Kill ‘Em All.

Kill ‘Em All is a fairly hefty album with 10 songs coming in at 51 minutes. There are now several other versions around but I’ll handle the base version today, as I typically do. Dave Mustaine is credited on four songs, he would attest to having been involved with more in what is heavy metal’s biggest argument ever. All I know is that I was about to enter kindergarten when they recorded this and I have no clue who did what.

Hit The Lights

The opener comes in with a grand bit of noise and then kicks into a whole lot more noise. The lyrics are simply a verbal account of what the song and Metallica’s first album will do, which is to play loud, fast and get the crowd whipped into a frenzy. Mission accomplished.

Hit The Lights had a few other versions before the album release so this song was out there a bit. This was a song James Hetfield brought to the band from his prior band, he and Lars re-worked the tune for Metallica.

The Four Horsemen

The next track is one of Mustaine’s contributions and a song he originally brought in. His old version was called Mechanix and had much different lyrical themes. For post-Mustaine Metallica, the band reworked the song into a tale of the riders of the Apocalypse. This is a lengthy track, showing off early that Metallica were unafraid to challenge the conventional length of songs. And the riffs here are totally New Wave Of British Heavy Metal on steroids, showcasing the direct influence of one metal movement on another.

Motorbreath

This is an all-out banger in both music and lyrics. Not subtle at all, this one pounds the point home from start to finish. It’s all about living fast and hard, the inspiration for and rallying cry of this new form of heavy metal back in its infancy. It would seem as though Metallica pulled the title as tribute to their massive influence Motörhead, though band members have said this was coincidental as it relates to this song.

Jump In The Fire

This was another song Dave Mustaine brought into Metallica. It was originally a song about sex, but after Mustaine left it was re-written to be about being damned to Hell and literally “jumping into the fire.” This one really shows off how Metallica could deftly walk the line between savage heaviness and catchy songwriting – sure this is super heavy, but those riffs are attention-grabbing.

Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth)

This is a Cliff Burton bass solo. It’s not some typical bass work either – this is effect-laden and shows Cliff using the instrument like a guitar. Burton was a massive part of Metallica’s early legend and remains a mythical figure. Burton played this a lot in his early days and it was what first drew attention from Lars and James.

Whiplash

Celebrated music journalist Mick Wall wrote in his Enter Night: A Biography On Metallica that Whiplash was the moment thrash metal was introduced to the world. He’s totally correct, this is total breakneck stuff that set the template for heavy metal’s 1980’s course. This was also the first single released from the album. Lars has cited Venom as a primary influence for the speed of this song.

Phantom Lord

This is another song that shows off the NWOBHM influence mixed with Metallica’s early savagery. It is a menacing tale of a warmongering tyrant, something that would become a thrash trope over the years. This is another one credited to Dave Mustaine.

No Remorse

This one hangs out mid-tempo for most of its run, the almost marching feel of the rhythm compliments the lyrics about excelling on the battlefield without feeling remorse or regret for one’s actions. In the last few minutes this song explodes out of its mid-paced shell and goes off the rails for a crazy finale.

Seek And Destroy

This extended cut would become a venerable classic in Metallica’s huge live catalog. This one keeps it pretty simple, with a riff that jumps out and grabs hold as the lyrics paint a tale of terrorizing whatever unlucky souls happen to be out at night. It is Metallica’s third most-played song with nearly 1,600 live airings, and assuredly more to come.

Metal Militia

The closer is another thrash monster that celebrates the leather and denim clad legions found at the early thrash shows. This army would grow to millions as the ’80’s went on and Metallica ascended to the kings of the heavy metal mountain.

Kill ‘Em All got the attention of music critics on release, who loved the heavy yet still somewhat refined sound of Metallica’s delivery. Commercially the album sold better than expected out of the gate, allowing Megaforce Records to get more solid financial footing and quickly spreading the word about Metallica. As Metallica gained in stature, Kill ‘Em All was along for the sales ride, eventually breaking 5 million copies worldwide, with 4.5 of those being in the US.

This album is more raw than the band’s offerings afterward, and of course Metallica would conquer the world with a sound more trimmed down from the thrash period of the ’80’s. But this record is a massive landmark in the development of heavy metal. While the mainstream of the 1980’s would be known for hairspray and ballads, Metallica would be the flag-bearers for a far heavier version of metal that spawned countless scenes and offshoots in the decades since. It was ok to play as heavy and fast as you could or wanted, there was an audience for it.

