Tag: rock music

Van Halen – For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week10 Comments

This week it’s time to head back to the fateful year of 1991, but in this case it’s to visit a band that was immune to the tectonic shift in rock that year. Van Halen were riding high heading into their third album with Sammy Hagar at the mic. While many dismissed Van Hagar as AOR rubbish that didn’t hold a candle to the beloved David Lee Roth era, VH were cranking out number one albums and hit singles as well as arenas full of eager fans.

Van Halen – For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge

Released June 17, 1991

My Favorite Tracks – The Dream Is Over, Poundcake, Judgment Day

Van Halen spent a year recording their first effort of the 1990’s. While Andy Johns was tabbed to produce, the band also brought in an old friend – Ted Templeman, who had famously guided the band’s early albums but had been absent through the Van Hagar era. The duel producers were a means to satisfy Sammy, who apparently didn’t enjoy working with Johns.

This album would see Van Halen forego the synth-based AOR rock of the late ’80’s and move to a heavier song structure based on guitar, and the occasional power tool. While I’m sure the band made the decision on their own terms, it did coincidentally fit with the times as the album’s release slotted in the summer that hair metal, AOR and other venerable forms of rock met their mainstream end.

The album cover is nice though also basic, but the real art lore was in the inner booklet pictures. In first pressings of the album, one photograph showed a blackboard with a bunch of phone numbers on it. Some of the phone numbers got massive amounts of calls, so the record label repressed the album with the phone numbers removed. Note that these CD and cassette versions are not hard to acquire, it was a mass produced item so the phone numbers version carries no premium. Vinyl copies of the album did not have the blackboard photo that I know of, but vinyl of this album is scarce and does command huge value.

And of course there’s the album title. If it isn’t obvious, it spells out FUCK. The phrase was NOT the origin of the actual word “fuck,” which is a thing that’s out there but isn’t true.

There are 11 songs running at near 52 minutes total, time to head on in.

Poundcake

We start off with Eddie using a drill to mess with his pickups and then we’re off to the races. This is a heavy, driving track that doesn’t go too fast but really slams its point home. And that also happens to be what the song is about – slamming the point home with a nice, lovely woman.

Judgment Day

This one retains the heaviness but gets a bit faster as Sammy extols the virtues of kicking back in life and staying out of the ambitious rat race. This song was a big hit with my teenage self, perhaps informing me a bit more than it should. But hey, it’s all good.

Spanked

This one is pure sleaze and grime. This is some monster heaviness from Eddie and the band, it goes a degree further with it than Van Halen ever really went before. This one also has a good helping of the backing vocals that Van Halen were famous for but were not emphasized a lot on this album.

The song is about the old 1-900 numbers, which were a pre-Internet outlet for the sexually frustrated gentleman. They were total rip-offs as magazines were far cheaper, but I guess nothing beats that “personal” interaction. The song today would be about OnlyFans.

Runaround

One of the album’s featured singles, this track is a bit of a faster-paced and a less R-rated version of a sex song. It could be considered basic but it’s a pleasant song and I don’t find anything wrong with it. The video makes use of the rotating stage Van Halen were into using in their live shows, a pretty obvious fit given the song title.

Pleasure Dome

This one is a bit of an oddball. It’s still fittingly heavy for the record but is also a bit out in left field, at least in vibe it’s reminiscent of the prior album OU812. It seems like someone is caught in an artificial utopia of some sort but is aware and wants out, some kind of virtual reality or simulation kind of thing maybe. There is some seriously crazy riffing from Eddie on here, it hangs back a bit in the song but its truly something to behold.

In ‘N’ Out

A bit more of an “open” rocker here, it’s a song about how money makes the world go around and most people are basically screwed no matter what they do. The song’s loose rock vibe is a bit in contrast with the grave subject matter but it’s a sign that Van Halen were willing to explore more serious lyrical fare, something that comes up again on this album.

Man On A Mission

Another bit of a loose and upbeat song, this is Sammy motivating himself to go out and get his girl. Parts of the song are a bit self-help in nature and then other parts are total sleaze, it all works pretty well overall.

The Dream Is Over

A total vibe shift here from going out and getting some to a stark condemnation of the system and its leverage against the average citizen. This one really came from out of nowhere and delivered a powerful statement about the workings of society. Eddie and Sammy had discussed turning an eye toward more serious lyrical fare and they hit on it big time here. The song feels like nothing less than a death certificate for the American Dream and feels just as relevant today as it was 32 years ago.

Right Now

The album’s huge hit and a song that caused a lot discussion back on release. This was another of the songs with a more serious look at things and is the song Sammy Hagar has declared his proudest lyrical moment from his Van Halen days.

Right Now is about embracing change and reaching for it in the moment, even in the face of great adversity. The music video featured a bunch of random footage with text of things that were going on “right now,” some funny but many serious. The video was a smash hit and is likely the band’s biggest of their career.

Right Now was also used by Pepsi in a huge advertising campaign for Crystal Pepsi. The story of that soda is an odd one all its own, but for Van Halen it caused a fair bit of anger for the band “selling out” to corporate interest. Eddie justified the licensing, saying that the ad agency would have simply hired some jingle writers to do a basic cover of the song anyway, and he was correct in that assessment.

316

This instrumental track was originally written during the 5150 era but was brought back out by Eddie when his son Wolfgang Van Halen was born. Wolfgang’s birthdate was 3-16-1991, thus giving a title to the piece. This one is a quiet and reflective piece that sequences very well after the thematically heavy nature of Right Now.

