80s Classic Albums (Featuring: King Crimson)

[Outcrier]

Slightly tired of all the radio songs, but overall this is still a killer album

This, especially Welcome to the Jungle and Sweet Child o' Mine, which are two of their best songs but i heard them so many times to a point where i don't care much about them anymore.

Still, a great hard rock album

[ReaperKK]

Lots of albums I haven't heard in this thread. I guess I should listen to Appetite. . . .

[Calvin6s]

Could you imagine the success and career this band would have had if they didn't implode after the Illusion albums.  If they would have stayed together and released something even every three years, they may have been the biggest of all time.

Or their implosion is what helped build their legend.  Keep them wanting more.

[bl5150]

Sad to say but if they'd OD'd rather than imploded they'd probably be much bigger.

[Lowdz]

Bought this on vinyl back in the day when noone in the UK had heard of them. Loved it for about a year then everyone else caught on, the  singles were everywhere, the band were acting like pricks and I came to hate it.
Not listened to it in about a decade (at least) and don't really have any desire to.
Didn't even bother with the Illusions after hearing Axl wail through You Could Be Mine.

[KevShmev]

I know this will sound snobby or elitist, but I will say it anyway:

When you lead with this, don't get too upset when people don't argue that it was indeed a snobby and/or elitist thing to say.  People have different tastes.  I'm sorry you feel this way.  Suggesting that I am a casual music fan because I find it to be an awesome album is just nonsense.  But at least you man up to the fact that it does come off rude.  At least you own it. 

I didn't say I was being rude; I said I was being snobby or elitist.

Could you imagine the success and career this band would have had if they didn't implode after the Illusion albums.  If they would have stayed together and released something even every three years, they may have been the biggest of all time.

Or their implosion is what helped build their legend.  Keep them wanting more.

This.  The lack of creative input from the collective members since the implosion makes me think they blew their wad early and wouldn't have had much left had they not broken up.  I mean, on their 2nd and 3rd full length studio albums (the two IYU's), they were already not only recording covers, but releasing them as singles.

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.   

[Calvin6s]

Sad to say but if they'd OD'd rather than imploded they'd probably be much bigger.

So Steven Adler was the actually the smartest member of GNR.

[Calvin6s]

The lack of creative input from the collective members since the implosion makes me think they blew their wad early

But I don't deny that early wad was quite the wad    It was the money shot.

[bl5150]

Sad to say but if they'd OD'd rather than imploded they'd probably be much bigger.

So Steven Adler was the actually the smartest member of GNR.

   Could well be............he tried so hard didn't he?  And you could argue he has produced some of the best music of the lot of them in recent years.  His albums have been pretty good.

[King Postwhore]

That's easy too since only Slash has been busy.

[bl5150]

I suppose what I typed was ambiguous - I meant that Adler's recent output has been some of the best music of the lot of them at any time outside of classic GnR.  And with "them" I'm referring to the extended family too...........Sorum,Clarke etc....and of course Axl's solo band that passes for GnR.

[King Postwhore]

If it wasn't for Melodic Rock website I wouldn't know about the other guys anymore.  Sad to say.

[bl5150]

Funny how all these guys with the magic chemistry have very fractious relationships ,often from the early days

Slash/Axl , Jagger/Richards, Roth/EVH,  Gilmour/Waters etc....etc...

Thankfully most of them fought it out a lot longer than Slash/Axl.

[King Postwhore]

For the most part it's always one is trying to assert their dominance over others and others want some input.  I always think of Steve Perry and Dennis DeYoung.

[BlobVanDam]

Could you imagine the success and career this band would have had if they didn't implode after the Illusion albums.  If they would have stayed together and released something even every three years, they may have been the biggest of all time.

Although given that rock turned to shit in the '90s soon after UYI, it probably wouldn't have changed much anyway.

[Anguyen92]

That's easy too since only Slash has been busy.

I think Duff McKagan has been keeping himself busy as well with his solo band (Loaded) and The Walking Papers.  Granted, the material is probably not as great or as well known or close to it as GNR in its prime, but he's been keeping himself busy, being sober, healthy, and fit, spending time with his family, and getting into the world of business and investments (he's a key influence on why I decided that I want to become an accountant).

[El Barto]

Could you imagine the success and career this band would have had if they didn't implode after the Illusion albums.  If they would have stayed together and released something even every three years, they may have been the biggest of all time.

I'd surmise the opposite. Every single day that Axl Rose went on acting like humanities biggest asshole it hurt them. I reckon they got out just in time to keep him from completely destroying their brand.

[Prog Snob]

Could you imagine the success and career this band would have had if they didn't implode after the Illusion albums.  If they would have stayed together and released something even every three years, they may have been the biggest of all time.

You're right.

Let's not jump the gun.  For all we know that could have been the high point of their career.  We're just speculating based on a small amount of evidence. I would never put them on the same level as Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Who, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, etc.   What would Bobby Darin's career had been like if he didn't die at 37. Some say he could have been the next Sinatra.  Others say he already had hit his high point.  It's hard to expect a band to continue the success of albums like Appetite and Use Your Illusion every time they put out music.

[King Postwhore]

That's easy too since only Slash has been busy.

I think Duff McKagan has been keeping himself busy as well with his solo band (Loaded) and The Walking Papers.  Granted, the material is probably not as great or as well known or close to it as GNR in its prime, but he's been keeping himself busy, being sober, healthy, and fit, spending time with his family, and getting into the world of business and investments (he's a key influence on why I decided that I want to become an accountant).

I was joking but yes he has.  Duff has been able to keep himself in the limelight.

