Posts Tagged ‘Bon Jovi’

  
Monday, October 12th, 2009

Death by Power Ballad: Bon Jovi, “Silent Night”

by Rob Smith

Had Bon Jovi been killed in a horrific, fiery airplane crash in 1985, we would remember them much differently than we do today. Had they experienced a painful, flesh-melting demise prior to recording 1986’s monster Slippery When Wet album, we would recognize the band’s name strictly as a hair metal afterthought, a tragic rock and roll footnote. They would have been seen as the perennial opening band, having done the warm-up honors for the Scorpions, KISS, Ratt, and others before their plane exploded in midair and crashed, leaving a trail of flaming debris scattered somewhere in the hinterlands, far from civilization.

Granted, the power ballad arts would have been denied a number of genre classics, had the band’s still-smoking corpses been strewn across a wide swath of land, in and around the crash site. We, of course, would know not of “Always,” “Bed of Roses,” “Never Say Goodbye,” “This Ain’t a Love Song,” or “I’ll Be There for You,” just as surely as the deceased Richie Sambora would never know the touch of Heather Locklear, or taste the sweet nectar of her kisses, sweat, and other exquisite excretions one cannot experience from one’s future beloved when one’s tongue is reduced to ash by gallons of exploding jet fuel before one even meets said beloved. (more…)

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Music, Power Ballads | Comments

Monday, October 5th, 2009

CD Review: Kiss, “Sonic Boom”

by Popdose Staff

BoomAny good label manager would tell you: don’t name your album something a reviewer could turn into a catchy, snarky counterpoint. But as we know far too well, most of the labels are hanging by a thread, the management inside reduced to bean counters versus quality controllers and, heck, if Hollywood keeps naming their movies in blindly self-insulting ways, why can’t the record industry follow suit?

Besides, we’re talking about Kiss here, who have built an iron-clad and insular fanbase that views such flaunting of common sense as an act of rebellion. Who cares if the new album Sonic Boom, the first since 1998’s Psycho Circus, opens itself up to opening paragraphs such as this, begging the question, “Boom or Bust?” What really matters is if the band has spent the decade-long downtime productively or not, and luckily for you, the Popdose staff has gone through the work of sussing it out so you don’t have to. Strap on your steel dragon-face boots, smear on your kabuki greasepaint and shake off your love gun. It’s time to rock and roll.

Rob Smith: I mentioned in my Overnight America Popdose segment a couple weeks ago that I cannot name a single Kiss studio album that’s great from start to finish (I hate “Beth,” so suck it all you Destroyer fans). After listening to Sonic Boom, I can still say I cannot name a single Kiss studio album that’s great from start to finish.

That said, I like “Never Enough” a lot, though the verses remind me of Poison’s “Nothin’ But a Good Time” a little TOO much.  Wasn’t Paul Stanley supposed to produce that album, too? (more…)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in CD Reviews, Music | Comments

Monday, July 27th, 2009

The Steel Horse Archives: Cinderella, “Somebody Save Me”

by Jeff Vrabel

steelhorseheader

CINDERELLA
Song Title: “Somebody Save Me”
Album: Night Songs
Release Date: Aug. 2, 1986

Why You Remember Them: Rode to fame by digging fingernails deep into Bon Jovi’s coattails in the post-Slippery When Wet epoch.

Worldwide Total Album Sales To Date: 18 million

How You Can Tell This Cinderella From The Cartoon Princess On Google: Be sure to click on “Cinderella * Rock N Roll.” Pretty much everything else is wicked Disney.

Other Key Tracks: “Shake Me,” “Don’t Know What You Got Till It’s Gone”

Humiliating Personal Memory: I dubbed (high-speedly, like I even have to say that) this tape from a friend’s brother in Upland, Ind., in 1986. The song that came after “Somebody Save Me” was called “In from the Outside,” and I was briefly obsessed with “In from the Outside,” except the extended prog-rock outro thing. Whatevs. (more…)

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Music, The Steel Horse Archives | Comments

Monday, July 20th, 2009

The Steel Horse Archives: Prologue — Step Inside, Walk This Way

by Jeff Vrabel

steelhorseheader

With the exception of whichever one Mase was in, perhaps no musical genre has endured a swifter or less celebrated mainstream extermination than Hair Metal, whose predominant 1980s celebrants – generally uncomplicated fellows who came to town with nothing more than hearts of gold, dreams of fame and lady makeup – wanted nothing more than to have a good time, even if you couldn’t get one to write a decent lyric about it by electro-shocking him in the shoulder pads.

