Ratt – Out Of The Cellar

On April 15, 2024April 14, 2024 By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week6 Comments

The 40 year celebration of 1984 marches on, and today it’s a monumental debut that would turn the decade’s rock and metal music on its head.

Ratt – Out Of The Cellar

Released February 17, 1984 via Atlantic Records

The early history of Ratt is actually long and a bit windy, but this is their debut full-length after an EP one year prior so it’s the best place to pick up the story. In short, the band formed out of a series of other California-based groups (including Dokken) and the line-up eventually solidified into a recording and touring group.

That line-up featured Stephen Pearcy on vocals, Warren DeMartini and Robbin Crosby on guitar, Juan Croucier on bass and Bobby Blotzer on drums. The album was produced by Beau Hill, who had broke into Atlantic Records after work with Stevie Nicks and Sandy Stewart. After this album, Hill’s production career would move into full swing. Ratt were also managed by Marshall Berle. This would pay dividends as Berle had a famous uncle who would contribute to the video for Ratt’s signature song.

The album cover features a starlet of 80’s lore – actress and model Tawny Kitaen is featured in full on here after having her legs on the EP cover. Kitaean was dating Robbin Crosby at the time and would go on to be the face and body of hair metal after her turn in the 1987 Whitesnake videos.

Today’s album features 10 songs at a quite lean 36:41 runtime. It is all action here today, as we will soon see.

Wanted Man

1984 meets the Old West here as the Ratt gang saddle up for some outlaw adventures. The song walks the fine line between melody and edge very well, an ever-present feature of the album. It’s wasn’t very often that hair metal met western movie culture but it was done by Ratt splendidly. Grade: A+

You’re In Trouble

This song came from some versions of the EP a year prior. It’s a mid-paced banger with a great guitar solo and keeps with the rougher theme of things, almost being a spiritual sequel to Wanted Man. This early version of what would become hair metal had a ton more attitude to it than what was on offer by the late ’80’s. Grade: A

Round And Round

Up next is the song Ratt is best known for. This one was an MTV staple and would be the band’s biggest hit, going to 12 on Billboard.

And this is an expertly crafted hit song. Everything from riff, verse and chorus is so catchy that it could be its own STD. The song’s premise is simple enough – the Ratt gang is out on the prowl and kicking ass. Nothing that requires a philosopher’s interpretation here.

The video for Round And Round was all over the place back in the ’80’s. It guest-starred famed actor and comedian Milton Berle, the uncle of Ratt’s manager. Berle played two characters in the video, both a “normal” guy and in drag. The clip stands as one of the immortal videos of ’80’s rock.

It’s no surprise that Round And Round became the song for Ratt. It hooks you in from the word go and maintains its hold throughout. This one has been in wide use in TV, movies and commercials since 1984 and hasn’t gone away yet, it is Ratt’s legacy summed up in a song. Grade: A+

In Your Direction

A meaty riff here and a touch more bite to this song. As with everything on the album, this has a perfect rhythm across all facets of the song – in riffs and vocal delivery, and the back end of the drums and bass. Ratt were not considered virtuoso’s beyond the guitar of DeMartini, but their ability to get the tempo and rhythm of a song perfect is unsurpassed. Grade: A

She Wants Money

Ratt excel in the mid-pace offerings of the songs before, but this one kicks up the speed by a good bit. It is a tale as old as time, or at least money – if you want the girl, you gotta have some cash. No one likes some broke dude. This one is a nice way to switch things up a bit. Grade: A-

Lack Of Communication

The opening riff here leaps out of the speaker and pounds you in the head, and keeps up through the song’s length. This song stomps through humanity’s universal problem as illustrated in the title. No doubt this is the theme song for every single work place in recorded history. The song does a great job of communicating the problem, no issues here. Grade: A+

Back For More

Another cut from the EP that was redone for the full-length. It again sits in that mid-paced pocket that Ratt have masterfully established, though this one does have a bit more noise in the riffs and vocals. It’s a grimy tale of an on-again, off-again relationship and may have been based on the hook-up between Robbin Crosby and Tawny Kitaen. This song did get a video but wasn’t officially a single, the history on this is a bit confusing.

What isn’t confusing is that this song absolutely rocks. There’s just enough of things here and there in the track to push this one over the other songs, which are already excellent. Grade: S

The Morning After

Time to rock out again. Super great riff running through this one and Stephen Pearcy delivers the news of an impending one-night stand with the requisite force. A nice extended solo in this one too, this album is definitely not sputtering out towards the end. Grade: A

I’m Insane

Another hot rocker about a favorite topic in heavy metal, being crazy. There isn’t a lot to discuss about it – it’s a song that works great and keeps the energy up heading into the album’s close. Grade: A

Scene Of The Crime

The closer offers up a fair bit of melody, though the subject matter is far from bright and cheery. The “crime” is a figure for two-timing, or at least that’s what I get from it. The song is, like everything else, fantastically done and makes most people wish there were another ten songs of this album to go. Grade: A

Out Of The Cellar was a massive debut for Ratt. It would peak at number 7 on the Billboard 200 and has been certified 3 times platinum. Note that certifications are not always kept up to date by record labels and the album is believed to have moved at least 5 million copies. Ratt would continue to have multi-platinum success through the decade though this album remains their hottest seller.

With this album, Ratt would be instrumental in shaping the rock scene for the coming years. There is little doubt that they played a huge role in the ascension of hair metal, the sound that was so pervasive through the ’80’s. It’s also clear that there’s more on offer here than what would come by the time hair metal became a ballad writing machine. But that’s the usual state of music – it’s usually the early innovators who had the freshest stuff on offer.

Grading this album couldn’t be easier, the justification for my grade is laid out in the song grades and there’s not much else to say. This record has no weaknesses and many strengths.

Album Grade: A+

I suppose people who didn’t enjoy hair metal might actually wish to blame Ratt for being a central cog in its formation. But for those of us who did like it, it never really got much better than Out Of The Cellar. An amazing album that stands toward the top of the brilliant offerings of 1984.

Megadeth – Countdown To Extinction

On April 8, 2024April 7, 2024 By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week10 Comments

I was absent from here last week, had a minor injury that laid me up for a moment. All is well now and things should be routine from this point.

Also – this week I’m introducing a new aspect to this – I’ll grade each song as well as the album. Instead of reviewing by numbers I’ve chosen to use letter grades. This transition will take a little time to become a regular feature and I’ll do a quick post later this week to explain it more, but I decided to go with it starting today as I’ve been sitting on it for awhile now.

Today I’m going back to 1992 and looking at an album that saw Megadeth gain a great deal of mainstream success, though not quite as much as one member was hoping for.

Megadeth – Countdown To Extinction

Released July 14, 1992 via Capitol Records

Megadeth were hot off of their 1990 masterwork Rust In Peace, widely considered one of thrash metal’s finest hours. By 1992 the music scene was still reshuffling from the nuclear fallout of the summer of 1991 – while hair metal was the biggest casualty, thrash also suffered under the weight of grunge.

Thrash also suffered due to its biggest practitioner changing tack – concurrent with grunge was the arrival of Metallica’s “Black Album,” which abandoned the general structure of thrash and offered a more accessible version of heavy metal. Dave Mustaine’s former band saw the highest levels of success possible from this shift, and less than a year later a more accessible version of Megadeth was on offer.

The band accomplished something they had not managed before this point – they brought back every member from the prior album. Dave Mustaine would lead the band on guitars and vocals. Marty Friedman was the lead guitarist. Dave Ellefson provided bass and Nick Menza was the drummer. Songwriting was credited to Mustaine, with individual music and lyrics offered up by the other members and credited as such. The album was produced by Max Norman and Dave Mustaine.

This record features 11 songs at a time of 47:26. There are several re-issue versions available with a wealth of bonus material, today I’ll stick to the base album. Four songs were released as singles and were constant presences on MTV during the album cycle.

Skin o’ My Teeth

The opener shows that Megadeth didn’t sacrifice being heavy in the quest to be more accessible. This is a rolling, groovy beast of a song that quickly establishes itself as one of the album’s highlights. The song has its subject escape a number of near-death situations. It’s not entirely clear of this is a suicidal rampage or just bad luck and Mustaine has waffled on the answer to that over the years.