Hal Ketchum – Small Town Saturday Night (Song of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week9 Comments

Today I’m talking about a country song revolving around a small town, though this one is 32 years old and wasn’t a political lightning rod, instead it’s just an enjoyable song from the ’90’s country era.

Hal Ketchum came up in the Texas scene and began his recording career in the late 1980’s after playing for several years on the live club circuit. His second album Past The Point Of Rescue would be his major label debut for Curb Records and is where today’s song hails from. The album would go gold for half a million copies sold and was the start of Ketchum’s solid presence on the airwaves of 1990’s country.

Small Town Saturday Night was one of three singles from the album that went to number 2 on the Hot Country charts. This was the lead single and served as Ketchum’s introduction to the national country stage, where he picked up steam right off the bat. While Ketchum did write a lot of his own material, this song was brought in from outside songwriters Pat Alger and Hank DeVito.

Like much of country music from the 1990’s, this song is pretty smooth. Nothing was rough around the edges in this era of high production values and mining for radio hits. There is just a bit of rough and tumble to this song but it’s still a prototypical offering from country of this period.

Lyrically the song’s concept is self-explanatory – some bored kids need something to do on Saturday night in their small town. They have just enough for gas money to go cruising, enough booze to catch a buzz, and absolutely nothing of substance worth doing. The third verse offers a pretty stark reality about small town life – the main “character” Bobby tells his girlfriend Lucy that the world has to be flat because their small town is everything – anyone who leaves never comes back, so the world cant’ be round. And yes it’s a metaphor, that flat earth bullshit wasn’t taken literally in the 1990’s.

And yeah, I can confirm that this is life in a small town, Saturday night or otherwise. The town I grew up in had all of 2,500 people in it. There really wasn’t a lot going on and this song is what a lot of younger folks did. Ketchum didn’t have to stretch to write this song, it’s all right there for anyone who had spent more than a night in a small town. I was a bit more disaffected than most in my childhood so I wasn’t really partying back then, but we would go drive around backroads looking for old abandoned buildings to check out, which there were no shortage of on the old, isolated farm lands. Sometimes you just got in a vehicle and went somewhere, even if that place was nowhere, because it’ wasn’t the nowhere you were living in.

Small Town Saturday Night entered country radio rotation on release in 1991 and it never left. It’s on just about any station that plays classic country today, and even more so now since ’90’s country is having a huge retro appreciation wave. Hal Ketchum continued to record and tour into the late 2010’s when it was announced he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, he would pass away in late 2020.

For me I was never a huge country fan when this stuff was actually going on in the 1990’s. By this point I was well on my way to exploring death metal and all of the “alt-metal” stuff showing up. But I do remember these songs being on, and this one especially was one I kind of always like hearing. As time has gone on I wound up getting more into country and came to appreciate more of these early ’90’s cuts. Country music today has become far too much of a thing for the politically-charged masses to spew venom at each other about, but a song like this is always enjoyable no matter what kind of crap is going on in the news cycle.

Black Sabbath – Master Of Reality (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week12 Comments

When someone asks “where did stoner metal start?” it can be a tough question to answer without the proper knowledge. After this post, everyone will be able to answer the question with no problem.

Black Sabbath – Master Of Reality

Released August 1971 via Vertigo Records

My Favorite Tracks – Children Of The Grave, Into The Void, Lord Of This World

Black Sabbath had recorded their first two albums in rapid fashion, not having time to truly get used to being in a studio. For their third go-round they were not on tour and had the proper amount of time to focus on their work.

One aspect of this was Tony Iommi messing with his guitar sound, though out of practical reasons. Iommi tuned down his guitar on a handful of songs (the same three listed as my favorite tracks, no less) in order to play more comfortably. He had suffered an industrial accident years before that took a few of his fingertips and it was painful to play some things, so he downtuned for the ease of play. This would lead to a heavier sound, which would of course inspire many future generations to tune guitars down and create heavy metal of all styles. Geezer Butler would also tune down his bass to match Iommi, while Ozzy Osbourne would – well, continue to sing in his higher register as always.

Master Of Reality is a short album, featuring 8 tracks at a runtime of 34 minutes. Note that old US pressings of the album list more tracks, the songs Haunting and Deathmask are listed tracks. But these are actually just snippets of Children Of The Grave and Solitude broken off and divided into separate songs, there was no actual bonus content on the US pressings. The track listings and actual song sequences are screwed up on old US editions, it was a funny way to pretend there was more content on the lean record. As we’ll see, this album didn’t need any bloat to succeed.

