Tag: 1984

Metallica – Creeping Death

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week7 Comments

For today I’m gonna continue extolling the virtues of the music of 1984. In this case I have long since covered the album in question and I’ve also talked about the song a bit when I covered the cassette singles I have. But today I’m gonna go more in-depth on one of my favorite Metallica songs, which just so happens to be from that hallowed year of 1984.

Creeping Death was the only actual single released to market from the album Ride The Lightning. Two other songs, For Whom The Bell Tolls and Fade To Black, were released as promo copies to radio. While today we talk about Ride The Lightning in terms of an album that has sold roughly seven million copies in the US alone, bear in mind a lot of those sales came during the band’s world-conquering run for their 1991 Black album. The album didn’t go gold until 1987, while today’s single only has a gold certification from Australia for 35,000 copies sold. What happened in 1984, while vital to the band’s reputation and success, was a far cry from what happened when they became literally the biggest band of the 1990’s.

So let’s peel back all the layers of Metallica’s legacy and get to the core of Creeping Death – this song is an epic thrash masterpiece that centers around the plagues of Egypt as told by the Holy Bible. The verses that tell this story are in the Book of Exodus, which will become especially ironic in a moment. I don’t have the specific verses on hand but I consider it a spectacular passage from the Bible and I don’t even subscribe to the religion. It’s a goldmine for heavy metal references, only surpassed by the concluding Book of Revelations.

The short version of the biblical story is this – the Hebrew people were kept as slaves in Egypt for several hundred years. Their god finally grew tired of it and appointed Moses as his prophet to lead them out of their hardship. The Egyptian pharaoh did not release the Hebrews, so their god delivered ten plagues as reprisal. After this, the Hebrews were freed and began their forty year exodus to the promised land of Israel.

Metallica’s song picks up at the tenth and final plague, which was awfully heinous. A destroyer was sent to kill the first born son of every Egyptian family. Hebrew families were instructed to paint lamb’s blood on their doors so that the Destroyer would “pass over” their dwellings, this is the origin of the Jewish Passover holiday.

The song is unique in that it tells the story from the perspective of the Destroyer. Usually this story is recounted in the terms of Moses and his people led out of Egypt, or the Pharaoh and his dumb decisions during and after the plagues that led to he and his forces being drowned in the Red Sea. But we are dwelling in thrash metal here and we get to the heart of the matter – sometimes things are brutal.

Metallica does a masterful job of telling this story. The verses are interspersed with specific passages outlining the plight of the Hebrews and the coming storm the Egyptians faced, while the chorus outlines the role of the Destroyer and the devastation he is about to bring to Egypt. It’s honestly pretty clear and concise, nothing is really left to interpretation here even though the whole premise of the story is widely open to interpretation.

And the music only serves to further the brutal nature of the plagues. This is an absolute thrash magnum opus, being a massive serving of riffs and pummeling despite its length of 6:36. There is a bit of an intro before the meat of the song kicks in and the riffs keep slamming in consistent fashion through both verses and chorus. And of course we get a wild solo from Kirk Hammett before the most famous part of the song kicks in.

After the solo, the song breaks down into a chunky bridge that has become central to the Metallica experience. James Hetfield shouts “Die by my hand, I creep across the land, killing first-born man” as gang vocals shout “Die!” behind him. This part is often extended for several minutes live to encourage crowd participation and is one of the most compelling moments in live music.

As for how the song came about, that story comes in two parts. It was Kirk Hammett who originally came up with the signature bridge riff when he was just 16 years old, which puts this early thrash riff in 1978. He would introduce it to the band he was in prior to Metallica, who was ironically the pioneering thrash act Exodus. Exodus messed around with a demo called Die By My Hand but it went unused, then Kirk brought it to Metallica when he joined in 1983. Kirk outlined this story to Louder.com in a 2014 interview.

Metallica would fill out the song as they were writing for Ride The Lightning. While sources are locked behind unaccesible interviews, the band got the idea for the song from the old Charlton Heston movie The Ten Commandments. It was Cliff Burton who coined the “creeping death” idea from the movie, and then the band was off to the races to flesh out the song.