Whatever the case, this is one banger of a track and even while shifting direction, Megadeth kept their heaviness and guitar-focused attack in place. Grade: A+

Symphony Of Destruction

Up next is the album’s lead single and what has become Megadeth’s most widely recognized song. This one is super simple, with a riff that anyone can play and short, concise lyrics about how power corrupts and some world leaders send their people into chaos. It borders on being overly simple but still possesses the trademark Megadeth precision and Mustaine’s snarling delivery really enhances the track. Grade: A

Architecture Of Aggression

The song itself punches well but it also very straightforward, perhaps to its detriment. Its subject matter is that of the first Gulf War in 1991, and parts of CNN reporting on the first night of bombing are interspersed through the song. The song also offers the message that a nation’s leader is often credited for building their country, while the truth is that the country is often built upon the bones and blood of common people. Grade: B

Foreclosure Of A Dream

This one offers up a bit of thrash to it while also incorporating some acoustic runs alongside the more conventional electric passages. This one is concise but does offer up some movement to it, shaping up to be a more dynamic offering. The topic at hand is the end of the American Dream, as the 1980’s and early ’90’s saw erosion of the job base and farming sector of average US households. The dream was sold out for favorable deals with corporations, something that has only grown in scope 30 years later. This song does a great job of both delivering its message and making a heavy song accessible. Grade: A

Sweating Bullets

Up next is easily the most contentious song from this record. It does seem in some cases that whether or not someone likes the album hinges on what they think of this song.

It’s a song about insanity, Mustaine inserts several references to multiple personalities and schizophrenia here as well as overall metal health demise. Some of the song’s lines can be funny or cringe, depending on how someone takes them. While I wouldn’t suggest Dave Mustaine is mentally ill, he is clearly nuts so this probably wasn’t hard for him to write. The music is again suitably heavy and kept simple.

So what do I think? I personally love this song. Hell of a jam. Grade: A

This Was My Life

This is a song that keeps pretty strictly on the rails. Here Mustaine ruminates over the wreckage of an old affair he had and has apparently composed several songs about over the years. This song is fine but it does pale compared to a lot of the other stuff on this album. Just not nearly as much going on here. Grade: C+

Countdown To Extinction

Megadeth covered nuclear annihilation on their last album but here they take the title track and do something a bit different. The band focus on the extinction of species as well as the practice of “canned hunting,” where animals are kept in confined spaces and unscrupulous hunters pay big money to “hunt” them in close quarters. This is not Ted Nugent’s favorite song.

This tracks is very well done, a melodic and mid-paced tune with a socially conscious message very much in place with the atmosphere of the early ’90’s. Grade: A

High Speed Dirt

The pace kicks up a bit here as Megadeth offer up a song about skydiving, something they were very much into around this time and did on MTV’s Headbangers Ball in a memorable episode. There is a kicker, of course – the term “high speed dirt” means the diver is getting to the ground far faster than they’re supposed to, as in the parachute isn’t working. At some point there will be a splat. Grade: B+

Psychotron

This one is a plodder to a degree, another mid-paced marching riff kind of thing that Megadeth would use a lot over the next many years. The song is about the semi-obscure Marvel comics character Deathlok, a partial cyborg of some kind. The song is good though not really a standout. Grade: B-

Captive Honour

Up next is one very curious track. It is pretty well done musically, with the arrangement going a few different places and moving the song along more than the straightline approach on many others here. The subject matter is about the pretty awful conditions of US prisons, how some young punk who did something seriously wrong gets tossed into the can and becomes the “bitch of the block.”

The lyrical presentation here is a bit all over the place and does cast the song in a dimmer light for me. There’s rumination on the famous Stalin quote “one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic” and then there’s a whole skit between judge and convict that seems more goofy than anything. About the time the phrase “man-pussy” is used is when I kind of check out on this one, though again the music is really good and it’s a very mixed bag. Grade: C

Ashes In Your Mouth

The album’s closer is the longest song and also the biggest throwback to prior Megadeth albums. This is a blistering jam that recalls some of the more complex passages of Rust In Peace, though also keeps the verses slimmer in keeping with this album’s presentation. It’s a pretty brutal track about the human condition and the need to inflict violence on one another for perceived transgressions, all the while never being satisfied with the hollow victory of revenge. This is a total smokeshow of a song and a fantastic entry in the Megadeth catalog. Grade: A+

Countdown To Extinction would do what Mustaine set out to – generate a wider audience for Megadeth. The album debuted at number 2 on the Billboard chart and has been certified 2 times platinum, both career highs for Megadeth. It may have alienated some of the old school metalheads, but by 1992 that contingent was pretty much alienated from all sides. The pick-up of new fans more than made up for any disgruntled old fans.

Someone else who might have been disgruntled was Dave Mustaine. While Megadeth was seeing more success than ever, they still paled in comparison to Metallica, who were at stratospheric heights by this time. I do recall some derision over this album only getting to number 2, when Metallica’s opus hit the top spot. I don’t know totally how Mustaine felt about it all, trying to track his thoughts over the years would be utter madness. But barely anyone in music through that decade touched what Metallica did, there shouldn’t be any shame in how Megadeth fared in these years. Mustaine would chase the elusive “radio single” for awhile after this.

I always enjoyed Countdown To Extinction. I think it has a lot of great songs on it and even the songs that aren’t all that hot are pretty decent listens. The change to more lean songs didn’t bother me, I already had my mind well blown by the music shift of 1991 and I was game for anything by this point.

I was happy to see Megadeth get their due and with a quality album that still ran heavy and with a strain of socially aware topics.

Album Grade: A

Countdown To Extinction is a fantastic cut of metal from the “alt-metal” years of the 1990’s. Megadeth fashioned songs that could reach out to a wider audience but also held up credibly well against the rest of the now legendary Megadeth catalog. The album’s singles were memorable cuts, the lyrical commentary was often more sophisticated that what was found across other metal albums, and Mustaine and Friedman were still able to include a fair bit of guitar theatrics. Great work all around.

Accept – Balls To The Wall

On March 25, 2024March 24, 2024 By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week4 Comments

As 2024 rolls on, so does the 40 year anniversary celebration of the music of 1984. Today I’m going to loosen the constraints of release dates a bit and include one of metal’s landmark albums in this celebration.

Accept – Balls To The Wall

Released January 1984 (US) via Portrait Records

My Favorite Tracks – Balls To The Wall, London Leatherboys, Losers And Winners

Accept’s fifth album was released just on the “border” of a year – it came out in December 1983 across their native Germany and elsewhere in Europe, but was held back until January 1984 in the US. Its impact would be felt in 1984 and beyond so I am including it in this 1984-versary thing.

Accept’s line-up has never been one prone to long periods of stability, though most of the same group was around from the band’s prior effort Restless And Wild. Udo Dirkschneider provided his unique vocals while bandleader Wolf Hoffmann was the lead guitarist. Joining the band for this set was guitarist Herman Frank, who would be gone before the next album. Carrying on in their positions on bass and drums were Peter Baltes and Stefan Kaufmann, respectively.

Balls To The Wall was self-produced by Accept. All songwriting is credited to the band equally. Lyrics are credited to Accept and “Deaffy,” a pen name for Gaby Hauke. Hauke was Accept’s manager and would also marry Wolf Hoffmann.

The album covers offers a striking visual and was inspired by a 1977 image from photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. This cover, along with the songs London Leatherboys and Love Child, had some complaining about Accept being homoerotic. Band members and Gaby Hauke have stated that Love Child was about the suppressed gay community but overall the complaints about their links to homosexuality simply helped get Accept’s name out there more.

Today’s album offers up 10 songs in 45 minutes, a standard rock and metal offering at the time. Several reissue versions of the album exist and seem to contain various live bonus tracks, I’m not aware of any sort of demos or unreleased outtake versions of anything.

Balls To The Wall

The album opens with the title track and the song that came to be Accept’s defining moment. Much like the rest of the album, the song is tough and to the point. The riffing is simple yet aggressive and everything is in just the right spot without any embellishment.

Udo does a great job with quieter verses and loud pre-chorus dynamic, then launching into the song’s title for the to-the-point chorus. The lyrics are a manifesto for the downtrodden and oppressed, the song one of a revolution of the masses against those who keep them down.

Accept have a handful of songs as jewels in their crown, but none shine brighter than Balls To The Wall. This broke across MTV in 1984 and remained in rotation well past that. This is Accept’s signature anthem.

London Leatherboys

One of the songs that was mistakenly pegged as “homoerotic,” any cursory reading of the lyrics would offer that it’s clearly about biker culture. This is more guitar work that tells a story with riffing and without a lot of flash, Wolf’s excellent yet brief solo aside. It’s easy to chant along and headbang to, which means one big mission accomplished.

Fight It Back

Another revolution anthem here, this one has such a great turn from verse to chorus both musically and vocally, it’s impossible to not get sucked into this one. It moves at a nice clip and remains easy to digest and appreciate. Though the song is short, this one does get a lengthy solo.

Head Over Heels

This one is a total ’80’s melodic metal song. Udo delivers a very wordy chorus but glides right through it, almost rapping it. It seems someone found some nefarious activity going on at night in a park, and wound up enjoying what they found.