Once that floating naked baby record and the flannel people materialized, of course, such bands couldn’t do much but struggle to quote-fingers evolve (anyone remember Poison’s gospel-tinged ode to individuality “Stand?” Pfft.), but surprisingly, most fans resisted the abruptly spiritual carpe-diem stuff emerging from the very same people who just minutes prior were panting out songs like “The Hunter” and “Wanted Man” and “Slip of the Lip” and “You Are The Saint, I Am The Sinner” while thrusting, into the MTV cameras, anything attached to them that was thrustable. Eight minutes later “Beavis and Butthead” put a dingus named Stuart in a Winger T-shirt and the coffin was closed. For a while.

Because these days, a great many hairtacular bands have circled their wagons on the middle-tier nostalgia package-tour circuit looking, if not to conquer the Earth, to at least ruin some more of its ozone. These are the lucky ones, of course, as some are surely moving used cars in Lexington, some are assembling weird simulacrums of their former bands and releasing “Chinese Democracy” and still others are smacking their noses into parts of the Tony Awards. It’s a mess, is what I’m saying. But regardless, somewhere on its plummet down from the wild ’80s schmaltz-glitz years of Bon Jovi, Poison, Motley Crue and the 250 bands that started with W, hair metal — and this was really nice of it — forgot to die. (more…)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Featured, Featured - Frontpage, Music, The Steel Horse Archives | Comments

Monday, July 6th, 2009

Song-Off Jr.: Fast Food Burgers

by Matchup Monkey

fastfood

As people eat more meals outside the home, they consume more calories, less fiber, and more fat. Commodity prices have fallen so low that the fast food industry has greatly increased its portion sizes, without reducing profits, in order to attract customers. The size of a burger has become one of its main selling points. Wendy’s offers the Triple Decker; Burger King, the Great American; and Hardee’s sells a hamburger called the Monster. The Little Caesars slogan “Big! Big!” now applies not just to the industry’s portions, but to its customers. Over the past forty years in the United States, per capita consumption of carbonated soft drinks has more than quadrupled. During the late 1950s the typical soft drink order at a fast food restaurant contained about eight ounces of soda; today a “Child” order of Coke at McDonald’s is twelve ounces. A “Large” Coke is thirty-two ounces-and about 310 calories. In 1972, McDonald’s added Large French Fries to its menu; twenty years later, the chain added Super Size Fries, a serving three times larger than what McDonald’s offered a generation ago. Super Size Fries have 610 calories and 29 grams of fat. At Carl’s Jr. restaurants, an order of CrissCut Fries and a Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger boasts 73 grams of fat — more fat than ten of the chain’s milk shakes.

–from Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

(more…)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Music, Popdose, Song-Off | Comments

Friday, May 8th, 2009

CHART ATTACK!: 5/13/89

by Jason Hare

Hey, hey, hey! It’s Friday, and you know what that (sometimes) means! That’s right, it’s time to take a look at another Billboard Top 10 from ages past, and today we’re heading back a full 20 years to see what the charts were like on May 13, 1989!

10. Wind Beneath My Wings — Bette Midler Amazon iTunes
9. Patience — Guns n’ Roses Amazon iTunes
8. Rock On — Michael Damian Amazon iTunes
7. Second Chance — 38 Special Amazon iTunes
6. After All — Cher and Peter Cetera Amazon iTunes
5. Soldier of Love — Donny Osmond Amazon iTunes
4. Forever Your Girl — Paula Abdul Amazon iTunes
3. Real Love — Jody Watley Amazon iTunes
2. Like a Prayer — Madonna Amazon iTunes
1. I’ll Be There for You — Bon Jovi Amazon iTunes

10. Wind Beneath My Wings — Bette Midler

I try to stay away from directly quoting Wikipedia entries, but this sentence is just perfect: “Because of the song’s soaring imagery and the extreme earnestness of Midler’s iconic performance, the song has become ripe for parody.” I mean, that’s totally it, isn’t it? It doesn’t really get any more earnest than this, unless you count “From a Distance,” which was totally Midler’s (successful) attempt to repeat her newfound success as an inspirational singer. Midler didn’t actually care for the song when she first heard it — she was convinced to do it by Marc Shaiman, her long-time musical director (as well as the genius behind the songs in the Broadway version of Hairspray and a million other movies, including South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut and Team America: World Police). The song won Grammy awards for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year, but strangely lost the Earworm of the Year award to “Love Shack.”