Top Of The World

The album ends with a more “standard” Van Halen track that connects more to the prior Van Hagar releases. It’s a pretty simple and uplifting song that pretty well says what the title communicates. It’s a pretty nice way to close a record that was filthy in parts and serious in others.

For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge was another smash hit for the Van Hagar camp. It spent 3 weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 chart and would come out with 3 US platinum certifications. Singles from the album were all over radio and MTV, and the band’s tour for this cycle was one of their longest. While success can be defined by many different metrics, this period was easily one of the band’s most successful. Music critics were not very into this album, but the record won the popularity contest.

For me personally this was a pretty watershed moment in my music history. The summer of ’91 was when I really took off as far as getting into music goes, and I went to get this one on the day it was released. Along with it I also bought an album that had just come out a week prior, that being Skid Row’s second album Slave To The Grind. I went back and forth between both albums constantly and both tapes got wore out pretty quickly.

The “Van Hagar” era gets a fair bit of flack from Van Halen fans, with many people living and dying on the classic catalog built in the band’s first frame with David Lee Roth. I would never in a million years argue against that period of the band. But to discount Sammy’s tenure is short-sighted and for me, this album is the high point of that time.

The Black Crowes – She Talks To Angels

On By bigbadburchIn S-Tier Songs6 Comments

This post was part of a series that I called S-Tier Songs. I later decided to abandon the series in favor of a simpler Song of the Week format. I am keeping these posts as I wrote them but removing the old page that linked to the list of S-Tier Songs, so that is why these posts might look a bit odd. Enjoy.

The Black Crowes – She Talks To Angels

Today’s subject was the fourth single from the 1990 multi-platinum smash Shake Your Money Maker. The song got to number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100, but caught the number 1 spot on both the Mainstream rock chart and the Radio And Records AOR Tracks chart. If you haven’t heard of that last chart, you are in good company because I haven’t either, but a number 1 is a number 1.

For the Black Crowes, this kept the train rolling. They were literally living up to the name of their album – the money maker was in full swing. This southern band bucked all trends and were a hot commodity all through the turmoil of 1991, essentially immune to the seismic shifts in rock trends that happened during the fateful summer.

She Talks To Angels is a fairly simple acoustic tune. After a bit the drums and an organ join in but the song is basically the background music and the singing. Simple is often best for songs, especially those intended for mainstream appeal, and everyone hit the nail on the head here. While the Black Crowes were certainly capable of more than a catchy tune, that would be an exploration for their future albums. Here on the debut things are kept trim and effective.

Where the song really connects with people is in its theme, and it’s a very sad one of a young woman caught in the grip of addiction. This isn’t a story-song so much as a peek into the life of someone gripped in the pains of drug addiction. This song paints a picture and leaves it for inspection, there is no beginning and end here.

It is a fairly universal theme, one that a fair number of people have some experience with. Many have either been the girl in the song or know the girl in the song. Well, that applied to a lot of people, but not so much the song’s creator Chris Robinson, who just kind of knew the girl who inspired the song.

Chris tells the story in the 2010 YouTube piece embedded below – the song is about a goth girl he knew growing up that was addicted to heroin. Everything else about the song came from Chris’ imagination, as at the time he had no experience with the issues he was writing about. He did know the girl and was friendly with her but did not relay any of her personal story through the song.

This song has lived on through classic rock radio and is also a streaming champion with over 100 million Spotify plays. It would make any list of essential Black Crowes tunes, even after the band spent a career carving their own path out since the debut. It’s also a song that has been covered endlessly by artists from all genres of music.

Why is this an S-Tier song?

She Talks To Angels is a sweet yet sad acoustic ballad outlining the trials of a young person caught in addiction. The theme caught on with a wide audience and the song itself was one of several hits from a mega debut album. Over 30 years later the song remains a staple of rock formats and a favorite of many far and wide.

The Song Remains The Same – Bad Day

On By bigbadburchIn The Song Remains The Same6 Comments

It’s time again to play that game where I take a bunch of different songs with the same title and see which one is the best. Today is especially interesting because I don’t have a clue who is going to win this as I set out to write, in fact there are a couple here I haven’t heard at all.

As per usual, this is not a comprehensive list of everyone who has ever recorded a song with this title. Hell I’d bet this list would be a mile long if I really got to looking. But these choices represent a pretty good selection of stuff so I’ll go with them.

R.E.M.

Leading off with the alt-rock behemoths and a song that was originally done in the mid-80’s but was unreleased for nearly 20 years. The version that appeared on a 2003 greatest hits comp was a re-recorded version, then an outtake from the 80’s under a different title was issued a few years later. Bad Day was released as a single and did respectably well. I’m not knowledgeable on R.E.M. at all but from what I can gather, their fans think a lot of this song.

This song is pretty good. Michael Stipe sounds a little tired here, maybe it’s just what I’m hearing. But it’s a decent track with a good groove that’s not far removed from their hit It’s The End Of The World. They lyrics deal with the media and all the wonderful stuff they bestow. Nothing rules this song out of the contest at this point.

Daniel Powter

Let’s get this one over with – this was a mega hit song in 2006 or whatever. This guy was not technically a one-hit wonder as he had one other song barely crack the Top 40, but in any practical sense this is a one-hit wonder thing.

This song is annoying. It’s adult contemporary pap. It doesn’t get into anything specific at all, it’s just a generic mish-mash of shit that happens when you have a bad day. Of course everyone can “identify” with it – there’s nothing but vague generalities here. Next.

Fuel

On to the other more or less known quantity here and also a decently-performing single from the band’s 2000 album Something Like Human which was their apex in terms of success and visibility.

