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*