Anthony’s Yard Sale: Whitesnake, “Whitesnake”

Anthony Hansen January 11, 2010 9

Oh.

Hello, Whitesnake CD. How’ve you been? Yes, it has been a long time…

(Oh Fuck.)

Me? Oh, I’ve been fine, I guess. Can’t complain, you know? That Frank Zappa CD I bought along with you is doing well, too. What? No, I guess I haven’t listened to it much either…

(Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK)

Yeah, you do have a point. I guess I never did give you a fair chance. After all, you do employ the considerable talents of Aynsley Dunbar on drums, and David Coverdale is an undeniably powerful singer.

(Just stand your ground, Anthony. Look that CD in the eye and tell it like it is.)

Look, I’m not actually gonna come out and say I like David Coverdale. In fact, I’m fairly certain he writes lyrics with his penis, hence the brain-dead obviousness in both the choice of wording and subject matter. What? No, I guess it doesn’t matter for the kind of music he’s playing, but still! Hair metal. Not my thing.

(Does it know I once owned a Def Leppard CD? God, I hope not.)

Okay, okay. I guess it is my critical duty to judge the music on its own terms…

(NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO)

Well, let’s see now: like I said, the musicianship is solid (I haven’t even mentioned John Sykes’ considerable guitar firepower), and the songs do manage to rock pretty hard in spite of themselves. What? Well, I mean, they really are just a bunch of Led Zeppelin rip-offs, right? Oh. Well… subjectively speaking, I guess that doesn’t actually bother me that much, now that you mentioned it.

(Well, there goes my livelihood. All that potential rock-journo-cum-Montréal-hipster cred, ruined. RUINED!)

You know what? Maybe I don’t have that ingrained anti-hair-metal bias after all. I mean, I’ll never buy a CD like you again, but you hardly deserved the resentment I used to heap on you.

(An effective compromise, but… seriously, Anthony? Really? Is agreeable mediocrity my new critical benchmark now? I really ought to dust off those old Van Halen LPs, put things in their proper perspective…)

Well hey, I’m glad we patched things up… oh. Yeah, um, I’m busy this week. Maybe next week too. Look, I have a pretty busy listening schedule these days… I’ll call you, okay?

(asshole.)

Final Verdict: The worst part? I bought this one for the power ballads. The POWER BALLADS, you understand.

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  • Matt

    I love me some Whitesnake music….there, I said it. I feel better already.

  • http://twitter.com/jeffctaylor Jeff Taylor

    This is a classic album. I love “Slip of the Tongue”, too – some of my favourite work from Steve Vai is on that one.

  • http://popdose.com MatthewBolin

    I've told many a person over the years that David Coverdale is like the male Melissa Etheridge: They wrote one song that is head and shoulders above anything else they've ever done (in ME's case, it's “Come to My Window”), they both sound like they gargle with rocks and sawdust, they both sing like they're trying way, WAY too hard, and they've probably both nailed the same chick at least a couple of times.

  • russ

    Jeeziz H…. compare this Whitesnake record to Deep Purple's “Burn”. This is like the metal crowd copping to the fact that it's way easier to get laid to pussified shite than anything rockin'.

  • http://twitter.com/jeffctaylor Jeff Taylor

    This is a classic album. I love “Slip of the Tongue”, too – some of my favourite work from Steve Vai is on that one.

  • http://popdose.com MatthewBolin

    I've told many a person over the years that David Coverdale is like the male Melissa Etheridge: They wrote one song that is head and shoulders above anything else they've ever done (in ME's case, it's “Come to My Window”), they both sound like they gargle with rocks and sawdust, they both sing like they're trying way, WAY too hard, and they've probably both nailed the same chick at least a couple of times.

  • russ

    Jeeziz H…. compare this Whitesnake record to Deep Purple's “Burn”. This is like the metal crowd copping to the fact that it's way easier to get laid to pussified shite than anything rockin'.

  • guest

    I have an autographed LP of this I got at Village des valeurs for 1.25$…