This song has far more going on for it than the last one. It’s maybe not much more in terms of specific themes, but the alt-rock presentation is leagues better than whatever that last one was. Dude could sing too, that does more or less carry the tune. A pretty good one here that certainly bears consideration come decision time.

Juliana Hatfield

While I know the name, I am honestly very unfamiliar with Juliana’s work. I maybe saw a video or two on MTV back in the day but I have no recollection. This song is from her 1998 album Bed, which is where I’d rather be on a Friday morning as opposed to getting ready for work.

This song is good, I enjoyed my few plays of it. There is an actual narrative here that can be followed, something is actually going on to cause the bad day. This could be a case of a song I haven’t heard at all before coming away with the victory, though there is one more contender.

Blur

And finally on to a group I am actually a fan of, though I don’t recognize the song title right off hand. And that’s probably because it’s from their debut album, 1991’s Leisure. The album highlighted the band’s potential but was also a bit of a sloppy mess.

I don’t recall the last time I played the album or this song, it’s probably been a very long time. With it going now I think it’s a pretty cool tune. It’s maybe not representative of what Blur would become, but it’s a groovy little jam that bears resemblance to some of the stuff coming from Great Britain in that time period.

So now it’s decision time and when I take everything into consideration, I’m left with a choice between the last two – Juliana Hatfield and Blur. And while the first impulse is to pick the band I listen to, when it comes down to it, I think the other track is a bit better.

Winner – Juliana Hatfield

For the first time I’m going with a song I’ve never heard before doing this. It’s a fair indication I should explore more of Juliana’s catalog. Though in all honesty, today’s contest was fairly fought among four good contenders and only one stinker, which of course in the music biz means it was the best-selling one.

I’m gonna leave with a bit of a bonus, since they don’t always have to be bad days.

Sammy Hagar – VOA (Album Of The Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week10 Comments

Today it’s time to look at one of the crown jewels in the career of the Red Rocker. After a slow grind to relevance as a solo artist, Sammy Hagar began making waves in the 1980’s and would launch the album with his most successful hit just before going on to mega-stardom with Van Halen.

Sammy Hagar – VOA

Released July 23, 1984 via Geffen Records

My Favorite Tracks – Burnin’ Down The City, I Can’t Drive 55, VOA

This marked Hagar’s third album with Geffen Records after a string of modestly-performing solo records with Capitol. On production was Ted Templeman, who’d worked with Hagar previously with Montrose and of course is also long associated with Van Halen.

It’s not a terribly long album here with 8 tracks at 36 minutes so let’s get to it.

I Can’t Drive 55

The opener was also the lead single and also the signature song from both this album and Sammy’s solo career overall. The speed limit on US highways was 55 miles per hour for a long time to offset oil consumption in the 1970’s. Sammy got a ticket for going over that and wrote the song right after.

The song is a nice power rock track backed by keyboards and cuts its message in simple and effective fashion. This wasn’t a social issue that would draw the attention of the likes of Bono, but a lot of people were fed up with the federally-mandated speed limits and this song resonated with a great deal of the country.

Aiding in the song’s popularity was its goofy and fun music video, which sees Sammy and his “pit crew” band get busted for speeding. The courtroom scene is especially funny, featuring famed Geffen A&R man John Kalonder as the judge. And the mechanic in the video’s intro is Claudio Zampolli, who also worked on Eddie Van Halen’s cars and was the one to suggest to Eddie to hire Sammy for Van Halen.

Swept Away

Going on a tropical island getaway here with some lovely gal, the verses open with an atmospheric portion but then kick into a pretty rocking riff. Not a typical verse/chorus structure here but still a pretty simple song that does its job well.

Rock Is In My Blood

Sammy always likes to make songs about rock and metal and here we are again with another choice cut of that nature. It’s a heavy riff with the keyboards accenting the song rather than being the driving force and that works very nicely. I still remember the first time I heard this and being taken aback at how Sammy worked “blood transfusion” into the lyrics and how it fit in rhythm without actually making any sense lyrically.

Two Sides Of Love

The album’s other single did modestly well on the charts and wasn’t actually all that far off of I Can’t Drive 55, but this song didn’t slam into the public consciousness quite like the other one did. This is a song about love but not a “love song,” this deals more with the complications of long-term relationships and life. It’s certainly a product of the ’80’s but it doesn’t quite fall into cliché.

Dick In The Dirt

Side two kicks off with a funny song about Dick and Jane and all the double entendre stuff they get up to. This is one of those songs that could go south real quick but again there’s a very nice riff backing it all up and it holds together pretty well.

VOA

The title track is a hard rocker with the keyboards more up front in true ’80’s power rock fashion. And in keeping with 80’s USA themes, the subject matter is American exceptionalism. There was conflict in the Middle East and also the Cold War with the Soviets was in its final stages and this song sums up the US side of things pretty well. This song might seem silly now and maybe even was back then, but it fit the times very well.

Don’t Make Me Wait

Heading toward the end we get a fairly simple love song that still stays out of real “ballad” territory and keeps with the sound and feel of the album. This one is kind of paint-by-numbers but there’s nothing wrong with it.

Burnin’ Down The City

The album closes with a real monster of a tune and my favorite on the album. The mood goes far more dark here than what’s found elsewhere on the record. The song was inspired by New York City’s street artists according the album’s liner notes. The track goes beyond street art and embraces chaos and destruction in heavy fashion. Had this song been out some years earlier it could have made the soundtrack to The Warriors.

