1131. Nirvana / Nevermind. 1991. 5/5

Nirvana was a band that since its inception had gone through several drummers in its short existence, and had also had an extra guitarist at one point, but in essence was a two-piece with hired guns as drummers. Guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Kurt Cobain along with bass guitarist Krist Novaselic eventually brought in new drummer Dave Grohl just before the band went into the studio to write and record Nevermind, a fortuitous move for both parties as it turned out. Prior to 1991 I didn’t have a clue who Nirvana was. Most people didn’t. They had released their debut album Bleach back in 1989, but I, like I guess 90% of people who ended up buying that album, did so sometime from 1992 onwards. My introduction to the band was, as happened on a few occasions in those days, by some friends in the band I was playing in at the time saying “Have you heard this band? Check out this album. It’s insane!”, at which point they threw it on and we listened. And I can still remember my first impressions being – ‘ok… it’s raw, it’s an interesting guitar sound… the singer has a real bipolar attitude… the drummer is hitting those things REALLY HARD…. yeah, it’s ok I guess…’ So just so you know that it wasn’t something that grabbed everyone the first time they heard it. Indeed, it was really when the first single from the album took off on radio, and begun to be played every couple of hours on constant rotation, and when the video for that song was never off the air on MTV and Rage and all of the other music video shows around the world, that the album itself began to be popularised. Because it was the success of that song that really drew people to the album, and once they had been drawn into the album… they began to discover that it wasn’t just a one-hit wonder.

“Smells Like Teen Spirit” was that first single. You know that. In fact it is probably embedded in your memory so hard that even if you lost all of your sense sometime down the track, you would still remember the opening few bars to “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. It became the anthem of a generation – not so much mine I don’t think, but to anyone who was a teenager in 1991 and 1992 this would be the song that would remind them all so much of those years. It saturated radio and video shows. It drove the popularity of this album. This was followed by the second single “Come As You Are”, a song of a different tempo and style, which mightn’t have become the dance club anthem that the first single did, but it still proved so popular because of the drone of Cobain’s vocals over his low strung guitar. “Lithium” and “In Bloom” were the other two singles that were drawn from the album and both did good sales as well, but by this time it was more just a task of keeping the band in the headlights of the oncoming swarm as they kept coming into record stores everywhere in droves to buy the album.
Once you get past those four singles that created the hysteria of Nevermind, you come to a collection of songs that range from the rage to the sublime. Songs that are on the extreme such as “Territorial Pissings” and “Stay Away” are there for the punk rock and fast paced song lovers, whereas there are the acoustically driven quieter songs such as “Polly” and “Something in the Way” also in the mix.
What has always interested me about this album is how much some people trawl for the meanings of the words Cobain wrote in each of the songs. Well, for a start, trying to interpret what he is singing is the first problem faced with that, because Cobain was never the clearest when it came to annunciating when he was singing. Once that has been achieved (the best way it can), just reading the lyrics doesn’t always shine much light on anything. It is obvious that many of the songs had lyrics that were personal to Cobain himself, and often complained about journalists trying to interpret more from what he was singing than what he had put there, as if there was an underlying reason beneath his words.
Despite being held as a beacon of the grunge genre, Nevermind to me had more to do with punk rock than it did with any other genre at the time. It is heralded as one of the leaders of the grunge movement that had its base in the bands from Seattle. Alice in Chains had the harmony vocals and greater structure, Soundgarden was closer to heavy metal, while Nirvana channelled that punk groove for the majority of their balance.

I often ask myself the question – how much longer could this style of music have continued if Nirvana had kept going, if Cobain hadn’t offed himself and they had kept making albums. Because I’m not really sure how much versatility this band had, and of course that statement is an anomaly given the range of material in the songs here. We have seen with Dave Grohl and Foo Fighters how adaptable they have been over the last 25+ years, not just sticking to the sound that came from their first album, and indeed maturing in a billion selling way since. Did Nirvana and Kurt Cobain have that versatility? Indeed, is Nevermind still as universally loved as an album today simply because the band only released three studio albums, and didn’t have the chance to stuff it all up by creating a couple of average albums as the 90’s decade progressed into nu-metal territory. In essence, does this album have an immunity because it is surrounded by so little else from the band to compare it to? Almost everyone probably has a copy of Nevermind, but how many own copies of Bleach and In utero? I guess what I’m saying is that Nevermind has not been polluted by having material released beyond it that wasn’t up to the same standard, or was so different from the songs here that the fans who had come into the band on the back of this album left again in a hurry one or two releases later. The memories that Nevermind recall are caught in that moment of time. Does the fact that the band dissolved two and a half years after this album was released exacerbate that?

In the long run, your love or tepid acceptance of this album will depend on just where and when it entered your life. My kids are pretty much non-plussed about it. They’ll listen to it, enjoy it to some degree, but not find any of it is life changing. I still love the album, and having had it on rotation again for the past couple of weeks in preparation for this episode I have sung along in all the right places. But I know that I have also felt a need to move on to other music for a lot of that time too, in that while listening to the album two or three times was good, but that was enough. Which, is how an album from 30 years ago should be taken. But is that an indication of what I have been talking about? That beyond Nevermind, more of this would have been too much? The answer to me lies in the answer to this question – what is the better album, Nirvana’s Nevermind or Foo Fighters The Colour and the Shape? Your answer to that will decide for YOU where this album stands in the annals of music history.

1130. Gamma Ray / Sigh No More. 1991. 5/5

It would be impossible to convey just how blown away I was when I discovered Helloween back in 1987, and how brilliant I believe those first four albums are. It is also hard to express how much I came to love Kai Hansen as an artist because of it, and then how difficult it was to take when he left the band in 1989. Fear not though! As he went on to form his own new group called Gamma Ray, and the band released their debut album the following year, the quite brilliant Heading for Tomorrow, an album that mixed together everything that had made Helloween as brilliant they had been with a new set of members. Lead vocalist Ralf Scheepers had provided the voice, and an inspired friendship that proved to be. Uwe Wessel on bass and Mathis Burchardt on drums had completed the recording band, while for the tour that followed Dirk Schlachter came on board as second guitarist.After a successful first tour, the band came together to write and record the follow up, soon to be known as Sigh No More. Burchardt had moved on at this point, and in his place came a young drummer by the name of Uli Kusch, a quite brilliant instrumentalist who eventually went on to a storied career in Kai’s former band Helloween. Also for Sigh No More, Dirk joined the band as a permanent member, slotting in as second guitarist.

As excellent as the first album had been, it had been almost a solo effort, as Kai had written all but one of the songs by himself. Here on Sigh No More however, the writing was shared by all members of the band apart from Uli, which given the songs he went on to write for Helloween and Masterplan, it is quite amazing that he didn’t get a chance to offer some material here. Not that the final product needed any more brilliant material than it eventually held. Kai wrote the music for 8 of the 10 tracks, four of those in collaboration with Uwe Wessel, With Uwe going solo on the track “Start Running” and Dirk doing likewise on “Father and Son”. The lyrics were shared by all four on different tracks with Ralf contributing on four tracks with Kai. The result is this did become a real band effort rather than just one individual contributing all of the material, and in many ways you can hear that closeness and collaborative factor in the songs that make up this terrific album.

