1264. McAuley Schenker Group / Save Yourself. 1989. 3.5/5

The fact that Michael Schenker, whose ego rides as high as most of those legendary guitarists of the 1970’s and 1980’s, found himself so comfortable with the partnership that he was beginning to forge with vocalist and songwriter Robin McAuley when they first began working together in 1986, that he insisted that they change the name of the band from the MICHAEL Schenker Group to the MCAULEY Schenker Group, retaining the initials and therefore logo of the band in the process, shows just how confident he was that the pairing was going to work. Their initial album under this banner, 1987’s “Perfect Timing”, had done better than expected in sales, but also showed exactly the direction this new formation of the band was heading. Not only did they produce a more commercial direction, one with an obvious bent for cracking the US radio market, and also skewing their music towards the hair metal genre rather than the hard rock heavy metal based sound that Schenker had come from with his earlier albums in the 1980’s, but this also had another guitarist in the band, Mitch Perry, who also played lead solos in two songs, and almost had one of the great guitarists of the age playing mostly rhythm guitar in his wake! It was all a little strange, despite the fact that I enjoy the album immensely and still do to this day.
Put all of this together, and going into their second album it felt as though little had changed. The band was still looking for that major breakthrough. The album had made the US top 100, and the single “Gimme Your Love” had reached as high as #40 on the singles charts, which meant more of the same from MSG in order to make a real breakthrough. That meant a mix of songs again, along with the true commercial singles tracks which they hoped would provide them with the success they were striving for. What that meant for the fans of Schenker’s early work however was open to question.

The album opens up with the title track “Save Yourself”, and immediately lets you know exactly what direction the music on this sophomore album is aiming for. Because this does end up being the hardest of the hard rock songs available on this album. It has a great sound to it, great riffing from Schenker himself and vocals from McAuley, but there is already that commercial feel about the track. “Bad Boys” follows in a similar direction, up beat musically and catchy lyrically, looking to retain the faithful with atypical hard rock tracks and nice riffing from Schenker himself.
“Anytime” is the full-blown radio attention seeking missile directly written in order to find a way to crack the commercial market. It’s a rock ballad, in the mould of Kiss and Whitesnake looking to gain as much radio airplay as possible, and no it isn’t horrible, but it is certainly skip worthy. Michael Schenker had flirted with this direction since he joined with Robin in their partnership, and this was what they were hoping for, a hard rock-based album with enough moments for Schenker to show he could still shred when he wanted to, but with an agenda to find that marketplace breakthrough with a song like this. Individual tastes will dictate how much you enjoy it. Add this alongside “This is My Heart”, the third single released from the album, is a more hard rock version of a similar style, but Robin’s vocals hold the soft rock ballad style even while Schenker tries to riff hard during the middle of the track. There’s a little each way when it comes to this song, trying to please both sides of the argument.
“Get Down to Bizness” comes after “Anytime” and returns the album to a pace that is far more enjoyable to Schenker’s main fan base, The songs themselves may not be as superbly energetic as on the earlier albums, but they still have a catchiness about them. “Shadow of the Night” offers a chanting, somewhat anthemic feel to the track, with a chorus and lyrics designed to be sung loud and proud, in that midtempo range that was beginning to creep into music at the time. The chorused vocals help to encourage that singalong theme of the song as well. The same is true of songs like “What We Need” and “I Am Your Radio”, energised with the chorus and multiple support singers for Robin who call for a gang vocal like call to arms.
The instrumental short take of “There Has to Be Another Way” allows Schenker to showcase his skills, but at a little under two minutes in length, it almost feels like it is something tacked on at the last minute, rather than one of his great instrumental songs from the past such as “Into the Arena” and “Captain Nemo”. Those are terrific tracks that stand on their own. This does not. Following “This is My Heart” we have “Destiny” which is a little bit like a join the dots colour by numbers hard rock track, based around Robin’s vocals than anything musically that stands out and makes itself noticed. The album closer is “Take Me Back” which is pretty much a similar situation, finishing off an album that does what it always proclaimed it wanted to do.

