725. Steel Panther / Balls Out. 2011. 1.5/5

There is little doubt that this should be an album that you absolutely love and rave about, or an album that you hate and loathe. There is very little room for maneuvering in the middle ground. It is very much a matter of personal opinion.
If you listen to the music in each song, it is very cleverly done. The band sounds like a modern day Motley Crue or Poison rolled into one. Yes, I am aware that both of those bands are still sorta active, but it's an upbeat version of their 1980's persona's, if you will. The musicianship is terrific, the vocals are great, and each song plays up to its subject matter with the perfect tempo and displacement. If you are a fan of the hair metal genre and time period, you won't have any qualms about the music produced here.

Lyrically however...

Look, lyrically it is very cleverly put together, double entendres mixing with others that have no intention of being mistaken for their meaning. And to all of those fans out there who love the lyrics, get a laugh out of it every time you put it on, I think that's great. I'm no prude, but to be honest I don't need to hear this stuff in music that I'm listening to. If I was in love with this album I still couldn't play it around my family because it just isn't suitable - and yes, I know it wasn't written for them to listen to. It's just a shame that an album of music that I do enjoy is shoehorned into a category that I can play in limited places because of the lyrical content. The bigger problem continues to be that I can't listen to it much, because I can't stand the lyrical content myself!!

I don't know if you can categorise this as comedy or childish. They have narrowed their market remarkably by writing the songs they have, but perhaps in a shrinking market they are actually finding new fans because of this. I do believe they have polarised the fan base. As I said at the beginning, I think you will either love this or hate this. My own opinion is that a promising product doesn't quite live up to its potential.

Rating "It won't suck itself" I respectfully disagree. 1.5/5

724. Yesterday & Today / Yesterday & Today. 1976. 3/5

Coming straight out of the middle of the 1970's is the very 1970's-sounding eponymous debut for Yesterday & Today, or Y & T as they were to become known.
For the most part this is a great sounding record. It is a product of its time, with stylised 70's rock drumbeat and bass line, overlaid by Dave Meniketti's smooth vocals and guitar licks. The blues rock roots are evident in songs like "25 Hours a Day" with the vocal/guitar trade off sequences, to the obvious Kiss influences in "Game Playing Woman", where you can here Gene Simmons in Meniketti's vocals as he sings it, and perhaps even more so on "Come on Over". Those two songs in particular could have been Kiss songs. On the other side of the coin, "My Heart Plays Too" is a dreary ballad of the type that makes me shudder. Sleep inducing boredom and a bit too kitsch for my liking.
This is redeemed by the excellent "Earthshaker", perhaps the first real indication of the star quality this band has. Whenever I listen to "Alcohol", I feel like I'm watching a re-run of The Dukes of Hazzard. It is just dripping of that standard style of song from the 70's. That's okay, after all it is when it was written and recorded, but there is absolutely no doubt what era this album comes from. Better is to come with "Beautiful Dreamer", a jaunty track dominated by one of those long 70's guitar solos in the second half of the song, a beauty from Meniketti to end the album.

While it may not be to everyone's taste, it is still an interesting comparison point, to hear what the band sounded like at the start of their career, compared to their high point of early 80's hard rock/metal sound, to the glam rock they converted to in the late 90's. It isn't an album I dive for very often, but there is still enough here for me to appreciate the start of what has become a long and (somewhat) stellar career.

Rating: I'm a cold, cold heartbreaker 3/5

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

722. Twisted Sister / You Can't Stop Rock 'n' Roll. 1983. 4/5

Twisted Sister’s amazing career prior to the long awaited release of the debut album “Under the Blade” is a story already outlined on the episode reviewing that album in Season 3 of this podcast, and is worth revisiting if you are not fully aware of the band’s history. The impact of that album, mostly in the UK, brought about the band signing up with Atlantic Records, and the amazingly quick turnaround – just eight months in fact – for their second album to be released following that debut album.
The signing of the band to Atlantic Records on the surface appeared as though it would give them the ability to make headway in their home country of the US, and though there was a better distribution deal for their sophomore effort than their debut, it was still a hard road for the band to make the break away from being a New York band and spreading the word across the states. The album could only reach 130 on the US charts, while again in the UK they were seen to be a much better prospect, eventually rising to 14 on the UK charts.
“You Can’t Stop Rock ‘n’ Roll” saw the band begin to move in the direction that saw their success, with short sharp anthems that could be sung and chanted, along with great guitar licks and solos led by the indomitable vocals of Dee Snider. Looking back in retrospect, it appears to be the perfect album for the times, and the direction that hair metal music in particular was heading.

