Scorpions – Send Me An Angel

Programming note – for the time being, I will keep with the format of doing a song each week, perhaps one other post, then my weekly “five songs from a year” thing. I am working on some album posts and I will resume those on Mondays when I get some posts together and can actually be working ahead for once.

Today let’s step back in time to 1990. The music world was on the cusp of huge changes, but one institution that was still running strong “as is” was the Scorpions. The German machine found great success in the early and mid-80’s, though they did flag a bit in the latter part of the decade.

They would enter the 1990’s in style, though. The album Crazy World would sell great all over the world, giving the band their only number one record in Germany. It hit silver in the UK, their only album to do so there. In the US it hit 21 on the album chart and went on to double platinum status, a very hot seller and just behind Love At First Sting as the band’s best-selling album.

The Scorpions released four singles from the record – the first two were fairly standard Scorpions rockers, while latter two were both ballads. That third single, Wind Of Change, would become the band’s biggest hit, while the fourth and final single is the reason we are gathered here today.

Send Me An Angel was released as a single in September 1991, nearly a year after the Crazy World album release. The song did modest business on the charts, going to number 44 on the Billboard Hot 100 and 8 on the Mainstream Rock chart. It had several top 10 placements throughout Europe, where Wind Of Change had previously scored at the top of those charts. It’s also worth noting that the single came out in the “ground zero” month of 1991 for the grunge takeover of MTV and radio. The Scorpions were able to keep steady while many other 80’s rockers were consigned to the scrap bin in this very time, and the Scorps were at the tail end of this album cycle.

For one other little bit of trivia, the single’s cover depicts a burning angel along with a band photo. The angel was used again a few years later as the cover for Black Sabbath’s Cross Purposes album. Sadly, the gents in the Scorpions did not also make the Sabbath cover.

Today’s song is the album’s final cut and follows a second side of steady rock and roll tracks. This ballad is a lot different, with a ethereal vibe and very atmospheric setting. It evokes a lonely wanderer in a desert setting, which the song’s video plays into.

Lyrically the verses offer the words of a wise man who provides encouragement, while the chorus is Klaus Meine offering the plea for an angel. I’ve always enjoyed when ballads go for lyrical content beyond the typical ’80’s fare of trying to get a woman’s pants off.

Send Me An Angel is a fantastic entry on the list of Scorpions ballads. While Wind Of Change was the band’s colossal hit, I’d argue that this one is the better song. And even while the Scorpions may have crafted their ultimate ballad with the titanic Still Loving You, this song is a worthy competitor in the ballad battle arena.

White Zombie – Black Sunshine

So obviously I’ve been gone for a bit. It was an unplanned “winter break” due to not much more than lack of motivation. I am looking to get back to posting and I’ll kick it off with this. I’ll switch up my format some with more posts about songs and less about albums as a way to get me back into the groove. It might take a bit for me to break back through but I’ll get there, someday.

Today I’m going back to the swamp of the early 1990’s and tackling what would be something of a breakthrough, in a roundabout way, for a long-running cult act. White Zombie had been at it since 1985 and had built a good underground reputation for themselves, but they were ready to take the next steps to mainstream success. They landed a major label deal with Geffen Records and recorded the album La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Volume One in 1992. The break would not be immediate – White Zombie toured their assess off with every metal band known to man and received a good bit of support from MTV. Their inclusion on the mega hit show Beavis and Butthead would help launch them into stardom, and the album would eventually sell two million copies as the band went white hot through the mid 1990’s.

Black Sunshine was the second single from the record, following Thunder Kiss ’65. The first single did nothing on the charts but would later catch on through MTV, while Black Sunshine did very modestly chart at 39 on the Mainstream Rock Chart (US). The band’s surge would see Thunder Kiss work its way up to 26 on the same chart about a year after the album’s release.

The song opens with a few car sound effects and a monstrous bass line that both anchors the song and takes center stage. We’re treated to a spoken word intro from punk legend Iggy Pop, who also appears in the video. The intro sets the table for the song’s protagonist, a Ford Mustang named Black Sunshine.