Although the song will always be tied to Bette Midler, she was far from the first person to record it. The song was written in 1982 by Jeff Silbar and Larry Henley, and was first rejected by Kenny Rogers and Barry Manilow. (When Barry Manilow is turning down your sappy song, you know you’re in trouble.) Artists who recorded the song before Midler include Roger Whittaker, Sheena Easton, Lou Rawls, Lee Greenwood, B.J. Thomas, Gladys Knight (her version was called “Hero”) and Gary Morris, who recorded a country version, much to the chagrin of Silbar and Henley…until it won Song of the Year at the Country Music Awards. Apparently when Morris performs it, he often says “Bette is free to sing this however she wants, but personally, I think she butchered it.” Har!

My favorite version, however, is the duet between Midler and Krusty.

9. Patience — Guns n’ Roses

Written by Izzy Stradlin, “Patience” peaked at #4 on the charts and, recorded in a single session with three acoustic guitars, clearly showed a different side of the band. It very clearly said to audiences that Guns n’ Roses wasn’t just happy getting with teenage girls backstage. They wanted their mothers, too. Even my Lionel Richie-lovin’ mother liked this song…until the end when Axl started that “awful screaming” (which is kind of my favorite part of the song). By the way, I wish people would take that specific vocal section into account before they decide to sing this song at karaoke. It’s always painful.

8. Rock On — Michael Damian (download)

What’s sadder: the fact that I hadn’t heard “Rock On” before Damian’s version, or that I can immediately tell you that this was on the soundtrack to Dream a Little Dream, the movie starring Corey Feldman and Corey Haim? Both are pretty sad, don’t you think? I agree. (I’m sure Kelly Stitzel is with me on this one.)

You may be thinking what I’m thinking: Michael Damian, “Rock On,” total one-hit wonder, right? Actually, it turns out that he’s had two other hits in the Top 40, both in 1989: “Was It Nothing At All” made it all the way to #24, and “Cover of Love” reached #31. Damian had recorded “Rock On” a couple of years earlier in his garage with his two brothers, but it was rejected by most record labels. Dream a Little Dream director Mark Rocco asked Damian’s brothers if they could write some music for the soundtrack, and they brought him “Rock On.” The track reached #1 in early June and surpassed the original, a #5 for David Essex in ‘74.

Apart from “Rock On,” Damian’s had numerous successes: he played a lead role on The Young and the Restless for 18 years, appeared in the revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (and earned a Grammy nomination), and even won the BMI Songwriting Award for “Was It Nothing At All.” Furthermore, he’s directed two award-winning independent films! So there’s no mocking Damian here, folks. This guy hasn’t really done anything to…aw, Jesus. Wait a second.

(more…)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Chart Attack!, Featured, Featured - Frontpage, Music | Comments

Friday, March 27th, 2009

Letter from the Editor: Radio is Dying, but Music Has “One Life to Live”

by Jeff Giles

one_life_to_live_logo

I try to do right, I try to do right, because I only got, only got, only got, only got…all that I have is one life to live.

