343. W.A.S.P. / The Crimson Idol. 1992. 5/5.

When it came to stable line-ups, W.A.S.P. had not really been able to work down that path. Most of that appears to be related to band leader Blackie Lawless and his iron grip over what the band did, and according to several former band mates, the way he held the purse strings. That of course has been the way of bands in music throughout the history of recorded music, but with W.A.S.P. and their level of success, coming from the early 1980’s hair metal to become a much heavier version of that genre of metal, and utilising their shock value on stage in much the way that Alice Cooper did in the early stages of their career, the changes between albums came a member at a time. In 1989 the band released “The Headless Children”, a more mature and thoughtful album in both music and lyrics than the band had produced before. The three singles highlighted this, with the ball tearing metal track “Mean Man”, the hard rocking cover of The Who’s “The Real Me”, and the hard rock ballad of “Forever Free” showcasing the range the band had in their songwriting. However, halfway through the tour founding guitarist Chris Holmes left the band, citing a need to have fun as his parting shot. In return Blackie accused him of being pulled on his apron strings by his new wife Lita Ford. It would be six years before they worked together again. The end result was that W.A.S.P. was disbanded. In its place, Blackie eventually began working on a solo album, one that he wrote from the heart, using pieces and passages of his life to create what would basically be a rock opera concept album. He created the character Jonathan Steel who would be the central role in this story, and his life story from being isolated from his parents, to running away from home to chase stardom as a musician, to his dodgy manager and discovering drugs and alcohol, to reaching the stardom that he had been striving for, to the inevitable fall.
The album took shape, but as Blackie composed this for his own release, the pressure from the record company came to have it released as a W.A.S.P. album, the monetary value of that name foremost in their minds. Eventually Blackie caved, and the W.A.S.P. name was attached to the release, though he was the only member of the band still remaining. He recorded guitars and bass himself, along with Bob Kulick on board to help, while drumming duties were shared between Frankie Banali and Stet Howland. And 30 years ago, it was released, to await the verdict of the listening public.

Just because an album is a concept album, it doesn’t mean you have to know the story or follow the story to enjoy the songs and music, and that very much fits here as well. This being a rock opera though, it does have spoken pieces between songs that flesh out the story, but they don’t detract from the album if you aren’t interested in them. Once again though, in a similar way to “The Headless Children”, the album contains a variety of style of tracks, in this case however to help tell the story rather than be something that changes up the album. The heavier and faster tracks dominate the first half of the album as Jonathan leaves his home, finds his way in the music world and the trappings that are a part of it. In the second half of the album, when he begins to reflect on his choices that road they have led him down we have the more melancholy of the tracks, reflecting the pain and anguish he is feeling as a result.
The opening and closing tracks have all the hallmarks of the rock opera, and each does its job in opening and closing the circle of the story. “The Titanic Overture” is exactly that, opening the show and setting the scene with the overture instrumental it is. This, along with the following three songs, are a brilliant opening to the album. “The Invisible Boy”, “Arena of Pleasure” and “Chainsaw Charlie (Murders in the New Morgue)” are fantastic tracks, combining everything that is so good about W.A.S.P. while fitting the timespace as it is needed. Bob Kulick’s guitaring is superb, really hitting every nuance, great soloing and still being able to express the emotion of the track as it fits the developing story. Great stuff. The drumming of Stet Howland in particular is impressive. His double kick rifling through these songs gives it an added dimension. And Blackie’s vocals are superb, instilling the harmony and chorus pieces where they are needed, and expressing the characters different feelings to piece together the players in the drama. When you add “Doctor Rockter” and “I Am One” to this, you have five exceptional fast paced heavy metal tracks that are a tribute to the band’s great legacy.
Then you have the slower paced, more melancholy tracks that tell that side of the tale, including “The Gypsy Meets the Boy”, “The Idol” and “Hold on to My Heart”. In any other setting on any other album these would be the kind of songs that I would most probably be bagging out, but here, as a part of the tapestry that is the story of “The Crimson Idol”, they are a necessary evil, and emotionally are as important to the story and album as those first four songs are. Singularly, on their own, do they hold up? My answer is yes, but I have listened to this album a LOT over the last thirty years, and as such have a lot of love ties up in the album, which makes it hard for me to be constructively critical of them. They all sound great. If I heard them away from the context of the album, having never heard them before, I may well find ways of deriding them, but not because they are poor or crap, but because... I don’t often like ballads. Anyway... the closing track that closed the circle and the story is the 10 minute conclusion of “The Great Misconceptions of Me”, where the final scene plays out. It builds terrifically from the reflective to the crescendo to follow the finale of the show and album, and it is a fitting way for the album to come to an end.
Like I said earlier, it isn’t necessary to have digested the story being told to enjoy the album, but because of the enjoyment of the album, the story reveals itself to you anyway as you listen to the album. Jonathan, his brother, his father, his manager Alex Rodman, the record executive ‘Chainsaw’ Charlie, the drug dealer Doctor Rockter... all of them become known to you through the fabric of the songs. So whether you care about the story or not, sooner or later you’ll know it anyway.

I don’t recall the day I bought this album, but it must have been pretty close to the day of its release, because I do recall six weeks later going to see Sepultura in concert and having this blaring in the car and singing it at the top of my voice on the way to the gig. It grabbed me from the start, in a way few albums in my life have. It was, perhaps not surprisingly, the same way I felt the first time I listened to Queensryche’s “Operation: Mindcrime”. I don’t know why. It isn’t as though the story for me is or was a hugely intricate piece of either album, at least not in the beginning. But those opening four tracks are just immense, almost mid blowing when you first put the album on your stereo and crank it up. I had doubts about the new album because Chris Holmes had gone, but I needn’t have been worried in that respect, as Bob Kulick is superb here, as he always was on whatever project he played on. This album became somewhat of an obsession for me, and it was still on my active playlist 18 months later. There was always the lingering hope that W.A.S.P. would tour Australia and gives us a taste of this an all of their albums, but that wasn't to be in those days where we were seen as a backwater too far to travel to. It wasn’t until 16 years later in 2008 that the band finally made it to Australia, on the 15th anniversary tour of this album, on which they played this in its entirety and then an encore of five other ‘classic’ tracks. I travelled to Sydney on my own to watch the spectacle, one that I drove home from in disappointment. OK, so it was not a concert as such, it was a half-arsed rock opera, with the movie they had filmed to be a part of the production going on behind the band as they played. But there was so much pre-recorded vocals and backing tracks that there were periods when you couldn’t tell whether it was the band playing or whether it was just the backing tracks. At times when Blackie was heard singing, he was facing the drummer. I admired the fact they tried to make it like the rock opera it was, but it seemed a cheapened version of it. I’d have preferred to just have the band play and nothing else. And that was the catch. To spend the big money on making it a true rock opera production, or to just perform as the band. They went somewhere in the middle and didn’t pull it off. In my opinion.