VOA was the realization of success for Sammy Hagar. He had an album that went platinum within a year and the song that would come to define his career. I Can’t Drive 55 would blare across radios and MTV all through the ’80’s as the speed limit remained, and would become a part of auto racing culture even after the speed limit was repealed in 1995. It resonates even today in a culture of bad drivers who used the Grand Theft Auto games as driver’s ed.

The trick for Sammy would be to pull this off again and follow up his success with another hit album. He’d sidestep that issue entirely when he joined Van Halen in 1985 and saw massive success with them. He’d do one more contractually obligated solo record in 1987, but it would be another decade and his split with Van Halen before he resumed his solo career and found a different form.

Sammy Hagar arrived in 1984 with the perfect record of melodic hard rock to get on the scene and score a victory lap after his prior success in the early decade. It’s a fitting end cap to the first phase of his solo career and a launch pad to his time fronting one of rock’s greatest acts.

Guns N Roses – Unplayed Songs Live

On By bigbadburchIn live music4 Comments

Awhile back I had a look at the songs that Iron Maiden have not played live. It was a fair run through a decent portion of their catalog and kind of a fun exercise to guess what might actually see the light of day on stage versus what almost certainly will never get played. The idea for it came from a Loudwire article, and the site has struck again with the “songs never played live” series. This time the subject is Guns N’ Roses, as the title of this post probably hinted at.

Now this will be a radically different post – GnR only have four songs never played live. I was a bit shocked by that information. While the band were relatively inactive for a long time and do only have what qualifies as four full-length studio releases plus some originals on an EP, four is a very surprising and low number. It means they have run through the vast majority of their catalog in a live setting.

It’s not surprising that all of Appetite For Destruction has been played live, they probably took care of that in the late ’80’s as their star was burning super hot. The GnR Lies EP also has a few original tracks and all have been played live at least a few times, including the mega-controversial song One In A Million. And if we fast forward to 2008’s Axl-led spectacle Chinese Democracy, we will find that those too have all been played live. As a note, this doesn’t count cover songs, so that one thing they released in the mid-90’s before they split isn’t on here.

Yes, in order to pinpoint the unplayed songs we need to visit 1991 and the infamous Use Your Illusion double albums. It is these two discs that all four of today’s songs hail from. It’s honestly more shocking to me that they only didn’t play four of these songs.

Way back when I started this site I did a pretty in-depth dive into the UYI albums. That saga began on this post for anyone interested in a far deeper dive than what I’ll get into today.

This post is pretty quick and simple. Four songs, let’s see what they are and whether or not Guns N’ Roses should throw them in a setlist someday.

Don’t Damn Me

This is the lone unplayed cut from Use Your Illusion I. It’s not a song I’m all that into. It isn’t horrible but there’s nothing special about it, at least to me. It would be “fine” in a live setting but also the band has a billion other songs that are way better so this would be taking up space. I could see them playing it one day just to knock it off the list.

Get In The Ring

This, like the rest of the list, is from Use Your Illusion II. And this one surprises me. This is a massive, swear-filled diss track aimed at the music media who Axl and company despised at the height of their fame, which was roughly 1989-1991. I suppose opinion is divided on this song as opinion is on everything, but I and plenly of other people always really liked this one and I’m honestly a bit floored that they haven’t played it out.

And don’t be fooled by the live crowd chanting in the song – Axl had a June 1991 crowd specifically chant “Get In The Ring” in order to record it and use on the album. This wasn’t done live even though crowd noise is involved.

It wouldn’t shock me at all if the band decided to give this one a go. I could see them maybe not doing Axl’s rant that names off a bunch of journalists and maybe that was one reason why they didn’t play it. But I’d say this one really ought to get some stage time.

Shotgun Blues

Another bit of a surprise and for me a total badass song. I always liked this one and I think it’d work great live. I don’t know what gives here and this is one they need to get into a setlist ASAP.

My World

The final song on UYI II is a total pile and I feel the exact opposite about it as I do about Shotgun Blues. I’d be mad if I heard this shit live, that could be mitigated if they were doing it for the sole purpose of totally clearing their unplayed queue. The better move would be to drop it from the album so it doesn’t count on this list anymore.

Well, that’s about it. Honestly not a lot here and that’s totally fine, I was feeling kind of lazy anyway. I have a feeling that GnR are the type to actually track this kind of stuff and they might throw down on these just to say they’ve played all of their originals live. Or maybe not, I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised. And since their ticket prices are well outside of my reach I don’t have to be worried about shelling out hundreds and being stuck hearing My World live.

Neil Young – Rust Never Sleeps (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week4 Comments

This week’s pick goes back to the end of the 1970’s and a highlight record from one of the decade’s most outstanding artists. A tour comprising of split acoustic and electric sets fueled the idea to do the same on an album and the result would become one of the more iconic albums in a crowded discography already laden with immortal records and songs.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse – Rust Never Sleeps

Released June 22, 1979 via Reprise Records

My Favorite Tracks – Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black); Thrasher; Powderfinger

The story of Rust Never Sleeps is a bit of a long and winding one – many of the songs were collected from earlier points in Young’s career, a typical thing for a guy who has had multiple “lost” albums in the course of his history.

While Young had made waves with a folk and country-infused style, he had also veered off on other courses and was leaning hard into distorted guitars by the late ’70’s. He would marry both concepts with split-set performances on the tour dubbed Rust Never Sleeps in 1978, which would serve as the birthplace and even live studio for portions of the album.