These are the words that greeted viewers of the long-running ABC daytime serial One Life to Live when they tuned in for a pair of episodes last May, thanks to a remixed-and-revamped version of the show’s theme song performed by Snoop Dogg. Yes, that Snoop Dogg. You may have seen blurbs here and there about Snoop’s OLTL appearance and chalked it up to a joke, or some of the hard-hitting investigative journalism the Internet is known for, but no — Snoop really did tape a two-episode guest stint that had him rolling into the fictional Pennsylvania town of Llanview to perform at a bachelorette party. As far as musicians-on-scripted-TV crossovers go, it was both utterly ridiculous and eminently believable — of all the multiplatinum veteran rap artists in the world, who would be more likely than Snoop Dogg to take the microphone for a small club filled with screaming women in a random Philadelphia suburb? — and far less awkward than, say, the Counting Crows showing up to play in a bar during an episode of Boston Public:

As any Ricky Nelson fan could tell you, musicians have been taking advantage of television shows’ built-in audiences pretty much since the dawn of the medium. But the slow, painful death of Top 40 radio — hell, of radio in general, at least as a reliable conduit for new music — has given rise to a new breed of TV music supervisors who actively work to connect their viewers with songs and artists. One such music supervisor is One Life to Live’s Paul Glass, who has used his position with the show to help turn it into a surprisingly popular destination for musicians promoting new releases. Many of us still tend to think of daytime television as the last refuge for cheesy strings and organ music, but when Mary J. Blige booked an appearance on One Life to Live in 2006 — and enjoyed a 40% bump in sales the following week — OLTL quickly became the Ed Sullivan Show of the soaps, with Glass booking and producing a succession of artists that now includes Lifehouse, Nelly Furtado, Simply Red, Erykah Badu, Timbaland (with the loathsome OneRepublic), and, uh, Puddle of Mudd (you can’t win ‘em all). (more…)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Letter From the Editor, Music | Comments

Friday, March 6th, 2009

New Radio Roundtable: 3/6/09

by The Chartburn Panel

newradioroundtable

Do not be alarmed! Do not adjust your set! Chartburn hasn’t gone away — it’s just sharing space with some more Friday features, including the the New Radio Roundtable, in which your intrepid Chartburn panel discusses some of the songs going for adds at various formats. And away we go!


Adult Contemporary: Airborne Toxic Event, “Sometime Around Midnight”

Zack Dennis: This song takes itself way too seriously. The band has some terrific buzz, and aside from an excess of gloss, they seem to be pushing the right buttons on the alternative pop machine. But after listening to it a couple of times the excess of emotion starts to wear thin for me.

Beau Dure: In the beginning, I figured this was a bad Explosions in the Sky impression. By the end, I thought it was a pretty good Joy Division impression. I’d tone down the chiming guitar at the beginning, but beyond that, it’s an impressive track. The jealousy builds over the course of the song and boils over at the end, and the singer handles the material far better than most of the fifth-rate Eddie Vedder clones in rock these days.

Dw. Dunphy: I wouldn’t turn this off if I heard it on the radio. It’s equal parts Explosions In The Sky and Arcade Fire, but I kept waiting for the sky to open up on this and only got shouting. Still, with a name like Airborne Toxic Event, I was expecting something much…crappier. We’ll call this a pleasant surprise, if nothing more.

David Medsker: You could usually tell the crappy bands from the good ones by their names alone, but the line is getting blurrier by the day. I wrote off ATE by their name too, and then I heard the album and thought, “Shit, these guys are good.” What am I going to use as a benchmark now? Does this mean I actually have to listen to everyone first before making a judgment on their talent? Fuck.

Jeff Giles: Californian singers who try to sound like they’re British always piss me off; in fact, I still haven’t forgiven Billie Joe of Green Day. But I’ve always been a sucker for rock ‘n’ roll that at least makes the effort to try and sound majestic, and this track gets pretty huge (definitely in an Explosions in the Sky-type way — good call, Beau). Also, Pitchfork gave their album 1.6 out of 10, so I’m inclined to give the band the benefit of the doubt.

Zack: I take umbrage to this song being compared to anything Explosions in the Sky. Their songs go through a variety of changes (tempo, volume, chord structure, atmosphere) while all the Airborne Toxic Event song does is build some tension and get a bit louder. (more…)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Music, New Radio Roundtable | Comments

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

Unsolicited Career Advice for… Radiohead

by Rob Smith

You wouldn’t know it by reading the following, but Uncle Donnie is afraid of British people.  Thought the Beatles were going to bring about a counter-Revolutionary War, in which England would attempt to take back the original 13 colonies, by force, if necessary, using the Fab Four as a distraction.  He distrusts anything with a Union Jack on it, including the Def Leppard drummer’s shorts back in the early 80s.  That said, for some reason, he digs Radiohead.  Calls Tom Yorke’s voice “soothing.”  In typical Skwatzenschitzian fashion, he’s got some advice for the band. —RS