Losing More Than You’ve Ever Had

This one keeps the ’80’s alive and well as it rocks through a tragic tale of a guy losing his girl to another man, this other man being Udo. It’s not a bragging story, instead Udo cautions the guy how his own faults led to the split with his woman. A bit more sophisticated take on the “I stole your girl” trope found through ’80’s rock.

Love Child

It’s the song that actually was about homosexuality. Accept members have said they viewed the gay community as oppressed in the ’80’s, which is very much true, and the band’s aim was to focus on suppressed people in their lyrics through this time. It’s a song about someone out on the prowl and confused about his feelings toward a guy. It’s another groovy and basic tune that plenty of people probably headbanged to without knowing what the hell it was about.

Turn Me On

A nice dirty rocker about finding a lover and a spot to have at it, getting the deed done and getting out real quick. It’s “the ol in-out” from A Clockwork Orange fame. The line between love and lust may be a fine one, but here everything is clearly on the lust side.

Losers And Winners

This song goes into turbo mode and it’s another tale of Udo getting the girl that someone else wants. The girl doesn’t want the other guy so Udo slides in to take advantage of the situation. Udo offers up some sage advice, like “take it easy and screw the girl that’s next to you.” The lyrics here are honestly a bit of a laugh riot and are worth reading along to. And the song totally rocks out, putting the track far above the honestly goofy as all hell premise of the lyrics.

Guardian Of The Night

The song itself is another upbeat rocking track, though the lyrics are fairly dismal. Here is a man who is left to live in the night, shunning the light of day and the normal life of most people. It does seem this night owl lives a pretty brutal life and is on the wrong side of society.

Winter Dreams

The album closes with a bit of a ballad. It’s a nice, simple song about the calm and peaceful side of winter. Winter nights can be very pleasant and this song communicates that very well. The song is a bit of a curveball after nine straight ahead headbanging tracks but it also isn’t a vast departure and it closes the album well.

Balls To The Wall would be Accept’s breakthrough album. It charted modestly in a handful of countries, but it would eventually be certified gold in both Canada and the US, marking the group’s greatest US success.

Accept would roll through the ’80’s with two more solid albums, Metal Heart and Russian Roulette, before long periods of line-up instability and hiatuses plagued them. The band would eventually solidify a new line-up in the late 2000’s that did not include Udo. This modern version of Accept has run consistently through to this day, though not without some roster changes.

But back to the time period at hand – Accept were now players in the ’80’s metal game. Their sound would contribute influence to a wide number of acts across the rock and metal spectrum – anyone from the rising hair band scene to aspiring thrash bands found something to like in Accept. And while Germany had the Scorpions representing them well on the rock front, Accept helped open a wide door for a wealth of German metal acts to spread across the world in the ensuing years.

Accept’s story is long, sometimes complicated and formed of many different parts. But the most central part of that story is Balls To The Wall, the album that offered up the group’s magnum opus and broke the group to worldwide recognition.

Bruce Springsteen – Born In The USA

On March 11, 2024March 10, 2024 By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week8 Comments

By 1984, Bruce Springsteen had been on quite a run of albums – his past four records shaped his sound and defined who he was as an artist. But in 1984, The Boss would embrace some pop stylings and conquer the world.

Bruce Springsteen – Born In The USA

Released June 4, 1984 via Columbia Records

My Favorite Tracks – Born In The USA, Glory Days, I’m Goin’ Down

Recording of this landmark album turned out to be really easy – a lot of these songs were written during the same sessions for The Boss’s prior album Nebraska. In fact, there was a point where Nebraska and this record could have a been released as one double album. A trove of unreleased songs from this time period also exist, many of which wound up in the box set Tracks.

Springsteen recorded the album with his E-Street Band – Roy Bittan, Clarence Clemons, Danny Federici, Garry Tallent, Seven Van Zandt and Max Weinberg all on their chosen instruments for recording. Production was handled by Jon Landau, the journalist who had deemed Springsteen the “future of rock” in 1974 and would be Springsteen’s co-producer until the mid 1990’s. Also involved in production were Chuck Plotkin, Springsteen himself and Steven Van Zandt.

The album would get immediate press for its striking cover image – The Boss’s backside clad in jeans with a ballcap hanging in his ass pocket, standing in front of the American flag. The shot was taken by Annie Leibovitz and is one of rock’s enduring album covers. The Boss reportedly worked out to make sure his butt was in prime shape for the photo shoot.

This record comprises 12 songs with a run time of 46:57, none of the songs venture beyond 4 minutes and it’s a fairly lean playing time for that many songs. Fans have long awaited a massive reissue of this album with the surplus of unreleased songs from this time period though to date that reissue has not seen the light of day.

A note on the album’s singles – there were a total of 7. All of them wound up in Billboard’s Top 10, though famously Springsteen did not generate a number 1 hit that he performed. He still has not to this day, his only number 1 is Manfred Mann’s performance of his song Blinded By The Light. I wanted to make the note about singles here so that I don’t have to bring it up through each song.

Born In The USA

Right off the bat we’re into the storied title track. It’s a very simple song, bright keyboards and a steady march through verses and chorus that keeps a consistent tempo. While sounding very bright, the song’s verses are a dark portrayal of the struggle of the common American – many Vietnam veterans returned from an unpopular war, only to find a lack of available jobs. The simple chorus is just Bruce’s raspy delivery of the song’s title. Set against the upbeat, pop-tinged music, many mistook the song to be a celebration of the US rather than a criticism. It’s a misinterpretation that still goes on sometimes today.

In the end the song is brilliant in its simple delivery and stark contrast between the music and the theme. The plight of the working person in the early ’80’s dark economy was a focus of Bruce in his songwriting and here he hit a grand slam in his effort to highlight it.

Cover Me

This bright and grooving track was originally a song Bruce composed for Donna Summer, though Jon Landau convinced The Boss to hold on to it for his own album. Summer got the song Protection from Springsteen and Cover Me stayed here.

The song is a great jam featuring all of the E-Street band going off. The song’s theme is again a few shades darker than the music’s beat – here, Bruce seeks a companion to be into and see their way through the rough and tumble world. Stay in with the one you love to weather the “storm” of society.

Darlington County

Up next is a very fun song, highlighting two guys who couldn’t hack it in New York so they move to South Carolina to try and swing in a smaller town. They come with tall tales, bragging that their dads own the World Trade Center, and they’re trying to get lucky with the southern girls because they couldn’t get any action in NYC. It’s song that both in theme and musical style really sets the tone for the Heartland Rock scene that would explode after this album’s release.

Working On The Highway

This one has a marriage of rockabilly and ’80’s synth pop to it, another really fun song that still again possesses a darker lyrical offering. This time the song’s main character of a guy who worked on highway construction and winds up with a pretty young girl. The girl’s family is not happy with her relationship with this older, salt of the Earth kind of guy and the couple run off to Florida for a bit. The guy winds up getting busted and is out working on the highway again, this time as part of a prison work gang. It is a pretty amusing story so it’s not as “down” as other songs.

Downbound Train

Popularly known as the depressing song on this record, this song’s music actually matches the harrowing tale it tells. It’s about a guy who gets laid off of his job and loses his love in the process. The guy winds up working on the railroad, pretty brutal work that ties into the title’s figurative train. The music retains the fit of a song from this pop-oriented record but it’s also clear that this was conceived during and could have been put on the Nebraska album.

I’m On Fire

Very interesting stuff going on with this very brief song. A quiet rolling guitar part is accented by very, very quiet drums as Bruce is trying to pick up a married woman. Some misinterpret the song and believe Bruce is after an underage woman here but that is totally not the case and honestly it’s a pretty stupid take on the song. It’s clearly Bruce in over his head for a taken woman.

No Surrender

This is another straight up 80’s rock track that offers up a far more positive energy than the doom-laden lyrics of other songs. The song is a tribute to childhood friendship that endures through the struggles of life. There are some confusing parts of the song that seem to intertwine romantic interest, the meaning there is unclear and has been speculated on but I’ll leave all that alone for today.

This cut made the album at the insistence of Steven Van Zandt and can be seen as a tribute to Bruce and Steve’s long-running friendship and musical partnership. Van Zandt had wanted to see Bruce get famous and this album would accomplish that, and Van Zandt left the E-Street band just after recording on the album was wrapped. He would jump in as a guest and then later return to the group in full.

Bobby Jean

It’s on to what is another tribute to Van Zandt, the song was composed after Steve announced he was leaving and was one of the final tracks recorded. The song fits as a lost love sort of thing as well, with the fictional Bobby Jean. This one really goes in to a groove that eclipses the music found elsewhere on the album and could be seen as a lead-in to Bruce’s upcoming pop phase.