As for the album and tour title’s name, that came courtesy of Devo singer Mark Mothersbaugh. Devo and Young were collaborating on a film project when they took time to enter a studio and work on the electric track Hey Hey, My My. Mothersbaugh threw the line “rust never sleeps” in the lyrics – it was the marketing slogan for Rust-Oleum.

Of the album’s nine songs, seven were initially recorded live and then overdubbed in studio later. An effort was made to remove crowd noise but that was not always possible with studio technology at the time. Two songs – Pocahontas and Sail Away – were not cut live and were studio recordings instead.

My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)

The album features different renditions of the same song, the opener done acoustically. The song was born of Young’s fear of becoming obsolete in music and also would shout out Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten and liken his rise with the fall of the recently-departed Elvis Presley. This first version of the song also features the lyric “It’s better to burn out than to fade away,” which became one of Young’s most famous and widely-quoted lyrics. While used in a wide variety of places, it was a part of Kurt Cobain’s suicide note in 1994 and Young was greatly affected by that.

Thrasher

A masterfully done acoustic tune that sees Young rambling off on his own, away from society and its machinations. The song is actually about Young’s bitter relationship with his former bandmates in Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. While Young and Stephen Stills were able to maintain a working relationship through the ’70’s, David Crosby and Graham Nash were on the other side of the fence and a lot of animosity came through various failings to record a new CSNY record. It’s interesting to note the actual genesis of the song of course, but even without that knowledge this is a fantastic tune.

Ride My Llama

A short tune, though far from to-the-point. Here Neil takes a trip with a guy from Mars and also rides a llama from Peru to Texarkana. Not sure what ideas or substances Young might have been engaged with here, but the song works pretty well in its fanciful outlook.

Pocahontas

Another highlight of the acoustic side of the record, Pocahontas sees Neil again approach the issue of European settlers massacring Native Americans. He had previously sung about that on his acclaimed track Cortez The Killer from 1975. Pocahontas is one of three songs from Rust Never Sleeps that were originally intended for the never-released Chrome Dreams album a few years prior.

Pocahontas is also a bit of a weird song, as Young goes from a muddled recount of the massacre, to living in the present day with Marlon Brando and the Astrodome. The song really showcases Young’s vocal abilities and creates an uplifting atmosphere despite the grave subject matter.

Sail Away

The acoustic portion of the album ends with this nice, light and airy tune that really isn’t about much more than getting away. It’s a nice, clam and smooth way to get the hell away from it all for a few minutes.

Powderfinger

It’s on to the electric songs now and another cut meant for the shelved Chrome Dreams record. Young tried doing something else with the song, namely giving it to Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Skynyrd never got around to recording the song before the 1977 plane crash that claimed the lives of Van Zant and others. Young would eventually retool Powderfinger for his own use here.

Powderfinger sees a young man forced to defend his home from an arriving gunboat. Thinking quickly, he decides to grab his own gun and fire on the ship, which would lead to his own death. The lyrics tell a pretty heart-wrenching tale that isn’t the conventional approach to a war or combat song.

Powderfinger is held in the highest regard – often considered one of Young’s best, and in 2014 Rolling Stone magazine ranked it as his best overall.

Welfare Mothers

The next track is a nice rock number but also a bit of a strange one – if we’re to take the song literally, then Neil is suggesting we head to the laundromat and pick up divorced, down on their luck mothers as they’re better lovers. There’s probably some kind of social commentary here that means one shouldn’t take this track literally but honestly no one really talks about this song much so the listeners are left to make their own guesses as to what’s up.

Sedan Delivery

The third song intended for Chrome Dreams appears in here electric and quite distorted form. It’s almost a punk or metal tune with its rendition here. The song could just be about some guy’s life or maybe about drugs of some kind, it’s not evident what’s going on here.

Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)

The album closes with the electric version of the opener. They lyrics are altered slightly on this version but the song is essentially the same, just with Young and Crazy Horse bashing their way through this amped up version. It’s another of Young’s most famous tracks and has been covered by about half of all music artists in the decades since release.

Rust Never Sleeps was a massive artistic statement from Neil Young. He wove his own fears of being cast aside into the kind of riffs and noise that punk and other artists were making, and cranked out a set of immortal songs to stave off his obsolescence. And on the acoustic portion he worked within more familiar parameters to craft engaging songs that added to his legacy in the folk/country realm.

The album would reach number 8 on the Billboard Album Chart, the precursor to the Billboard 200. It charted well in many other countries as well. The album has a lone US platinum certification but that might be more of an issue with a record label’s lack of desire to re-certify albums than an accurate picture of sales figures.

A year later Young and Crazy Horse would release Live Rust, featuring both tracks from this album and other Young standards. It too would chart highly and also gain platinum certification. The somewhat unconventional Rust Never Sleeps approach paid huge dividends for Young, who was about to kick off a very strange and meandering period when the 1980’s hit.

At the end of the day, Rust Never Sleeps was a career high point for Neil Young and proof he could carry on even as he’d put some years behind him. He would strike gold again and again in the years since, both carrying on as he saw fit and also keeping his finger on the pulse of the music of the moment. The conversation over the best Neil Young album is a tough one considering both the size and scope of his total output, but Rust Never Sleeps is certainly a part of that conversation.

Van Halen (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week8 Comments

I had a few different options for this week, but then this past Friday I was enlightened to the fact that February 10th marked the 45th anniversary of what likely marks the greatest debut album ever presented. So to commemorate something that came out almost six months after I was born, I’ll divert my attention to this absolutely phenomenal slab of music.

Van Halen – self-titled

Released February 10, 1978 via Warner Bros.