Creeping Death has reigned as one of Metallica’s dearest signature songs, even in a career filled with many examples of prime material. It ranks as the band’s second most-played song live, just behind Master Of Puppets. The song has been widely covered by acts like Stone Sour, Drowning Pool and Bullet For My Valentine. It has also made the cut on to classic rock radio despite not getting a ton of airplay originally.

It was dark days in Egypt when the Destroyer visited destruction upon the populace of Egypt, but it was absolute heavy metal glory when Metallica recorded a song about it a few thousand years later. For all of the arguing about Metallica these days, there is no arguing their undisputed mastery of the genre they were central to the creation of forty years ago, and Creeping Death is a pinnacle example of that.

Accept – Balls To The Wall

On 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 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.

Ray Parker Jr. – Ghostbusters

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week9 Comments

As a note – I am changing my post order this week. I’m doing a song today, I’ll have a different post on Wednesday, and I’ll do the album of the week on Friday to mark the exact 30th anniversary of that album. The change is simply to accommodate that and things will go back to normal next week.

There was so much music released in 1984 that it’s tough to nail down a song that really defines the year. But one possible candidate is this monster of a theme song for a movie soundtrack, a song so catchy attached to a movie so popular that the song was literally everywhere.

Ray Parker Jr. had formed the R&B group Raydio through the late ’70’s and into 1981. They landed several top ten hits on the singles chart, then Parker went solo and had continued success. But no matter his other accomplishments, his calling card is the Ghostbusters theme song.

This song has quite a story, involving other artists, lawsuits and the whole rigmarole. The movie heads approached Lindsey Buckingham about doing the song – he turned it down, not wanting to be typecast as a soundtrack artist. Glenn Hughes and Pat Thrall submitted a song for consideration, but were rejected. Huey Lewis and the News were offered the song but also declined, and that part will be important here in a bit.

In the end Parker was offered the song with very little time to compose it. He came up with the idea of the song being a faux commercial jingle and was off to the races, it was an easy way to create a good song while also incorporating the odd name of the movie.

The song fit the movie like a glove, and both song and movie would see blockbuster success. Ghostbusters would bring in over $200 million dollars, making it the second-best grossing movie of 1984. The movie went on to become a billion dollar franchise with licensing, toys, cartoons and sequels and that money train is still rolling 40 years later.

As for the song, it wound up on a lot of charts and its position was at or near the top of many of them. The song was number one on the charts of seven countries and top ten in at least eleven others. It would remain the number one hit in the US for three weeks and it stayed on the Hot 100 chart for four months. It sold in excess of one million copies in the US, the UK and France. In short -this song was a massive hit.

And the song is about as effective as it could possibly be. Parker worked in a load of supernatural problems one could have and offered up the catchy jingle “who you gonna call?” The refrain of Ghostbusters! Rang through to make a sing-along that everyone could get into, including kids who would want anything Ghostbusters-related. I would know as I was one of those kids – the movie came out just before I turned seven and that’s all we cared about during the summer and well beyond.

The song was aided in popularity by its music video. The clip features shots of the movie and also features an assortment of guest shots from notable actors including John Candy and George Wendt, all of whom agreed to film for free as a favor to movie and video director Ivan Reitman. The video clip was super popular across MTV and became the model for how to market a blockbuster movie in the 1980’s.

All of this success came with the usual trappings, one of those being lawsuits. And one lawsuit was especially compelling – Huey Lewis filed a plagiarism suit, alleging that Parker had used the melody from the song I Want A New Drug, mostly involving the bass line. The lawsuit was settled out of court, with the terms being under lock and key. That would come back to haunt Lewis in the 2000’s, as he discussed the case on VH1. Parker filed suit over that and won, getting back at least a bit of the money he’d lost in the original suit.

And we’d learn that Lewis had one hell of a case – when the film was being put together, I Want A New Drug was used as a placeholder song in many scenes, as the film heads were still hoping to have Lewis do the theme. Parker was given footage to watch that had Lewis’ song in it.

Lawsuits aside, the song was a massive haul for Parker and anyone involved with the movie. Parker had no chance of recapturing that kind of success, but has gone on with a recording and performing career, as well as songwriting and studio ownership. And for us in 1984, the Ghostbusters theme was one hell of a time as we were going nuts in the summer. This was a mark on the culture like no other.

