Ratt had grown out of the Los Angeles club scene, and on the back of their self-titled EP released in 1983 had seen their popularity rise on the back of those album sales. This had led to increased shows being played around the club circuit and the band’s profile continuing to rise. Through this success, the band was signed by Atlantic Records, and they immediately started writing and recording their first full-length album. That album, “Out of the Cellar” was released in March 1984 to rave reviews from both fans and critics alike. The singles released from the album, “Back for More” and “Round and Round” made a huge hit on MTV as well as the US singles charts. The tour to promote the album took the band through North America, Europe and the UK, and cemented their position as one of the up and coming bands of the hair glam metal genre.
Given this success, what would the band have been looking for as they began their construction of their second full length album? The basis of their first album was two big singles, and a collection of tracks that followed in the same scenario without getting in the way of the other tracks. Ratt was certainly blessed to have a terrific line up, headlined by the exciting lead guitarist Warren de Martini and his erstwhile partner in Robbin Crosby. Bass guitarist Juan Croucier and drummer Bobby Blotzer took care of the rhythm section of the band, while lead vocalist Stephen Pearcy was a frontman who was a drawcard for everyone. Ratt had other bands of their ilk such as Motley Crue and W.A.S.P. and Night Ranger who were all releasing new albums at this time, and looking to boost themselves into a bigger market on the back of it. Ratt was no doubt looking to produce something similar with the release of their sophomore album in June of 1985, titled “Invasion of Your Privacy”.
When you work your way through this album, as with the band’s debut release, a lot of how you will end up feeling about this album will come down to your own personal preferences, and your ability to take some things on face value. Because what becomes reasonably obvious when you’ve listened to this album a few times is that is of a very similar structure as was done with “Out of the Cellar”. That album had great success on the back of the two singles that were released from the album, both as a single and gaining radio airplay, and through the music video getting airplay especially on MTV. As with that previous album, the first single here is the third track on the album, “Lay it Down”, which reached #40 on the US charts, and was the band’s second and final single to chart that high. It leans heavily on De Martini’s opening riff and Pearcy’s tantalising vocals to draw out the enjoyment of the track, alongside the solid rhythm throughout. The other single from the album is the opening track, “You’re in Love”, a song typical of the era in both music and lyrically amusing language. These are the two songs that were used to promote the album on its release.
As to the remainder of the album, and indeed these two singles as well, if you were to critique this album correctly, you need to address the overall similarity of all of the tracks here. The rhythm sits in a mid tempo for most of the album, each song different in its own way and yet not giving the listener a great deal to jump around to. There are no fast paced songs on this album, ones that ramp up into a faster tempo. On the other hand, apart from perhaps “Closer to My Heart” which slips back into the slow-mid-tempo, there is no change into the slower ranks either. The case can be made that the structure and basis of the majority of the tracks here barely changes, that they are like a conveyor belt where the basic basis of each song is rolled off the assembly line, and then has a different solo attached and different lyrics sung, and then on to the next one. Even though this is not a perfect analogy in the case of this album, it does highlight how the album can feel if you are not overly familiar with it. Is it fair to suggest that there is a bit of a plod about the album in the middle with songs such as “Closer to My Heart”, “Between the Eyes” and “What You Give Is What You Get”? The band has found a groove and it isn’t getting out of it in a hurry. In fact, if you start to smash together some of the choruses of the final songs of the album, you get to the point that you think that they could be interchangeable, given that the rhythm of each songs almost seems to blend into the other.
“It’s so easy to forget, What you give is what you get... Got me on the line, ready for the night... You should know by now, you should know by now... Dangerous but worth the risk...”
The metronome seems to be in perfect sync throughout, and changing the lyrics of these songs doesn't seem like such a stretch.
All of this of course is something that can be seen to be a furphy from the fans who swear by the album. Using these same characteristics that might be used against the album, they can also be used to explain why this album works, because the songs all fit together in perfect harmony, built on the platform set by Croucier and Blotzer on bass and drums. With their foundation in place, it offers the guitar riffs from De Martini and Crosby the opportunity to set the scene for each song, while Pearcy spouts the lyrical content that this band does so well. It isn’t as suggestive as Motley Crue but is the knowing beckoning from the band for everyone to come along and have a good time. And in the long run, isn’t that what listening to music is all about?
Ratt came around surprisingly early in my heavy metal music conversion, in the early months of 1986. As I related recently on an episode for my Patreon subscribers, where I am painstakingly telling the story of how I discovered the bands of my youth, Ratt came the way of an exchange student from America who stopped by our school for a couple of months in early 1986. He had brought with him cassettes of his favourite bands, and Ratt was one of them, and he had both of their first studio albums. Thus, this album became my first experience of the band Ratt. And it is fair to say that I enjoyed them from the start. This album came from my heavy metal music dealer, who had managed to get copies of all of the album brought over by our American short term friend, and so he recorded this album for me with Motley Crue’s “Shout at the Devil” on the other side, something that made this cassette get a lot of listening at the time.
Now, I have probably sounded like I have given this album a hard time in the preceding instalment, in suggesting a similarity to the tracks all the way through and without offering a critical view of each song as it appears on the album. And in a way this was necessary, because we all know that there are albums that we enjoy – nay, love – that others will dislike and like to destroy in a discussion. And that while there are many factors others will suggest that may well be siding on the truth, that those arguments mean nothing to your own love of that album. And that is very much the case for me and “Invasion of Your Privacy”. I can certainly hear why some people would listen to this album and not understand why I love this album. There are techniques used in the creation of these songs here that will not appeal to some people's tastes. That’s fair. Everyone enjoys different styles of music. And one of the things that I do harp on a bit on this podcast and its predecessor is that ‘entry points’ are enormously important when it comes to bands and albums. And this album was my entry point to this band, which has therefore fostered my enjoyment of the band and my overall love of this album.
I’ve had this on again for the past few days. A few months ago I bought the remastered vinyl album to add to my collection, and it sounds terrific in the Metal Cavern. And I still adore this album. I love the songs. This album has massive memory ties to the period when I was first discovering heavy metal music, and to the friends and times we had in the final two years of high school. All of that is part of the reason why I still think this is a terrific album. I get why people will come to me and say “this is rubbish!” because the style and genre and time of the music is very much tied to the era. That is the reason I think the complete opposite.
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