Those who have been with this podcast from the beginning will know of my love of Michael Schenker as a guitarist in the many different bands he has been in over his career. The Michael Schenker Group was a band that helped me get through my doomed university days in the late 1980’s, and I have always enjoyed those albums and UFO’s albums.
I bought this album on its release, on vinyl back in those days, a copy that was sadly eventually lost in the new house flood of 2001. But it got some plays for some time before that occurred. As I’ve mentioned, I loved “Perfect Timing” on its release, and so I went into this album hoping for something similar, or even better, perhaps a bit heavier with more influence from Schenker himself. And what I got... was not that. I got an album that, as has already been well covered, was looking for a commercial success, and as such was written and performed that way. So, while I enjoyed it when I first got the album, over time it began to wane in excitement for me. It began to feel very samey, like the songs were more or less running into each other without much to discern each from the other. And so eventually the vinyl went back onto the shelves, and there it sat, only finding itself moved over the next decade on the eight or so times I moved house during that time, until its eventual demise in the flooding of that final house. In the two decades since, I have attained a digital copy of the album and on the very rare occasion it has come out for a listen. And now for the last three weeks it has been in my rotation, and there is no doubt that I have listened to it more over that time than I have in the previous 30 years. And what I have discovered is that nothing much has changed. I have enjoyed the album overall, though I did eventually get to the point where there were three songs that I had to skip to continue to listen. And thus, it is to a certain person’s taste. Those that find this boring or unlistenable, I do understand. Like I said, for me the album is fine, but there is a very big chance that it will be a long time before I choose to listen to it again now that this podcast episode is finished. There are a lot of better options out there to try.

739. McAuley Schenker Group / MSG [McAuley-Schenker Group]. 1992. 1.5/5

Having listened to this album a couple of times, you can't help but wonder whatever happened to the man who had been so impressive in bands like UFO, Scorpions and his own M.S.G. No, not this M.S.G, but the Michael Schenker Group, when the songs had some depth and brilliance, and Michael reigned supreme on the guitar. Now into the third release from the remonikered McAuley Schenker Group, and it all seems to be going a little pear shaped.

Even though I can hear and admit the limitations of the first release Perfect Timing, I still enjoy it. It's an album from that era which spoke to me at the time, thus nostalgia plays a part. The follow up Save Yourself had some good tracks, but also fell apart for the majority of the album. Here, MSG [McAuley-Schenker Group] sounds amazing musically, with Robin and Michael joined by former Dokken bassist Jeff Pilson and future Scorpions drummer James Kottak - but oh dear, whatever happened to song writing?
We are treated to some shocking songs here, such that you have to wonder at what market they were aiming this record. "When I'm Gone" and "Nightmare" are truly average slow ballads, surely purpose written to eventually have their day as acoustic numbers on a later release, as was the rage in the early 1990's (this of course did come to pass). I would call them gut-wrenching only to describe the way I feel sick to the stomach whenever I hear them. To this you can add "This Night Is Gonna Last Forever". Awful. Truly awful. Now I know the subject matter of this band is different from Schenker's earlier bands, and that the lyrical content is therefore of a different direction. But honestly this combined with the wimpy, limp and steel-less music on these songs is catastrophic. The songs that do attempt to elevate themselves to the status of a rock song (and that's being generous) have nothing of any value. There are no hooks, nothing that asks you to remember this song, to play along with it, to sing the nonsensical rubbish lyrics that are a part of them.
The irony probably is that Schenker's guitaring makes a return to something like front and centre on this album, whereas on the past couple of albums it has really taken a back seat to be a part of the background of the soft metal songs that have been written, rarely breaking out for more than a few seconds to poke it's nose out of the water. While the song structures here are generally the same, Michael does have solo spots where the real reason we buy his albums comes to the fore. It's just a shame that it all seems buried in average and uninteresting songs.

When this first came out, and I (unfortunately) paid for this album, and then put it securely in my shelves after the first half a dozen listens, I hoped that it would get better with time. That the next time I gave it a try, it would have gotten better, that it would have grown on me. I don't recall when that time was, but I'm pretty sure that listening to it now to review and re-rate it, it has been something close to 15 years since I last heard it. And "Crazy" is still a terrible song, and "Nightmare" is still a nightmare, and this still is one of those albums that I can never get my money back for.