The anthemic qualities of the album are immediately obvious with "The Kids Are Back", and "Like a Knife in the Back". Both are short and sharp, with a thumping drum beat from AJ Pero driving you to pump your fist in the air singing the choruses. Great stuff. “The Kids Are back” in particular in written and performed like a youth anthem in the same way Alice Cooper did a decade earlier. In fact, every song on this album is almost purpose-written to be played live, sung loud, and banged along with. And that is a pertinent point about this album, that it feels as though it is a live album, without the crowd noise. "Ride to Live, Live to Ride" fits this category perfectly, and is followed by the equally excellent "I Am (I'm Me)", which was the first single from the album.
"We're Gonna Make It" is another brilliant anthem, designed to turn up loud with your air guitar and sing at the top of your voice. It is still beyond comprehension that this song was not released as one of the singles from the album. Indeed, Dee Snider had been writing it for release not long after their debut album had been released, but their previous record company had gone bust before it could be completed. It’s a terrific song, with great guitars from both Jay Jay French and Eddie Ojeda leading the way. “I’ve Had Enough” continues in this vein, with Mark Mendoza’s bass and AJ’s hard hitting drums driving the beat of the song. "I'll Take You Alive" brings in a faster tempo to pick things up again. “You’re Not Alone” is the one song here that drags out a little, that for me doesn’t quite fit the template that had been set by the rest of the album, before the closing title track completes and complements the album perfectly.
There's nothing terribly extravagant or difficult about the songs on “You Can't Stop Rock 'n' Roll”. They follow the tried-and-trusted formula of simple drum beat, equally kicked-in bass line, Eddie Ojeda's wonderful lead licks and Dee Snider's proudly up front vocals, encouraging the teenager within to sing along with him. But it works! And this is how Twisted Sister had built themselves up to be over their decade in the business, playing the clubs of New York. The energy of the band from the live shows probably isn’t transferred to vinyl here, but you can understand exactly how it would translate once the shows began.

Like most people, my real initiation into Twisted Sister came with their follow up album “Stay Hungry”, and the worldwide phenomenon that it became. But once I got a copy of this album, I often wondered how this didn’t get more exposure, how it didn’t get more love, and how it didn’t have the same kind of dominance that that album eventually had. Because the ingredients are all here. The anthemic tracks which are the youth anthems are all great, especially as they are short and punchy, and the tracks that surround them are also fun. Hindsight shows that this album was the forerunner to their next album, and was indeed the set up for what came next.
40 years on, and “You Can’t Stop Rock ‘n’ Roll” is still an underrated and to be honest forgotten and unknown album that deserves a lot more respect than it has received in the past. It had some pretty hot competition when it was released in 1982, as regular listeners to this podcast would be well aware of. But it is well worth your time to go back and find this album, and give it a spin from start to finish, because it still packs a punch. 

721. Alice Cooper / Zipper Catches Skin. 1982. 2/5

Alice Cooper fans have a similar aversion to his albums from the first half of the 1980’s as Alice Cooper himself has. And that isn’t to say that they necessarily don’t like them. It’s just that they, on the whole, don’t remember them! And this is consistently the case for Alice himself. He has openly stated that for the three album releases of 1981’s “Special Forces”, 1983’s “DaDa” and this album, 1982’s “Zipper Catches Skin”, he has categorised them as the ‘blackout’ albums, in that he has no recollection of writing or recording them, due to substance abuse, both alcoholic and in particular crack cocaine. That’s a pretty amazing head space to be in, which of course he eventually found a way to quit. And it is fair to say that these albums in particular are in a different sphere from what he had produced through the 1970’s. They were ground breaking, where he climbed on board with the persona he had drafted, and the music that came from this was amazing, and he continued to find top 40 singles in amongst it. So while it has been widely documented about Alice's substance abuse during these years, it also brought about a less than exciting musical output, or at the very least coincided with it. It's a distance away since the glory days of “Killer” and “Billion Dollar Babies” and “Welcome to My Nightmare” and it shows.
In my opinion, where the album probably hits a hurdle is that it sounds as though it is trying to find its way into the new wave genre that was becoming popular in pop music at the time. You can hear it in the music itself, and even in the lyrical aspect of some of the songs here. It’s all very different from what had been produced up until “Lace & Whisky” for instance, with the turning tide beginning to come from the Bernie Taupin penned “From the Inside” album. The Alice schtick is still there, but in trying to stick with the times and manoeuvre through to the popularity of that genre of music, it meant offering up some different songs. This, along with the aforementioned aversion that many people seem to attach to this period of Alice’s career, means that this album along with the others of this vintage are often pawned off without actually diving in to see what they contain.