On Gamma Ray’s first album Heading for Tomorrow what was most noticeable was the positiveness of the songs and lyrics, and the way that Kai’s ‘happy guitar’ that punctuated Helloween songs was prevalent again. Songs such as “Lust for Life”, “Heaven Can Wait”, “Free Time” and “Heading for Tomorrow” all showed a positive outlook on life and sounded upbeat both due to the lyrics and music.
There has been a noticeable progression in both musical style and lyrical outlook here on Sigh No More, not to the point of morbidity but the subject matter is much more serious and worldly that the debut album. It is something that Kai purposely pushed the writing towards. He felt that the first album had had too many elements similar to Helloween, and with the coming tsunami of grunge he felt that the next Gamma Ray album had to be more ‘grown up’.
Top of the list for subject matter is war, something that had taken up the news cycle again in 1991 with the onset of the Gulf War. None of the songs here correlate directly to that or any other conflict, but the war images are there, and while the songs are great the message is somewhat bleak. The songs “As Time Goes By”, “We Won’t Stop the War” and “Start Running” in particular discuss those issues. It is interesting that all of those three songs have four different people writing the lyrics, so it was obviously a subject that was close to the heart of all of the band rather than just one member.
Dirk’s “Father and Son” is a heartfelt tome to his relationship with his own father over his own dreams to make it in the music business, with the lines “You wanted the best for me, somehow things went wrong, and I tore us apart.” best describing that it didn’t end well, and “Rich and Famous” is the closest any songs on this album come to replicating those on the first album, with a tongue-in-cheek discussion about the way some choose fame and fortune over love and happiness.

Then there are the songs which are deep and reflective – lyrically rather than musically – and looking at the world in a different way. The opening track “Changes” is about the challenges of mental health from the writer’s perspective, with the lines “Hard to enjoy the good times, decay is what I feel, God, it's making me porous, vanish in haze, I wonder - wonder if I'm real.” giving a good indication of the way the song describes the mental state. “One With the World” tries to turn around those feelings and project a positive outlook on working through problems and coming up with a positive frame of mind at the end. “Countdown” is Kai’s song about the pressure of trying to get the album finished, and what may not be surprising is that it wouldn’t be his last song about running late for record companies! The final two songs of the album are more uplifting, with “Dream Healer” all about getting the best out of your dreams, and “The Spirit” another positive spin song lyrically on hoping for the best for the world going forward.

Everything here is top shelf. Ralf’s vocals are perfect throughout, with the right amount of emotion and power in the singing depending on the mood. I don’t think his vocals ever sounded better than they do on this album. Uli Kusch’s drumming is brilliant, and though he left to join Helloween after this album and was terrific in the time he was there, it was a shame he left the band. Uwe Wessel on bass again does a great job, but it was also his time to move on after this, apparently from a disagreement that he an Uli both had with the other members of the band. Dirk is great on guitar, despite it being only his second instrumental love, while Kai again tops the charts both in song writing and on lead guitar, leading the way in every way possible.

I’m not going to lie to you – whenever I review a Gamma Ray album over the next few months or years for this podcast, you are going to hear me rave about it. Because out of their whole catalogue, there is only one album I think might be a little bit dodgy. And it isn’t this one.
I was hooked from the very first. I love every song on this album, from the opening of “Changes” and “Rich and Famous”, through “One With the World” and to the conclusion of “Dream Healer” and “The Spirit”. When I got this album I was reading Stephen King’s “Four Past Midnight” collection, and in particular the first novella “The Langoliers”. And now, I can’t listen to this album without thinking about that book. Somehow, the songs perfectly fit the story as it plays out, and for me the two are now entwined forever.

Whatever YOU might feel about German heavy metal, as far as I am concerned this album is absolutely killer. This is the style of music I love the best, the duelling harmony guitars, the double kick drums at speed, the blazing bass guitar, and the vocals that can hit the heights. And Kai Hansen and his band of warriors are at the top of that tree. Apart from Ronnie James Dio, no one has had a greater influence on my love of music than Kai Hansen, and the Godfather delivers here in spades. You may not feel the same way about this album or band – and that’s fine. But for me, I could listen to nothing but Gamma Ray for the rest of my days and die a happy man. And this album is right up there with their greatest.

1129. Ozzy Osbourne / No More Tears. 1991. 5/5

Through the 1980’s Ozzy Osbourne had taken all before him, forging out a career apart from Black Sabbath that eventually outstripped his former band in both popularity and album sales during that decade, thanks to some fortuitous meetings with musicians such as Randy Rhoads, Jake E. Lee and Bob Daisley. Though there were obvious behind the scenes things that went on that were not as wonderful, including a consistent attempt to not give those who helped compose the songs that made him famous the credit they deserved before casting them aside, along with his own alcohol and drug problems, Ozzy marched through the decade of the 1980’s as a hero to the kids and with a string of brilliant albums.

For his previous album No Rest for the Wicked Ozzy had procured a brash young brilliant guitarist named Zakk Wylde, whose signature wailing created the kind of sound that he wanted to continue moving forward and improving the material that was being produced.

When it came to writing and recording this album, No More Tears, there was still plenty happening inside and outside the band. Not for the first time, but in essence probably the last time, Bob Daisley was the musician who was required when it came to putting it all together. The history between Ozzy and Bob is better left to other sources, and the story is both euphoric and inherently sad, but Daisley was brought in again to help with the recording of the album and to find the heart within the songs that were written. Alongside Randy Castillo on drums, these four recorded an album that for its time was just amazing. The 1980’s had been drained away, and in its place was a polished and mature album for the new decade, one that not only sounded like the most well-rounded album Ozzy had ever put his name to, but one which looked like it could push the foursome to even greater heights than they had ever known.

No More Tears takes some interesting paths, ones that wind off onto different parts of the forest of musical styles that the band has drawn from. Opening with “Mr Tinkertrain”, it’s a subject that lyrically at least makes you wonder if this song could be written in this day and age. You get the feeling that the ‘cancel culture’ of today’s protesters may see it as ‘inappropriate’. Despite this it is a great opening to the album, one where all four musicians come at you from the outset.
Lemmy Kilmister has writing credits on four of the songs of the album, and they are a diverse set of tracks. The second song “I Don’t Want to Change the World” is the first with Lemmy’s input, with a rocking track and thoughtful vocals over the top. Lemmy’s influence in the lyrics to both “Hellraiser” and “Desire” especially seem obvious. As it turn out his band Motorhead eventually did their own versions of both these songs, with “Hellraiser” not only appearing on Motorhead’s March ör Die album in 1992 but in the movie and on the soundtrack to Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth - Movie Soundtrack, while Lemmy’s version of “Desire” appeared on the Ozzy Osbourne tribute album A Tribute to Ozzy: Bat Head Soup.
The final song with Lemmy involved is “Mama I’m Coming Home” which was not only the main power ballad on the album and the second single, it also became one of the biggest selling singles of Ozzy’s career.