My Favorite Tracks – Runnin’ With The Devil, Ain’t Talking About Love, Atomic Punk

The early Van Halen tale is worth a brief run-through here. The brothers Van Halen, along with original bassist Mark Stone would kick off the band, then David Lee Roth would join on vocals after the group were regularly renting his PA equipment. Stone was replaced with Michael Anthony, and the group began a slow ascent through the Los Angeles club circuit.

Gene Simmons loves his credit for discovering Van Halen, so here’s where his part of the story comes in. Simmons helped VH craft a demo, which did not draw attention or a record deal. Simmons was frustrated that no one in his circle saw the talent within Van Halen and went to tour with Kiss, leaving VH to find their own deal. People out on the LA scene began calling producer Ted Templeman, who had been wanting to get a guitar-centric band together, and the match made in Heaven would come to fruition. Templeman got the band signed to Warner Brothers, got them in the studio and banged out the album in a few weeks.

Time to go under the hood of this landmark record. It’s 11 songs though with a fairly brief 35 minute play time, but of course there’s a lot to discuss here.

Runnin’ With The Devil

I can save a bit of time off the bat as I’ve covered the opening track before in my S-Tier Songs series. It’s a fantastic, immortal rock track and one of the band’s best, even if the field of “their best” is very crowded.

Eruption

This brief instrumental would light the rock and music world on fire. Eddie’s use of two-handed tapping would revolutionize rock guitar for the next decade. The solo is a crazy shred fest that just wasn’t present in late 70’s rock music and it quickly became the piece that every aspiring guitarist looked to emulate.

You Really Got Me

This cover of the Kinks’ 1964 hit would serve as the first single from the record. It’s a Van Halen-ized version of the classic original and the VH cover would get wide airplay. Eddie wasn’t pleased with using the cover as the lead single but apparently there was a race on between Van Halen and the band Angel to get a cover version out so Warner Brothers rushed out the VH cover. The song fits the album just fine and is a very good cover track. Dave Davies of the Kinks would disagree with me but that’s kind of his thing.

Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love

This apostrophe-laden title catastrophe is also one of the band’s most celebrated songs. It was released as the album’s third single and was an instant classic. The riff is a signature rock standard and one of the areas where Van Halen could be accused of playing heavy metal. There’s also some electric sitar on the guitar solo because of course there is.

I’m The One

This is a very nice tune that really showcases in full the Van Halen sound – playing nearly off the rails with Alex and Michael holding down the rhythm fort, while David Lee Roth goes totally batshit on the mic.

Jamie’s Crying

Another highlight song, this has some fantastic riffs from Eddie as DLR spins the tale of Jamie, who got caught up trying to make a one-night stand into something more. Poor Jamie is caught in a bad spot, but at least we get a fantastic song out of it.

Atomic Punk

A very nice and heavy song about some kind of dystopian super villain or something. The song isn’t that deep or anything but it does have a bit of sci-fi cyberpunk feel to it. It’s another “brush” with heavy metal and it’s an outstanding work.

Feel Your Love Tonight

Thematically standard about trying to get with some gal, but a very revved up version of a more old-time rock song. The backing vocals from Eddie and Michael really hit here, though of course they’re present all over the album.

Little Dreamer

Here’s a song that feels like it’s a bridge between Van Halen and the rock that came prior. A very simple yet extremely effective riff and a well-done solo call to mind the rock heroes of the 70’s.

Ice Cream Man

A cover of an old blues standard from John Brim, the song had been around for ages but course had not yet had the Van Halen treatment. The band starts it off slow then kicks in with full instrumentation, making this yet another party rock tune. And of course the lyrical fare is alluding to certain, more adult activities. The song is well done and John Brim got a nice payday out of it too.

On Fire

The album ends with an exhibition, both of Eddie’s guitar playing and Roth’s full-fledged screams. Not that this album had any restraint anyway, but On Fire just goes off into another dimension. One of the band’s less heralded tracks but one that might deserve a bit more recognition.

Van Halen was a hit out of the gate and started the band on their track to superstar success. It would peak at number 19 on the Billboard 200. The record was platinum by October of 1978, and would go on to later diamond certification with over 10 million copies sold. It is virtually tied with 1984 as Van Halen’s best-selling album, though a lack of willingness on the record label’s part to re-certify does leave an incomplete picture.

The album retains its reputation as one of the greatest debut albums released. While to truly judge that would require an examination across many genres and eras, there is no doubt this was one of the most profound and electric debuts in music history.

And this goes far beyond just the scope of one album – this was the beginning of a new era in rock, one in which guitar would take center stage. This album set the table for the rock music of the 1980’s, which happened to be rock’s most commercially successful era. Van Halen was the shape of rock to come in the most excessive and loud decade of the 20th Century. Their own success would rival the biggest acts of music for their extraordinary run through a few decades, ultimately ended by the death of Eddie Van Halen in 2020.

Van Halen was the opening statement from a musical genius and the inspiration for millions to pick up guitars. The album was also the kick-off of a “party rock” trend that would run well through the next decade and usher in many good times and kill trillions of brain cells.

An Album A Day – Week 3

On By bigbadburchIn An Album A Day7 Comments

Back again with the Album A Day series, and on its new day. This is a selection of stuff I listened to in the third week of the year.

Zach Bryan – American Heartbreak

Starting off with a whopper here, both in terms of album size and in the scope of the album’s reception. Bryan was an active member of the US Navy and was doing well releasing songs via YouTube, eventually he was discharged from the Navy so he could pursue a country music career. To say that worked out would be an understatement.