So, there's a transition going on here, but it is only in its earliest formation. It would be easy to dismiss this album after one or two listens, because there is little real depth to the songs, certainly not like some of Alice’s great early albums. If you can do more than that, and put it on for four or five merry-go-rounds, you'll find that it isn't quite as bad as it initially comes across. "Zorro's Ascent" is not an all-too-bad opening track, certainly not as great as earlier albums but enjoyable enough once you get to know the song itself. "Make That Money (Scrooge's Song)" is also a good song with Alice lampooning the rich. “No Baloney Homosapiens” is Alice’s parable to any aliens out there looking down on us, asking them to accept us and not kill us. There are some songs here where Alice sounds great, because he sounds upbeat and much like his normal self, songs such as "Adaptable (Anything for You)", "Tag, You're It" and "I'm Alive (That Was the Day My Dead Pet Returned to Save My Life)" all show enough of the developing Alice Cooper parody lyrics to keep your interest. Probably, that's the best of it.
The rest is probably what I would label as ‘average’. "I Am the Future" was not written by Alice or any of his current band lineup, and was actually written for the soundtrack of the movie “Class of 1984” - does anyone else remember that movie? With Roddy McDowell and Michael J Fox as a pudgy teenager, and how great it was at the time... and how dreadfully dated it is now? Well, that’s just like this song. A piece of fluff soundtrack song, and no one on it sounds even remotely interested (especially not Alice), and it sounds overtly dated now. But even for the day, this just doesn’t fit the album the way the rest of the songs are written. It sticks out like a sore thumb. "I Better Be Good" does have energy, but it seems to go too far into the parody/comedy angle, and isn't quite cartoonish enough to raise a smile, but then you have “I Like Girls” which perhaps goes too far in the opposite direction and becomes too cartoonish for its own good. At least with “I’m Alive”, the album finishes on a high note.

Anyone with a career as long as Alice Cooper and his band are going to have a couple of duds along the way. For whatever reasons that may exist, whether it be substance abuse or poor writing or no direction, or a combination of all these things thrown into a melting pot, this is only an average album. It isn’t the worst that Alice ever released, and the best way to describe it overall is with that simple phrase - “this isn't terrible, it just isn't very good either”.
To be honest, it is quintessentially Alice Cooper, but perhaps of a later era. The lyrics generally have that humorous Alice twist to them that he perfected later in the 1980’s, and there is plenty in the music itself to catch the attention... but that’s just it. It doesn’t really catch your attention, unless you really listen to this over and over and accept it for what it is rather than what you wish it could be. What it is missing I believe it a really stand out guitar, such as later albums “Constrictor” and “Raise Your Fist and Yell” had. Re-record this with Kane Roberts on guitar, get someone to really hit those drums and get the bass guitar into the mix, and maybe you would really have something!
It took me a very long time to get around to listening to the albums from the late 1970’s to the mid 1980’s, for a couple of reasons. I was happy with the Alice Cooper material I had, and with so much music around me I just didn’t feel the need to seek it out. None of my extended friend group had any of those albums, so the ability to listen to them easily was not available. So, it wasn’t until the days of downloading and file sharing that I finally heard all of these albums, including this one. And it is fair to say that I wasn’t overly enamoured by it, as you can probably get from this episode. They all got their listens and then I moved on. This last three weeks is certainly the most time I’ve put into “Zipper Catches Skin”, and the result has been that I feel there is more merit in this album than I would have rated prior to this listening session began. Alice himself has actually floated the idea of re-recording the three ‘blackout’ albums and give them a more modern feel in updating them. As I mentioned, I can see merit in that. No matter what though, sometimes no matter how you dress it up, a turkey is still a turkey.