I’m Goin’ Down

This song offers up tinges of rockabilly in a very simple and pleasing rhythm through music and words. The music is again upbeat but the story told is a sad one of a couple that’s had the magic of their relationship wear off. Bruce also repeats the title about a million times through the song, making Iron Maiden and The Scorpions jealous. This one doesn’t get played much live because the band has a hard time recreating the swing of the recorded track, but the song is also offered up by some critics as one of Bruce’s best tracks.

Glory Days

Up next is one of the more well-known songs and one that still lingers on airwaves today. It’s another fun, upbeat jam with some thought-provoking lyrics but not necessarily down and dark this time. This is a tale of people who’ve gotten older looking back on their younger, more fun days as a way to relieve the tension and monotony of common adult life. It could be seen as a shot at those who “peaked in high school” but the idea of “glory days” is fairly universal.

This song did have a verse cut, it was about Bruce’s father being laid off of his long-time factory job. Versions with the missing verse are out there though it does cast the song in a more depressing light.

Dancing In The Dark

The album heads to the close with the lead single and a song that Bruce didn’t want to write that also became his biggest solo hit.

As the album was being compiled, Jon Landau felt like it needed a good hit single. Bruce and Jon got into it arguing over the point, then Bruce spent the night writing this track. The lyrics are Bruce’s frustrations with trying to do exactly what he wound up doing – writing a hit single. It’s set to a danceable pop rock beat, nothing overly complex here.

The song was the highest-charting of Springsteen’s career – it went to number 2 on the charts, blocked at first by Duran Duran and then Prince’s mega-hit When Doves Cry. It’s also the only Bruce single that sold over a million copies in the US. The music video featured a young Courtney Cox in an early acting role being picked as the girl to come on stage and dance with Bruce.

My Hometown

The finale is a somber and sparse atmospheric pop track that recounts a kid growing up and being stuck in his hometown. The song runs through racial tensions of the 60’s and the deterioration of the American job market in the 70’s. The final verse sees the narrator pass on the “legacy” of the hometown to his kid in the present day, just as his father did with him way back when. The narrator and his wife talk about packing up and splitting town, which I personally did to get out of my small hometown and I fully recommend. It’s a pretty nice song to wrap up the album.

Born In The USA was a runaway hit. The album spent a month of 1984 at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, then re-entered the top spot for 2 weeks in 1985. It was number 1 in 10 other countries and in the top 10 of 5 others. It has been certified diamond in the US for sales of 10 million copies, presently it has sold 17 million US and a total of 30 million worldwide. It is the best-selling album of Springsteen’s career and the best-selling album from 1984.

For Bruce this was a leap into the pop fray after years of more pure rock styling. He would continue to explore that ground on his next few albums as the E-Street band, at least officially, broke up around this time.

The success of Born In The USA would thrust the concept of “heartland rock” into the spotlight. It was already a term, meant to corral artists like Bob Seger, Tom Petty and Springsteen together. It would also envelop a few country artists, notably Steve Earle. This subgenre term, with country and rock leanings and a socially conscious song message, would mostly become entwined with Bruce and the man who’d quickly become his spiritual twin, John Mellencamp. It’s not hard to find people who confuse the two, some believing both artists are the same person.

For Bruce Springsteen, this album was the all-conquering victory he had long been plugging away for. He crafted one of the best-loved and best-selling albums in history. The seven singles from this record were inescapable in 1984 and for years beyond, the songs are still around today. The legend of The Boss was now solidified.

Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral

On March 8, 2024March 7, 2024 By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week5 Comments

Today marks thirty years since the release of this landmark album. This one hit me like a bullet when it was released and all these years later it’s still toward the top of my favorite releases ever.

Also, be warned – this post is really damn long.

Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral

Released March 8, 1994 via Nothing/Interscope Records

My Favorite Tracks – Mr. Self Destruct, Hurt, Reptile

Nine Inch Nails had arrived to a good degree of fanfare in 1989, and by 1994 the name had become household on MTV and in the now alternative music scene. The stage was set for Trent Reznor’s next move, which would prove to be career-defining.

No real need to discuss a band line-up, the recording roster for Nine Inch Nails was often Trent Reznor. Several friends and guests were brought in to help, including Mark “Flood” Ellis who would help with production. Other names that would become familiar to Nine Inch Nails were involved, including Chris Vrenna, Adrian Belew and Danny Lohner. The list of production credits is a mile long, this was the Manhattan Project in terms of recording engineering at the time.

This album also had a story in terms of where it was recorded – Reznor rented a house at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles. This was the site of infamous murder of Sharon Tate and four others in 1969. After dubbing the studio “Le Pig” and recording both Broken and this album there, Reznor felt remorse for possibly exploiting the house and vacated it, after which the house was torn down.

The meaning and themes of The Downward Spiral have long been a subject of debate and interpretation. It is clear that there is a person breaking down as the songs go along. It could be a solid theme that ties things together, or it could go as deep as being a true concept album where a specific story unfolds through the songs. It isn’t entirely clear and there are arguments both ways about it. I personally do support the “full concept” theory though I also see a few odd holes in the story. I’ll prod the meaning of these songs but I won’t be discussing the concept theory much here, I simply don’t have room. I may pick that thread up another time.

Reznor stated his primary influences for this album were Low by David Bowie and The Wall by Pink Floyd, Reznor was moved by both albums’ use of space and texture.

Today’s album has a massive 14 songs at a 65:02 runtime. An excellent 2 CD reissue offers up great bonus material, including the soundtrack song Burn and Reznor’s cover of Joy Division’s Dead Souls.

Mr. Self Destruct

The opener kicks off with a machine noise intro then launches into the harsh industrial noise that NIN had become familiar for. This song sees a dark force pushing a person into vices and ills, all in order to use the person up. A quiet interlude breaks up the mosh pit-worthy main sequence. This song is absolute gold and a great way to bridge into the new album from the equally harsh Broken EP.

Piggy

The next track is one of the album’s singles and is a slow, quiet march through a person’s breakup and the fallout from that. The song introduces the phrase “nothing can stop me now, ’cause I don’t care anymore,” which is repeated through the record. The bass anchors this song as it rolls along, then Reznor plays live drums toward the song’s end, one of the very few uses of “organic” drums on the record.

“Piggy” can have multiple interpretations here, given where the album was recorded and also the word’s use in other songs. But there is another story behind the name – Richard Patrick was in Nine Inch Nails as a guitarist from 1989 through 1993. Reznor nicknamed him Piggy, then Reznor felt resentment that Patrick was focused more on his own music than NIN. Patrick would leave the band and form his own group Filter, who had great success. Patrick has stated in interviews, such as this 2010 talk with the Sacramento Press, that Piggy is about him and Reznor’s anger with him.

Heresy

Up next is a techno-driven song with moments of distorted wailing. The angst is directed at religion, though the specifics are deeper than just ranting about church. Reznor wrote this one influenced by how Christian sects in the 1980’s and early ’90’s turned AIDS victims into scapegoats. This song is Trent’s response to the edict “there is no hate like Christian love.” Whether or not someone likes this song or not probably centers on one’s thoughts about religion. I’ve always enjoyed the track.

March Of The Pigs

This next song was also a single. Musically it is a contrast study with noisy and quiet parts, though it’s the verses that are loud and the chorus that is quiet. It is a clash between the main character and the “pigs” of society who are fake and without substance. At points Reznor is singing from the main character’s point of view and others the pigs, and the trade-offs are not easy to spot without actually reading the lyrics to see what the hell is going on.

Closer

And now on to the song that most people are likely familiar with. The song builds slowly, using mostly electronic instruments but this one remains easy to process on the surface, it’s all fitting and catchy. There is more going on under it all but this is a song that was taken purely on its surface level and became the most famous song Nine Inch Nails ever did, save perhaps for another from this album.

The song is about someone obsessing over an object of desire. The lyrics are a harsh account of the main character’s depression, lack of purpose and shallowness. But this song didn’t get famous for being psychoanalyzed to find a messed up human being’s story. No, the song got famous for being catchy and for the line “I wanna fuck you like an animal.” It was taken as a lust anthem rather than the desperate echoes of a tortured person. And that is what it will always be known for, and honestly there’s nothing wrong with that. Reznor has spoken out about the true meaning of the song and the popular reaction to it, but artists have to know that art isn’t yours anymore once it’s out in the wild.

Ruiner

Time for a bit of a rave here with some slamming techno beats. The song does call back a bit to the debut Pretty Hate Machine with its dance beats. Other parts of the song slow down and go harsh, and there’s also a bit of a guitar solo here and the old, jamming kind of solo. Reznor has said he was unsure of this song and that it was two songs mashed together. I personally think he got it right, it’s a good track.

The song deals with the “ruiner” who is likely a metaphor for someone in power. The ruiner could also be a specific person or even facet of the main character’s personality, but that’s more than what I can get into here for length reasons. Either way, here the narrator is lamenting the power that the ruiner has over him, and at the end we get the cold refrain of “nothing can stop me now” again.

