For their part, DLR and his band – Steve Vai, Billy Sheehan and Gregg Bissonette – had toured the world for 12 months, drawn great crowds and showed that as a live performer, they as a group and Roth in particular still had it. They then got together to produce the follow up album that became “Skyscraper”. The writing and recording process was not as straight forward this time around, and it is interesting to note that while Billy Sheehan did play the bass on the album that he was not asked, or did not contribute, to writing on the album. Not long after the recording, and before the world tour to support it started, Sheehan left the band, to be replaced by Gregg Bissonette’s brother, Matt. Sheehan of course went on to Mr Big, where his writing was one of the cornerstones of the band.
When this album was about to be released, the biggest questions about it were in regards to the musical direction that the band would take with their sophomore release. Would they stretch themselves beyond what they had done on “Eat em And Smile”, or would they look to not reinvent the wheel, and stick to what was safe and known?
The majority of the tracks here are credited as being co-written between Roth and Vai, which is as you would expect. But four tracks stand out as the most accessible commercially wise, and those four tracks did not have Steve Vai credited as a co-writer. The opening song “Knucklebones” is a fun sounding hard rock track with both Gregg and Matt Bissonette as the co-writers, and the drum and bass heavy instrumentation aren’t a surprise as a result. The single from the album, “Just Like Paradise” is one of three songs here co-composed with keyboardist Brett Tuggle, and the music video for this was plastered everywhere for a number of months on its release. It mixes the two best attributes of the band, Dave’s fantastic vocals and Steve’s electrifying guitar. “Stand Up” is such an 80’s track that it is hard to fathom when you listen to it all these years later. The synth and keyboard progressions are tied to that time and no other, with Tuggle obviously having a huge influence on what was going to dominate the song. It may not be new wave as such but it sure is pure 80’s. And “Perfect Timing”, the last of the songs written by this duo, may not be so obvious, but it is top heavy again on the keys and much more like pop song than a rock song.
“The Bottom Line” is treading a thin line between an early-styled Van Halen track, with Dave and Steve playing off against each other throughout the song. “Skyscraper” has the feel of earlier-in-the-decade new wave elements to the track. Then you have the acoustic ballad-type track “Damn Good”, which not only is a stop-the-momentum track smack in the middle of the album, it just seems to be out of place from the style that Dave suggested he was heading in when he quit that other band he had been in. On the other hand, “Hot Dog and a Shake” returns to the fun and lively Dave style that most of us love best, with a faster pace and return of Vai’s electric guitaring.
Given all of the elements that went into the split of Van Halen a few years earlier, where statements were made that because Van Halen wanted to use synths in their songs and a certain lead singe wanted to remain in a more focused hard rock vein, it’s an interesting development that this album actually seems to have gone further down that path as well. There is more prominence of keys and synths on “Skyscraper” than there was on “Eat em and Smile”, and while some of the songs are still in the uptempo vibe, there are those elements that make the listener reconsider just what the endgame really was and is when it came to the artist and his music in the back half of the 80’s decade.
What you may have been expecting from this album, and what you finally get out of it, are most likely two completely opposite things. I know that on its release, I had mixed emotions, and that may well have come directly from the opposite poles that my main musical listening intentions were at the time. Albums with heavy speed and/or melodic guitars and vocals was where 1988 was heading for me, and I guess that was what I was looking for. The lead single “Just Like Paradise” was, and is, a fun song, right in the David Lee Roth sweetspot, so I had guessed that this was typical of what the rest of the album would be like. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was in the style as I spoke of here in the middle section, a lot of mid tempo songs that concentrated more on the 80’s synths than the genius of Steve Vai’s guitar, as had been the case on the debut solo album. And as a result it fell off my radar fairly swiftly as other more aggressive albums began to find their way into my spectrum.
Listening to it now, I have different emotions. To be honest, it is more like a glam metal or rock album than a hard rock album, and if I had gone in listening to it as such at the time I reckon I would have enjoyed it more. Because the songs here might be harmless but they are enjoyable if you take in the fac that it is tied to the era, and has more to do with new wave and hair metal rock than heavy metal or hard rock, as it was promoted at the time. I’ve had it on rotation for two weeks, and have enjoyed it each time I’ve listened to it. Is t because I am less judemental of it now than I was at the time? That’s probably a fair statement. It isn’t a great album. It isn’t groundbreaking. But Dave is always enjoyable to listen to, and Vai and Sheehan and BIssonette are great musicians. It’s an album to listen to like elevator music, on in the background in a harmless way. Perhaps that’s not what he was looking for at the time, but it’s not a bad way to end up in someone’s collection for.
No comments:
Post a Comment