Enter the scene Kip Winger and Reb Beach. Both started playing in bands – separately – in high school, and eventually met up as they were recording material for separate projects under the production of Beau Hill. They even began recording demos together at that time, Kip as bass guitarist and lead vocals and Reb as lead and rhythm guitarist and backing vocals. Then Kip’s big break came, climbing on board with Alice Cooper to record and tour on the albums “Constrictor” and “Raise Your Fist and Yell”, the albums that helped resurrect Alice’s career. It was following these two albums and tours that Kip decided he wanted to form his own band and so moved on from the Alice Cooper juggernaut. He reconnected with Reb, and even snared Paul Taylor, who had been touring with Alice Cooper as keyboardist, to also join the new band. With Rod Morgenstein joining on drums, the quartet was complete.
Initially the band wanted to call themselves Sahara, and even had that named on the front cover of their debut album. However, as the name was already take by another band, they had to choose another name. Eventually, it was Alice Cooper himself who suggested that they should call themselves Winger, which is eventually what they did.
Listening to this album in 2023 is a lot different from picking it up in 1988 and putting it on for the first time. The album had four singles released from it, and all of them are stereotypical of the era of hair metal that this is born from. But the quality of it is what makes it stand apart from some of the pretenders of the era. Reb Beach on guitar is superb. He holds the standard riffs through the bass of the songs, but when given the chance to preach his solos they are fantastic and wholly enjoyable. Kip Winger is terrific on bass and as lead singer throughout gives a performance that doesn’t try to overstate his presence, nor go over the top in reaching for heights he doesn’t have or need to. Morgenstein’s drums hold that steady beat throughout while Taylor’s keyboards also aren’t domineering throughout the songs which gives the album a unique presence. All four are capable vocalists as well which makes for a great chorused sound on all the songs.
The first side of the album is dominated by the main singles releases, and thus the lyrical content of the genre focusing on girls and the wanting to get together with girls and the hope that girls want to get with you. Both “Madalaine” and “Seventeen” are jaunty and rocky and singalong favourites, and were pushed along by the popularity of the videos on MTV and the like at the time. “Hungry” is of a similar ilk, though dealing with the subject of a new girlfriend dying in a car crash marks it as a point in difference in the lyrical content. The power ballad “Without the Night” is a favourite of the genre that for me just kills off the good vibes of the opening of the album. It is one of the best of the genre... by which I mean it is a gag-induced crapfest. I do dislike Power ballads.
Side one then winds up with a cover of “Purple Haze”, which I think is just an excuse for Reb Beach to get his Hendrix on. This is still an ear scratcher for me all these years later.
The second side of the album shows us more of the same qualities as the first half. “State of Emergency” and “Time to Surrender” both sit in a mid-tempo style reminiscent of other bands of the era, whereas both “Poison Angel” and “Hangin’ On” are upbeat and pushed along more frantically, allowed Reb to better utilised in his guitar breaks, and the band to show they can perform those faster joyful tracks just as well as their contemporaries at the time. The downside to this is that we then go back to the power ballad to close out the album. The third single released from the album, “Headed for a Heartbreak”, is such a poor choice to complete the album. All of the credits earned by earlier tracks are thrown out the window again by the train wreck of this particular style of song. There must be those out there who think this is a good idea because it happens too often for that not to be the case, but once again in this instance to me it ruins what has been a pleasant experience leading up to the close.
In all of our lives, there are albums that we buy on the scarcest of knowledge. It might be that we know one band member, it might be that someone recommended it to you, or you might have read about it in a magazine... back when those still existed. For me it was because Kip Winger had played on two albums that I obsessively adored at the end of my school years, the aforementioned Alice Cooper classics “Constrictor” and “Raise Your Fist and Yell”. And I thought that if he’d played on those, then surely his own stuff would be worth checking out. It was also, strangely enough, about three years after its release, so I guess I hadn’t really had that much information on it coming to me at the time. I know this because I am currently looking at my CD copy right now, with the price tag still attached, and I didn’t start buying CDs until 1991.
My memories of what I thought of the album at that time of purchase are vague. I know I used to play it, but I don’t think it was often, and it has probably been a shelf stacker for most of the years I have owned it. Perhaps not surprising given the combination of hair metal plus power ballads that are the mainstay of the album here. My guess is that I bought this, and the follow up, at a time when I had money burning a hole in my pocket and I just wanted new product.
Through the years, it hasn’t been sighted very often. It’s most recent surfacing probably occurred around 6-7 years ago when I went through a phase of going back through all of my hair metal albums of those late 1980’s and giving them a spin again, and I do remember thinking then that it was better than I gave it credit for.
Into the past three weeks, and I have certainly rediscovered the good and the average of the album. The singles are pure sugar, the power ballads are pure bastardry, but there are a few songs here that are probably not heralded by anyone that I enjoyed the most. Reb’s guitaring is certainly the best part of an album that is tied to its era, and perhaps is best left to that time.
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