The success was however a balancing act. Despite describing themselves as a hard rock act, the success and popularity of their power ballad tracks left them in a position of trying to keep all of their fans, old and new, happy with their material. Gillis had actually made comment in an interview that “Sister Christian” was completed in 1982, but the band had chosen to leave it off their debut album because they were afraid of losing their fans who were there for their hard rock songs. With the success of “Midnight Madness”, they now found themselves in that position just an album further down the track.
Moving into their follow up album, the band decided to utilise a loose concept for the album, of the band flying across the ocean in a WWII B-25 Mitchell bomber, something that Blades explained later was because both he and Gillis had a fascination for WWII era planes. Despite this being said to be the case, and with the front cover of the album mimicking the cover of the Motorhead album “Bomber” with the band sitting proudly in said plane, you will have to search very hard for this tenuous link throughout the songs on the album. What becomes their biggest test is to follow up what had been two well performed albums with a third, and thus became the challenge of the album titled “7 Wishes”.
This album can be divided up into two sections – and perhaps that is true of all Night Ranger albums, so maybe it is unfair to single out this particular one for this explanation. Those two sections are the hard rock tracks, and the power ballad tracks, and the best way to review the album is to look at both sides individually.
“I Need a Woman” fits almost directly into the style that Def Leppard made their own over the back half of the 1980’s decade, the chorused vocals, the moaning guitar solo and the lyrics focused directly on requiring a woman, in this case even more directly “I Need a Woman”. While not a true power ballad it has tendencies that draw it to that level. On the other hand, and far more directly like a power ballad, “Sentimental Street” heads down the exact same path as “Sister Christian” had on the previous album, though it is Blades writing the song on this occasion even though Keagy is singing the lead vocal on the track. The video for the song placed them in an Amelia Earhart scenario, with the entire band lost at sea, one of the tenuous ties to the album scenario. And though, as is pointed out here, the band had always dabbled in the art of the power ballad, this has always felt like a direct power puff reaction to the success of the single from the last album, and the need to follow up that success with another single of a similar quality. And it certainly worked, because it went to #8 on the US singles chart on its release. So mission accomplished on that score. But does it make this a better album as a result? “I Will Follow You” on side 2 of the album sits somewhere between the two genres of the album, with an upbeat tempo but light hearted music, trending to the soft rock track that was also popular in the mid-1980's. And the closing track, the acoustically based power ballad “Goodbye”, is a definite acceptance into this category and once again featuring Keagy on lead vocal. Ina 2001 interview Blades confirmed that he wrote "Goodbye" in memory of his older brother, James, who had died from a heroin overdose several years before. This reached #17 on the US singles chart, showing that these particular songs were working a treat for the band during these years. But part of the problem was that it pigeon-holed them as a power ballad band which was a double-edged sword.
In the harder side of the band, the album opens with the title track which showcases the great vocals from the band alongside the excellent guitaring of both Gillis and Watson. “7 Wishes” draws an anthemic quality about the lyrics which gives it a crowd singing boost to the feeling of the song. “Faces” follows within the typical Night Ranger hard rock formula, mixing great vocals alongside the brightness of Fitzgerald’s keys mixed alongside the guitars of Gillis and Watson. “Four in the Morning”, named after the time of day that Blades woke up and wrote the track, has a similar tracking to it. It isn’t a true hard rock song, it is more of a hard rock ballad, where the guitars are not as prominent as they are in hard rock songs but the structure of the track doesn’t fall into the power ballad or soft rock sphere either. It lacks a true burst of energy to lift it to being a better song.
Side 2 opens with the “This Boy Needs to Rock”, and contains the energy burst that the album needed after the closing of ide one with the ballad track. Co-written by Blades and Gillis, you almost get the feeling that Brad took charge at this point and said ‘hey, there’s nothing for me to do on this album, so here’s my track and this is how we are going to play it!’ His contribution to the track alongside Watson is excellent, and it showcases the best of the band in this genre style with the twin guitars firing. “Interstate Love Affair” is lifted above the other tracks here firstly by Jack’s harder and more forceful vocal in the verse, which is then dragged back a little by the choral vocals in the chorus and bridge, but the guitar solo spots success in raising the energy of the track gives it the boost it needs. And “Night Machine”, which probably should have been the concluding song on the album also has all the natural features that showcase the harder side of this band.
In the first half of 1986, while I was in Year 11 at Kiama High School, we had an exchange student from the United States called Steve turn up in our year for a few weeks. To be honest, that moment could have very easily passed with me even noticing, or certainly even remembering 39 years later. But it was what Steve brought with him that made him a memorable figure all of these years later. Because Steve brought his favourite cassettes with him with his favourite bands, and as it turns out they were all from a genre that my friend group had begun to explore quite heavily over the preceding six months, that of heavy metal and its sub genres. And so we were exposed to several bands that we were both unaware of and had no albums of, all of which was swiftly rectified by a LOT of recording. And one of those bands was Night Ranger. All three of the band’s albums released to that point were in America Steve’s collection and so were also soon a part of ours.
Thus, I discovered all of Night Ranger’s albums in one fell swoop, which in retrospect may have harmed the way I listened to them, because suddenly I had about 20 albums from various artists all fighting for my time. And yet, it is fair to say that I became a fan of Night Ranger immediately. And one of the things I discovered over the next 18 months was how much I enjoyed their music but had difficulty in choosing which was my favourite. And it literally changed every time I listened to one of the albums. Once I’d finished it I would proclaim “yep! That’s my favourite!”, until I went a listened to another, and then said the same thing. So in those heady days of high school, I found as much enjoyment from “7 Wishes” as I did the other two albums.
One thing that is obvious looking backwards from this distance is that I didn’t have so much of a problem with power ballads then as I do in the years since. I really don’t ever remember not enjoying every part of this album when I listened to it in high school, so my tastes have obviously adapted over the years. I only mention this because having had the album back on over the past week (sadly only streaming, as my cassette versions have died some time ago and I haven’t gotten around to replacing them yet) it has been noticeable to me where I now feel there are weak points in the album, and yes they fall directly on those power ballad moments. And it isn't so much that I don’t like them, it is just that it is where the album seems to lose its lustre. And I reiterate, I do not remember ever thinking this about this album in the past, it is only now that I am older that it seems less exciting to me that it did then. And I will also be honest when I say that perhaps that comes from not being able to listen to it on my stereo on CD or vinyl that also makes me feel this way. I don’t know. But for anyone who has listened to me talk about albums for the past four years knows, the power ballad does tend to stick a dagger through my heart, so maybe here on “7 Wishes” that is all it is again.
But hey! This is still a good album! And it brings back a lot of memories from those school days, and you can’t question the musicians in the band, they are all terrific. It’s obvious I need to buy this album again, not only to have in my collection again, but so I can blast it through the Metal Cavern in a much better format than I have this week.
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