Captain Howdy

Yup, to many fans of 80s rock Michael Boltons name would not even be considered. In the UK he really was not even a known entity until Soul Provider came out and How am I supposed to live without you hit the singles chart in 1990, and by then he was considered a soul singer. I think that is probably the case for a lot of Europeans as well. Hell, I don't even think most of his stuff in charted in the USA or charted that high prior to the late 80s. His early stuff really is niche to most people. Better vocalists or more famous, because with the exception of one or two on here (The Big Deal comes to mind) they are some pretty great vocalists. If it is anything like the plethora of tribute albums that Cleopatra/Deadline released back in the early 2000s, the artists were not even necessarily fans of the artists or the songs they were recording, they were just doing it for the pay day. I remember an interview a friend of mine did with Mitch Malloy around the time and he recorded You could be mine, by GNR and he said he hated it. He didn't even get a choice what song to sing. And recently Phil Lewis has gone on record as saying he has never liked Motley Crues music, yet he has recorded at least one of their songs for a tribute album in the past. As it stands, a lot of bigger artists on the Frontiers label probably do not want to involve themselves in tributes, and Frontiers is just a means to an end in getting their music released, so of course it will end up being the lesser known bands on their roster recording this stuff.

Archie really starting to look like Vince Meal

Hell In The Club - F.U.B.A.R.

Frontiers release, so guess who is getting their copy late again from Amazon.

I am sure she would rather you call her Leigh ... that being her name n all that

A bold claim that there is no way they could live up to

Saw this video on YouTube earlier due to it being recommended. Song is ok, albeit nothing special but the thing that stood out to me was just how awful that video is. The reliance on green screens is becoming overkill now. Some bands still put out great videos without relying on green screen (Electric Callboy come to mind here) but the bands that do just end up looking cringe. With a video like Turborider by Reckless Love the green screen works because of the whole 80s computer game and synthwave aesthetic, but on videos like this ... nah. If bands like this are gonna do videos, they are better off going the About Us route with Right now. Budget wasn't massive, there was no green screen but the simple performance video with a few bells and whistles looks much better.

And who released that ... Frontiers? Surprise surprise.

I think with a lot of these they were either down to the record label wanting them or contracual obligations. For instance Lepps Retro active was a record label decision but the band were able to make the final decision on track listing. With Jettblacks Black Gold, it was very much an contractual obligation album and the band had very little to do with the track selection. From what I can gather as well, any of the 80s bands that were on the big labels back in the day, any best of/greatest hits releases that had "bonus" tracks on them, were purely record label decisions so we were lucky to actually get these bonus tracks. I remember several bands releasing compilations later after leaving the label because they were unhappy with the track listing chosen by the label. Warrant had two compilations released in 1996 that they had no control over. One was the pointless "Rocking Tall" and the other was the far superior "Best of" which actually finally added Thin Disguise to an album but also included their cover of We will rock you, from the Gladiator soundtrack. When they were finally able to release a compilation themselves, it obviously had to be re-recorded stuff but they gave us a few songs that had never been officially released before and a re-record of Thin disguise as they knew how popular it was. Of course the record label at the time was obsessed with dance remixes, so they stuck a bunch of them on there that the band had no choice on.

Interestingly, Ode to Tipper Gore was only on the US and Japanese releases of Cherry Pie. And on at least the European version Train train was actually beeped when Jani says "All a-fucking-board" I actually had the European version on cassette and then CD, and both were the same. Someone gave me the US copy on vinyl and that is where I first heard the uncensored Train train and Ode. I later bought the remaster of the album on CD that was only available in the US and weirdly the two bonus tracks they put on it were The power & Game of war ... still no Thin Disguise, which I thought was ridiculous. As for bonus tracks, I have mentioned this here before, I used to order quite a few Frontiers releases on Jap import for the bonus tracks but Frontiers is the biggest culprit these days for going the lazy route of acoustic, piano, instrumental, live bonus tracks of songs already on the album. I don't buy Jap imports of Frontiers releases anymore.

Sometimes great songs get overlooked or it just becomes a toss up between which songs do and do not make the cut. Must be hard for any artist to select a final track listing for an album knowing that most artists will record a whole bunch of other songs for every album. For instance, the song Thin Disguise never should have been left off the album Cherry Pie by Warrant, most people agree that and it even became a regular in their set lists and best of's.