Once everyone kicks in we have a song that’s both groovy and menacing. It’s one heavy ass riff that runs along with the bass while Rob Zombie’s trademark snarl delivers a thesaurus full of lyrics that are loosely related to each other or anything else, but paint a picture of “badass car go fast.” This isn’t a song with a plot or narrative, it’s a vibe machine where everything supports the headbanging good time. Iggy Pop shows up again to deliver a spoken outro.

Everything blends together perfectly to deliver a fantastic listening experience. There are no unnecessary interludes or embellishments – everything here fits to create atmosphere and propel the song along.

Black Sunshine became a star on MTV as White Zombie crawled out of the underground and toward the top of the metal heap. Heavy metal in the early ’90’s was the loosely-gathered “alt-metal” collective of acts like Danzig and Type O Negative, and Pantera was moving to become metal’s most significant band as the acts of a decade prior were out of season. White Zombie found themselves enjoying mainstream success after many years in the underground. This would only last a few years, as Rob Zombie decided to end the band and launch his successful solo career.

When people look back on the raspy growls and groovy rhythms of White Zombie, there are few better examples than Black Sunshine. Their rise to the mainstream after years of obscurity provided a great soundtrack for the weird times of the early 1990’s.

Laura Branigan – Self Control

So I have a song from this year I want to talk about but it’s a damn headache. Even typing out the title is an exercise in supreme frustration. I’m gonna save it for next week and for today I’ll go back to 1984 and discuss a beloved song from then.

In all reality there are two versions of this song to talk about. This was originally released by Raf in ’84. Raf co-wrote the song along with Giancarlo Bigazzi and Steve Piccolo. The song was a European hit, scoring number ones in Italy and Switzerland and charting in the top ten elsewhere on the continent.

Long story short, the song also needed to be a hit in the US and everyone took a familiar turn to get there – Bigazzi had already been working with US artist Laura Branigan, a partnership that had marked the smash hit Gloria in ’82. So Bigazzi and Branigan turned their attention to Self Control, and yet another hit was made.

Branigan had previously offered up some very revised versions of songs – Gloria is not only done in a different language than the original, but the lyrics were also re-written to tell a completely different story. The music was also changed up as a 1980’s “update” of sorts. But on Self Control, Laura’s cover is honestly not far removed at all from Raf’s original. The songs are distinguishable, but not by a huge degree. I’ll post Raf’s original at the bottom of this post so everyone can compare.

Laura’s version of Self Control would be a huge hit – it reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100, and the album of the same name would go platinum. It also did some huge business in Europe – it charted at number one in several countries, including Switzerland – where it actually bumped Raf’s original version out of the top spot. The two versions flipped places a few times again, making for some really interesting music trivia. Both versions were charting all over the continent as they were not released too far apart.

As for the song, it is what is described as “dance rock” or even disco-driven. It has the ’80’s zazz to it but is certainly a dance-able track. The lyrical theme of being taken by the night is actually a fair bit darker than what you might think you’d get with a song of this genre.

This would come into play with the music video. The clip was a huge hit in Europe, but US MTV required the video to be edited, due to the risque nature of the masked personification of The Night entering Laura’s room and, well, you can figure it out in the video. Anything sex oriented was a huge no-no in the year before the PMRC came riding high horses into the nation’s capitol.

Laura would continue charting both mainstream and dance songs as the ’80’s wore on, but like many her career was largely claimed by the shifting tides of the 1990’s. In 2002, Self Control would get another big boost. Stop me if you’ve read me say this about a song before, but Self Control was featured in the soundtrack to the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which introduced the song to a lot of younger people who didn’t experience it firsthand in ’84. Laura was preparing to relaunch her career around the same time, a prospect that was tragically cut short when she passed away in 2004.

Self Control has lived on as Branigan’s signature song, reigning as her top-streamed track to this day. This would be adjusted a bit in 2019, when Gloria came out of nowhere to return to the public eye as the result of an unexpected run in sports. But that is another story for another time and is tied to one of the best sports memories of my life, so I will save it for down the line.

At the end of the day, everyone involved with both versions of Self Control scored big hits around the world. The song is totally tied to the fabric of 1984, one of the best and most unique years in music history.