The songs here vary from the instrumentally technical and heavy in nature to the power ballad styles of “Mama I’m Coming Home” and “Road to Nowhere” and “Time After Time”. These songs still seem to be able to slip into the usual Ozzy narrative without appearing overtly as though they are looking for commercial success. The fact that “Mama I’m Coming Home” was so successful in this perhaps shone a focus on those three songs more heavily than would otherwise have been the case. I get the feeling that it proved to influence the way future albums were written in a way, but this may well just have been because Bob Daisley was not utilised in any fashion beyond this album, and that Zakk Wylde was not always involved in the writing process after this album as much as he had been. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always enjoyed all three of those songs, and indeed quite love “Mama I’m Coming Home” - I think it just fits so smoothly into the concept of the album and its positioning in the track list works best in its favour. It’s interesting though that this style of song finds its way back into the mix, and both “Road to Nowhere” and “Time after Time” as well. I think the length of the album works in its favour. At almost an hour it is the longest of Ozzy’s albums to this point, and that allows these songs to sit within the mix without dominating the album.
Pack this alongside the fast tempo songs that are still what drives the album, and you can hear what makes this version of the band one of its best. "Won't Be Coming Home (S.I.N.)" is a great track where I still have no idea what the SIN stands for. “Desire”, “Hellraiser”, “Zombie Stomp”, “A.V.H”... they are all just fantastic. Indeed, that is definitely done with the songs that have the harder drums and utilise the brilliance of Zakk Wylde’s guitar. “Hellraiser” in particular is a gem, with great lyrics and Zakk’s guitar that dominates.
“No More Tears” is the epic, the track that binds the whole album together, and perfectly showcases the still brilliant sound and skill of Bob Daisley on bass guitar, the thrumming drum timing of Randy Castillo and that brutal and precision perfect guitar playing of Zakk Wylde, topped off by Ozzy’s still wonderful vocals over the top of it all. Of all the tracks that have appeared on Ozzy’s albums with his name on the cover – and there have been plenty – this track perhaps still showcases the best of everything that the band and the writing can offer.

When this was released in 1991, it was huge. As I have mentioned of the other albums I have reviewed that were released in that year, grunge had begun to squeeze its tentacles around the music industry, with its leading album just a few days away from being released itself. That this album still sold so well within this environment is perhaps somewhat remarkable, but it does truly show the high esteem that Ozzy Osbourne himself was held in, and his ability to cross genres was probably perfectly shown because of “No More Tears”.
I adored this album when it was released. Even amongst the plethora of albums that seemed to come out around this time, “No More Tears” still managed to take up a fair amount of my music listening time. For quite some time I even rated this as my favourite Ozzy Osbourne album, such was the overall standard of the songs and musicianship and song writing. Further contemplation beyond that period led me to re-evaluate and come back to the conclusion that those albums of the ‘Blizzard of Ozz’ band, the Rhoads-Daisley-Kerslake days, are quite special, but this album continues to rank barely behind them.

This was arguably Ozzy’s last great moment in music. The following album Ozzmosis was on a hiding to nothing in following this but still has some great material, but the lack of inspiration beyond that release has been quite noticeable. The tour that supported this album was called “No More Tours” as it was going to be the final time Ozzy went out and played live. There is good and bad in the fact that it proved not to be the case. The live album recorded on the tour, Live & Loud, is a cracker. It also meant that in 1998 Ozzy toured Australia on a greatest hits setlist that was one of the best concerts I have ever seen. And of course at the final two nights of this ‘supposed’ last tours he played two songs as an encore with the original Black Sabbath band, which... eventually.... led them to further tours and a final album some 20 years later.

No More Tears sometimes doesn’t get the credit and kudos it deserves. I think it is a brilliant album, one that everyone should own.

1099. Skid Row / Slave to the Grind. 1991. 4.5/5

Back in the deep and distant past when I still had more vinyl than CD’s, I was a big fan of Skid Row’s debut album, and having then seen them on their subsequent world tour I had pondered what their next album would be like. We had been given a sneak preview at their 1990 Sydney gig with the playing of a new song “Get the Fuck Out” (only the second time they’d played it live), which augured well to my ears. When I then came across a pre-release copy of Slave to the Grind while in Bali in 1991 and first played it on my cassette Walkman that afternoon, I can honestly say that I never expected to hear what I heard.

How do you go from the happy-go-lucky feel of Skid Row to the crunching monster that is Slave to the Grind? There was attitude on the debut, but it was the attitude of teenagers taunting adults from a safe distance and then running away laughing. That’s not what is thrown at you on this album. The attitude here is from a confident adult who isn’t afraid to stand their ground and be seen for what they are saying. That attitude on the first album is increased tenfold here on the sophomore effort.
From the first time I put on the album I was transfixed. I had expected something similar to what the band had produced with Skid Row, but I was very much mistaken. The opening scream at the start of “Monkey Business” was just the beginning. But it is that guttural guitar riff and rolling drum beat opening on the title track “Slave to the Grind” that topped it all off and really gets you in. Fast and heavy, and that chunking guitar riff that blows the speakers apart. This was no hair metal band singing about the youth going wild or wanting to remember you, this was a bonafide heavy metal band exploding onto the scene with a presence and heaviness that could not have been predicted.
Some songs may have a similar structure and sound - “Psycho Love” and “Creepshow” I can still confuse before I start singing the lyrics and realise which song it actually is – but the mixture throughout is one of the strengths. The album doesn’t go hard for the duration, nor does it let you stop and wallow in the slower and more reflective moments for long enough to stop the album’s momentum. Every outstanding aspect of the band shines through in the songs and track list as it is set out.

The songs and music written for this album are just brilliant. Heavy riffs perfectly woven by Dave Sabo and Scotti Hill and driven by the hard hitting rhythm of Rob Affuso on drums and the added huge bottom end from Rachel Bolan on bass. Bolan and Sabo were again the main songwriters for the album and their growth over the previous two years is obvious in the songs they have collaborated on.
But the star attraction of the album is still the amazing vocals of Sebastian Bach. He is what makes this album so brilliant, because his versatility and range and ability to stretch from the heaviest vocal track to the highest rock ballad without compromising his harmony and pitch is pure gold. The vocal especially in “Living on a Chain Gang” is just superb. It drives that song to new heights, while the supporting vocals underneath perfectly offset Seb’s tangents. And then his performance in those angry tracks such as “Get the Fuck Out” and “Riot Act” shows great strength and purpose.
Even the hard rock ballads they produce are difficult to dislike, as Seb’s vocals roll like oozing honey out of the speakers at you. This is especially true of “Quicksand Jesus” and “In a Darkened Room”, two songs that I would usually have trouble enjoy but have no qualms about while listening to Seb singing them, while his vocal on the closing track “Wasted Time” is reminiscent of that on “I Remember You” from the first album, but with a greater authority and maturity than that song. Superb.

This should have been the springboard to a massive future for Skid Row as a band. Having come in with a hair metal confidence they had progressed to a real heavy metal attitude with this release, and set themselves up to become as big as they could possibly be. And then it went pear shaped. Whether it was the tension within the band or just the fact that music went through such an enormous upheaval with grunge and then hardcore changing the landscape, Skid Row never again produced anything like this album. For me it was one of the great tragedies of the 1990’s.

Best songs: “Slave to the Grind”, “Get the Fuck Out”, “Livin’ on a Chain Gang”, “Riot Act”.

Rating:  “A hungry politician is the wolf that's at the door.”  4.5/5

1092. Judas Priest / The Complete Painkiller Tour [Live Bootleg]. 1991. 4/5

I didn’t become interested in tracking down bootleg concert recordings until the age of the internet, mainly because I had no way of finding a way into the network that went through such things in my pocketed little corner of Australia. Once the internet became an accessible thing it became something I was much more interested in, and especially from tours that we had not been fortunate enough to have seen here. Amid the reunited Judas Priest of the new millennium I began hunting for anything I could find from the tour promoting my favourite Priest album Painkiller, and that search eventually came up with this gem of a recording.
For the most part, what I was looking for was live recordings of the songs off the Painkiller album, and this doesn’t quite cover it, despite 

proclaiming to have every song from the tour.

