Here’s the fourth and final installment of the greatest metal compilation album of 1989 and possibly all time. The sad part of this is that some of these bands have faded into obscurity.
Dream Theater- The Killing Hand
Acid Reign- Goddess
Femme Fatale- Falling In and Out of Love
Tigertailz- Love Overload
Wrathchild- (Na Na) Nukklear Rokket
Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction- Backseat Education
House of Lords- I Wanna Be Loved
Well, that completes it. I hope you all loved this entire album. If there was any one compilation which caught the entire essence of heavy metal at the time, then it was “Protect the Innocent.”
Next post: I haven’t fully finished with this album yet. There are two tracks from the final installment which are from albums I missed on the tour of 1988. Therefore, I’m going back and covering those albums. So the next album is Femme Fatale.
To buy Rock and Roll Children, email me at: tobychainsaw@hotmail.com
The “The Protect the Innocent” saga goes on with side three, “The Wild and the Willing.” However, there seems to be no let up in the great metal this album has.
Magnum- Start Talking Love
Vow Wow- Helter Skelter
Megadeath- Rattlehead
Saxon- Back on the Streets
Lita Ford- Kiss Me Deadly
Lisa Dominique- Rock ‘N’ Roll Lady
Exodus- Fabulous Disaster
I hope you’re continuing to enjoy. Three sides down one more to go.
Next post: Protect the Innocent- Side 4, The Wanton and the Warriors
To buy Rock and Roll Children, email me at: tobychainsaw@hotmail.com
Like I said, I’ve been snowed under with everyone wanting me to do Continuing Professional Development courses, (CPD), that I’m not able to give albums my full attention. In some of my most recent posts, I have made reference to a compilation album which came out in 1989. The album is called, “Protect the Innocent” and you will see what a magnificent album this really is. Because there are 30 blockbuster metal tunes on it, I’m going break it down like it’s done on the record. Therefore, you get side 1 called, “The First Chapter.”
Steppenwolf- Born to Be Wild
Black Sabbath- Paranoid
Deep Purple- Fireball
Motorhead- Ace of Spades
Judas Priest- Breaking the Law
Ted Nugent- Scream Dream
Ozzy Osbourne- The Ultimate Sin
Blue Oyster Cult- Don’t Fear the Reaper
There you have it, enjoy!
Next post: Part 2- The Second Reign
To buy Rock and Roll Children, email me at: tobychainsaw@hotmail.com
Three bands immediately spring to mind whenever the term ‘progressive metal’ is mentioned. One is Dio as they could be called one of prog metal’s founders, the second is Savatage, especially after the “Gutter Ballet” album and the third band is the one I’m posting about today, Dream Theater. They are another band I discovered on the compilation album I’ll be visiting in the near future and like Mammoth, they impressed me. Therefore, it’s only logical that I explored their debut album, “When Dreams and Day Unite.”
Oh yes, to clarify, I can already hear some of you screaming at the top of your lungs, “What about Rush?” I don’t consider them metal and neither do they. Maybe progressive hard rock at best but not metal. In any case, I still enjoy a good Rush album so this whole argument is pointless.
Now back to Dream Theater and their debut. “When Dreams and Day Unite” starts off with three good tracks, the third one an instrumental and while I say good as they keep me interested, track two, “Status Seeker,” being the best of the three, the throat grabbing track comes fourth, “The Killing Hand.” For me, this is the best track on the album and I can see why it was the one which appears on that compilation album. It’s an eight minute long progressive metal master piece with all the elements required for such a track. What I had forgotten is that it was broken down into five parts. It tells a story of time travel and murder although the writer, John Petrucci, isn’t totally sure himself. Great keyboard work, some nice guitar work, a steady rhythm section and good vocals all combine to make it the best song on the album.
What critics have said, not that I pay attention to them, although there is some truth in the fact that the band were finding themselves as a band and individual musicians. This is not a criticism of the band but it’s something a lot of bands experience with their debut albums. I could have said the same about Mammoth in my previous post. However, what they have done on “When Dreams and Day Unite” is build the foundation for their more successful follow up album, “Images and Words.” Listening to the album, I remember why I was excited about Mike Portnoy filling in as drummer for Twisted Sister and I can add John Petrucci to my list of underrated guitarists. Some have slated Charlie Dominici’s vocals on the album but I find nothing wrong with them and of course, you can’t have good progressive metal without keyboards and Kevin Moore shows he’s the one for the job. While I don’t hear much of John Myung’s bass on the album, I know he lays down a good line.
Not wanting to leave out the rest of the album, I can say that the second half of the album, with the exception of “The Killing Hand,” is better than the first. The standout track of the four is “Light Fuse and Get Away.” It’s another cool track which neatly combines all the elements. Saying that, there seems to be a Rush-Styx influence throughout most of these songs.