Chat Pile – Masc

This week let’s have a look at a preview track from an upcoming album. Chat Pile generated a fair bit of buzz on the back of 2022’s God’s Country full-length. Their new effort is titled Cool World and will be available on October 11 via The Flenser Records. If anyone is interested in getting their hands on a vinyl copy of the new album, it would be very wise to pre-order. The label has already sold out of all the first pressings and are into a second run, something that also happened to God’s Country.

I have talked about Chat Pile a time or two in the past but I figure it’s worth it to give a refresher on them. The band hails from Oklahoma and drew inspiration from the sometimes bleak surroundings to craft a crazy version of noise rock, sometimes venturing into various kinds of very noisy metal. It’s not for the faint of heart, that’s for sure.

Masc is the second song we’ve had as a preview from the new album. And Masc is a bit of a departure for Chat Pile in that it is two things – melodic and conventional. The words are sung rather than screamed and the more mellow tone is kept throughout, no sudden breaking into a shouting frenzy here. And the music is more reminiscent of some ’90’s alternative metal than anything else – a bit quirky, sure, but it’s honestly a fairly straightforward song with the usual verse-chorus structure. Chat Pile offered up the expected with the first single I Am Dog Now, here on Masc they showcase another side.

And this new take is very welcome. It doesn’t diverge greatly from the band’s sound, the underpinning is still there in the rhythm and instruments. But this is a very cool change of pace. Music under the “noise” genre is often considered to be just what the descriptor says, but here the band flex out a bit and showcase the ability to explore other waters.

Also of note is the video. It was directed by short film creator Stephen Mondics and it is very, very visually striking. Now, I can’t tell exactly what the hell is going on in there, but I can say that I like looking at it very much.

Masc is a great track from Chat Pile, and it will be interesting to hear the new album next month. This will be one of the more hotly anticipated records of the indie/underground scene this year.

Danzig – Dirty Black Summer

Summer does not officially end in this hemisphere until September 22, still a hair over a month to go. But the unofficial summer season does end in the latter part of August when kids go back to school. I don’t have any kids so school time isn’t some massive issue to me, but it is a bit depressing when “true summer” is over as I live in a city with a ton of schools in it. Summer time is fairly peaceful around here with less traffic and snarls of people, but now we’re back into massive traffic and people being idiots about where they drive, park and everything else.

But summer isn’t actually over yet, so let’s pull out this Danzig single from 1992. This was the lead single from the album III: How The Gods Kill. The album did decently well in its time, hitting 24 on the Billboard 200. While Danzig had a bit of a run with success, that actually came a year later with the re-release of Mother. This year prior was not obscure by any means, Danzig was a fixture on MTV by this point and his stuff fit right in with the alternative metal thing going on at the time. But true sales success was another year off.

The first defining feature of the song is actually near silence for 40 seconds. If this comes up on a playlist set to shuffle, you might think the playback died or something, especially if you’re only half paying attention or listening on a more lo-fi bluetooth device. There is a bit of atmospheric noise going on but it’s totally minimal and not always detectable. But then John Christ comes in with a divebomb note on the guitar and the song proper kicks off.

And it’s clear that the song lives up to the title – this is hot, dark and dirty. The song does have a slower pace to it, which is perfect to let the winding riff conjure up demons and dust devils and shit like that, and the drums and bass hit with extra results. And it’s all brought together by the familiar bellow of Glenn Danzig, the “evil Elvis” of heavy metal.

There isn’t much to dissect here lyrically, this song is all vibes. In this 2022 interview with Revolver, Danzig recounts how the song was simply about his memories of summer as a teenager – running around, getting into trouble, not having anything noteworthy to do. I love a good concept album as much as the next nerd, but sometimes keeping it simple is the more effective approach and it works splendidly here.

The song was a huge part of the soundtrack to my own dirty black summers in 1992 and beyond, I was 15 at the time and I enjoyed the same vibes through my vacations from school. And even all these years later, 32 of them in fact, I still dial this song up when I want to feel some good (evil) vibes during the small, hot and far too short quieter time of year.

The Cult – Spiritwalker

Today I’m gonna have a look at the debut single from The Cult, who would go on to become a force within rock music later in the ’80’s. But they got their start in earnest in 1984 with this initial single.