As a matter of fact, both “Metal Meltdown” and “A Touch of Evil” were played but they don’t appear on either disc of this album. No big deal, but it still would have been good to have had them as a part of this collection.
Instead what we have here is two performances, one from the start of the tour and one from closer to the end. The first disc is compiled from radio broadcasts of the opening night of the tour in Los Angeles and as such is good quality. This includes the performance of “Better By You, Better By Me” that was at the centre of the court case that the band had spent much of the previous year fighting over the two kids who had claimed the song had backwards messages suggesting they commit suicide. It had delayed the release of the album and the start of the tour, and playing this song was no doubt a little stress reliever for them. Apart from this, the set list contains what you would expect, along with “Between the Hammer and the Anvil” and “Leather Rebel” from the Painkiller album. It’s a good listen.
The second disc is a great audience recording from their gig at Offenbach, Germany in February 1991. This is a true bootleg because the crowd are in the foreground and the band in the background, complete with the crowd nearby the recorder singing along in unison. This is what makes a great bootleg in my opinion, getting a great impression of how the crowd is enjoying the show, while still hearing the songs in there as well. The addition of “All Guns Blazing”, “Night Crawler” and “Painkiller” make this an excellent representation to what is a great disc.

This wasn’t exactly what I was looking for when I went searching for live performances of the songs of Painkiller, but it probably doesn’t exist anyway. What I found instead was an excellent bootleg of two complete gigs from the same tour, where Judas Priest are at the peak of their powers and showcasing their wares to the world. Those that enjoy bootlegs will get a lot from this double album. Those that prefer the crisp live recordings that comes from official releases will still be surprised just how good this sounds.

Rating: “Lightning in the dark!!” 4/5

1055. Guns n' Roses / Use Your Illusion II. 1991. 3/5.

From the outset, the appearance of Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II on the same day created mayhem amongst fans of Guns n' Roses who had been waiting with anticipation for new material from the band. Two albums meant a lot of juggling when it came to listen and giving all of the material a fair chance to grow with love. Over time I came to enjoy the mix of material on Use Your Illusion I, and over time I came to consider just where it was that Use Your Illusion II couldn't quite match up to it.

There are two great songs on this album, ones that have resonated through time and still stand out as the best here every time they come on. The album opener “Civil War” is a classic, with its opening monologue taken from the movie “Cool Hand Luke”, the moody start to the hard and emotional ride beyond, it is one of the songs that shows the other side to Guns n’ Roses, not just the crass and pissed off side, the one where the band’s lifestyle comes through in the lyrics. “Civil War” shows a mature side, a meaningful side to the band’s song writing, and for me it is one of their best songs. The other is “You Could Be Mine” which found its way onto the soundtrack of “Terminator 2: Judgement Day”, and it too shows the technical side of the band and its musicians. It is a heavy, rollicking song that reaches for the pinnacle, and tests the limits of any singer’s vocal chords. Hard hitting drums, awesome guitars and great lyrics make for a terrific song and the best the band can offer.
Beyond this there are other layers of songs that fill the album, some are good and others are really only average. Unlike the other album I don't believe the songs tie together as well here as they do on it, and whether that is because most of this is 'newer' material is not something I can answer.
Sitting in the middle would be songs such as the piano ragtime sensibilities of "14 Years" which I alternately enjoy or dismiss depending on my mood at the time. "Yesterdays" again is heavily based around the piano and the tempo probably precludes my total enjoyment of the track. The cover version of "Knocking on Heaven's Door" doesn't do it for me like its sister track from Use Your Illusion I, "Live and Let Die", probably only for the fact that I've never really liked the song anyway. It's okay for the mix of songs available.
"Get in the Ring" is an abusive laden sledge fest at critics and hangers on over the career of the band, with little left to the imagination as to what they really think of those people mentioned. Once again, as with "Yesterdays" I can really get into this song on some days and on others I can quiet happily skip it if I'm not in the mood. "Shotgun Blues" is closer to the sound the band gave us on their first album and is more recognisable as a result. "Breakdown" is fine but a bit long on the run time. "Pretty Tied Up (The Perils of Rock 'n' Roll Decadence)" has its moments where it is fun to listen to, and for the most part so is "Locomotive (Complicity)", but once again it just goes on way beyond the length of time it needs to.
"So Fine" is written by and sung by Duff McKagan, and apart from that novelty the song is about average for the rest of the album. For my taste it is too slow and maudlin at the beginning to be an enjoyable track before it breaks out towards the end.
"Estranged" is a long winded, overblown extravagance of a song that goes nowhere and takes an eternity to do so. I have never found anything even remotely terrific about this track. With so many of these tracks it feels like they have been extended purely to try and get the album up to its maximum length of 78 minutes that a CD would hold in those good old days of the early 1990's. Sure, quantity can be better, but only if it is quality.
"Don't Cry" is the second version of this song, with alternate lyrics from the twin track that appears on Use Your Illusion I. I haven't ever been a fan of either version. "My World" completes the album in reasonable fashion without being able to rescue it from its own averageness.

As I said in my review of Use Your Illusion I, taking the best songs from both albums and combining it into just one would have been a much better idea, and produced a much better product. With that in mind, I don't think there would have been a great deal of material from this album that would end up on a combined effort. Much of this feels and sounds forced, and without great inspiration. Others may disagree, but unless there is some stimulant involved I can't get overly excited about what is contained within.

Rating: "I'm a cold heart-breaker, fit to burn, and I'll rip your heart in two". 3/5

999. Iced Earth / Night of the Stormrider. 1991. 3/5

While Iced Earth’s debut album Iced Earth whetted the appetite without creating too many waves, there was great hopes that the follow up would be able to eradicate the lesser parts of that album and replace it with more of the good. In essence that meant replacing lead vocalist Gene Adam and bringing in John Greely in his stead, and more of that galloping guitar and drum beat flying through the songs to get it on the right track.

In short, in my opinion, it probably needed to be backed up with better vocals. I’m not exactly sure if vocalist John Greely based his vocal technique on any one singer, as he seems to jump around in style between King Diamond, Rob Halford and Cronos. The energy is there, but averages out all the good that comes from the music in the long run. I’m really couldn’t split Greely and original vocalist Gene Adam as to who annoys more as to downgrading awesome songs. And singling out the vocalist for being the difference is completely unfair I know, but whenever I listen to this album or its predecessor I can’t help but wonder how good it would sound with any of the future vocalists in charge. You only have to hear Matt Barlow’s live versions on Alive in Athens to know I’m right. And as it turned out, I gained a greater respect and understanding of this album from listening to Barlow singing these songs live on that album. Because they all sound better live, and the vocals have so much more power and tone there than they do here.
The opening three songs are great – “Angels’ Holocaust”, “Stormrider” and “The Path I Choose”. I don’t understand “Before the Vision” at all. Okay yes, I know it’s a part of the concept story but it doesn’t fit musically at all. Just another example of the sometimes muddled thinking about where to place songs on an Iced Earth album and how that may affect the run and mood of said album. “Mystical End” I think is only average, but this is followed by “Desert Rain” which lifts the bar again. “Pure Evil” is a song that changes inflection throughout, dependant on the style of guitar and vocals that come with it. I still think this is half genius and half ‘WTF?!’ But seriously, when the gallop comes in this song really goes hard. After more distraction from the acoustic bridge of “Reaching the End” we are treated to the excellent closing track “Travel in Stygian” which, despite its changes in tempo and mood throughout which does annoy me no end, finishes off the album in style.

While I may have overplayed the problems with the vocals that doesn’t eradicate any fault in the song writing. For me (and I may be on my lonesome here) I just don’t like the constant switching between moods in the same song. To me it halts the momentum of the song, and then the album. There is a lot to like here if you are a fan, and it does auger well for future releases, which of course is the good news that eventually came our way.