Wang Chung – Dance Hall Days

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week12 Comments

Gonna take the song machine back to 1984 this week and visit the first hit of an act who’d go on to score big in the US a few years later.

Dating this one to 1984 does come with a few caveats, though – the song was originally released in 1982 when the group were known as Huang Chung. That single failed to chart. The band renamed themselves to the much more familiar Wang Chung and redid Dance Hall Days, releasing it on their album Points On The Curve. That record did get released in some territories in 1983, the US and other areas would see it in early 1984. For the purposes of my mega 1984 40th anniversary celebration, it’s a 1984 song.

Dance Hall Days got a fair bit of traction on music charts across the globe, no matter the actual release date. The song hit number 16 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and also number 1 on the Dance chart. It was a number 21 hit in Wang Chung’s native UK. Oddly, that was the best chart placement ever for Wang Chung in their home territory, the band saw the bulk of their success career-wise in the US. The song was also a top 10 hit across many European countries, as well as Canada and Australia.

Today’s song fits straight into the new wave movement of the early 1980’s. The song is a nice, atmospheric mix of electronics and organic instruments and it sets a really chill vibe. It’s easy to hear how new wave became an important facet of music in the ’80’s. This is a beat that most anyone could get behind.

The song’s overall theme is a celebration of old-time dance halls that singer/guitarist Jack Hues remembers his dad playing in years gone by. Hues himself played in the band at times. This information comes from a podcast called Just My Show, which I have difficulty accessing but have transcribed the transcription of this site.

While the chorus is an innocent celebration of those dance halls, the verses do offer something a bit different. On the surface it’s just a collection of words that rhyme with body parts to move the song forward – “take your baby by the heel and do the next thing that you feel.” It’s not rocket science and I always took it as just words they put together to get the song done without any real deep meaning behind it.

But, just as I was doing some internet sleuthing for this post, I stumbled into a subset of people who think Dance Hall Days has sinister intentions behind the lyrics. There are people who interpret the passages more literally and believe there is some bent toward coercion or abuse in the various mingling of actions and body parts. I had a bit of a pause when I first saw it.

This 2013 article from Paste outlines the possible hidden creepiness of Dance Hall Days. Now this specific piece has a clear tongue-in-cheek air to it and is pretty amusing, but a lot of the other stuff I saw on reddit and in forums seemed to ascribe more ill intent to the lyrics. All I’ll say is I disagree that there is anything to these lyrics.

Dance Hall Days got two different music videos. The first, posted above and apparently age-restricted, was directed by the late Derek Jarman, and features his father’s home movies interspersed with the band goofing around. A second video was shot that did more to relate to a literal dance hall – that video is tougher to come across. I posted an unofficial upload down below, but we all know the video may not remain up long.

There are two other interesting pieces of trivia around the song. One is that Wang Chung almost didn’t release the song themselves, they instead offered it up for consideration to another artist. As multi-instrumentalist Nick Feldman recounts in this talk with Soundfacts, the song actually wound up in the hands of Quincy Jones, who was producing Michael Jackson and Thriller at the time. Jones and Jackson reportedly liked the song and considered recording it, but ultimately decided not to. That would have been quite a twist of fate for Wang Chung – the song got them on the map, but having a song on Thriller would have been its own world of success. I admit I can’t quite “hear” this song on that album, but I’m sure Jones and Jackson would have done a different arrangement for it.

The other factoid on offer is one I’ve shared about several songs – this was one of many tracks to feature in my favorite video game of all time, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The song is a perfect fit for the vibe and setting of that game, these two fit together like a glove. It was a match made in heaven and the song goes great with committing digital felonies.

For Wang Chung, Dance Hall Days would be the first score of their career, setting them up for further success in 1986. For me it’s a fantastic reminder of my youth and the “golden era” of 1980’s music.

The Billboard Number One Albums of 1984

On By bigbadburchIn 198411 Comments

This being the 40th anniversary of 1984 and all of the great music that came from that year, I want to go a bit beyond just looking at albums from then and get into some other stuff. I will be looking at albums again today but in a different context – today I’m going to discuss all of the albums that topped the Billboard 200 chart in 1984.