720. Alice Cooper / Along Came a Spider. 2008. 3/5

Given his amazing ability to constantly produce albums with regularity, and the enormous amount stashed in his back catalogue, and the influence he has had throughout his career, it is not only difficult not to get carried away with another Alice Cooper album, but also difficult not to judge too swiftly or harshly as a result.
Perhaps it is old age. Perhaps it is that I don't/can't spend days/weeks listening to the same album over and over again as I did in my youth. Perhaps my tastes have changed lightly. perhaps (surely not) Alice just doesn't quite do albums as well as he used to. Or, as is possible, not every Alice Cooper album is an out and out classic. And this is true anyway, as there are some albums in his vast array of releases that never dd anything for me.

Along Came a Spider is another of Alice's concept album pieces, which is all and fine, though by being so it ties the whole album to that storyline, which can make it difficult as the listener if you don't find it enthralling. In the long run, you need to be able to find two or three songs in the mix that really grab you, because that will drag you into and through the rest of the album. And while I can put this on in the background and let it play away without a second though, if I really sit down and listen to it, I can't find much that really excites me. The opening stanza of "Vengeance Is Mine", "Wake the Dead" and "Catch Me If You Can" is probably my favourite part of the album, but most of the rest I can take or leave. "Salvation" is a case in point. The finale of the album and story, yet contains a barrage of choruses that just nag at you rather than encourage you to sing along, because it turns out that it is more annoying than anthemic.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad album. It just isn't a great album. Dirty Diamonds was a much better album all round. That was classic Alice. This is okay, but not on the top shelf.

719. Stiff Little Fingers / All the Best. 1983. 3.5/5

The dangers of putting out an album that contains your single releases including B-side songs is that, while many of the songs will be considered as your very best - classics, in fact - a selection of songs may be seen as a waste of space, average, or just plain awful. And let's face it, the B-side (in the good old days of vinyl singles) was always either an extra song left over from the recording studio, or a cover version of one of the band's favourite artists. they weren't meant to be their best work, or else they would have been on the album in the first place!

So here we have a collection entitled All the Best, but can you really call it that? I mean, this came out after just three albums had been released, so it's tough to have a greatest hits album after just three albums. Isn't it? I would have thought so.
The album does indeed include some of SLF's finest work, songs such as "Suspect Device", "Alternative Ulster", "Nobody's Hero" and "Tin Soldiers" are still brilliant today. I have always loved "Go For It" for a performance of it at a school camp a thousand years ago. I enjoy "78 RPM" and "You Can't Say Crap on the Radio", because these are my ideas of the best kind of B-side tracks. However, there is a lot of filler, and though it is good to hear anything from these guys, if you really want to hear their best stuff you go to the shelves and grab Nobody's Heroes or Inflammable Material and put them on. This is still fun, but not quite the best.

718. Wolfsbane / All Hell's Breaking Loose at Little Kathy Wilson's Place! 1990 4/5

The fact that this EP is possibly my favourite Wolfsbane release is probably humorous in itself. But it showed a slight change in their typical style - something a bit heavier and less Van Halen - that appeals to me.
"Steel" is a great opening song, grittier and heavier, where Blaze's vocals are allowed to do more than just imitate. "Paint the Town Red" that follows is also terrific. The guitars in particular almost appear to be of their own musical following. Is it because they are somewhat different from Wolfsbane's usual style? Pretty much I would say.
These two songs stand out even more once you get into "Loco", which returns to the bands' very early Van Halen style of song. The similarities in this song and the Eddie Van Halen tricks are unmistakeable, which doesn't make it any less enjoyable.But at times it really does bug me. Still, you listen to what is produced for you, and you either like it or you don't.
"Hey Babe" doesn't work for me, a Wolfsbane attempt at a ballad that let's down the other tracks on this EP. It is redeemed by"Totally Nude" and especially "Kathy Wilson", returning us to positive vibes of this EP. 

Like I said, I enjoy the direction this EP headed in musically, and though it probably didn't come to anything in the future, I still think this is worth a listen if you have the chance.