American Heartbreak was the country album of 2022. It not only topped the country charts but also placed high on the mainstream chart, something kind of rare for a country record. Recalling all of Bryan’s 2022 achievements would take more space than this digest-sized post could really get into.

This is a two-hour long album with 34 songs, a double or even triple album. It had a mess of singles, with Something In The Orange being the standout hit. The album is really good, though it’s worth saying that it’s a bit samey and doesn’t really explore a lot of territory despite its size. The songs have a fairly similar structure and the mood is pretty desolate across most of the album. It is also probably as much of a folk album as a country album, an argument that has been lighting up the Internet.

Overall I really liked the album, as the “sad, simple” song deal is right up my alley. It takes a bit of time to listen to, obviously, but I’ll be spinning this again to explore it further. This was a huge album for country music last year and has a lot of ramifications in terms of an artist getting huge while not being part of the Nashville machine. Zach Bryan’s career is going to be a very interesting one to follow.

Dark Angel – Leave Scars

This got a spin as we were partying one weekend night. A thrash classic from way back when, this album saw Dark Angel add a bit more technical prowess to their songs as opposed to the rawness of their prior effort Darkness Descends. It’s a very enjoyable listen after all these years and as a bonus curiosity features a cover of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song. Fun stuff.

Warrel Dane – Praises To The War Machine

It had been a long time since I played this solo effort from the late Nevermore/Sanctuary frontman. Dane enlisted the help of longtime Soilwork guitarist Peter Wichers to co-write and produce, and then-Soilwork and now-Megadeth drummer Dirk Verbeuren came long to handle drumming.

This is a nice collection of songs that differ enough from Nevermore’s output to be a worthwhile effort. It isn’t Dane just treading the same ground, he offered up something different here. August is a pretty intense song, and Brother is a super personal one. This would be Dane’s only solo album before his death, he was recording his second when he died.

Vicious Rumors – Celebration Decay

I am continuing my run through the VC catalog as I’ll be seeing them in March. This time I went to their most recent album, this was released in the summer of 2020. (oh the memories…) The band’s lineup here is considerably different than their classic era, and it’s even different now than just a few years back.

This album is a very modern-sounding affair and it delivers quite a pummeling. The band had clearly updated their sound and weren’t out as a retro act. This one is good though it’ll require me a few more listens to process it more. I figure that this sort of sound is what I’m going to hear live in March, with even their older material having a bit of an update.

Aerosmith – Greatest Hits

Not an “album” really but still a full-length compilation so good enough. I put this on for a bicycle ride so I could have something on familiar and not really have to think about what I was listening to much. This was the band’s first compilation and it covers the early prime of their career. The tracklist is fine by me, this is fairly short comp featuring the essential cuts.

The one thing about this comp – several of the songs are edited. Same Old Song And Dance is, so is Sweet Emotion. There are more edits as well, so these aren’t the album versions of the songs. In an interesting twist, if you play this on Spotify, they are the unedited versions and the comp is four minutes longer than this original version. Kind of weird but hey, that’s what odd music trivia is for.

Amon Amarth – The Great Heathen Army

This was a last year album that I didn’t give a lot of time to. It didn’t grab me in the same way some of their earlier material did. I don’t feel much differently about it now after another listen – I enjoy the album for what it is but it doesn’t wow me. I don’t feel that this one will be a “grower” on me, I think the book’s pretty well written on this one.

Toxic Holocaust – Primal Future: 2019

Wrapping up the last week with the most recent album from one of my favorite 21st Century thrash bands. This was the first album in six years from TH and it saw mainman Joel Grind return to his original style of recording the entire album by himself.

It was not only cool to hear the band again after such a long break, but this album is also great. It is maybe a bit more thrashy and metal than the punk-laden earlier albums but is still a signature Toxic Holocaust record. There was supposed to be touring behind the album, but of course this came out in 2019 and … well, we know what happened.

That does it for this latest installment of An Album A Day. The math would indicate I have 49 more weeks and 344 more albums to go. Doing all this a week after the fact is also proving a bit confusing at times but that’s ok, this is just some BS to do to fill space. Until the next edition, interrupted of course by my usual posts through the week.

A Story And A Song – Shakedown

On By bigbadburchIn A Story And A Song9 Comments

Today’s story is a quickie and not much of a specific story. The song in question is Shakedown, a 1987 tune from the soundtrack to Beverly Hills Cop II. It was performed by Bob Seger and, oddly enough, was Seger’s first number one Billboard Hot 100 hit. He’d had plenty of past success on the chart and had other number one songs on other charts like the Mainstream Rock chart, but it took a song from a soundtrack and originally shopped to someone else for Seger to finally hit number one on the big chart.

That other person was Glen Frey, who’d had huge success on the first Beverly Hills Cop movie with The Heat Is On. He turned down Shakedown and his loss was Seger’s gain.

Bob Seger is an artist who, while I can certainly respect and appreciate him, I’ll admit I’m also not his biggest fan. I don’t mind his songs but I don’t have any of his music in my collection or playlists. There’s just a disconnect where I don’t really “get into” his stuff that much. It’s not that I’m annoyed by his songs or anything, I just have other stuff to listen to.

Shakedown is a pretty funny song. It’s good, but it’s also really damn dumb. Most of the song is just the chorus repeated, to the point that even Klaus Meine and Bruce Dickinson would probably think the chorus is repeated too much. But the song does fit the late 80’s aesthetic very well, it is absolutely a product of its time. The most striking thing about it is that, again, it was Seger’s first number one overall as compared to his prior body of work.