Rating:  "We paint the sky with blood tonight, setting free the damned to fight".  3/5

985. Metallica / Metallica. 1991. 4/5

The anticipation leading up to the release of Metallica back in 1991 was almost unbearable. In the three years leading up to it we had had ...And Justice for All blow us away, followed by our first sighting of the band in Australia on the Damaged Justice tour which was unbelievable. Then a few short weeks before its release the single “Enter Sandman” had been released, and again caused an outbreak of mayhem. It was a foregone conclusion that the new album was going to be amazing and none of us could wait to hear it. Perhaps we expected too much. For parts of it, we didn’t expect what we got.

No doubt the experience of this album was different for those that didn’t grow up in the 1980’s and grew up with the first four Metallica albums as the template you expected. Those that came in at this point probably have a greater love for what Metallica ended up producing through the 1990’s as a result, because Metallica set the new blueprint in place. Overall it is of a more even tempo, a less frantic and more mature sound, utilising more grooves than out-and-out duelling riffs and a much more simplified drum technique. All Metallica fans know about how the album came to be made, it was all filmed and released on the “A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica” video. Bob Rock came in as producer, James blew his voice out, there was a feeling from within the band that they needed to continue to adapt. On its release and it having been digested by all over a matter of months, there were (and are) those who felt it was a sell out by the band, a deliberate softening of their sound in order to gain radio airplay and make more sales. Most of the evidence available at that time and since suggests this isn’t the case. In the first instance, you wouldn’t say that a song like “Sad But True” is a softened song simply because the tempo is reeled right back. In the second instance, this album becomes a bridge to the following two albums, where the style of songs that the band produced headed further in the direction this one had taken from its predecessor. It is just the start of the path, and if it was selling out for more money then surely the backlash that occurred during the decade from their core fan base was enough to show that it wasn’t going to work. Instead, the band went in the direction they wanted to for their own reasons, not the call of the dollar.
In 1991, my initial reaction to the album was positive. When you are 21, you seem to have more time to listen to the same album a hundred times in a week, and I’m pretty sure this is what I did with Metallica. The opening track I was already more than familiar with, as “Enter Sandman” had not only infiltrated all of the music video shows but had even creeped onto the radio in places. I loved the slow heated rage of “Sad But True” with the nuances and range that James uses to push his emotions through. The return to the fast paced “Holier Than Thou” spitting at you from out of the speakers always increase the heart rate. The majestic rising and falling of “Wherever I May Roam” has that atmosphere that drives your emotions faster than you would imagine the tempo of the song could. “Don’t Tread on Me” was harder to get into, its song structure always felt more offbeat than I was comfortable with. Then the drive into “Through the Never” erased any doubts and always brought back those glad tidings. “Of Wolf and Man” was another immediate favourite, one I would sing at the top of my lungs in my downstairs bedroom. “The God That Failed” I always cast in the same category as “Don’t Tread on Me” as one of those middle range songs. The mood created by Jason Newsted’s bass riff at the start of “My Friend of Misery” would send chills down my spine when it started, and the closing song “The Struggle Within” is probably the song that most closely relates to the thrash roots of the band, with the speed, complexities and heavy riff always finishing off the album on a great note. While it was the first Metallica album that I didn’t absolutely love all the way through from start to finish, I still played it for months and loved it as best I could.

As that happy and carefree 21 year old, I was never able to reconcile the two problem songs of the album, and as a happy and careworn 47 year old I still have the same problems today. “The Unforgiven” never ever sat easy with me. Can I tell you why? Not exactly, no. As many thought at the time, it felt like a ‘radio-friendly’ song, one that would appease those who listened to commercial radio. And “Nothing Else Matters” was and even firmer example. It broke the Metallica mould well and truly. Of course, the ballad was a well-known entity in the metal world, but for the most part it was a feared entity for my generation. We could take them from bands such as Scorpions and Motley Crüe because that was a part of their makeup, but it wasn’t a part of Metallica’s DNA, and that was scary.
I always came back to these types of Metallica songs by comparing them to “Fade to Black”, which isn’t a radio-friendly song but was the slower paced, clear guitar, soulful vocal song from the band’s past that you could judge these songs against. Because there is no selling out with “Fade to Black”, it is just an awesome piece of song writing and music. Listen to it, and then listen to “The Unforgiven” and “Nothing Else Matters”, and judge the difference between them. I’ve said this before, but maybe if I came across Metallica at the age of 14 in 1991 these songs would resonate with me as much as “Fade to Black” does with me in my own age bracket. Is it just a timing thing – that because I grew up with the early albums and can’t cotton onto these two songs because I expected more, then and now? That argument could be made and would make for a worthwhile discussion. The conclusion for me here is that these did sound like radio songs and that is what they became. Even listening to them today, and especially their performance at concerts I have attended, they just left me feeling flat.

With the groundwork set, the path for Metallica’s progression (or regression) in the 1990’s was laid down here. In 1991 I loved this album but with reservations. In the changing world of music at the time where grunge was exerting its influence no one knew how much heavy metal was going to be affected. This album still stands as a testament to Metallica’s ability to adapt to their own maturing loves, and while it has its detractors for one reason or another there is no denying that much of this is terrific material which is still a hell of a lot better than what most bands can produce.

Rating:  “What is it, what have you got to lose”.  4/5

983. Soundgarden / Badmotorfinger. 1991. 4.5/5

There are moments in life that can stand out amongst all other memories, that are the ones that are easily remembered when the right question is asked. When I am asked “When did you first hear Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger album?” it is an easy answer. It was on the day it was released, which was also my 22nd birthday. A mate of mine bought it that day, and insisted I come over for a beer and to listen to it. I had heard snatches of Soundgarden’s earlier material at that stage, but not a lot. What I heard that day didn’t change my life, but it certainly enhanced it.