If I were doing this for most any other year, I’d be up against it. Many years feature between 15 and 20 albums that hit the top chart spot, sometimes even more. It can be absolute carnage up there, especially now with several different genres commanding attention and shorter attention spans leading to more albums going number one, then heading off down the Billboard slide afterward.

But my cup runneth over with luck – in 1984, only five albums reached the top of the Billboard chart. It was the lowest amount for any year in Billboard history and is not something likely to ever be repeated. Seeing the very short list will shed light on exactly why that is, two artists basically dominated the number one spot that year and it’s glaringly obvious who those are, to anyone who was around at that time.

Michael Jackson – Thriller

Of no surprise to anyone, the King of Pop dominated the charts in the early going in 1984. Released in late 1982, Thriller spent 37 total weeks on the top of the chart. Here 40 years later in the year of our lord 2024, the album is still on the chart and has been for 612 weeks. Oh, and it’s the best-selling album in history.

The thing is that Thriller doesn’t relate to the music of 1984, at least in terms of my evaluation of the year, with it obviously having been released in 1982. Now, Michael Jackson certainly does relate to 1984 and the whole of the ’80’s – this guy was THE star and he was still grabbing the spotlight even with an album over a year old. All seven of the album’s singles had been released by the end of 1983, but the title track and its crazy video were omnipresent through 1984. Jackson was on top of the world in a way very few stars ever had been.

For the purposes of my year-long look at 1984, Thriller won’t be a part of it for obvious reasons. But I am certain to discuss the album at some point in time.

Footloose – The Soundtrack

Finally on the chart issued April 21, the King of Pop’s reign was over. It was a movie soundtrack that took the crown. Footloose the movie was about a dancing ban in a small Midwest town, and that would put a focus on the movie’s music. The movie did respectably well at the time and is fondly remembered by many, but the soundtrack was the true star of the show. It would spawn six top 40 hits, two of them going to the top of the Billboard 100.

The Footloose song by Kenny Loggins was the prime hit, and Let’s Hear It For The Boy, performed by Deniece Williams, joined it as a Billboard number one. Almost Paradise, performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart, hit number seven on the charts. The Jim Steinman-penned and Bonnie Tyler-performed Holding Out For A Hero charted at 34 in the US, but would take the top spot in the UK.

The soundtrack album hung on to the number one spot for two months, finally bested in late June. Movie soundtracks were big business in the ’80’s and Footloose was a monster even among them. It was certified nine times platinum in the US and has a host of other platinum and gold certifications around the world.

I do not have any plans to discuss this soundtrack further as I look back on 1984 – nothing against it, but a lot of it wasn’t really my jam beyond the Bonnie Tyler song and I have plenty else to talk about.

Huey Lewis and the News – Sports

1984 was often about an album hitting the top spot and hanging around for awhile, but in this lone instance, the album hit number one and was dethroned the next week, though the album did spend a total of 160 weeks on the chart.

But that is no shade to Huey Lewis and his band. Sports was the group’s breakthrough – after a gold record on their prior album, this one would catch fire and wind up 7 times platinum. Four of these songs would hit the top ten of the singles charts, stuff like If This Is It and The Heart Of Rock & Roll were commonplace on airwaves during this time, and for years afterward. It was catchy and pleasing music that just about everyone could get into and a lot of people did.

I will be covering Sports at some point this year, I’m not sure exactly when that will be.

Bruce Springsteen – Born In The USA

Just after Independence Day in the US, The Boss arrived with a transformative album that would define his career and sell like hotcakes. The July 7th chart was the first of four consecutive weeks at number one for this record, which would then again claim the spot for a few weeks in early 1985.

The album would offer up seven singles, all of which went top ten in the Billboard 100. Famously, none of these or any of Springsteen’s other singles would ever hit the top spot on the singles chart, but success is relative.

And success was here in droves – the album was the best-selling record from 1984, moving over 30 million units eventually. (distinct of course from the best seller in 1984, which was Thriller) Bruce has recorded several heralded albums, but Born In The USA is the one that is the first mention when he is discussed. We can wax poetic about many of his works before and after, but this is where the conversation with Bruce Springsteen comes or goes.

