MTV in the 80s Song of the Day

[King Postwhore]

Is this an MTV 80's Roulette song of the day?



You guys need to work on your puns.........with feeling.

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

I can't take any more of this.  I'm out.  Have a Nice Day.

[TAC]

Ride Cozmo Ride!

[Zydar]

I can't take any more of this.  I'm out.  Have a Nice Day.

Come on, keep the faith.

[DebraKadabra]

Bon Jovi - Wanted Dead or Alive

Loved this one back in the day but... it didn't age well at all.

[bosk1]

It aged just fine with me.  In fact, we'll be performing it in our set at a diabetes charity ride next month. 

[Jaq]

Excellent song.  People always seem to dig this song and this is one of those solos where its simplicity is its greatest asset.  It is perfect as it is.  Anything faster or more showy would've been all wrong.

Generally have never been really big on rock songs where the band compares themselves to cowboys

One of my bands is working on Modern Day Cowboy. 

That's another exception to my rule, actually 

[Bolsters]

I still listen to my Bon Jovi greatest hits collection now and then, and this song is of course a highlight. I've never felt compelled to go and buy actual Bon Jovi albums, though.

[KevShmev]

Def Leppard - Rocket

I thought this was by far the best of the hits from the Hysteria record back then, and I still think that.  Very good hard rock song, and I think the many classic rock references in the lyrics are pretty neat.  I get why it wasn't as big a hit as songs like Love Bites and Pour Some Sugar on Me, but not only was it better than them back then, but it has aged a lot better than them as well, IMO.

[jingle.boy]

Def Leppard - Rocket

I thought this was by far the best of the hits from the Hysteria record back then, and I still think that.  Very good hard rock song, and I think the many classic rock references in the lyrics are pretty neat.  I get why it wasn't as big a hit as songs like Love Bites and Pour Some Sugar on Me, but not only was it better than them back then, but it has aged a lot better than them as well, IMO.

My second fav on the album... I always preferred Animal to it.  This too is another killer album, although I'll concede its commercial success was far greater than was warranted. 

[BlobVanDam]

I still like Pour Some Sugar On Me better (and Animal), partially because it doesn't have that pointless meandering nothing section in the middle dragging it down, but aside from that Rocket is still a pretty good song.
I don't agree it's aged any better than the rest of the album though. It's all about the same level of dated to me. I'm the last person to have a problem with that though, so I don't mean anything negative by that. But it's all super '80s.

But I agree it's a buttload better than Love Bites, which just.......... well, bites.

[Orbert]

I know it was the "80's sound" and a lot of people love it, but Def Leppard's vocals always sound distorted to me.  The harmonies are great, but it always sounds like they got pushed too much.  When it's just lead vocals, it's okay, but once those harmonies come in, it sounds like shit.

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

That was the thing I always noticed.  People always go on about the production value of DL's vocals.  I always noticed that same overdriven sound on all the vocals.  It's like someone turned the gain knob on the vocal channels up just to the point where they start to break up a little.

[Orbert]

Exactly.  They're redlining, hard.

[bosk1]

Def Leppard - Rocket

I thought this was by far the best of the hits from the Hysteria record back then, and I still think that.  Very good hard rock song, and I think the many classic rock references in the lyrics are pretty neat.  I get why it wasn't as big a hit as songs like Love Bites and Pour Some Sugar on Me, but not only was it better than them back then, but it has aged a lot better than them as well, IMO.

It was actually my least favorite of all the singles, and at the time, I didn't really understand why they even released it.  But it has aged very well for me.  I think by the time the video dropped, I was already off at boot camp, so I don't recall the video.

[KevShmev]

In regards to Def Leppard's harmonies, I agree; they did often sound a bit weird or over-processed or whatever.  But I guess I learned to overlook it if I liked the song enough, like in the case of one like Rocket.

[Cool Chris]

This was my least favorite single off Hysteria at the time (which was my favorite album for a while) but at this point, one of the better aged ones. When I revisited DL recently after a long break, I was surprised how much I enjoyed Rocket.

[King Postwhore]

In regards to Def Leppard's harmonies, I agree; they did often sound a bit weird or over-processed or whatever.  But I guess I learned to overlook it if I liked the song enough, like in the case of one like Rocket.

That was all about the producer, Mutt Lange more than anything.  His style.  Kev, mabye you can remember this too but I think they talked about the gang chants/harmonies were like 100 overdubs.  Something crazy like that.  I thought I saw it on some doc.

[DebraKadabra]

Def Leppard - Rocket

Besides Animal, Rocket's probably aged the best out of all of Hysteria - and this is coming from someone who spun the holy SHIT out of that album.

[T-ski]

Def Leppard - Rocket

Besides Animal, Rocket's probably aged the best out of all of Hysteria - and this is coming from someone who spun the holy SHIT out of that album.

never get tired of hearing the title track.  I'm also a big fan of "Gods of War."

[KevShmev]

In regards to Def Leppard's harmonies, I agree; they did often sound a bit weird or over-processed or whatever.  But I guess I learned to overlook it if I liked the song enough, like in the case of one like Rocket.

That was all about the producer, Mutt Lange more than anything.  His style.  Kev, mabye you can remember this too but I think they talked about the gang chants/harmonies were like 100 overdubs.  Something crazy like that.  I thought I saw it on some doc.