And, in order to fill up space, I also get to dive into the very confusing naming history of The Cult. There was initially a band that singer Ian Astbury was in called the Southern Death Cult. Astbury ended that band and then joined up with guitarist Billy Duffy and formed Death Cult. The Southern Death Cult and Death Cult are two distinct bands, though as we’re about to find out at least one song migrated over from one to the other. Death Cult would eventually change their name to The Cult, and they are the ones as we know them today from that one song they play in every strip club across the country. The band were originally joined by bassist Jamie Stewart and drummer Ray Mondo for their first album.

Spiritwalker was originally conceived in Astbury’s old Southern Death Cult. The band performed something called The War Song in 1981 with lyrics that would go on to be used in Spiritwalker. Then moving to Death Cult, the new band reworked everything and came up with Spiritwalker. The early version was much different musically, though finding any actual performances is very hard to do so I don’t have anything on hand to offer. While there was a Death Cult EP, it did not contain any version of this song.

So anyway, we now get to the name change to The Cult and plans for the first proper album. Spiritwalker as it is known today was released several months ahead of the album – the single was released in May of 1984, while the album Dreamtime came in August. Spiritwalker did not light the UK charts on fire, at least the mainstream chart – it only got to 77 there. But it did land on top of the Independent chart and got some early buzz going for the group ahead of their album release.

With all of that exposition, let’s talk about the actual goddamn song, huh? The first thing that comes off here is the guitar tone. Duffy’s tone is so bright here, it’s pretty unreal how he pulls off going that “high” in a relative sense yet also keeping it catchy. He goes unreal high in places where nothing else is going on, then rings it a bit in the background when vocals are up. Even when The Cult went more “mainstream rock” later in the ’80’s, Duffy kept his bright guitar tone through a fair few of the band’s signature songs. He was totally operating on his own plane of existence and has been through the band’s entire run.

I often in my reviews of stuff don’t talk about drums and bass much. Honestly I’m spoiled by a band like Van Halen who had one of the best rhythm sections in existence. But The Cult were not that far behind, both drums and bass accent exactly what the song needs here and add their own layer to the song without going virtuoso and detracting from the main show. Steward and Mondo deserve kudos for their performances, both on single and album, and The Cult would make full use of the rhythm section throughout their long and winding career.

Then there’s Ian Astbury. He gets lumped in a lot as a Jim Morrison clone, and also in the “Evil Elvis” category alongside Glenn Danzig. But here Ian goes both full-throated and a bit higher, mimicking Morrison far more than Elvis. His vocals in The Cult are often described as having a “shamanistic” quality, which I don’t know what that is supposed to mean but there are multiple spiritual aspects to Ian’s outlook and performance.

What this all adds up to is one hell of a song, and something in a bit of contrast to what we had in 1984. Pop was in a new wave era and rock went a bit lighter overall, though the seeds for something heavier were planted in the heavy metal realm. But The Cult were totally on their own path, this song being very loosely classified as “gothic rock” but truly being an entity that defied categorization, something the band would take pride in over the ensuing decades. This flies under the radar a bit in terms of the music of 1984, but The Cult did firmly put themselves on the rock map with Spiritwalker back then. And the future would give us a hell of a lot more of their twist on rock.

Bruce Dickinson – Resurrection Men

This week’s song is a bonus feature as it includes a few more tracks. Bruce Dickinson just released a single for another song from The Mandrake Project. For my full review of that album, look no further than here.

Resurrection Men is a curious choice for a single release. We got a vinyl release with the lead single Afterglow Of Ragnarok, and the excellent Rain On The Graves was a digital-only offering. Now we have another physical product, this time a CD only issue of this song. It does seem a bit odd to see a CD single in 2024 but hey, it’s not expensive so I’m not complaining. This release did come with a big poster that I’m not hanging up or folding out so no pics of it, sorry.

The main serving here is Resurrection Men. As I said when I reviewed the album, I was a bit thrown off by this song at first. It does feature a bit of a spaghetti western riff with it, which is fine and isn’t the part that throws me off. It’s a weird sort of a slow-tempo breakdown or interlude a bit into the song that I think doesn’t fit all that well and detracts from the power Bruce showcases on the song’s chorus. I have warmed up to it on repeated listens but I’ll still be honest and say I would have done the song differently and let it ring solid throughout. But I’ve grown to be ok with it so I’m not going to rip it apart or anything.