The Becoming

This one sounds like a robot toy come to life and on the hunt to kill someone, pretty quirky intro. It slides into another techno-driven song with a bunch of screaming in the background. The song sees the narrator give in to what’s happening and figuratively become a machine. It’s the loss of the soul as life has been too much to bear. This is a lively descent into losing personhood.

I Do Not Want This

Kind of a mid-paced beat here that keeps quiet until a chorus where Reznor yells “You can’t tell me how I feel!” It seems here the narrator is struggling with his loss of humanity and is reaching back out for it, though he is also lashing out at everyone. The end offers up grandiose ambitions, such as “I want to know everything, I want to be everywhere, I want to fuck everyone in the world.” It is the sort of thing seen from people who truly have lost their mental center and are reaching for anything to cling to.

Big Man With A Gun

This one is a short, noisy track that is absolutely an allusion to rape and the lyrics don’t allude at all, they spell it out fairly clear. Reznor intended the song to be satire, he was calling out the other forms of music at the time that glorified rape and sexual assault. His take didn’t really come through and NIN landed in a bit of hot water with politicians, though noting ultimately came of it. Reznor said the song was originally created to be about madness and that this was another stage of the main character’s insanity. I do think this song misses its mark but I don’t think it’s that big of a deal either. It fits the album sonically and is over real quick.

A Warm Place

This one is an instrumental with one very quiet, almost unnoticeable spoken phrase at the beginning. It’s widely believed that line represents a last bit of the narrator’s humanity trying to poke through. The song itself is very pleasant, it’s a nice interlude in this descent into total madness.

Eraser

Up next is a song without a ton of words but there are a handful. The piece goes on for a few minutes of very nice music before Reznor sings a series of short blurted out lines that are likely tied to someone who has truly snapped now. The song goes out in a distorted mess as Trent screams “Kill Me!” repeatedly. Not a conventional song but one that fits this part of the story very well.

Reptile

This is one twisted track. It has very sick use of electronic beats and tells its sordid tale very well through music and words. Here the main character is admitting to being twisted by a woman, who might be the same object of desire from Closer and is also likely the Ruiner. This song is absolute magic and, given the “concept” theory, ties this whole album together. Reznor is famous for a fair few songs but this one is kind of slept on by the wider public.

The Downward Spiral

It’s another almost instrumental here. The main hook here is a guitar playing the piano outro of Closer. Here someone reaches rock bottom and commits suicide, the brief lyrics lay that out clearly. It is apparently the main character, though it doesn’t entirely jive with the story theory since, you know, there’s a whole other fucking song to go. This passage is pretty nice and twisted.

Hurt

The album closes on the other very well-known song. It is a quiet and haunting track featuring Trent’s voice, a keyboard, a bit of guitar and sparse noise to generate atmosphere. Here the narrator is reflecting on a lost life, being alone and having nothing to offer but his empire of dirt. Whatever the main character was supposed to achieve through his loss of humanity did not come to pass, and he lies here a broken shell of a person. The end does generate the smallest glimmer of hope that he will seek to regain his human self. The actual meaning of Hurt in terms of the album story is hotly debated and something I won’t get into here.

This was one of Nine Inch Nails’ signature songs, but of course that changed in 2002 when the venerable Johnny Cash, toward the end of his life, recorded a stark cover version that lit the music world on fire. Reznor admitted that the song was Cash’s after the cover was released.

The Downward Spiral would mark the crowning achievement of Nine Inch Nails’ career. The album hit at number two on Billboard and went four times platinum in the US. It has remained the centerpiece of Trent Reznor’s discography and the album’s legacy is still widely discussed now thirty years after its release. Closer remains NIN’s most well-known song and Hurt is close behind.

“Light Industrial” would become the new sound bands chased as NIN sound-alikes hit the scene in the years after this album. A few acts got a bit of mileage out of it and I won’t discount the whole scene as a rip-off, but this album was the clear reference point for the industrial-tinged rock and metal of the late ’90’s.

What this album gets right is most everything. The layers of electronic music do not alienate here, instead they build both a beat and atmosphere that allows the songs to mostly be taken in on a casual listen while also offering a lot of texture for the deeper listener to explore. It’s a masterpiece of arrangement and something that 99.99999% of musicians could never pull off. The story contained within is ugly and horrible, but told in splendid fashion and left with enough breathing room for personal interpretation. It isn’t handed out on a silver platter where everyone draws the same conclusions.

I don’t feel like the album really gets anything wrong, though Big Man With A Gun might be a miss. Maybe Reznor was a bit too opaque in his expression in a few places. That might be more of a discussion about Trent Reznor and pop culture views at the time rather than much to do with this album, though.

During and after this album’s release, NIN would tour and Reznor also went on to help launch the career of Marilyn Manson. It would take five years for another Nine Inch Nails record and Reznor has gone through various iterations in the years since. But there is no denying the legacy of The Downward Spiral, tortured though its story may be.

Amon Amarth – With Oden On Our Side

On February 26, 2024February 25, 2024 By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week3 Comments

This week it’s time to head back to 2006 and get ready for war – the war party is gathering in the longboat, it’s Viking time!

Amon Amarth – With Oden On Our Side

Released September 22, 2006 via Metal Blade Records

My Favorite Tracks – Gods Of War Arise, Valhall Awaits Me, Cry Of The Black Birds

Sweden’s Amon Amarth had been a going concern since 1992 and already had no shortage of praise for their crisp and simple take on melodic death metal. By this, their sixth album, the wider metal audience would lend their ears, and even those outside the metal spectrum would gravitate toward the Viking horde. The band’s name is from an elvish language J.R.R. Tolkien invented for his fantasy realm, “Amon Amarth” is another name for Mount Doom.

The band were in the middle of a very long run of line-up stability, there were no changes between 1998 and 2015. Johan Hegg was the vocalist, and Olavi Mikkonen and Johan Söderberg were the guitarists. Ted Lunström was on bass and Fredrik Andersson on drums. The record was produced by Jens Bogren, who came in on his ninth credited production involvement; today he has literally hundreds of production and technical credits in the realm of metal.

Today’s album features nine songs at a 42:17 runtime. There was a special edition released of the album with a second disc of bonus tracks, a commonplace practice at the time. While not a concept album, the band did take some inspiration from the album’s namesake, the Norse god of gods Oden.

Valhall Awaits Me

The opener sets the table for how the album will go as a whole – a decently paced song with guitar parts showing influence from Iron Maiden while Johan Hegg offers a grizzly bear vocal attack that keeps the lyrics comprehensible. This song is a tale of a Viking berzerker who has amassed a large body count in battle but is outnumbered and meets his end. He hopes he his worthy to ascend to the hallowed hall of the slain for his deeds in battle.

Runes To My Memory

The next track offers up a similar story to the first – a group are fighting well into the enemy territory of the Rus, which would indicate ancient Russia. This warrior is mortally wounded in battle and hopes to have a runestone laid in his memory. The runestone would indicate that this was an important Viking leader who has perished. The song is another well-paced tune that maintains a sufficient level of brutality while still being catchy and ear-pleasing.

Asator

“Asator” is a combination of words that reference the famous Norse god Thor, and this song offers tribute to him. This song goes hard and fast, suiting the nuclear-level assault that the Thunder God smites his foes with.

Hermod’s Ride To Hel – Loke’s Treachery Part 1

Up next is a bit of high concept Norse storytelling. The story told here is the tragic tale of Baldr, son of Oden and whose death is the catalyst for Ragnarök, the Norse end of the world. Baldr is not easily slain, but of course there is someone up to the task – none other than the infamous trickster god himself, Loki. The deceiver fashioned a spear and gave it to Baldr’s brother, who threw it in a game to see how strong Baldr’s armor was. Baldr was slain and Hermod was tasked with riding to Hel and petitioning for Baldr’s release, as his death would kick off the end times.

The song itself slows things down a bit, and the tragic tale is given more weight in the doom-laden pace. Amon Amarth would tell the next part of the story in 2011. Spoiler alert – it doesn’t go well, again thanks to Loki.

Gods Of War Arise

Now it’s back to what the Vikings are most famous for – raiding and battle. This is an account of a village sacking, replete with all of the killing and plundering that goes along with it. The song nails the perfect background for the day of battle. Here the Viking horde are victorious – they completely sack the target village, killing or capturing its population and making off with a load of treasure. This one hits all the marks and is a standout.

With Oden On Our Side

It’s back to battle – this time the Vikings are massively outnumbered, but with their ferocity and with Oden on their side, they are able to see out the day. There are parts in the song with climbing guitar riffs that make me wonder briefly if Dave Murray and Adrian Smith aren’t on here.