Track Listing:
A Fortune In Lies
Status Seeker
The Ytse Jam
The Killing Hand- i. The Observance, ii. Ancient Renewal, iii. The Stray Seed, iv. Thorns, v. Exodus
Light and Fuse Get Away
Afterlife
The Ones Who Help to Set the Sun
Only a Matter of Time
Dream Theater
Charlie Dominici- vocals
John Petrucci- guitar
Kevin Moore- keyboards
John Myung- bass
Mike Portnoy- drums, percussion
While “When Dreams and Day Unite” is the only Dream Theater album which failed to break into the top 200, it did set the foundation of greater things to come for the band. Still, if you fancy some great progressive metal, then check this album out.
Next post: Pretty Boy Floyd- Leather Boyz With Electric Toyz
To buy Rock and Roll Children, email me at: tobychainsaw@hotmail.com
British band, Mammoth, first came to my attention via a compilation album which I’m going to cover in the very near future. The song represented on that album from this debut is “Fatman” and it was a good choice as for me, it’s the best song on the debut. It’s a good heads up rocker and I get the impression that the band are laughing at themselves with it, in a good way of course.
Of course, we got to ask about the rest of the album. If they were looking for Top of the Pops chart success, then the opener “All the Days” would be a prime candidate. It does open with a pop oriented intro but never gets too heavy for the delicate ears of the top 40 brigade. However, there is a cool guitar solo in the middle. Mac Baker is a decent guitarist.
Like with so many bands on their debut albums, some might say that Mammoth were trying to discover what they were. True, on the album songs go in a variety of directions but they mostly stay with the hard rock formula. “Can’t Take the Hurt” is another mid tempo rocker which also could have been released as a single. With the video, maybe it was as it’s the closest they come to a true ballad. The history behind the band is vague at best.
They prove they can rock on tracks like “Bet You Wish,” “Long Time Coming” and “30 Pieces of Silver.” These are good hard rocking tracks and “Bad Times” is a steady melodic one. However, they venture into more progressive metal territory on “Dark Star” and the closer, “Home From the Storm,” and they sound pretty good. I put forward the argument that Mammoth weren’t necessarily trying to find their sound as opposed to the belief that they just wanted to make music.
Track Listing:
All the Days
Fatman
Can’t Take the Hurt
30 Pieces of Silver
Dark Star
Bet You Wish
Long Time Coming
Bad Times
Home From the Storm
Mammoth
Nicky Moore- vocals, keyboards
Mac Baker- guitar
John McCoy- bass, guitar, synth guitar
Vinnie Reed- drums, percussion
Additional Musicians:
Bernie Torme- guitar
Kenny Cox- guitar
Rob Fisher- keyboards
David Lloyd, Mark Williamson- backing vocals
Steve Sidelynk- percussion
Mammoth was one of those bands who came and went without getting much notice. According to sources, they wouldn’t release another record until 1997. Shame, because with this debut, they were certainly heading in the right direction.
Next post: Dream Theater- When Dream and Day Unite
To buy Rock and Roll Children, email me at: tobychainsaw@hotmail.com
It has been often suggested that the best way to introduce yourself to a band whose discography you want to check out but not sure where to start is that you go to one of their compilation albums first, whether that be a greatest hits or live album. This way, you get an idea of some of their best recordings and that will help you decide if you want to explore the band more. Sound advice I’d say except that in regards to Helix, I didn’t do it that way.
I’ve been exploring Helix more throughout the tour of the 1980s, one album at a time. Therefore, most of the songs on here, I had already listened to on the albums they originated from. So for me, it’s a bonus seeing all the songs I’ve liked from the albums on this compilation album, “Over 60 Minutes With.” Great songs like “Deep Cuts the Knife” off “Long Way to Heaven” and “Animal House” from “Walkin’ the Razor’s Edge” are great to hear on the same album as are all of the other cuts that appear here. Of course, the album closes with their best known song, “Rock You.” So all in all, if I had been completely ignorant of Helix and wanted to check them out and went to this compilation album, I would be completely satisfied with what I had just heard and would want to explore their albums more.
With all of that said, there is one point I find rather perplexing. There are no tracks from the 1987 album, “Wild in the Streets” on this compilation. Now, I know it was a bit of a commercial flop for Helix because like I said when I wrote about the album, they were thinking commercially and tried to be all things to all people and failed as a result. Still, to not include a single track from the album is a bit much. Especially as I really love the song, “High Voltage Kicks,” from that album. “Give’em Hell” could have also been included here. In any case, twenty-one songs in just over 72 minutes is enough great Helix metal to keep you going.