The “story” here is extremely simple. I was at the grocery store the other day when Shakedown came on over the store’s PA playlist. It’s the first time I’d heard the song in many, many years and it’s quite possible that it’s the first time I’ve heard Shakedown in the 21st Century. It took me more than a minute to even remember that Bob Seger had done the song. I was seriously breaking my head trying to remember who the hell did the song or what it was even from. Let’s face facts – Beverly Hills Cop II pretty well sucked, so it’s not like I even want to remember that. It was finally remembering it was a Seger song and getting sucked back into that wormhole of old lore that led to a flood of 1987 memories and this post.

It is kind of funny, the effects of age and all that. I am accused of having an encyclopedic knowledge of music, it’s true that I can often identify a song on its first few notes or name some random dude who played in a band for part of a tour in 1996. But as the years go on, the distance from the stuff of youth grows, and it doesn’t come back quick enough to win bar trivia or whatever. But no one else usually answers those questions either, so I still feel comfortable on my throne of arcane music lore.

And, simply put, that’s all there is for today. This one didn’t dive the depths of any obscure knowledge, but I do feel like it hit on something with it being Bob Seger’s first true number one hit. One would think Turn The Page got there, but I guess it only got to number four. And he scored on quite an array of other songs, but him getting over the mountain was this silly ass soundtrack song. Funny how it works sometimes.

An Album A Day – Week 2

On By bigbadburchIn An Album A Day3 Comments

It’s on to week 2 of the Album A Day series. For anyone new to this, what I’m doing here is playing an album a day to reach 365 albums played by year’s end. It turned out to be a pretty simple goal and I’ll be way over that by 2024, but I’m doing this weekly wrap-up still for the hell of it.

One note – I’m most likely going to move this post to Sunday next week. That’s simply for the purposes of getting it set up ahead of time.

ZZ Top – Degüello

I gave this a spin on a weekend bike ride. I’ve been meaning to go through their albums and this whole deal makes that a pretty easy task. I’m not sure I’ve played this album all the way through since childhood, but there are some very recognizable songs on here like Cheap Sunglasses and their cover of I Thank You. This one sees the band still in a blues-based rock mode, though they started messing around with pitch shifting effects as kind of a prelude to their 80’s synth era. It was good to catch up with this one after so long, I still have a lot of the 70’s ZZ Top to explore more.

Asphyx – Last One On Earth

This was the second album from the Dutch death metal outfit. There’s some funny trivia behind it – vocalist Martin Van Drunen recorded the vocals for this without realizing he’d been fired from the band. The group decided to just use his vocal tracks. The band would reconvene with Van Drunen decades late. This 1992 album was a remarkable piece of death metal of the death/doom variety. Death/doom has been one of my favorite sub-strains of death metal and early Asphyx was a big reason why.

Vicious Rumors – Digital Dictator

I never listened to Vicious Rumors at all way back when, they were a band I simply missed out on. I’m getting familiar with them now because they have a gig booked here in March. I can say this was a gem I totally failed to grab back in the day. This is some great power metal of the US variety, which is a strain of the genre I’m horribly unfamiliar with beyond Savatage. This is a badass album I’ll spend more time with and I’ll also be visiting the rest of their catalog in advance of their show here. World And Machines is an absolute ripper on this one, though the whole album is fantastic.

Russian Circles – Gnosis

This is another of the long list of releases I missed last year. Russian Circles are an instrumental act from the US, they get the “post-metal” and “post-rock” tags as genre descriptors. I’m not the world’s biggest connoisseur of instrumental stuff but I like good music when I hear it and these guys are really good. It’s suitably heavy and dirty, and their noise evokes a very gritty and dark atmosphere, which I love considering my CD shelves full of grimy metal. I would go so far as to say this might have even been a miss on my top albums list from ’22, but that’s all over and done with. No time like the present.

Obituary – Dying Of Everything

2023 releases started coming very early and the first on my radar was the new one from Florida’s death metal legends. Obituary were one of the foundational bands of death metal and their fairly simple style of gnarly riffs and insane vocals has been an institution of the genre for decades.

This new one, honestly, didn’t hit me right out of the gate. I found it a bit too simple, I guess, I was wanting more from the riffs than what I was getting. I did feel like the album picked up in the second half, I felt more at home with it. I heard it again over at my buddy’s house after I’d enjoyed a few refreshing beverages and I can confirm that there is a direct relationship between blood alcohol content and enjoyment of this album. I don’t mean that as an insult – I’m simply saying that this is a “catch a buzz and enjoy the ride” album. This one won’t rank as my favorite Obituary but there is something here for me to enjoy after all.

Candlemass – Ancient Dreams

I wonder if I should count this here, as this will certainly be an album of the week at some point in time. But I don’t have plans for it anytime soon so I’ll go ahead and talk about it here. This was the third album from the Swedish doom metal outfit that has gone on to legendary status and this one is a big reason why. It is the band’s second with singer Messiah Marcolin and part of a magnificent three-album run with him. This is an amazing collection of doom tunes, highlighted by the opener Mirror Mirror. There’s also an interesting medley of Black Sabbath songs at the end.

Municipal Waste – The Art Of Partying

A pretty fitting way to conclude this post, since the topic of having a few and cranking some tunes came up already. That’s exactly what this band and album is for. Municipal Waste have been one of the godsends of the thrash revival, with a fantastic crossover sound and a general theme of getting messed up. Municipal Waste is gonna fuck you up, indeed.

That’s all for this week’s recap. Only 351 more albums to go.