TO: Radiohead
FROM: Don Skwatzenschitz
RE: Career advice

You guys went right to my (radio)head (ha-ha) years ago. I saw you open for REM back in ‘95 or so, and you were fantastic. I didn’t know a single damn song (you wouldn’t play “Creep,” regardless of how many times my row shouted for it), and I was blown away. You’ve had your ups and downs—to be honest, I’ve lost track of you these last couple years, since Amnesiac. What has happened to you? What have you done? You were on the cusp of something big—BIG, I tell you—and now … I think Blur might be bigger than you guys, and they’re not even a band anymore.

I can help you out, if you let me. Believe in Skwatzenschitz. I’ll make you stars once again. Here’s what you have to do:

  • Get into food. Pablo Honey barbecue wings. Knives Out frozen meals.  Unborn Chicken Voice chicken tenders. This country loves nothing more than a heaping helping of junk food. Put your name on something breaded and microwaveable, and by God, you will be a household name. Kids will order you at Applebees. What more could a band ask for?
  • Smile in your publicity photos. Tom, nobody likes a sourpuss. You look like a … well, a creep in your publicity glossies. You never crack a smile; none of you do. And what the hell are you doing with that eye? Lighten up, boys. Need an example? Just a little sample? Look at the Osmonds, back in the 70s. Smiled in every fucking picture. Biggest band in Utah. I kid you not—cheerful works!
  • Go country. Duetting with someone hot in country can get you all kinds of sales at Wal-Mart, you know? Heartland honeys like Carrie Underwood or Taylor Swift, or even that chick from Sugarland, the one who did that song with Bon Jovi. While we’re at it, guys, do you think you have a Lost Highway-type album in you? Because if you do, my God, CMT will be all over you.
  • Charge double for your music. This is a crazy idea I had recently, but hear me out. Why do people spend 50 grand for a Cadillac, when a Civic will do? Because of the prestige of owning something special, something precious. Too many bands just give away their music these days. You should charge double—$39.96 list price for the next Radiohead album. And don’t sell it on the Web, or in Wal-Mart. Make it available only at specialty stores—really out-of-the-way places, so people have to find it. It’ll seem more exclusive. You won’t sell as many copies, but the ones you do sell will put a nice extra chunk o’ green (or whatever color you Brits’ currency is) in your pockets.
  • Fake your death. “Radiohead Dies in Bizarre Plane Crash—Wreck Never Found.” Great headline, huh? People will buy your entire catalog again, just to have something more to remember you by. Meanwhile, you guys are up in jolly olde Britain, noshing on Cornish pasties, listening to your Can albums, raking in the quid hand over pale, skeletal fist. How alternative would that be?

All the best,
Don

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Music, Unsolicited Career Advice | Comments

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

Bottom Feeders: The Ass End of the ’80s, Part 9

by Dave Steed

bottomfeeders2.jpg

How many of you remember your first music purchase? I have a terrible memory, so I’m not sure if it really was my first purchase ever, but I absolutely remember buying my first CD with my own money. I was eight, the year was 1984, and the unfortunate CD was Culture Club’s Colour by Numbers. (I don’t know what CDs cost back then, but I must have done a lot of chores to be able to afford one at that age.) I say “unfortunate” not because the album was bad — I still enjoy it even today — but because it just becomes the laughingstock of the first-purchase conversation. I could absolutely tell people that it was Def Leppard, Billy Joel, David Bowie — hell, even Ride the Lightning if I wanted to be cool — but I know that at some point I’d tell someone the wrong thing and get called on it and then not only will people laugh at my purchase but they’ll think I’m an asshole for lying about it too. It’s really a no-win situation, so I just stick with the truth. Besides, people are just as horrified when I cradle my self-titled Frank Stallone record like it’s my child, so at that point “Karma Chameleon” is like 100 times better.

I’m an absolute junkie for the “My first record was …” story, so I’d love to hear what yours is after you take a listen to the 19 below as we continue this week with the letter “B.”

(more…)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Bottom Feeders, Music, Popdose | Comments