I don't remember hearing anything about it.  I know Queen was a big influence on Def Leppard, but while the former's harmonies always sound natural (like a big choir or something), the latter's sounded artificial and overdone more often than not, because they layered it on too thick.

[FreezingPoint]

In regards to Def Leppard's harmonies, I agree; they did often sound a bit weird or over-processed or whatever.  But I guess I learned to overlook it if I liked the song enough, like in the case of one like Rocket.

That was all about the producer, Mutt Lange more than anything.  His style.  Kev, mabye you can remember this too but I think they talked about the gang chants/harmonies were like 100 overdubs.  Something crazy like that.  I thought I saw it on some doc.

I don't remember hearing anything about it.  I know Queen was a big influence on Def Leppard, but while the former's harmonies always sound natural (like a big choir or something), the latter's sounded artificial and overdone more often than not, because they layered it on too thick.

That was the whole goal. On the Classic Albums - Hysteria, they talk about how Mutt and them wanted to make it sound big and larger than life. A "Star Wars" for music kind of philosophy. I love the Def Leppard vocal sound. I wish I could get something resembling even a 10th of that. It's kind of amazing, given all of today's technology and audio plug-in's, there's still no easy way to get that sound.

[King Postwhore]

Thanks man!  That's where I remember seeing it.  I was a crazy amount of overdubs.  Iremeber when Mutt recorded for Brian Adams (Waking Up The Neighbors) that he did those kind of chantas on that album as well for the anthematic songs.

[Jaq]

When I first listened to Hysteria, I was already familiar with Women, which sounded enough like Pyromania to not be alienating. Then I got to Rocket and was basically left saying "what the fuck is this?"  While it still sounded like Def Leppard, it had such an odd structure, lacked anything resembling a conventional guitar solo (which happened a LOT on Hysteria) and just felt generally weird other than the chorus, which was where most of the old Leppard sound was. Once I wrapped my head around what the band was doing on Hysteria, I grew to like the song, but it was on the lower end of the singles off the album, along with Armageddon It. Sometimes I think they released that and Rocket just so they could say the whole first side of the longest vinyl album to date had been released as singles. 

[KevShmev]

Toto - Rosanna

The other big Toto hit from 1982, this was about as popular as Africa, IIRC, but I never thought it was nearly as good.  Good song, sure, but not one I was ever bananas about it, and not one I really revisit that much anymore. 

[King Postwhore]

I love singing the harmony parts that Steve Lukather sings and the fade out  guitar solo is really cool.

[BlobVanDam]

Not sure which I prefer out of this and Africa. I think they're both great.

I love all of the changes throughout the song, the way it has the softer section with the harmonies, then the big fill to the louder section. A perfect example of dynamics in a song that you wouldn't get so much today. The production is top notch too.
I've always found the structure of the song to be pretty interesting, and I don't really keep track of what's a verse or a chorus. The song is like a lot of sections stuck together, but it works.

[Big Hath]

for some reason, the synth solo always reminded me of the music that plays during Disney's Electric Light Parade

[BlobVanDam]

I just remembered, I once had a dream (or nightmare?) about this music video, with that closeup of Bobby Kimball. Not a photogenic band by any stretch.

[Jaq]

Best part of this song-Lukather's fade out solo-either isn't in the video or is cut extensively, I can't remember.

This actually is old enough to have made the classic rock thread of the day. Which is actually kind of sad. 

I just remembered, I once had a dream (or nightmare?) about this music video, with that closeup of Bobby Kimball. Not a photogenic band by any stretch.

Toto DID have great faces for radio.  Actually, Toto looked like a LOT of 70s bands did; it wasn't until the 80s and MTV where everyone suddenly seemed to be a photogenic rock god. Really, go look at band pictures from the 70s, those fuckers were uniformly pretty ugly in the rock end of the pool.

[KevShmev]

I didn't actually plan on featuring Toto in both threads today, but after I did Rosanna here, I was like, hey, Hold the Line is a classic rock staple, so I'll do that one today in the other thread! I'm smart.

[Orbert]

Another great Toto song.

The verses are pretty clear, "Not quite a year" starts the pre-chorus, and "Meet you all the way" is the chorus.  After the break, we come back to a pre-chorus.  The extra jam at the end is just an extended coda.

This song came on the radio one time, and my wife pointed out that the guy who wrote it was obsessed with Rosanna Arquette.  My daughter said "Really?" and I said "Yes, he loves her so much, he's not just gonna meet her halfway, he's gonna meet her all the way."  Which, if you think about it, doesn't make any sense.

[BlobVanDam]

Another great Toto song.

The verses are pretty clear, "Not quite a year" starts the pre-chorus, and "Meet you all the way" is the chorus.  After the break, we come back to a pre-chorus.  The extra jam at the end is just an extended coda.

Yeah, that makes complete sense, it's just that the "meet you all the way" bit never jumped out to me as more "chorus-y" than the "Not quite a year bit", since they're both repeating Roseanna endlessly. But I actually like that about the song.

[Orbert]

Yeah, they weren't afraid to mess with the norms, which was something cool about them.

[KevShmev]

I gotta say, I am surprised by how much chatter Toto is getting in both threads.  Sometimes when I post a song, especially in this here 80s thread, I think that it might only get a few replies, but Toto I wasn't sure about.