How do you describe such an album? I wasn’t sure at the time, but this was when grunge was just beginning to take hold, with albums such as Nirvana’s Nevermind, Pearl Jam’s Ten and Alice in Chains' Facelift also coming out, each with their own interpretation of the Seattle sound. Badmotorfinger wasn’t like those albums. It immediately had that traditional heavy metal element infused into the songs, such that I couldn’t possibly categorise the album as a grunge album. In fact, I couldn’t categorise them in any particular genre, because in many ways this album transcends that (as indeed do all of those albums mentioned). All I knew was that from the opening stanza this album was something special, and I had to get it.
For me, it is the first half of this album that does everything right. It appeals to my musical loves. I never owned this on vinyl, as by this time it was CD that had become the format for my collections, but if I had I reckon I would have worn out the first side of the album such was its pull over me. From the opening strains of “Rusty Cage” to that amazing sound the band squeezes out of “Outshined” as those vocals croon at the brilliant pitch, the two opening songs sound like studio jams with the foursome just hammering away on their instruments while someone records them in a corner. That guitar sound in “Outshined” is just fantastic.
For those that are of a mind to want to categorise this album, it’s not an easy one. Grunge had arrived and Soundgarden certainly infused that sound throughout their music, but this was mixed with the hard arsed metal guitar of Kim Thayil. “Slaves & Bulldozers” may be the perfect example of this. It has that slow tempo throughout that typified much of what grunge was, but listen to that guitar! Not only in the rhythm rumbling along the underlying song with Ben Shepherd’s cool as ice bass and Matt Cameron’s perpetual motion drumming, but also in the solo pieces he gets to add. And then Chris Cornell’s vocals, going from calm and low to the brilliant high energy scream. There is so much of Black Sabbath’s legacy within this song that surely it has to be metal! So, how do you categorise it? In the long run, if you are trying to describe the sound to a potential listener, you just have to say ‘put it on and find out for yourself’
For the metal lovers, “Jesus Christ Pose” and “Face Pollution” are the obvious winners on this album because they just hammer along and drag you into that headbanging action you know so well, and force you to try and sing along at the same pitch that Cornell does. Which is literally impossible, but you have to try, before eventually finding your own range of comfort. As “Slaves & Bulldozers” rolls almost literally into the brilliant “Jesus Christ Pose”, with that fabulous riff over Cameron’s amazing drum performance before Cornell’s vocals just take off, you can only wonder in awe at how this band puts together so many unique sounds in a collection of songs. “Jesus Christ Pose” is that song that every garage band in the world wants to play, but has four instrumental pieces combined here that are practically impossible for amateurs to play and make sound good. Bass, guitar, drums, vocals. No chance on all counts. “Face Pollution” then follows this up at speed with not so much low end guitar but plenty of flailing and energy.
I’m not going to say that this is the best section of any album ever, but while I can find others that may equal this, I cannot say that there is any better ‘first five songs on an album’ ever. So don’t get me wrong when I suggest that the second half of the album mightn’t quite stack up to the first half. I’m not saying is that it isn’t very good. That isn’t true, because the performances and songs on the second half of the album are still awesome. They are different though. They are of a slower tempo generally, and find their way into that alternative medium that is more similar to those other bands they came through the scene with.
“Somewhere” pulls back from the metal heights and finds the middle ground again in more of an alternative sound, clearer guitar. “Searching With My Good Eye Closed” is perhaps the less impactful song on the album for me after the assault of the opening songs. This is brought back into line by “Room a Thousand Years Wide” which has a great underlying riff throughout while Cornell takes control of the song with his driving vocals. “Mind Riot” and “Drawing Flies” both settle back into that comfortable mid-section of the album. The passion of Cornell’s vocals in “Holy Water” drags this from being a good song into being a terrific song. The closing track “New Damage” has that mid-range latter day Sabbath tempo with the band doing their thing while Cornell croons over the top. The sludgy, syrupy guitar, drum and vocals here is the closest indicator to the bands’ genre standing in the community.

25 years after its release, Badmotorfinger remains a hallmark of the period. It managed to draw in those punters who were beginning to take on the newly romanticised genre of grunge while also compelling those punters who were hanging on to 1980’s heavy metal to also love this, and yet it hasn’t dated. It holds true to what it was when it was recorded, and still old fans and new fans alike can put this on in this day and age and find stuff to love. Perhaps it is not for everyone, and future blockbuster albums were perhaps more accessible for the next generation, but this album is perhaps still the one that best holds true to Soundgarden’s roots.

Rating:  “Now I’m in the mirror, now it’s getting clear”  4.5/5

957. Helloween / Pink Bubbles Go Ape. 1991. 2.5/5

In 1991 I was on my first trip to Bali, and apart from sampling plenty of satay and Bintang, I also perused the elaborate cassette stalls that were set up in those days. I was still a vinyl collector in those days and was beginning to move towards CDs as well, but in Bali you could buy practically anything on cassette tape. As I browsed the selections, I came across this strange looking cassette cover with a woman trying to deep throat a fish. On closer inspection it was - FINALLY! - a new album from Helloween! You beauty I cried! And so the purchase was made and I had my first listening of new Helloween material in three years.

Having gotten over Kai Hansen's departure with the release of his new band Gamma Ray's album the previous year, I was interested to hear what Helloween would produce now that one of the main songwriters had moved on. In his place had emerged Roland Grapow, who had taken over the contribution schedule of Kai, as well as Michael Kiske stepping up his writing contributions as well.
So what do we have? Well, I can say with some certainty that although my youthful self was initially excited with the first couple of listens to the album, I knew something was wrong from the outset. This had increased in danger signs by the time I had arrived home from my overseas jaunt, and was confirmed when, even though I went out and bought this album on CD on my arrival home, it has rarely been pulled from the shelf since.
The continued development of the Helloween sound from album to album continues here, but is arguably even more dramatic than what occurred between their debut album and the Keeper albums. There is now no semblance of the speed metal that was a part of every track of the band's early days, and you would argue just how much of this material could really be attributed to the power metal genre either. It has a very easy listening feel to it, it isn't threatening and there's not a lot to get up and jump around with. The question that is raised most by this album is "who is to be credited with this softening approach to the music"? Historically, it has been Michael Kiske who has been lumbered with the blame for how this album, and eventually with the follow up album Chameleon, was written. Given his later comments on the heavy metal music genre, he was probably an easy target. But he wasn't the only writer on this album. Perhaps the larger problem was the lack of material produced by Michael Weikath, who along with Kai Hansen had produced the bulk of the recorded material in the band's history before this. Weiki's only written contributions on Pink Bubbles Go Ape are the second single "Number One", which is a somewhat lumbering power ballad, and a co-write with Kiske on "Heavy Metal Hamsters" which is goofy interlude somewhat in the traditions of "Rise and Fall". Given the almost complete revamp of writers on this album, it probably shouldn't be surprising that the sound of the album is almost a complete 180 degree reversal from their earlier work.
Even when trying to look on the positive side of the album, it is difficult to decipher what works here and what doesn't. The opening gambit of Kiske's "Pink Bubbles Go Ape" was amusing the first couple of times, but appears like an indulgence not worth pursuing after that. The first single "Kids of the Century" is fun enough and listenable enough, as is the follow up "Back on the Streets", but by this time it is obvious the who musical direction is being twisted. Following "Number One" and "Heavy Metal Hamsters", "Goin' Home" and "Someone's Crying" don't inspire any further wonderful feelings about where we are headed. "Mankind" is probably the closest you will come to here of a fully recognisable Helloween song, though it still mixes things within the framework that make you wonder what is happening. "I'm Doin' Fine, Crazy Man" further pushes those boundaries. "The Chance" at least allows Kiske to fully utilise his amazing voice and it travels along in a pleasing way, that perhaps only sounds that way because of what has come before it. Any good work is washed away with acid by the dreadful and deploring closing track "Your Turn", which would do the term 'power ballad' an injustice. Yes, that's how much I think of it.

About the best I can say about this album is that when I put it on today to review, I listened to it five times all the way through, and found I could accept it for what it is without trying to make it something it isn't. By my standards of Helloween the band, this is not a Helloween album. It's an album that has members of that band playing on it, but its like a side project, one where they have diversified their sound from what they would normally play. I can listen to it fine enough, but it brought no feeling in me like the best heavy metal albums do. It is like an easy-listening album. Perhaps that is this album's greatest put down.

Rating:  "We're the Kids of the Century, it wasn't our fault, everything's done now we fall".   2.5/5

785. Scatterbrain / Scamboogery. 1991. 2/5

After the somewhat phenomenal success of their debut and previous album Here Comes Trouble, it was a fait accompli that I was going to buy their follow up, with the absolute expectation that it would be as good, if not better, than that album.

Error.

This isn't a bad album by any stretch of the imagination, but it isn't any different either. Well, it is different in a couple of ways. There is no song here that grabs you like "Here Comes Trouble" or "Down With the Ship" or "I'm With Stupid". They are all performed well, they all fit together like an album should, but there is no hook, nothing to grab you and insist that you MUST listen to this album again and again and again. And perhaps the best indication of this is that it was their second and final release.
Perhaps the gravest error they have made is that the songs SOUND like the songs from the first album, and in some cases, such as "Tastes Just Like Chicken" and "Scamboogery" they even have the same song format as some of those from the first album. Now, is this just because this is what the band's style is, and so the songs are similar? Or were they looking for a similar sound so as to link to the first album and hopefully have fans of that album love this one just as much? Or (and possibly closer to the truth) did they just not have any huge ideas for a follow up, and stuck to the same game plan in the hope it would sound original and a progression from the first album?