Cry Of The Black Birds

This one slows things down a tad and goes a hair more melodic, but the song retains the power of the album. It is an ode to the “black birds” who feast on the corpses of the battle slain, as well as serve as the eyes of Oden, the one-eyed god. This one got a single release and a video.

Under The Northern Star

This track has the feel of an older Amon Amarth song. It runs a bit slower, Johan Hegg goes lower with a lot of his vocals and the guitars are running a lot more leads over the song. The track is an homage to the star that Vikings used to navigate the seas, it’s fair to assume that it would be easy to get lost on small wooden boats out in the middle of the water.

Prediction Of Warfare

The closer offers up nothing unusual, again the Vikings are heading in to battle. One of the combatants has visions of a fight with a great serpent the night before the skirmish. The next day he finds himself with his raiding party fighting instead a group of the Irish, who the Vikings quell.

With Oden On Our Side saw Amon Amarth begin their climb to the top of the heavy metal pyramid. The album charted in Austria, Germany and their native Sweden. It also landed on two US Billboard charts – the Heatseekers chart for emerging artists and the Independent Albums chart. After this release, the group would see their records on the Billboard 200 as their fame grew.

The album was well-received by both critics and fans, the simple and effective melodic death metal paired with the Viking themes that have long been a part of metal worked for everyone. Amon Amarth had now honed in on a sound and presentation that worked, and they were on the way to greater success.

Later albums would mark the height of Amon Amarth’s success, but it is this one I recall fondly as the true kick-off of the band’s rise to the top. We ate this up back in ’06, this was done with precision and skill. Although the band have become a bit of a meme in the past few years as their act has worn on and they literally turned a mosh pit into a rowing exercise, Amon Amarth are still one of the best offerings of 2000’s heavy metal.

Scorpions – Love At First Sting

On February 19, 2024February 18, 2024 By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week15 Comments

Keeping with 1984 this week as I have a bit of schedule re-shuffling coming up soon. Today I’m tackling one of rock’s signature albums.

The Scorpions – Love At First Sting

Released March 1984 via EMI Records and Mercury Records

My Favorite Tracks – Still Loving You, Bad Boys Running Wild, Rock You Like A Hurricane

The Scorpions were poised to conquer in 1984. They had already been forging a solid identity in the rock scene through the late ’70’s and especially with 1981’s Blackout. The band had shifted styles a few times through their career by this point but were settled on a line between rock and metal that suited the 1980’s soundscape perfectly.

The band’s form was the same as it had been for several years, this was the long-running, stable period of the band’s line-up. Rudolf Schenker played guitar and wrote the band’s music, Matthias Jabs was the lead guitarist for most songs. Francis Buchholz provided bass and Herman Rarebell was the drummer and occasional lyric writer. The incomparable Klaus Meine was the singer and wrote the bulk of the lyrics. The band did rehearse early in these sessions with Jimmy Bain and Bobby Rondinelli, late of Rainbow, but nothing from those sessions made the album. The record was produced by Dieter Dierks, the “sixth Scorpion” who was nearing the end of his long run as the band’s producer.

The album cover is yet another famous case of the band having to do an alternate version – the original features a couple making out and some retailers were concerned about the sideview of the woman’s breast, so a sanitized cover with a band photo was released. This one is a massive nothing burger in the history of Scorpions cover art lore, it’s super tame compared to a few of the scandalous earlier covers.

Love At First Sting features 9 songs at a nearly 41 minute runtime. There are deluxe editions with bonus material available but I’m handling the original release today. This includes a handful of the band’s best-known songs so let’s get into prime Scorpions here.

Bad Boys Running Wild

The opener brings the requisite energy and attitude to kick off an explosive rock album in 1984. Everything is loud and bombastic, the riffs lay a tough foundation for a song about a group of miscreants causing havoc, and everything here sounds fantastic. It’s a perfect song for the mullet-headed, denim and leather-clad metalhead that would run wild throughout the ’80s.

Rock You Like A Hurricane

A song that likely needs no introduction, this was a decent US hit at the time and has gone on to become the group’s signature song. Even people unfamiliar with The Scorpions are generally aware of this riff and Klaus Meine’s strangled accent singing about sex. The main riff and lead guitar work as well as the simple chorus make this one of rock’s biggest anthems. The song has stuck around and is still used in public now 40 years after its release.

It’s well known that The Scorp’s biggest song is 1990’s Wind Of Change, it was a mega hit that still stands as one of the best-selling singles ever. But I’d argue that Rock You Like A Hurricane is probably the band’s most recognizable song, especially in the US. This song was everywhere and has been ever since.

I’m Leaving You

Another single from the record, this is a perfectly written and recorded hard rock track. This one has a very ’80’s feel to it, showing off a sound The Scorpions would pursue further as the decade wore on. Its premise is very simple – I’m leaving you, woman, and I’ll be back some time later, so be ready to be rocked like a hurricane at some later point in time. Nothing to misinterpret here.

Coming Home

This one starts off with a ballad feel until it kicks in to an all-out rock track about two minutes in. The song is a take on the “being on the road” song that so many rock acts have composed over the years. On this one, The Scorpions don’t lament being on the road, instead they consider the stage to be their home and are looking forward to their next gig. They’d have a lot of them during this peak period of their existence so it’s a good thing they embraced the role.

The Same Thrill

This one has a touch of rawness to it, a shade of old glam or punk maybe. But in the end it is another rock anthem, again worshiping at the altar of the rock gods and also placing The Scorpions in the pantheon of those gods. There was nothing like it when all these guys who were “born to rock” were doing just that.

Big City Nights

It’s another more polished effort here, a smooth rock track that celebrates being out for love and fun in the big city. The song fits the “simple yet very effective” category and has become of the band’s better known hits. It’s an ear-pleasing number set against the halcyon backdrop of the immortal 1980’s.

As Soon As The Good Times Roll

A more mid-tempo number that keeps things moving along nicely here. The rhythm sounds like Rudolf Schenker had a record from The Police on his turntable while writing, with the quasi-reggae riff running through the song. This one’s all about letting go of the bad moments in life because there will be plenty of good times to still rock out.

Crossfire

This one has a marching drum thing going on throughout the song’s run while still retaining a solid rock feel that allows the song to fit on the record. It’s a plea for peace in the grim reality facing people, especially Germans, in the last decade of the Cold War. In some respects this might have been a dry run for the band’s later mega hit on the same theme.

Still Loving You

To say the album closes with a ballad would be a woeful understatement – more like the album closes with one of rock’s best ever ballads. This is not the formula-ridden, sappy ballad that would come to define later ’80’s rock – this is a masterfully written and executed tale of heartbreak and loss. The song slowly builds from a quiet introduction with only a guitar and Klaus singing into a full band performance. Klaus Meine conveys the pain felt in the lyrics splendidly here, he is totally on fire behind the mic.

This is an ever-relatable tale of losing someone but being unable to shake the feelings and it’s presented in a sublime package. It’s one of The Scorpions’ best songs and also one of the best ballads from the “rock ballad” era of the ’80’s. Europe was in agreement as the song was a huge hit across the continent. The song is even tagged as being responsible for a boom in France’s population in 1985, as so many in 1984 were succumbing to the feelings conveyed in the song.

Love At First Sting was a milestone for The Scorpions. The album charted in the top ten across Europe as well as the US, where it hit number 6 on the Billboard 200. It was certified triple platinum in the US for 3 million copies sold, and also has several other platinum and gold certifications across North America and Europe. The Scorps toured heavily behind the album and became household names in rock and metal through the ensuing tour cycle.

The Scorpions have endured as one of rock’s longest-running acts, continuing to wow audiences into 2024. Their ascension into rock godhood occurred in 1984 with this album, delivering a record without a single note of filler material and presenting several of their most recognizable songs. When the band’s legacy is examined, Love At First Sting is often found at or near the top of any discussion of their greatest works. The mark on 1980’s rock cannot be overstated – The Scorpions were instrumental in laying out the path for rock music going forward in the decade.

The Cars – Heartbeat City

On February 12, 2024February 11, 2024 By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week6 Comments

Today it’s back to 1984 and also time to lean the focus away from heavy metal for a bit. Here today is one of pop rock’s massively triumphant albums and a career highlight for a band who was, sadly, not far from being done.

The Cars – Heartbeat City

Released March 13, 1984 via Elektra Records

My Favorite Tracks – Drive, Hello Again, You Might Think

By 1984, the sounds of new wave were at times synonymous with pop and rock. The innovators of this trend were none other than the Cars, who exploded on the scene in 1978 with a debut album that went six times platinum. The band had wrote several other hits in the years since, but had been a bit shunted off critically in 1981 and their most recent album Shake It Up. But the time was ripe for the Cars to ascend again, and that they would do in spades.

The Cars at this point were comprised of the two principal songwriters and vocalists, Ric Ocasek and Ben Orr. Joining them to round out the band were Elliot Easton on guitar, Greg Hawkes on bass and David Robinson on drums. Ocasek and Orr also handled guitar and bass, respectively.