Rating:  Bang bang, shoot 'em all down  1.5/5

613. McAuley Schenker Group / Perfect Timing. 1987. 3.5/5

Michael Schenker had had a fairly turbulent decade throughout the 1980’s, one that had come following his decision to quit UFO after a successful five album stint, and form his own Michael Schenker Group. Four albums had followed, along with two live albums, all with different and revamped line-ups as players discovered the difficulty in dealing long term with Schenker’s volatile personality. The content of each of those four albums by the Michael Schenker Group seemed to change along the way as well. The band and material had morphed from guitar-based hard rock songs on the first album to something akin to more radio-friendly based songs on the “Built to Destroy” album. In fact, the US mixed version of that album certainly slanted the songs that way compared to the UK mixed version (which to me is a much better version).
With the members of that version of the band moving on, along with twice spurned lead vocalist Gary Barden, Schenker went out searching for another partner in crime. In the process he met Robin McAuley, an Irish vocalist who had been in bands such as Grand Prix and Far Corporation. Such was the strong bonding between the two in the initial stages of their writing partnership, they even decided to form a new group that was now called the McAuley Schenker Group, that retained the same initials and therefore band motif of MSG. With the partnership now bonded in name as well, other band members needed to be recruited. It was an eclectic bunch, all hard working musicians in lesser known bands through the early 1980’s, drawn together at the prospect of being involved in a new band that had commercial success as its aim. And being led by the wonderful vocals of Robin McAuley, and driven by the legendary guitar of Michael Schenker, what could possibly go wrong?

From the outset this is a different album from what has come before it in the Schenker discography. Do you want more keyboards infused into the songs? You got it. Do you want a downplaying of the guitar in the songs? You’ve got that too. What? Hang on. Michael Schenker is a guitar god. Why on earth would you downplay the guitar here? Well, it’s the 1980’s mate. And if you want commercial success in the 1980’s, you have to make sure that the songs have verses and choruses, that they have singalong lyrics, that those lyrics are mainly based around the subject of boy meets girl or love itself, that the keyboards are more dominant because that’s the sound they want on radio, and that if you have to have guitar in the songs make sure it blends with all of that around it.
Now, are things THAT desperate on this album? No, but the style here is definitely a change, and that needs to be stated from the outset. Offsetting this is the excellence of Rocky Newton’s bass guitar riffs and lines on this album, because that bottom end is excellent, and along with Bodo Schopf’s drums provide an integral part of making this album as good as it is. And it becomes more important given the songs here are generally at a fast walk rather than a sprint or a stroll. The bass and drums keep that pace nicely, and the bass rambling up and down in the songs is a dominating facet.
And yes, for the most part, Schenker’s guitar is left holding time with the keyboards and rhythm guitars of Mitch Perry. There’s no Guitar Hero stuff going on for the most part of this album, Schenker’s standout parts are kept strictly in check. They aren’t struck out completely. He has great moments in songs such as “No Time for Losers” and “Get Out” and “Rock Til You’re Crazy”, and he is prevalent within the framework of all the songs. But it’s not dominant like it was in the past.
Does any of this detract from the album? No. Come in and listen to this album like it was a Ratt album or a LA Guns album or other hair metal bands of that era, and it will still well on top of that pile. Because that’s the style they have gone for here, the hair/glam metal that was popular at the time and charting, which is what the band wanted. And Robin’s vocals across the album are sensational, and worthy of recognition. He sings a hard rock anthem as well as he sings a rock power ballad, such as “Follow the Night” and “Time” are the two best examples on this album. And while the album itself only managed to reach 95 on the charts on the US, it provided Schenker and McAuley their first charting single in the US, with “Gimme Your Love” riding high on MTV airplay by making #40 on the US charts. So in their eyes, the album achieved what they were looking for.

This album was released four days after my 18th birthday, but I didn’t hear it until a couple of months later, when my well known heavy metal dealer procured me a copy on cassette. I actually heard it first at his house, not long before Xmas that year, and loved it from the outset. And through those months that stretched between the end of my final year exams and the beginning of university in the early months of the following year, this album became one of my main listening experiences. Early on, I didn’t really notice the difference in musical output from the band. It just slipped right in and was enjoyable from the start. And as I believe I have mentioned earlier, the style of the album is much more hair or glam metal than what Schenker had done before, which I enjoy anyway so it didn’t deter my love of it. I always notice the lack of real ripping guitar solos compared to what I had been used to from Schenker in the past, and yeah the songs when you look back on them now are a bit cheesy. But for me it is still a great listen, and I still love it. If you wanted me to sit down and critique it as a review then I would have to raise some points as per the above. But I don’t have to do this, all I have to do is present it to you, the listener of this podcast, offer you the cuts I have chosen, give you a bit of the history of the album and a bit of my own history with the album. It is tied to the time by its genre and certainly by the hairstyles on the front cover. But for me, none of that matters in this instance. This is a great start for the McAuley Schenker Group, one that didn’t last for long but gave us some great songs during its short existence.