Sweet Leaf

It’s only fitting that the birth of stoner metal album opens with a love letter to marijuana. Even the opening features a coughing fit Tony Iommi was caught in after taking a hit some prime stuff. But the song is no cheap gimmick – this is a fantastic jam. The main riff is simple and catchy and the music hits hard as Ozzy sings praises to the leaf. And the solo/jam section in the middle of the song is off the rails and fantastic, it was stuff like this that really put early Sabbath over the top. These days Sweet Leaf is legal to hear and consume in 38 of the 50 US states.

After Forever

This one has a pretty bright and upbeat riff though still pounds nicely with the Sabbath heaviness. The song is about religion, but not from the point of view many would think Black Sabbath would write from. This is actually pro-God song. While it might seem this was written in direct response to the accusations of Satanism that loomed over Sabbath, Geezer Butler has stated that he wrote it about the issues plaguing Ireland, Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Religion was the catalyst behind the decades of troubles in this area and this is Butler’s look at that. This is also where the Dutch power metal band After Forever got their name.

Embryo

Here is a 28 second instrumental guitar piece. Not much to really dig into here. It is kind of funny that this song has a bit over 40,000 streams on Spotify while every other song has at least 14 million and one has over 100 million. This poor little guy just sits there.

Children Of The Grave

Speaking of that song with over 100 million streams, here we are. This was the lone single released from this record and while the song did not do anything on the charts it has become an immortal part of the Sabbath legacy.

This features a dark and pummeling riff that twists and turns though still remains pretty simple in a marching-like rhythm. The lyrics take another anti-war stance that the band had explored previously, this time it is an alarming outlook about the prospects of nuclear destruction. Should humanity not get its shit together, then the children now would become the children of the grave. We’re still here so I guess it didn’t happen, but things don’t necessarily look better.

Children Of The Grave is considered one of Black Sabbath’s greatest songs. It has been covered extensively by acts of many genres and was one Ozzy frequently played during his solo tours. This was even darker and more twisted than prior Sabbath outings and showcased just how hard metal could go.

Orchid

This is another instrumental piece, this time with Iommi on an acoustic guitar. This gets a little more room to air out at 1:30 and is a nice interlude to the grim heaviness of the rest of the record.

Lord Of This World

Up next is a wicked track full of heavy metal destruction. Iommi and Butler are slamming it out on their downtuned instruments along with Bill Ward’s pounding drums. This one is actually all about Satan, the great villain that Sabbath were accused of worshiping. Here the lyrics depict a wicked world full of corrupt people who eventually fall under the dominion of Satan, fulfilling some versions of Christian prophecy. It’s easy to hear the influence on countless future metal bands from this one.

Solitude

It’s now on to a slow tune, this one is very quiet and haunting. Tony Iommi not only loads up on guitar tracks but also plays flute and piano here, perhaps inspired by his super brief stint in Jethro Tull, I don’t know. This song is different from the pack but is still a high quality listen, very atmospheric and depressing stuff. It is simply about a break-up, which is what a lot of songs are about after all.

Into The Void

If you really want to know where stoner rock and sludge metal came from, play this last track. This is an outright banger that keeps the pace mostly down but remains as heavy as hell. Both Bill Ward and Ozzy had problems getting their parts down on this one, as recounted by Tony Iommi.

This song is about a guy in dystopian future, say probably 2023, fleeing Earth to find somewhere better to live. Sounds nice. The song was clearly a massive influence on heavy metal, just playing it will make that evident.

Master Of Reality was a success for Black Sabbath in many ways. The album went to number 5 in the UK and 8 in the US, and had several other top 10 showings through Europe, Canada and Australia. In the US the album went gold purely through advanced orders and wound up selling over 2 million copies.

Beyond the numbers, this album was hugely influential to many who would later reshape music. It has been cited as a primary influence to those in the grunge movement. It was also clearly impactful to the burgeoning heavy metal scene and is a big reason why Black Sabbath are considered the fathers of metal. And it would specifically inspire the coming “stoner rock” or “desert rock” movement of the late ’80’s and early ’90’s, which would include bands like Kyuss, Monster Magnet, Orange Goblin and a huge list of others. The legacy of Black Sabbath is etched into the heaviest of metal, and Master Of Reality is a huge part of why.