[KevShmev]

Why am I not surprised that this album has received by far the most chatter so far in this thread? GnR is always a polarizing band, if nothing else.  Anyway, we move on, and because Tempus Vox is the first one to PM some recommendations for this thread (some of which were already under consideration to be featured in the future, of course ), I will feature one he recommended that I might not have otherwise...



I will admit that I only know the four hits from Billy Squier's Don't Say No, but they are all classic tunes that are great: "In the Dark," "The Stroke," "My Kinda Love" and "Lonely Is the Night."  I am sure Tempus and maybe Jaq, Orbert, kings or hef will know much more about the rest of this album, so let's have it, fellas.

[King Postwhore]

I owned the album, cassette, and CD of this.

I played the crap out of this album.  Funny thing I just learned a month ago, the manager for security for the Wal Mart DC where I work was the niece of Billy's drummer Bobby Chouinard who passed away in 1997.  She told me she got to see so many shows for free.

[KevShmev]

I owned the album, cassette, and CD of this.

 

[King Postwhore]

Tell me about it.

[Jaq]

There's a reason why most people remember this album as being the four songs Kev mentioned: they were pretty much head and shoulders above the rest of the album 

Of the rest of the songs, the only really memorable ones were I Need You-which was a nice catchy little poppy thing-and Too Daze Gone. The rest of the album ranged from serviceable to just plain there, to me at least. But the well known songs are quite the murderer's row of tracks, and wow, the first side went In The Dark/The Stroke/My Kind Of Lover. DAMN. One of the things about this album that's pretty interesting to me is that it was Squier's second solo album. (He'd previously been in a band called Piper that was best known for touring with Kiss) and while, at the time, the first, The Tale of the Tape, was kind of known to hard rock fans, these days it seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. I can't recall the last time I saw it in a store but it was likely a vinyl version when I did.

(A quick trip by Wiki tells me it did see a CD release, but I simply can't recall ever seeing it.)

Also worth noting about Don't Say No: it was co-produced by Queen producer Mack, who was recommended to Squier after he asked Brian May to produce it.  And yes, Billy Squier was one of the first acts you could say were broken big by MTV, because his three videos were played nearly nonstop at MTV's launch. Didn't hurt that they were really frigging good hard rock songs, either.

[bosk1]

Yeah, I had this on cassette, but didn't listen to it all that much.  I only remember the songs Kev mentioned.  I rarely sought those songs out, but enjoyed them quite a bit when they came on.  Beyond that, Mr. Squier did little for me.

[TAC]

Funny, I never owned G&R.  I know that sounds crazy but as a whole, I never got into them.  That's not saying I didn't like their songs, just not enough to buy them.

Ditto for me

Ditto for this album.

Apparently I Just Said No!

[bl5150]

All I think of when Billy Squier is mentioned is the Rock Me Tonite video  .......that was a few years later though. 

[Calvin6s]

So, I was never really a fan of Billy Squier.  It was always kind of bubblegum pop to me.  I think we used to play/sing the stroke me song on the playground, but only because we were so young that we knew something was sexual about stroke me, but really didn't know what it meant.

[El Barto]

Didn't that dude have to have his stomach pumped for some reason or another?

[Calvin6s]

Didn't that dude have to have his stomach pumped for some reason or another?

Wasn't that Rod Stewart.  And the rumor was they pumped out semen 
I remember I was young and enjoying a day at Disneyland when we heard a concert start up in Tomorrowland.  Rod Stewart was there and one of the friends let us on to the rumor.  So we watched him performing and all we could think about was him getting his semen-filled stomach pumped.  Didn't really follow it past that day, but AFAIK, it was just young kids passing around stupid rumors that they probably heard from their mother after reading her National Enquirer.

[hefdaddy42]

I am sure Tempus and maybe Jaq, Orbert, kings or hef will know much more about the rest of this album, so let's have it, fellas.

I fucking hate Billy Squier.

[LudwigVan]

I puke a little every time I hear a Billy Squier song.  He's got a touch of Robert Plant in his vocal tone, an attribute which he rode for all it was worth. 

[masterthes]

Yeah, first time I heard Lonely Is The Night on the radio, I almost thought it was Plant singing

[TempusVox]

Okay...everybody just settle down on Billy alright?  Granted it wasn't the best thing to come out of the 80's by far, but this album was huge when it came out. I remember at the time if anything it was overplayed by a factor of 12 or so; but still was a solid effort from a lifelong studio guy. It did stay on the top 40 album charts for over 2 years too. Having lived my teen years during that era, this was a transitional time for rock.

There were a ton of beefy, glossy, corporate-rock efforts going on then. Most of it not very pretty. But this album was head and shoulders above the corporate rock schtick of the time. Produced by Rheinhold Mack (from ELO and Queen) you could see the influences and nods to both Aerosmith and Zeppelin (more Presence era than anything else) through the whole record.

Even some of it was too poppy for my tastes, but overall it was a solid effort. I recall seeing him open for Foreigner in a coliseum and the crowd went nuts so loudly when he started Lonely is the Night, that they had to restart it four times, and finally rushed the intro just to quiet the crowd down.

After this record in my opinion everything he did was shit. And because this record was over played it should have been against the law to play it ever again. As a result it was many years before I could listen to it again. Both the overplay and the rest of his terrible catalog are what make him so dismissed I think. Kind of the same thing with the other Billy...Thorpe and "Children of the Sun". Enough already...we got it. We got it. Too much is too much.

But whether you liked this or not (me and at least 4 million other people did), it was and is a classic from the 80's!

I saw a few years ago one of those VH1 shows where he basically said the worst thing he ever did was make a follow up that the record company wanted, and totally departed from what he wanted, and it ruined his career. Yep. I'd agree with that. That Rock Me Tonight video makes me retch. Prancing? Prancing? *shudders*