Captain Howdy

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.

I think the problem was the overview they did was all over the place. I mean when they are talking about the early days of the scene hearing from Dee was great, but Janet, Snake and Kip really were not part of that as they were all mid to late 80s stars. Yes they may have been on the unsigned scene before that, but they were certainly not part of the early days like Crue, Halen, Quiet Riot, London etc I think they could have done with a better selection of interviewees to be honest. Yes it was nice to see a bunch of different faces to what we usually see, but I just dont think it fully represented the era. Lonn Friend was a good addition as was Rachtman, but even they seemed to have some very weird opinions on things. I also think they concentrated too much time on Vicky Hamilton. Yes she was involved in the scene, but all she kept doing was playing the victim.

I saw it and have to say that it was good, but it was not perfect by any means. It seemed to jump all over the place, which was quite confusing at times. For instance the Winger segment completely missed out Pull era and just kinda went from 2nd album to being dropped by label. I wonder how much interview footage ended up on the cutting room floor. It also seemed to pain anyone who came along late 80s like Britny Fox, Slaughter, Mr Big, Damn Yankees and others as not serious musicians and just gimmicks, even though bands like Vixen, Winger & Skid Row all had their debut albums around the same time, and yet those were the bands we were focussing on. I think the biggest problem with it was, as a retroactive look back it tried to fit over a decade of the music scene into three short episodes, so so much was missed out or glossed over. It could have done with at least two or three more episodes, especially as so much of the third episode was about grunge taking over. Also the comment that the likes of Garth Brooks was what killed the scene was laughable. Firstly because just because he was massive in USA does not mean he was that big worldwide, and secondly, pop and country artists were always selling bigger numbers than hair metal. I mean as far as I can see, Brooks had an album that was 10 times platinum in USA but Michael Jacksons Thriller is 34 times platinum. Does that mean Michael Jackson killed hair metal? Saying most hair metal fans started following Brooks instead is also laughable.

More of a mid paced track. Not quite a ballad, but close.

Yep. And the demo of it as well.

Absolutely zero effort put into this cover (pretty much like the whole "album") Listed as £10.99 on Amazon so still not what I would call value for money.