Overall, you would think this would be as much fun as their previous album, and it just isn't. It's probably a pretty good indication that Scatterbrain was a one trick pony, and that lightning couldn't strike twice. In the end it is a shame more than a disappointment.

Rating:  Odds stacked against you, tough odds to beat.  2/5

723. Y & T / Yesterday & Today Live. 1991. 3.5/5

There was a time in the early to mid-1980's where Y & T looked as though they were going to be one of the biggest bands running around. With albums such as Earthshaker and Black Tiger and Mean Streak as their basis, the band had built up a big following on the back of some great hard rock and heavy songs, retaining their melodic background. Decisions and directions from that point on seemed to eat away at both the following and the quality of their work, somewhat disappointingly from a fans point of view.

At the end of that era, this album was released, recorded at the end of a tour that was presented as their last, but as with all rock bands it proceeded not to be. However, a vast array of their best songs can be found here, showcased with the energy and drive that the band was best known for. As you listen down the song list, it is hard to believe that they were unable to write more songs of this vintage. The opening of "Meanstreak" into "Hurricane" and "Don't Stop Runnin'" is still just awesome, three great songs from the band's greatest era. Other pearls such as "Black Tiger", "Midnight in Tokyo" and "Squeeze" complement these terrific jewels. It may not be a veritable best-of collection, but it is an excellent portrayal of the band's live sound and stage presence.
If you have not experienced Y & T, this isn't a bad place to start, before going back and checking out the three albums listed above.

Rating: "Better open your eyes, boy...  3.5/5

684. Guns N' Roses / Use Your Illusion I. 1991. 4/5

Following the enormity of Appetite for Destruction it was always going to be interesting scenario to see what Guns N' Roses would do in order to equal or top its popularity. It would be safe to say that it would have been difficult to predict that the response would be to write, record and release TWO albums, both on the same day. An impossible task, you would say, to do so and to be able to sell both in appropriate numbers. But they did, and for the most part they succeeded in doing so with both albums.
This is a real eclectic mix, showing that their music cannot be categorised in a single genre. But, they are able to mix it into a format here that, for the most part, makes the album a winner.
The good songs are terrific, top-shelf stuff. They are songs you can easily walk around singing in your head for days afterwards when you have thrown the album on for a whirl. The lesser songs on the album are, well, average at worst, and OK on most scales. The album survives on a whole because these songs - good, average, fast, slow, heavy, soft - all mix themselves in to the playlist such that whatever your tastes or likes of each song, you can be sure that it will be offset by the next song in order. It means that, even though some of these songs could be considered "skip" songs, you have no desire to do so, because it all seems to fit together rather nicely.

It kicks off with brilliant "Right Next Door to Hell", a breezy mix of lyrics and guitar shovelled in until it bursts through the speakers, a song that could easily have come from their debut opus. This is followed by "Dust N Bones" which slows the tempo down immediately and also introduces the piano into the mix as well.
The cover version of Wings' "Live and Let Die" is a real treat. It pays homage to the original but not straying too far from its formula, but it gives it a real hard rock edge, and the energy that comes out is just awesome. "Don't Cry" (this version being dubbed the "Original Version" rather than the "Alternate Lyrics" version on Use Your Illusion II) is tolerable without being anything above average. I feel as though this is this album's "Paradise City", a song that most others seem to love, but that I find quite average.
"Perfect Crime" is what I would consider the best type of Guns N' Roses song. It is short, sharp, taxing vocals, great riff and solo break and terrific drumming, all at a cracking pace. Great stuff all round. This is followed by "You Ain't the First", an acoustic song in the same style as what was done on G N' R Lies. Now, while that stuff was OK for an EP release, I don't really see the need to revisit it here on a new album a couple of years later. If you wanted to write this song, then do it at THAT time! Sure, that's just my opinion, but it did seem a little odd at this time of the album. "Bad Obsession" reinvigorates the piano here, as well as bringing in the harmonica, so that it has a real rockabilly feel to the song. Another song for me that isn't bad, but it doesn't appeal either. "Back Off Bitch" is a much more straight forward hard rock song, with typical Axl attitude. "Double Talkin' Jive" is a really subtle under toned kind of song, featuring Izzy Stradlin on vocals and an extended guitar solo from Slash that leads out the song.
"November Rain" was the overblown lengthy single, and the video it spawned is by all accounts one of the most expensive ever produced. To be honest, when I first listened to the song on the album I was less than excited about it, but, having had it played on the radio for six months straight, and having seen the video for the song a thousand times, it did begin to grow on me. Though I would never call it once of their greatest songs, I do now find myself enjoying it whenever it comes on. "The Garden" follows this, which features Alice Cooper on vocals on part of the song, and it is written in a very Alice Cooper-type way. You could easily mistake it for one of his songs, such is the mood and tempo it is played and sung at. "Garden of Eden" moves the album back into fourth gear, driving along at a frenetic pace that had been missing from the previous couple of songs.
"Don't Damn Me" starts off with a great rock riff and Axl at his best, spitting out lyrics in an incomprehensible tone and without taking a breath, which seems literally impossible if you try and sing along with him. It has a great solo from Slash and is one of my favourite songs on the album. I cannot understand why they have never played it live, it just feels like a great live song. "Bad Apples", dominated by the piano of Dizzy Reed, sounds as though it could be being played in an old western bar, the band in the corner playing while everyone around them sips whisky and plays poker. "Dead Horse" is of a similar vein, although there is not the dominating presence of the piano here that there was on "Bad Apples" it is much more driven by the guitars.
The album wraps up with the 10 minute sleeper, "Coma". In so many ways, certainly when I first got the album and listened to it, this song really did almost send me into a coma. It really dragged out the conclusion of the album, and on two occasions during the song it feels like it is finished, only to kick start again (no doubt much like a coma victim). In recent times I have come to enjoy it much more than I did in those days twenty years ago, though i still think it is dragged on far longer than is necessary.

I have always felt, probably like a majority of people, that if the band had just taken the best parts of both Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, and fused them together, they could have made one album that may have reached legendary status. As it turns out, both of them stand up on their own. Use Your Illusion I has something for just about everyone's musical taste, and all with a distinctive Guns N' Roses flavour about them, which is quite an achievement. To me, there are a lot of songs here that I like rather than love, and a numberof others I can tolerate rather than like. With an album so long and with so many songs of varying styles, you might be able to find a lot that you enjoy, but there will also through sheer volume be a few that you are ambivalent about. In an overall rating of the album, this is what costs it getting full marks.

561. Queen / Innuendo. 1991. 4.5/5

In a different time and age, it was sometimes difficult to find out what date albums would be released, and then it depended on what record store you were going to, and whether they kept your genre of music, as to whether they would even have it on said date. Innuendo for me was one of those albums that I got on the day of release, forgoing my lunch break to rush off to the record store to secure my copy.
Given that touring was no longer an option for the band with Freddie’s illness, the band had plenty of time to spend in a studio, allowing them to experiment and throw in whatever instrumental pieces they wanted to, almost like The Beatles had in their latter years. Most of that is showcased here, with an eclectic mix of faster, slower, intricate, big-band, orchestral and quieter songs.