There is a lot to say about this record – in term of Springsteen’s shift to pop rock, themes of working class struggles and triumphs, and the misplaced political implications behind the title track. And I will get into all of that – here soon, when I discuss the album in detail, which is coming up in the next month.

Born In The USA would reign atop the Billboard 200 for a month, then the rest of the year would be defined by someone we can only call “the artist.”

Prince and the Revolution – Purple Rain

Springsteen would be bounced out of the top chart spot on the chart released August 4 of ’84. The replacement album would reign supreme for the rest of the year, 22 weeks, then the first 2 weeks of 1985 before the favor was returned by Springsteen.

Purple Rain was not just an album, but also the soundtrack to Prince’s first feature film of the same name. The movie was a hit, raking in ten times the amount of money spent on it, while the soundtrack was an absolute monster smash. The album has gone on to sell 25 million copies across the world, with 13 platinum certs in the US. Prince joined the rare company of Elvis and The Beatles by having the number one film, album and song all at the same time.

Prince’s landmark offering saw him slide more into the pop world, but also utilizing a grand scope of band composition and arrangement. A handful of Prince’s signature songs can be found here, including the title track and the mega-hit When Doves Cry. The controversial Darling Nikki is also featured in both the film and on record – it would be the song that kicked off the PMRC and the “Filthy Fifteen.”

Prince ruled the roost for the back half of 1984, and Purple Rain was the Billboard chart champion for most weeks at number one. I will do a write-up on this one, but be warned – I have always planned it to be the final post for the 1984 anniversary thing, so it’s not coming ’till the end of the year.

That covers the number one albums of 1984. A bit down the line I’ll look at a few records that were blocked out of the top spot by the stone cold lock these few releases had on the year. I’ll also dive into the number one songs of the year, a spot open to a lot more variety. And I’ll have some more companion pieces dealing with various things in 1984 as we go along. Enjoy the weekend.

Scorpions – Love At First Sting

On 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 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.

Mercyful Fate – Don’t Break The Oath

On 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 30th 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.

Armored Saint – March Of The Saint

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week7 Comments

This week it’s back to 1984 and the debut album from California’s Armored Saint. They were a band without a scene to really “fit in” with, but they would go on to claim their own territory in the overflowing landscape of 1980’s heavy metal.

Armored Saint – March Of The Saint

Released September 26, 2984 via Chrysalis Records

My Favorite Tracks – March Of The Saint, Glory Bound, Can U Deliver

Armored Saint formed in 1982 in the US music epicenter of Los Angeles. They released a self-titled EP in 1983 and then quickly turned around to record their debut full-length. The band was nearly struck with member poaching just as they were getting off the ground, as singer John Bush was offered the vocalist position in Metallica. Bush turned that role down to focus on Armored Saint, creating one of heavy metal’s biggest “what if” moments.

The band on the debut comprised of Bush, Dave Prichard and Phil Sandoval on guitars, Joey Vera on bass and Gonzo Sandovol on drums. They had played together in various forms through their school years and this band naturally formed out of those prior relationships.

The album was produced by Michael James Jackson, who was fresh off a turn at the helm of the Kiss albums Creatures Of The Night and Lick ‘Em Up. It was not to be a match made in heaven, as Jackson was indifferent about heavy metal and the record label was micromanaging the band’s sound to create a polished offering that they thought would appeal to the masses. Joey Vera relays in this 2006 interview with Full In Bloom that the recording process of the debut left Saint disillusioned about the album’s mix and heavily in debt due to excess time spent in the studio. Vera said in the interview that the band was still in debt from that record all those years later.

While the recording process and the business end of music left Armored Saint worse for the wear, there still is an album of music to discuss here. In practical terms, this band were the heaviest thing coming out of Los Angeles, as thrash was mainly a Bay Area construct. Armored Saint didn’t really fit any of the burgeoning subgenres – they were far too heavy for hair metal and not fast enough for thrash. This could be described as US power metal, as that sound could fit a number of bands. Overall, Armored Saint were just plain old heavy metal, though.

