185. Y&T / Contagious. 1987. 3/5.

We all know the way music had progressed by the time the mid-1980's had arrived. Those bands that had formed in the mid-1970's were in a similar quandry as those bands formed in the mid-1980's found themselves in during the grunge era through the early 1990’s - it was either stick with what you know and try to survive, or morph your own sound to comply with the trend, and in the process often find you lose most of your fan base. Y&T, as a band of the 1970, had found their groove through the early 1980’s, with their hard rock sound formed around drummer Leonard Haze, bass guitarist Phil Kennemore, guitarist Joey Alves and guitarist/vocalist Dave Meniketti finding its way into the scene. “Black Tiger”, “Mean Streak” and “In Rock We Trust” had brought in a bigger following, and supporting big name artists o the time had brought in even more fans.
The previous album “Down for the Count” had contained their highest charting single “Summertime Girls”, but overall the album hadn’t quite lived up to what it promised. In the lead up to recording their new album, the band changed record companies, and also fired long serving drummer Haze for drug abuse issues. In his place came Jimmy DeGrasso, on his way to increasing his own reputation as a drummer.
Whereas all of the band’s previous albums had been wholly written by the band members, “Contagious” has some songs that involve some outside writers. It was around this time where this would occur in the hope of adding some commerciality to an album to help sales. This resulted in two outside players in Taylor Rhodes and Robert Johnson, both who had success later with artists such as Aerosmith and believe it or not Celine Dion, to help contribute to the writing. The result was an album that retained the basis of the band’s sound from recent successful album, while also giving it a touch of style of other recent successful bands, no doubt in the hope that it would translate to commercial success.

Without trying to attempt to suggest this album sounds completely like work done by other artists, in trying to review this for you I really believe you can separate the songs into two categories. There’s what I would call the “Van Hagar” category, and there is what I would call the “Coverdale” category. And again, it is worth pointing out that Y&T has existed long before either of those two artists came into the world, so I am not suggesting at all that they are trying to copy a formula, merely that the songs here have slight similarities to other work that allows you to see where music was in 1987, and why this album has a comfortable feel about it.
Here are the best examples. “L.A Rocks” will remind everyone who knows of late 80’s Van Halen. It is very much in the style of the Van Hagar era of that band, in song structure, vocals and guitar squeals. Though to be fair Meniketti and Alves, having come from the same era of the 1970’s, has always had those similarities to that band and their members, so it is perhaps a little less unusual that this song falls from this tree. “Rhythm or Not” too has a bit of that mid 80’s era Van Halen about it, I love the hard riff and drums combination in this song. “The Kid Goes Crazy” intones David Lee Roth era Van Halen, with Meniketti’s vocals vibing with that era energy, and the song similar in structure to both early Van Halen or early DLR solo.
On the other plane, “Fight for Your Life” has similarities through the beginning of the song to Def Leppard, while “Eyes of a Stranger” and “Bodily Harm” are very much like early Whitesnake, but in a harder vein rather than the blues based feel those early albums had. The vocal lines and melody are similar and they have that smooth velvet sound all the way through.
But it is the excellence of this combination that shines through in all of the songs. Even when you come to “Temptation” which slows things down into the soft rock ballad territory, replete with flowery backing vocals, balladesque guitar solo and lyrics that floats in that direction. Pleasingly though, it isn’t one of the worst of these examples. The drums and guitars keep the song from being a wishy washy effort, and it remains as much rock as you can expect from a band doing a ballad in 1987. The keys are kept to the bare minimum and it is still the main instruments that harvest the major portion of the song. “Armed and Dangerous” is another steady, unobtrusive hard rock song that has the right beat and rhythm that naturally leads to foot tapping and head bobbing from the listener.
The closing track, interestingly is an instrumental, which showcases Meniketti’s excellence on the guitar again. Listening to it actually brings a Gary Moore vibe about it, it is written and played very much in that style of Gary’s own instrumental pieces from his hard rock days in the 1980’s. It’s a great piece, and a surprisingly terrific way to close out the album.
The other song on the album is the opener, “Contagious”. This is for me arguably the bands best song, and they had some beauties before this album, believe me. Yes, this is very 1987 this song, it is tied to the era and it reeks of everything that some people try to disassociate themselves with. But it has the right moves, great drums, singalong vocals, and a great riff. It is where Y&T were able to merge the past and the present in perfect harmony.

I bought this album at a second hand record store in 1988, just a year after it was released, and it was basically vinyl in mint condition, so someone hadn’t thought much of it. I still remember putting it on for that first time, and hearing the starting chant of ‘hey, hey, hey’, the kind of thing you feel yourself fist pumping to. And there are definite similarities to bands such as Van Halen, as well as Def Leppard and Whitesnake in the songs. And maybe that’s why I enjoyed it when I first bought it, because those bands were ones I still enjoyed from that era. Eventually it was lost in amongst the heavier and grittier music that was being released at the time and that I was enveloped in. But each time over the years when I pulled this album out, it never ceased to be enjoyable for me. I still love this album, probably more now than I did when I first bought it. Part of that is the memories of that era for me, some melancholy I guess, but it’s also because I still love that 80’s hard rock material, and this album was obviously geared towards this sound, and maybe because of that it holds up just fine.
It was, however, the last of its line. One further album came before the band broke up, before reforming for two more albums in the late 1990’s, a really strange time for such a band to try and reignite the flame. A further break then saw the excellent “Facemelter” in 2010, but with only Meniketti remaining of the original foursome.


Now this won’t be to everyone’s taste, that is certain. But if you have enjoyed any Y&T material over the years, and you still enjoy the style of hair metal that was played at the end of the 80’s decade, I still think you will find plenty here to enjoy.