Track Listing:
No Rest for the Wicked
Check Out the Love
Dirty Dog
Give it To You
Young and Restless
Deep Cuts the Knife
Animal House
You Keep Me Rockin’
Never Want to Lose You
Does a Fool Ever Learn
Jaws of the Tiger
White Lace, Black Leather
Long Way to Heaven
Without You (Jasmine’s Song)
Everybody Pays the Price
Heavy Metal Love
Gimme Gimme Some Good Lovin’
When the Hammer Falls
The Kids Are All Shakin’
(Make Me Do) Anything You Want
Rock You
Helix and their friends
Brian Vollmer- lead vocals
Brent ‘The Doctor’ Doerner- guitars
Paul Hackman- guitars
George ‘Fritz’ Hinz- drums
Daryl Gray- bass
Mike Uzelac- bass
And because “High Voltage Kicks” isn’t on the album and I like the song so much, I thought I’d share it here.
No argument here, “Over 60 Minutes With” is a great way to introduce oneself to Helix if one is completely or even slightly unfamiliar with them. This has all their great songs and shows why Helix are another underappreciated Canadian band.
Next post: Great White- Twice Shy
To buy Rock and Roll Children, email me at: tobychainsaw@hotmail.com
Truthfully, I was never that big of a Rod Stewart fan and I only know him from his hits. I did review his albums “Tonight I’m Yours,” from 1982 and “Camouflage” from 1984. Going back and reading those posts, I was quite fond of the first but scathing of the second. Not even Jeff Beck could save “Camouflage.”
With “The Best of Rod Stewart,” which was the first of a series of Rod compilation albums, I feel that I don’t really need to buy any more of his records because with this, I have all the songs of his I need, almost. Two songs which I really like are omitted from the album. One, “Infatuation,” which was one of the high points of the album, I wasn’t keen on, is one of them. Come on, we all like to see the video where Jeff Beck pops up in a motel room and plays his guitar solo. Even without the video, it’s still a good song. It does appear on the other compilation albums.
What doesn’t appear on this album or any of the next couple of compilations, which definitely should have, is “Ain’t Love a Bitch,” from the “Blondes Have More Fun” album. Now, I didn’t review that album because back in 1979, I thought it was too disco but I remember that one song and really liked it. The title alone was enough to amuse my then 18 year old mind. Yet, the disco “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” does appear on this album. They put the wrong song from that album on here. Another song missing is “Hot Legs” from the “Footloose and Fancy Free” album but the two songs which are here almost make up for it.
Now onto the positive and there are many. All of the other songs which I liked from Rod when I heard them as singles are on here. Of course, there’s the legendary “Maggie May” and other great Rod classics like “Sailing” and the very suggestive “Tonight’s the Night,” which had a religious girl I know who was a big Rod fan go off him because she thought the song was disgusting. I laugh at that. Of course we have “Young Turks” which resulted in the first of Rod’s cheesy videos from the MTV era. Whenever I hear this, I still think of young people dancing on the hoods of cars. But of all the songs on here, my favourite Rod song of all time happens to be “You’re In My Heart.” As many of you know, I’m a sucker for a good power ballad and Rod does ballads very well but it is the guitar solo which makes this one tops in my book.
Misinformation was one reason why I visited this album. I was informed that Rod had an album out in 1989 called, “Downtown Train.” It turns out that it was a single made for this album and while it doesn’t displace any of the RS songs I do like, it does fit in well with the album.
Track Listing:
Maggie May
You Wear It Well
Baby Jane
Do Ya Think I’m Sexy
I Was Only Joking
This Old Heart of Mine
Sailing
I Don’t Want To Talk About It
You’re In My Heart
Young Turks
What Am I Going to Do (I’m Still in Love With You)
The First Cut is the Deepest
The Killing of Georgie Part I and II
Tonight’s the Night
Every Beat of My Heart
Downtown Train
Rod Stewart
I thought I’d put this one in because it should be on the album.
And this one
I know there are more definitive Rod Stewart greatest hits album but this one from 1989 is sufficient for me.
Next post: The Hooters- Zig Zag
To buy Rock and Roll Children, email me at: tobychainsaw@hotmail.com
After releasing the compilation album, “Chikara,” in Japan in early 1988, KISS decided to release another one for the American and European markets later in the year. The result was “Smashes, Thrashes and Hits,” which was much different from Chikara, so if you were every lucky enough to own both, then it wouldn’t be a case of same old-same old.
On “STaH,” only three of the thirteen previously released songs were from the post make up era. The others were before and I said thirteen tracks, didn’t I?” This album features two previously unreleased tracks, “Let’s Put the X in Sex” and “(You Make Me) Rock Hard,” which are the first two tracks on the album. My view of those tracks, they’re good, I prefer “Let’s Put the X in Sex,” but I wouldn’t rate them among KISS’s more legendary songs.