Today’s album comprises 10 tracks at 38 minutes of runtime. The album was given a 2006 reissue by Rock Candy with a few demo bonus tracks added on but today I’ll focus on the original offering.

March Of The Saint

The opener offers a tie-in to the band’s name and is a decently paced roller that offers some nice melodic guitar accents to keep things interesting. The band’s true strength is revealed early as John Bush offers a full-throated, powerful delivery that stands apart from the all-out scream that many metal singers were going for at the time. The lyrics serve up a “war and metal” analogy that was par for the course in heavy metal at the time but it’s executed nicely here.

Can U Deliver

The next song did get a single release and also got a fair bit of traction on MTV. A quick look at its Spotify played count indicates over 8 million streams, dwarfing the six figure counts of all other songs on the album. This song did catch on, that’s for sure.

This song does sound like it straddles a line between metal and sleaze rock. The music itself is crisp and solid, though the production is a bit thin. The song is about being out on the prowl for a one night stand, though the lyrics are fairly vague and don’t descend into self parody.

Mad House

This one is a good banger of a track that’s maybe again a bit hampered by production but the song still comes through. It’s all about going to that place everyone knows is crazy and having a good time. It should not be confused with the 1985 song Madhouse by Anthrax, of course, though John Bush would later have the opportunity to sing that one too.

Take A Turn

Here’s a ballad or perhaps ballad-like offering. The song does add enough drive and pace to keep it out of total ballad territory. It’s a hook-up song, all about “taking a turn with me.” It’s again kind of vague and the lyrics aren’t immature or silly. The song’s execution keeps it from being something that could derail the album’s momentum.

Seducer

It’s another “sex” song as the title clearly indicates. Again the song works in the context of the album with Armored Saint’s able playing and John Bush’s visceral delivery. It seems like a song written to fit into the 1980’s scene but Armored Saint retain their identity on it rather than going all the way with the attempt to “fit in.”

Mutiny On The World

We exit the realm of hooking up for a bit and dive into one of metal’s tried and true archetypes, that of rebellion. The verses lay a bit quiet and let John Bush snarl through them. It’s a remarkable track that again would have benefited from a beefed-up production.

Glory Hunter

The next track really shines and feels like a truly realized and fleshed-out concept. It’s a dark tale of battle against native tribes set to music that certainly slots in well in that US power metal slot with some shades of the old familiar NWOBHM. It’s a bit of a shame the band weren’t allowed to operate more on this theme.

Stricken By Fate

The song is a tale of lovers broken apart and the wish for vindication or even revenge. The music is totally on point and keeps the album feeling cohesive. Some really cool guitar work on this one too.

Envy

Another kind of scorned lover track, this one sees the narrator looking at his partner moving on with someone else and the envy associated with that. It’s done pretty well musically and it’s a bit more of a mature and complex look at feelings that are often expressed simplistically in music.

False Alarm

The album closes on a pretty heavy jam that kicks the pace up a few notches. There isn’t much going on with the lyrics, it feels like a group of words thrown together to be able to use “false alarm” as a chorus. But the song hits the right spot even without a plot.

March Of The Saint is quite a triumph in that Armored Saint were able to forge a sound and identity even with being pushed by producer and record label to record songs that fit with the music of the time. The album remains cohesive and and gets through with all of the tracks feeling like they fit, nothing comes off as filler here.

The album was not a huge success commercially, though it did sell 125,000 copies in its first year of release and gain some buzz with Can U Deliver getting MTV play. Armored Saint would often find themselves with some hard luck in terms of trying to make it, but on the other hand they did get their name out there and are one of the more respected institutions in US heavy metal.

It would be a long and winding road for the band, who would suffer the loss of guitarist Dave Prichard to cancer in 1989, then go inactive in 1992 when John Bush took the open Anthrax singer job. Saint would regroup through the 2000’s and press on with albums and touring and also retaining their core line-up sans Prichard.

But in the framework of 1984, Armored Saint were a new force on the scene. They might have suffered a bit from not having a “scene” to be a part of when things were going either hair or thrash, but they were able to establish their own identity and set themselves on the path to becoming one of America’s classic metal acts.