Heartbeat City saw the band leave their long-time producer Roy Thomas Baker and instead set up show with Robert “Mutt” Lange. This album would slot into Mutt’s world-conquering production resume, which already had Back In Black and Pyromania to its list, and would add Hysteria a few years later.

There are 10 songs with a 38:41 runtime on today’s album, of course deluxe reissues with slews of bonus tracks do exist. There is a ton to get to here, given that the record spawned multiple top 10 hits.

Hello Again

The opener sees the Cars full-on new wave with some music that would sound to a younger listener like “total video game music.” It’s a fun, upbeat song generally about returning to a scene after a time away, pretty fitting for the Cars at this point.

This would be a single and hit 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, as well as number 8 on the Dance chart. Everyone was having fun with this one, including Andy Warhol, who directed and guest-starred in the video.

Looking For Love

One of the album’s few non-singles, this one keeps a mid-tempo, very melodic pace through the adventures of a young woman doing just what the title says. It’s another fun track that I suppose could be danced to, if dancing is one’s thing. This song did catch the attention of Falco, who reworked it in German as Munich Girls in 1985.

Magic

Up next is the second single and one that did great business, going to number 12 on the big chart and topping out at number 1 on the Mainstream Rock chart. It’s another simple, well-worked tune about how it’s magic when two people are together. It’s clear at this early point in the album that the Cars are about keeping an upbeat spirit with everything, they weren’t a band to explore the more somber side of things.

Drive

And here is the band’s sad, somber ballad which would mark a thematic departure from their prior work and also chart the highest of any Cars single, reaching number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and gaining top 10 placement on the charts of 9 other countries. It was also a major part of the campaign of the 1985 Live Aid concerts and fundraising drive.

Drive is a lovestruck ballad with a gorgeous atmosphere driven by the synth. It seems to be someone in love with someone else who is perhaps unavailable and also certainly on a downward spiral in life, this person needs someone to drive them home, to hear them scream or pick them up when they fall. Music and the lyrics delivered by Ben Orr come together for an absolute whale of a song.

This is a track that certainly deserves its own post and will get one some day. The music video is of note, as it starred young model Paulina Porizkova, who was the distressed woman in the video alongside Ric Ocasek and would later go on to marry him. This is my favorite Cars song and honestly one of my favorite songs, period.

Stranger Eyes

It’s back to the upbeat new wave stuff here with a song that is totally 1980’s. There’s no lyrical analysis here – this is a song that has words because most songs have words, there’s not much going on here. But it all comes together to produce another great song, one that was used in the trailer for the mega-hit film Top Gun but did not make the soundtrack.

You Might Think

Here is the lead single and the first sign that the Cars were on to something bigger. The single went to number 7 on the Billboard 100 and also topped the Mainstream Rock chart. The video was an early example of using computers for graphics and would land a brand new accolade – You Might Think was the winner of the first ever MTV Video of the Year award, even beating out Thriller for the trophy.

You Might Think is another upbeat and fun track, this one a bit more conventional and not as “video game” sounding. It’s a perfect representation of the Cars and a true link between this album and their earlier work. If songwriting were a poker game, the Cars were holding all aces in 1984.

It’s Not The Night

Another absolute 1980’s song with a fair bit of synth tricks sprinkled in. It’s not the night for a lot of things, according the lyrics Ben Orr is singing here, but it is the night for probably something that people who might fancy each other like to do. This song hit number 31 on the Mainstream Rock chart. And that’s without even being released as a single.

Why Can’t I Have You

This was the album’s fifth single and would go to 33 on the Hot 100 chart. It’s another ballad and another sad one, with Ric Ocasek heartbroken that he can’t still have his old flame. The music’s atmosphere suits the lovelorn words perfectly.

I Refuse

This poor song is the only one that either wasn’t released as a single or doesn’t have another piece of trivia to it. The song itself is a nice example of a prototypical ’80’s pop-wave track. While the music is upbeat, the lyrics see Ric Ocasek admonishing his lover for being a two-timer.

Heartbeat City

The album closer also serves as the title track, though the song was originally worked up as Jacki before the title change. This was also the final single and only released outside of the US. This one is total new wave, this sounds just like other NW examples from the time period and doesn’t feel pop much at all. It’s a very nice and trippy way to end the album, a slight bit of a left turn at the album’s close.

Heartbeat City was another massive win for the Cars. The album hit number 3 on the Billboard 200 and topped the Rock Album chart in the US. It also placed well internationally on several charts. The album is certified four times platinum in the US, with more updated sales figures for the US and abroad not readily available.

This was a huge score for the Cars, who were white hot in the late ’70’s but fell off in the early ’80’s after some experimentation. The band was back, and the next year would see the release of a greatest hits set that would sell over six million copies and have the Cars all over the place on radio and MTV.

The Cars would get one more album out in 1987 before disbanding a year later. A reunion wouldn’t come until many years later in 2010, and it would be without Ben Orr, who died in 2000. Ocasek and the remaining members would get out one more album and a few tours, then would reconvene one last time for a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2018. The band was laid to rest for good with Ocasek’s death in 2019.

Describing Heartbeat City is pretty simple, in the end – if someone who wasn’t around in the ’80’s asks what the decade sounded like, just put this album on for reference.

Sepultura – Arise

On February 6, 2024February 5, 2024 By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week5 Comments

This week I’ll leave 1984 alone and explore other waters. We can politely ignore the fact that I’m going to the other massive year in my musical fandom, the apocalyptic soundscape of 1991. And few soundscapes were more world-ending than that of Brazil’s metal madmen and their extreme thrash masterpiece.

Sepultura – Arise

Released March 25, 1991 via Roadrunner Records

My Favorite Tracks – Dead Embryonic Cells, Arise, Infected Voice

By 1991, Sepultura were through a few demos and two full-length efforts, and their profile was on the rise all through the world. As heavy metal was moving into more extreme directions, Sepultura were in prime position for their “thrash plus” metal to have an even bigger impact, which it certainly would.

Arise was recorded at Morrisound Studios in Tampa, Florida during 1990 and ’91. It was produced by the band as well as Morrisound mastermind Scott Burns, who had a massive impact on the early 1990’s metal scene. Burns cranked out a host of extreme metal’s finest albums out of the Morrisound hotbed, and this one was one of the crowning achievements from that period.

Sepultura’s line-up was the same as it had been through their full-length recording history – Max Cavalera was on guitars and vocals, his brother Igor Cavalera was the drummer, Andreas Kisser was the lead guitarist and Paulo Jr. was credited as the band’s bassist. In a twist, Paulo Jr. did not actually play bass on the albums, it was Andreas Kisser who actually recorded the bass parts. This was the final album for that arrangement, Paulo did begin recording bass on the follow-up Chaos A.D.

Today’s album features 9 songs in 42 minutes, a tad more bulky than a lot of peers at the time. A few re-issues and other editions exist with bonus tracks, they can be worth seeking out as they have a supremely excellent cover of Motörhead’s Orgasmatron.

Arise

The title track opens as many songs here do, with a creepy industrial-tinged intro. The setup is brief as the band slams in with riffs coated in their sick guitar tone, simple yet amazingly effective at hooking the listener in to this maelstrom of instrument bashing.

Arise may come off as an uplifting thing on surface level, but this song is about the war between religions, politics and other ways people define themselves as “better” and how it is killing the world. We only “arise” after the obliteration of mankind, under a pale grey sky – this is the end of it all, not a self-help track.

This was released as a single and got a music video, featuring the band playing in a desert. A few poked fun since the scene mimicked Slayer’s Seasons In The Abyss video. MTV was not a fan of the video in the US, not airing it due to a figure of Jesus hung on a cross and in a gas mask.

Dead Embryonic Cells

Another brief, crazy industrial sequence opens into another absolute scorcher of a thrash track. A sick rhythm riff slices through while Andreas offers up some trippy leads over everything. The song is about how people are born into a world already up shit creek. This is not simply a straight up thrash number, either – this song goes through several movements and changes, all the while retaining its core and brutal aura. My personal favorite of the entire Sepultura catalog.

Desperate Cry

This gets a nice, brief acoustic opening segment before launching into its doom-thrash main bit. It’s a tortured song (go figure) about someone facing their dying moments. The acoustic bit pops up again briefly in the middle, before more electric chugging commences to headbang out to the end.

Murder

This is a pretty straight ahead track in terms of thrashtality. The song is a grim look at Brazil’s prison system and their very, very bad track record in dealing with inmates. The topic is grotesquely disturbing and continues to this day, as I understand it.