Two things I really like about “STaH” is one, “Calling Dr. Love” does appear on the album and the other is that they put my two favourite KISS songs, “I Love It Loud” and “Detroit Rock City” in conjunction in the line up. So, if I just wanted to hear those two songs, I wouldn’t have to play around too much to do so.
Now, further evidence to my strange mind: It seems from the songs KISS are best known for, you know the hits, I seem to prefer the ones sung by Gene. Not only “I Love It Loud” and “Calling Dr. Love” but also “Rock and Roll All Nite,” which is the penultimate track on this album. Am I strange?
Two other tracks which appear here but not on “Chikara” are “Strutter” from the debut album and the song teenage boys in the 1970s played to seduce their girlfriends, “Beth.” However, there is a twist to the tale. On this album, “Beth” was re-recorded with Eric Carr on the lead vocals and I say that he does a magnificent job on it. As for the rest of the album, you get many of the classics, which appear on other compilation albums which isn’t a bad thing, just more classic KISS to further enjoy. Oh, one more point, the version of “I Was Made For Loving You” is the original.
Track Listing:
Let’s Put the X in Sex
(You Make Me) Rock Hard
Love Gun
Detroit Rock City
I Love It Loud
Deuce
Lick It Up
Heaven’s On Fire
Calling Dr. Love
Strutter
Beth
Tears Are Fallin’
I Was Make For Loving You
Rock and Roll All Nite
Shout it Out Loud
KISS
KISS
KISS 1885-89
Paul Stanley- lead vocals, rhythm guitar
Gene Simmons- bass, lead and backing vocals
Eric Carr- drums, percussion, backing vocals, lead vocal on Beth
Bruce Kullick- lead guitar, backing vocals
Peter Criss- drums, backing vocals
Ace Frehley- lead guitar, backing vocals
Vinnie Vincent- lead guitar, backing vocals
Mark St. John- lead guitar on Heaven’s on Fire
So there you have it, KISS put out two compilation albums in 1988. One is only available in Japan but “Smashes, Thrashes and Hits” can be picked up anywhere in the world. It’s worth it.
Next post: Fates Warning- No Exit
To buy Rock and Roll Children, email me at: tobychainsaw@hotmail.com
At first, I was going to abandon posting about the “Chikara” album from KISS and curse myself for taking notice of Wikipedia. After all, the album was only released in Japan and limited to 100,000 copies. KISS put out the album to coincide with their tour of the country at the time. However, Mike encouraged me not to abandon the post so credit him with another save. Fanboy Mike might not be able to save hockey shots but he has saved my bacon twice in as many weeks.
Once I found the album on Youtube and began listening, I became jealous that I didn’t have a copy of the album back in 1988. This would have been the KISS album for me at the time because it had all the songs I like, except “Dr. Love” but nobody’s perfect. See, and I apologize for going over old ground to long time followers, I didn’t properly get into KISS until 1982 with the “Creatures of the Night” album. While there were a few songs I knew and liked, I didn’t get into KISS because I had a religious upbringing and I believed all that crap that they were admitted Satan worshipers and that the band’s name was an anagram for ‘Knights In Satan’s Service.” I said it before but as a teen in the 1970s, religion messed up my head more than heavy metal music ever could but that’s a story for another day.
Mike gave another piece of advice about the album, when listening to it, one must include the remix of “I Was Made For Lovin’ You.” It might be seven minutes plus long but I do like it better than the original off the “Dynasty” album. There isn’t much more I can say about it, that’s the problem with compilation albums. The songs we all know and love are mainly there already but it’s good to hear them all together.
Track Listing:
Rock and Roll All Nite
Detroit Rock City
Love Gun
I Was Made For Loving You
Creatures of the Night
I Love It Loud
War Machine
Lick It Up
All Hell’s Breakin’ Loose
Heaven’s On Fire
Thrills in the Night
Who Wants To Be Lonely
Uh.. All Night
Tears are Falling
KISS
KISS
I thought I should include all the KISS lineups.
Paul Stanley- rhythm guitar, lead and backing vocals
Gene Simmons- bass, lead and backing vocals
Ace Frehley- lead guitar, lead and backing vocals
Bruce Kulick- lead guitar, backing vocals
Vinnie Vincent- lead guitar, backing vocals
Peter Criss- drums, lead and backing vocals
Eric Carr- drums, lead and backing vocals
And also my two favourite KISS songs together:
So there you have it, possibly the best KISS compilation album I’ll never own. It did inspire them to release a similar compilation album in the US later on in the year.
Next post: I’ definitely off to Edinburgh so you will either read an account of some band I discovered in a rock club there or it will be KISS- “Smashes, Trashes and Hits.”
To buy Rock and Roll Children, email me at: tobychainsaw@hotmail.com
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