By 1987, a large number of hard rock and heavy metal veterans had jumped on the glam metal bandwagon. A large number of them, such as Scorpions, Whitesnake, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, have recorded albums that, somewhat paradoxically, are among the best achievements born within the framework of the genre whose creation they themselves greatly influenced.
Others, like Judas Priest, did not find their way in glam waters (although not all, like Priest, realized this quickly). In the second part of the story about the albums that marked the glam metal scene in 1987, we are talking about the albums of hard rock veterans.
Kiss – Crazy Nights
Kiss are probably the best example for the claim that you can succeed in rock and roll with very little talent. Of course, we are primarily referring to the duo Paul Stanley-Gene Simmons, who magically managed to surround himself with talented (Ace Frehley, Vinnie Vincent) or charming (Peter Criss) people. How Kiss gained massive popularity is much less mysterious: the group’s members have always had a good commercial sense, megalomaniac ambitions, the courage (lack of dignity, some will say) to approve the placement of their characters (that is, masks) on a variety of products, from toys and lunch boxes to condoms and coffins, and, of course, the ability to turn in the direction of the musical winds. In addition, sometimes a really artistically valuable song got away from them (“Black Diamond”, “Detroit Rock City”, “God Of Thunder”, “Beth”). On Crazy Nights there are no such songs. This album is a papazjanija made according to the principle “something for everyone”. For lovers of Kiss albums from the seventies there is the rock anthem “Crazy, Crazy Nights”, for lovers of “real” heavy metal there is the heavy metal attempt “I’ll Fight Hell To Hold You”, for the kids who adored the young, for hot bands there was “Thief In The Night” (a great thing, but you have to remember that he wrote it in 1984 for Wendy O. Williams) and “When Your Walls Come Down”, for girls in love with Jon Bon Jovi there were “Turn On The Night”, “My Way” and the melodic rock ballad “Reason To Live”, with “Thief In The Night” the only track on the album that deserves attention, and for the boys in love with Eddie Van Halen there was the Van Halen “No , No, No“. All in all, a bunch of flimsy pieces wrapped in shiny foil, including “Bang Bang You”, along with “Let’s Put The X In Sex”, certainly the band’s most disgusting song. For nothing, Ron Nevison (who previously produced albums by Thin Lizzy, Dave Mason, UFO, Jefferson Starship, Michael Schenker Group, Survivor, Grace Slick, Heart and Ozzy Osbourne) did a good job – he failed to make a pie out of garbage. After the tour that followed Crazy Nights none of the songs from the album remained on the band’s set list on subsequent tours. Crazy Nights is an album that maybe even Simmons and Stanley themselves don’t want to remember. The question is, however, how far the much better Kiss albums will be remembered. In the history of rock and roll, Kiss did inscribe themselves in golden letters, but not thanks to their music.