I have zero clue what this song is about. There is a story through some of the album’s songs that discuss being able to resurrect people and this is certainly one of those songs. It mentions Lazarus, who is both a Biblical figure of resurrection and also a character in the story so I’m not really going out on a limb to figure this is a “story song.” I don’t know the story beyond Lazarus, Necropolis and dead bodies being brought back to life so there’s that.

A new music video came with the single release. It is a standard live performance clip that doesn’t tie in to the story at all. Cool video but nothing to help dig further into the concept that is mostly presented in graphic novel form.

As B-sides there are two songs performed live in Sao Paulo, Brazil earlier in 2024. Bruce performed on this tour with his House Band From Hell, which curiously did not include Roy Z. There is fan speculation on there being untidy reasons for that but nothing has really been said by anyone so I’ll leave it at that. To my knowledge these B-sides are only available on the CD right now, I’m sure in the future they’ll find their way to a streaming platform.

The first song is Afterglow Of Ragnarok, already mentioned as the lead single from this current album. The crowd kicks off the recording and is in full form as South American crowds are. If you aren’t aware, they are the most boisterous crowds on the planet. Things then kick in to a bit of an introduction from Bruce and the song proper, which sounds very heavy and honestly quite good on here. On first listen I remember telling Deke that these B-sides might not be up to snuff for a full live album, but my ears might have been wrong about that. This one is sounding pretty damn good after repeated listens.

The second B-side goes back in time to Bruce’s prior solo album which was Tyranny Of Souls from 19 years ago in 2005. Abduction was the lead and only single from that effort. It is really cool to hear this live after not having Bruce solo material for so long. It’s a good performance for a song that’s shockingly about alien abduction, then the single fades out as Bruce gives a “how the fuck are you?” to Brazil.

Overall this is a pretty cool package. The poster isn’t my thing but it’s a cool bonus for those who would want it, and two live B-sides are worth the price of admission. This does tip us off that live material is being recorded and we can draw lines and speculate that a full live offering might be on the horizon, so if you’re a Bruce and Maiden fan it might be best to keep a few bucks handy, especially since Maiden themselves will most certainly have a new live album in the next year.

Queensrÿche – Take Hold Of The Flame

It’s time to get back to the celebration of 1984, which will run to the end of this year to commemorate the 40th anniversary of this great music.

Today’s song comes from the debut album of Seattle metal outfit Queensrÿche. I covered the album last year before I realized I’d be doing this running 1984 deal, but I can pull the signature song and have a deeper look at it.

Take Hold Of The Flame was released as the second single from the album The Warning. It didn’t chart in the US and I don’t have any international chart information, but this was reportedly “big in Japan.” That does track, as Queensrÿche headed over there in short order and even recorded live stuff in Tokyo.

This is honestly a straightforward metal song from an album with a bit of embellishment on it, and from a band whose career could accurately be described as “out in left field.” But this is off and running riffs that are largely contained and pounding drums and bass. There’s a solo, of course, this one I believe credited to Chris DeGarmo, but nothing really wild or flashy going on with this song.

The star of the song is the band’s singer Geoff Tate. Even in an age with luminaries like Rob Halford, Bruce Dickinson, Ronnie James Dio and others providing a master class on heavy metal singing, Tate seemed to be from another planet on these early performances. He doesn’t necessarily show off here except for a small part at the very end, but his voice delivers these lyrics with full force.

Queensrÿche were really on some trippy stuff lyrically during their early run – AI robots, war, more AI robots, wives of prisoners and all sorts of other stuff that does somewhat involve AI robots. But on this song the group chose to hold off on predicting more of what 2024 would be like and provide a more relatable treatise on motivation and “grabbing the brass ring,” if you will. To some extent the song does dwell on those who did not get up and go get it, those lost who will fade from history. But overall the song is a memo to get off your ass and get it done, whatever “it” might be.

Take Hold Of The Flame became an early crowd favorite and Queensrÿche were happy to oblige – it remains the band’s fourth most-played song out live. This is counting the lineage of the band present today, Geoff Tate has played the song 214 times live while solo, good for sixth on his own list.

For Queensrÿche, this song was a part of a triumphant beginning that would launch one of the more unique careers in music. The band wouldn’t sound like this again but this early material is still widely hailed to this day.