Subtraction

On to another song that is like a thrash homing missile, this one takes off and doesn’t stop until it hits the target. There is a fair amount of “chug” and groove in this one too, showcasing that Sepultura would be a massive influence on 90’s metal to come. The song is about how a person loses their individuality through the pursuit of money and glory – subtraction of personality, as Max howls in the chorus.

Altered State

Here we get a howling wind start and some South American tribal drums to kick things off. This would be a new addition for Sepultura but would be far from the last – this drumming style would permeate Chaos A.D. The song’s title was taken from a movie of the same name and is about human experimentation on brains, fun stuff.

Under Siege (Regnum Irae)

A small bit of a stylistic departure here as the song moves quite slowly, but the doom-thrash thing fits the album well. Parts of the lyrics are transcribed from the controversial The Last Temptation Of Christ, and the song is about how people are generally born into or forced into their religion of “choice,” rather than freely picking it. In the hands of lesser bands this concept could have fallen apart pretty quick, but Sepultura show they are quite capable of working with different lyrical and musical concepts here.

Meaningless Movements

It’s back to full on thrash here, though still tempered a bit in pace. The song is another study in religion and the effects it can have on personality, essentially warping someone and especially casting out anyone with a dissenting view.

Infected Voice

The album’s closer is a true testament to Sepultura’s sheer thrash insanity, this song goes harder than hard. The running joke has been that the song is about Max Cavalera’s actual voice, which would get confused with a rabid grizzly bear before it was compared to another singer. But the song is actually about the fear of growing up, essentially, having to make tough decisions and all of that. It’s actually the most pragmatic song on an album full of deep and dark themes.

Just as music was shifting rapidly in 1991, Sepultura would truly announce their presence with Arise. The album would chart in at least six countries, no super high positions but a truly international showing. It would gain a silver certification in the UK as well as gold in Indonesia. By 1993 the album had shifted one million worldwide units, just as their true mainstream arrival in Chaos A.D. Would launch.

Arise is also critically hailed by many as Sepultura’s finest hour. The reviews from the metal press have been glowing, both on release and in the 33 years since. It makes many metal “best of” lists. The critical acclaim at the time helped vault Sepultura into widespread coverage just as heavy metal was again mutating into many other forms. The band’s influence on the mainsteam of 90’s metal can be heard in both the “groove thrash” and alt-metal to come and even in the nü-metal that would comprise the latter half of the decade. And Sepultura were kingpins of the extreme metal movement, being vastly influential to death metal and most any form of the world’s darkest arts.

I would personally hear this album for the first time in the late summer of 1991, just as I entered my freshman year of high school. A dude in front of me in algebra class knew I liked metal and asked if I’d heard this yet. I had not, so I borrowed his walkman for a minute and checked this out. I was totally blown away. I had been into the “big four” by this point but hearing this was a total ass kicker. Thank you Shane, wherever you are, for introducing me to this and shaping my musical journey, as well as probably truly rotting my young brain.

Mercyful Fate – Don’t Break The Oath

On January 30, 2024January 29, 2024 By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week12 Comments

This week it’s back to 1984 and it’s time to look at an album that can only be called one of the most influential records to the entirety of heavy metal.

Mercyful Fate – Don’t Break The Oath

Released September 7, 1984 via Roadrunner Records

My Favorite Tracks – Gypsy, The Oath, Desecration Of Souls

Mercyful Fate formed in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1981 and by 1984 were on to their second full-length record. The band were quickly making waves on the back of the Melissa album, but were also running into issues while on tour – an opening spot for Ozzy Osbourne was canceled due to illness, and a UK tour with Manowar was scrapped after a single gig when the members of Manowar acted like assholes to Mercyful Fate. But the group of Danes were poised to become one of metal’s most noteworthy acts regardless.

The band’s line-up was the same as the debut recording – the guitar tandem of Hank Shermann and Michael Denner, Timi Hansen on bass, Kim Ruzz on drums and one Kim Bendix Petersen at the mic. Mr. Petersen is obviously far more recognizable by his stage name of King Diamond.

While Mercyful Fate would go on to influence metal bands all across the spectrum, their own sound was fairly traditional metal, along with a few prog elements. The themes were greatly influenced by evil and the occult, and whether or not many like this band or not comes down to King Diamond and his falsetto delivery. That tends to be the sticking point for some.

Don’t Break The Oath comprises 9 songs at around 43 minutes, an album of pretty fair length. Some reissue versions include the demo Death Kiss, which is an earlier form of opening track A Dangerous Meeting. It has been reissued several times again over the years but is almost always the original tracklist when done.

A Dangerous Meeting

Killer riffs open this dark story of a group who looks to lead a séance. “They should have known not play with the powers of Hell” says one line in the song, and the group meets a gruesome yet rather undefined end as their summoning attempt goes awry. This one stays fairly simple for the first few minutes, with a great Denner guitar solo, then shifts tempo a few times to close out this cautionary tale of playing games with dark forces. Some bells ring us out to close this excellent opener.

Nightmare

Up next is another grim story, this of a nightmare someone has of a witch coming to life through a book and convening her coven to sing and drive the subject mad. This nightmare is recurring every night for the tormented narrator. The madness is highlighted at the end with King Diamond’s tauning wail “you are insane!” And, like all of these songs, there are some fantastic solos from both Denner and Shermann.

Desecration Of Souls

This song is a dank as a dungeon, it descends to the bowels of Hell itself. It is the soundtrack to some various hijinx going on at a local cemetery – necromancy, cult lust and even weeping widows don’t pass muster on this unholy ground. This song has a very nice, primitive feel to it.

Night Of The Unborn

The guitars here have a very nice “classic rock on steriods (and a bit of evil)” feel to them. King Diamond goes full-on with the falsetto here, he is unrelenting in his delivery on this song. The restless spirits of the unborn are coming out tonight to haunt the priest, their attack represented in a guitar frenzy at the end of the song.

The Oath

Now on to what many consider to be the masterpiece of Mercyful Fate. This song gets going with an eerie introduction passage, building a creepy atmosphere for what’s to come. What is that? A fantastic rolling riff and a slam through King Diamond pledging an oath, and it’s not an oath of office. Ol’ Satan himself gains another devotee through this dark passage. This song is a magnificent triumph for Mercyful Fate.

Gypsy

A nice fat riff runs constant through this trek as a man discovers secrets from a gypsy woman in a caravan. In shocking news, we discover that both the song’s subject and the gypsy woman are children of the devil, I’m sure that was a twist ending no one saw coming. This is a quite simple yet very effective song that remains my favorite from the album.

Welcome Princess Of Hell

Another cavernous, classic rock meets evil song here. The title might suggest a date between King Diamond and a princess of Hell, but the title is actually a typo – it was supposed to be “Princes Of Hell” and King is having a crystal ball Zoom meeting with them. The actual lyrics do reference the proper “princes” as opposed to a singular “princess.” Either way, it is yet more thunderous evil mischief to dig into.

To One Far Away

A brief instrumental provides a short respite before the final bellow of evil. Very nicely done guitars here and a song that’s in and out quickly, doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Come To The Sabbath

The album closes with one of Mercyful Fate’s most beloved songs. Unlike the opening track where a group of novices meet their demise at the hand of dark magic, here a group that know what they’re doing are out to petition the Dark Lord for favor.

The favor is a specific one, with ties to the band’s prior album – here, Satan is being asked to place a curse upon the priest who executed Melissa, the namesake of the first album and a witch who was the object of affection for the narrator. It would mark the first hints of King Diamond’s long running interest in storytelling across multiple songs, as well as the witches who would be the subject of many of those stories to come.

Don’t Break The Oath was another shot across the metal world by Mercyful Fate. The band would continue to be one of the most widely-cited influences when anyone from any shade of heavy metal talked about what led them to play. In fact, this album wasn’t the only metal masterpiece conceived in their own rehearsal room – in early 1984, Metallica used the room and MF’s gear to practice for the recording sessions for Ride The Lightning, which was recorded in Copenhagen.

Metallica have been very loud about their love for Mercyful Fate, constantly citing them as influences, doing cover versions of MF songs and having the band appear at Metallica’s 30^th anniversary concert. But Metallica is far from the only one – Mercyful Fate’s influence covers the scope of thrash, death, black and other forms of metal through the 1980’s and beyond. It is rare to encounter a band or artist who wasn’t led down the dark path by MF and especially this second album.

For Mercyful Fate themselves, they wouldn’t last a whole lot longer after the album. Hank Shermann wished to write more commercial music, something which King Diamond was totally opposed to. King would leave Mercyful Fate and start his acclaimed solo career, while the rest of the members pursued other projects. The band reformed in 1992 and had a solid run of albums through the end of the decade, they have been largely on hiatus since but have made occasional live appearances and are said to be working on a new album.

But for fans of heavy metal, the shadow cast by Mercyful Fate and Don’t Break The Oath is long, and of course full of darkness and evil.