Anyhow...
Warrant - Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinkin' Rich
Yeah, I went there. Look, I know the album is cheesey. Just read the post anyway. It's kinda personal, and you might be entertained, even if you don't care for the band. Okay, so...
Released: January 31, 1989
Songs:
1. 32 Pennies
2. Down Boys
3. Big Talk
4. Sometimes She Cries
5. So Damn Pretty (Should Be Against the Law)
6. D.R.F.S.R.
7. In the Sticks
8. Heaven
9. Ridin' High
10. Cold Sweat
I was gonna do Cherry Pie. Honestly, I think it's a better album. But since it didn't come out until 1990, I'm going to go with DRFSR.
After boot camp in the summer of 1988, I went sent off to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. I was lonely. I was worlds away from the friends I had grown up with, the girl I mistakenly thought I would marry, and basically everything and everyone I knew. But I had my music.
Slight diversion: I didn't know much about Britney Fox. They had a stupid name. They had a stupid look. But, hey, it was the '80s. And bands ripped one another off all the time, so if they wanted to look like Cinderella, who was I to argue (I didn't know their history at the time, so I had no clue that they basically WERE half of Cinderella). Can't remember how I first heard of them or what I heard. But they were a bona fide rock band who were willing to play anywhere, trying to make a name for themselves. So when I heard they were playing in the field house on base in December 1988, I was all in. They put on a good show. And their songs were pretty good, actually. I became a fan (and more of one later once they fired Davidson, but that's another story). But what I also remember from that show was the opening band. Well, not the first opening band. They were some no names called Nantucket. Other than laughing at how much their singer tried to imitate Geoff Tate, they were entirely unmemorable. I mean the next opening band after them that went on before Britney Fox. They were also some no-name band. But they supposedly had gotten signed and had an album coming out in a couple of months or something. Yeah, that was the show I discovered Warrant.
These guys...they had the look. They had the chops. They had catchy, good songwriting. They had the stage presence and the live energy. I was impressed. And I knew they would be something. It's kinda rare to see a band for the first time, knowing nothing about them ahead of time, and having their songs stuck in your head for a couple of months before the album is even out. But they had me hooked.
In late January, we flew to 29 Palms for a month-long joint field exercise. Sometime toward the end, we got a few days off, and some guys were driving up to Nor Cal. Home. I was in. I stopped by a music store and found this album. I played that cassette constantly. I remember a lot of the guys in my unit asking me who it was that I was listening to over and over, and laughing when I said the name, since it was a band nobody had ever heard of. Then Down Boys started getting some traction on local radio. Then Heaven started getting HUGE traction on radio and MTV, and the band blew up. It was pretty cool being in on the ground floor and watching these guys rise in popularity. That's why this album is special to me, even if it isn't a great album altogether. Side 1 is pretty solid, actually. But side 2 had a lot of filler, and I honestly struggle to remember how a lot of those songs even go now. But this was the album that got them started. These were the songs I saw them perform that hooked me. Yeah, again, Cherry Pie was stronger. And despite the commercial title track (which Lane apparently wrote as a joke at the last minute when told they needed a lead single that was catchy, and he hated the song ever since), that album really shows some solid songwriting chops. But DRFSR was what got me on the Warrant train.