The Misfits – Astro Zombies

Gonna go quick and dirty for this week’s song, this one popped up on a playlist of mine recently and I hadn’t heard it in quite some time so I figured I’d get into it. I also haven’t talked about The Misifts since my third-ever Album of the Week post back nearly three years ago, which covered this very album.

Astro Zombies comes from The Misfits’ only “real” studio album Walk Among Us, which was released in 1982. Noting here was released as a single or given any promotional status, the band didn’t even have the money to release the album at first. There is nothing statistically to offer for this one, but The Misfits have gone on to become a cult classic punk rock act.

Astro Zombies is the second to last song on the album. It clocks in at a handy 2:14, which seems very quick compared to most conventional music but is also the third-longest song on the album.

This bashes through at a pretty good pace, there’s a lot going on with all the of instruments that Jerry Only, Doyle and Arthur Googy are playing here. And of course present is the voice of Glenn Danzig, who is packing a lot of words into this song at a quick clip. Danzig did also play some guitar on this song.

Like the rest of the album, Astro Zombies is a horror romp, this time a group of zombies are out under the command of Danzig and are looking to destroy the world. The song is based on a 1968 movie The Astro-Zombies. The plot of the movie is pretty well like the song – a fired scientist creates zombies to terrorize the world. The film is generally hailed as one of the worst movies of all time, I personally have not watched it but am curious to maybe check it out.

But the song is fantastic, a true highlight from the album and my favorite track of the record. The Misfits were firing on all cylinders here, the song is quick and catchy and fully developed. While The Misfits had quite a few very awe-inspiring songs, they also had a few more sloppy performances and were also massively constrained by a shoestring budget.

Astro Zombies is a great song to get the blood flowing and the energy up, and who doesn’t want to destroy the world after a crappy day at work or whatever? Let the zombies get the show on the road.

Twisted Sister – The Price

This week’s song looks back to 1984 and was the third and final single from Twisted Sister’s landmark album Stay Hungry. I talked about the album to help lead off my celebration of 1984’s 40th anniversary. The song has its origins in the album prior, 1983’s You Can’t Stop Rock n’ Roll, as we’ll soon get into.

The Price did not have the same singles success that the other two songs from Stay Hungry did – it would get to 19 on the Top Rock Tracks chart and 24 on the long defunct Radio and Records chart, but it did not crack the Billboard 100, only hitting 8 on the Bubbling Under chart. It was a different style and theme to the prior singles, with We’re Not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock being balls-out rockers. The band cites a lack of a radio mix from producer Tom Werner as a factor, Werner was not given enough heads up to do up a radio edit of the song the same way he did for the two other singles. Not necessarily related but worth noting is that Dee Snider has been critical of Werner’s production (and Werner has fired back at Snider and all of his various critics).

On our hands today is a ballad, and one with more lofty concerns than the typical love song. It is an existential question of whether or not it is worth it to carry on, as the powerful chorus asks. This song doesn’t answer the question – it’s up to the listener to come to their own conclusions. There’s nothing over the moon about the song’s music but the basic approach fits this one very well.

Dee Snider was inspired to write this one while away in Europe recording the previous album. He relays the story in this 2016 interview with Carl Wiser on Songfacts. Dee and the band were holed up recording their album with not even money to make phone calls back home. Jay Jay French’s sister-in-law called to the band to check on them and Dee relayed that he was missing his family, the reply was “I guess that’s the price you have to pay.” Dee gave the phone to Jay Jay, then went into the bathroom and began working on the song.

The Price really does raise those kinds of questions, and well beyond the specific scope of if it was worth it for Twisted Sister to be pushing for their career. The grind can be a tough one, trying to figure out how to “make it” or even how to just get by in life. This song resonates, sometimes as encouragement and sometimes as a point of reflection, on that journey.

While The Price wasn’t a hit in the same way the other singles from Stay Hungry were, this one did become a fan favorite. It’s the band’s sixth most-played song live and Dee frequently played the show on his long-running House of Hair radio show, speaking highly of the track that many fans have listens to in order to help them pull through. Especially in tough times like these, it doesn’t hurt to have some encouragement.

Questions, comments or concerns? Use the comment form below or head to my contact page.