Alice Cooper – Raise Your Fist And Yell
Album Raise Your Fist And Yell (for which the cover was done by the famous surrealist painter Jim Warren; many years later Warren would admit that the face on the fist was not Cooper’s, but – his own), the first after Cooper’s comeback Constrictor and recorded with Kane Roberts on guitar (an extremely interesting appearance on the American metal scene; more about him in one of the next installments of the column) and Kip Winger on bass (who will start his own band in the same year), one can complain about what we complain about and the above-mentioned Kiss album: it’s about papazjania, but, unlike Crazy Nightsmore thematically than musically, though Raise Your Fist And Yell it’s not without vacillating between a more traditional (“Prince Of Darkness”, “Roses On White Lace”) and a glam metal sound (“Freedom”, “Lock Me Up”, “Give The Radio Back”, “Not That Kind Of Love”). Rebellion (“Freedom”, “Lock Me Up”, “Give The Radio Back”, “Time To Kill”), glorification of one’s own musical expression (“Step On You”), sex (“Not That Kind Of Love”), horror (‘Chop, Chop, Chop’, ‘Roses On White Lace’) and the occult (‘Prince Of Darkness’) are all staples of metal poetics, but they rarely seem functionally thrown together – in this case the complaint is doubly serious because addressed to a musician who in the earlier periods of his career showed a tremendous gift for conceptual design. In songs with Raise Your Fist And Yell then already middle-aged Cooper, one of the few true poets among metalheads, a man who hung out with Morrison, Lennon and Zappa and whose talent was admired by Salvador Dali and Groucho Marx, turned to teenagers (evil tongues will say that today heavy metal is exactly that – old men or, at the very least, middle-aged people addressing teenagers), naively attacking the PMRC (which many metalheads still believe to this day could have seriously threatened artists under the protection of powerful labels) in “Freedom”, mocking and threatening the artists some different music (it is not entirely clear to whom the derogatory words are addressed, but that is exactly why young metalheads were given the opportunity to put everyone they don’t like in the context of the song) in “Step On You” and presenting himself as a villain whom adults, “serious ” people loathe (back when Cooper’s throne was long ago occupied by Blackie Lawless) in “Lock Me Up”. Songs with a horror theme in such an environment (but not only for this reason, nor because there is a trace of humor in them – after all, Cooper never wanted his playing with such a theme to be taken seriously) seem much less convincing. Raise Your Fist And Yell however, it is not entirely without striking pieces: the baroque-macabre ballad “Gail” and “Not That Kind Of Love”, a song that will greatly foreshadow Cooper’s next studio release, are certainly worth noting. Album Trashwith stylistically and thematically uniform songs, on which Desmond Child, Joan Jett, Diane Warren, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora were signed as authors and on which the aforementioned Jon Bon Jovi and Sambora, and Steve Lukather appeared as guests. Michael Anthony, Kip Winger and members of Aerosmith, Cooper taught all the glammers a lesson in making a good hard rock album and achieved the biggest commercial success of his career. Of course, neither Raise Your Fist And Yellis Trashnone of the latter Coopers managed to reach the artistic heights of the album Killer, Billion Dollar Babies i Welcome To My Nightmare…
Aerosmith – Permanent Vacation
When Aerosmith, thanks to the vision of Rick Rubin and the good will of Run DMC, returned from obscurity, they needed an album that would offer at least one, if not two (according to the familiar pattern: first a fast thing, then a ballad) hits, then the members of Aerosmith decided to seek the help of authors outside the band. Collaboration with Desmond Child, Jim Vallance and Holly Knight resulted in a handful of hits: “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)” (supposedly inspired by acquaintance with the members of Mötley Crüe, but the author of this text’s first association with this song will forever remain the great Robin Williams in the role Daniel Hillard, i.e. Mrs. Doubtfire), the belting out “Rag Doll” and the ballad “Angel”, but also the no less great “Hearts Done Time”, “Magic Touch” and “Hangman Jury” (certainly one of Aerosmith’s best blues pieces), and noteworthy instrumental “The Movie”, and a cover of the song “I’m Down” by the Beatles. Stylistically closer to glam metal than traditional hard rock, Permanent Vacation is far from a conventional glam metal album. Intriguing arrangement and production solutions (evoking the ambiance of New Orleans swamps on “Hangman’s Jury” and Caribbean beaches on the title track), which will be used even more on their next studio release, PumpAerosmith showed that they learned something from their collaboration with Rubin, and with the songs “St. John”, “Girl Keeps Comin’ Apart”, “Hangman’ Jury” and “I’m Down” that they did not sail into glam waters forgetting where they started from. But this album is above all significant for re-establishing the flow of energy in the Tyler-Perry relationship, that energy that often flows on the very border between love and hate and which is so characteristic of almost all couples made up of a great frontman and a guitar hero. That’s where it is from Permanent Vacation much more but Done With Mirrors comeback album of American hard rock greats.
Source: balkanrock.com