There are absolute gems. “Innuendo” is almost an album in itself, the work that goes into that song is amazing. “Headlong” is probably the best pure hard rock song on the album. “I Can’t Live With You” is another great song, Freddie’s vocal’s here are just awesome, reaching all the depths and heights without a care in the world.
“Ride the Wild Wind” is one of my favourite all-time Queen songs, as much for John Deacon’s fantastic bass line running through the song. It is the perfect combination of all of their talents - Brian’s eclectic guitaring, Roger’s perfect drum beat and Freddie’s vocals. It is the equal, if not the better, of every other song in their catalogue. Many people feel that “The Show Must Go On” is the song that has become the final legacy of Queen. For me it is “Ride the Wild Wind” – for me everything that is great about Queen is in this song.

There are also the average, the songs that just don’t quite seem to fit, the songs that are just that little too much varied in their style for my liking on the album. “All God’s People” and “Delilah” are two songs that for me bring down the quality of the album, not from a musicianship sense, but just in the sense that they are probably not my style of song. You can add to this “These Are the Days of Our Lives” – not because of the quality of the song, but again just not to my individual taste. Ditto for “Bijou”.

Having torn the album apart to try and give a rating song by song, when you listen to it from pillar to post, it all comes together in a wonderful meshing of all styles, and just becomes Queen. Whilst in my personal opinion there are albums that are marginally better than this one, this is still at the top of the pile.

500. L.A. Guns / Hollywood Vampires. 1991. 3/5

Coming on the heels of their excellent first two albums, the L.A. Guns had the chance to propel themselves to super-stardom with their third LP, Hollywood Vampires. As it turns out, the ingredients are all here, but they don’t seem to have been mixed in the right quantities.

What is it about this album that doesn’t quite allow it to reach its potential? Certainly, following on from their initial successes they should have been ready to conquer the world. However, in general the songs here don’t have the same spark about them, the same buzz that catches your attention and makes you want to listen.
Is it the obvious attempt to recapture the success that came with “The Ballad of Jayne”? Is that where my problem lies? Because I HATE that song, believing it is a blight on their otherwise excellent record to this stage of their career. It does feel that they are looking for that ballad hit again, and it affects the remainder of the album in my view.

Now it’s not all bad, so don’t take it that way. Songs like "Kiss My Love Goodbye", "Some Lie 4 Love" and "My Koo Ka Choo" still carry a punch that reminds you of who you are listening to. But in the end, it just didn’t quite carry over. And that is a real shame.

Rating: Not the step forward I was expecting. 3/5

489. Alice Cooper / Hey Stoopid. 1991. 5/5

Trying to follow up the mega-success that was Trash would have been no mean feat for one of the great icons of music. To help out, he pulled together an array of friends to help write and perform on the new album, and the end result was Hey Stoopid.
Like Trash this has a great mix of Alice Cooper rockers and ballads, and while it is probably rubbished by hard core Cooper fans as it is not a ‘traditional’ album of his style, it was perfect for the time. Having moved with the times (again) he and his buddies have produced an almost flawless combination of songs.

There is something for everyone here. Lyrically every song has its message, even the ‘love ballads’ have that Alice Cooper message infused into their words. As with all of Alice’s work in this direction, there is still enough rock in these songs to stop them falling into the same category as most soft rock ballads that many hair metal bands of the day fell into. Songs such as “Love’s a Loaded Gun”, “Burning Our Bed” and “Might As Well Be On Mars” are still great rock songs. “Might As Well Be On Mars” in particular showcases the best that not only Alice, but his band, has to offer, and is one of my favourites on the album – yes, that’s right, a ‘ballad’ is one of my faves.
Of course, there are the faster, heavier tracks here too. The title track for one, “Feed My Frankenstein”, “Hurricane Years” and “Little By Little” are up there with the best of this generation’s Alice Cooper works.

Not only does he have a great group of musicians around him as a part of his band, the guests on the album reads like a who’s-who of music at the time – Ozzy Osbourne, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Mick Mars, Slash, Nikki Sixx.

Though the ‘traditionalists’ may disagree, I think this is one of Alice Cooper’s finest moments. It is certainly one of my favourite of his albums, if not my absolute favourite. I guess seeing as I spent one night pumping about $45 dollars into a video jukebox, just so my mate and I could watch the video to “Hey Stoopid” about one hundred times in a row back when it was released (missing the movie we had specially gone out to see in the process), I’d have to like it a little bit…

Rating: A great album from one of the finest artists in his time. 5/5.

455. Queen / Greatest Hits II. 1991. 5/5

Not many bands could ever realistically imagine releasing two Greatest Hits albums, but Queen is certainly one of them.

Spanning their great albums of the 1980’s and into the (very) early 1990’s, this release showcases the majesty and changing styles of not only Queen’s music, but all music, during that decade. One of the interesting facts is the almost total and complete ignorance of material from the Hot Space album. It is probably the most maligned of all of Queen’s albums, and with only “Under Pressure” able to make the cut here, it doesn’t help to raise its awareness in the community.

Once again, as with Greatest Hits this is a superb collection, featuring an absolute array of classic songs. And as with the first collection, there are just as many great songs that haven’t made the cut. The mark of a truly wonderful band.

Rating: Almost impossible to argue with again. 5/5

447. Exodus / Good Friendly Violent Fun. 1991. 2.5/5

Live album from the lads, their first, after some positive studio releases. For me it detracts from that product, however, as I don’t think it is one of his best performances.
In my opinion, the great material doesn’t quite come off on this occasion. The guys are obviously enjoying themselves and putting on a performance, but to me it doesn’t capture the true essence of the band or their songs. The vocals are somewhat messy, and all over the place – and yes I know it is thrash, but the vocals are just as important in a live atmosphere, and they don’t mesh here.
One of my main beefs is that I believe they completely trash one of the classics, AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap”. If you are going to cover a song live you need to do it justice, not tear it apart.

I was really disappointed with this. If you are going to do a live album, then get it right, because otherwise you are just wasting everyone’s time.

Rating: A mish-mash. 2.5/5.

398. Van Halen / For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. 1991. 3/5

By the time this was released, I was probably coming to the conclusion that Van Halen were finished. I mean, they had had a pretty fair run, and even following the departure of DLR they had produced a pretty good follow up with Sammy Hagar and 5150. But not much had come since, and to me the magic was sifting away.

Even when this came out, it didn't grab me like other albums had. Probably at the time I had other parts of the genre grabbing my attention. Still, it begins pretty solidly, "Poundcake" and "Judgement Day" are good solid songs that provided a good sart to the album. The problem for me from that point onward is that the rest of the album, while quite listenable and not awful, doesn't bring anything new to the mix. I think they had a chance to go out on a limb and return the band to its peak, if only Eddie was unleashed and allowed to really hammer on those strings again. For whatever reason it is, the thing that made Van Halen great is being restrained.

This is not a bad album, but it is one that is just above average. Putting it on and listening to it is not a chore. Expecting it to get repeat listens is probably expecting a bit too much.

Rating: More of the same from the Van Hagar era. 3/5

333. The Clash / The Collection. 1991. 2/5

How The Clash were ever labelled a punk band I'll never know. There is more reggae in their music than pure punk.

Anyway, this album has a multitude of their hits and rare tracks. Personally, I like a few of their tracks, and find most of them fairly uninteresting. If you enjoy The Clash you'll still only find this average. Better off just listening to London Calling than this.

Rating: A few good tracks and the rest is still filler, even on a best-of package. 2/5.