The Album Review Club - Week #147 - (page 1942) - Blonde On Blonde - Bob Dylan

[OB1]

Listened twice at work last night.
Not for me and I got nothing out of this record at all.
3/10

What a surprise. Commiserations.

 

[Protein Junkie]

Van Halen – Women and Children First

I could have picked any of the first four Van Halen albums but, in the end, I keep coming back to this one. I may have listened to Women and Children First as often as Physical Graffiti, my first review for this thread. VH have better selling and more iconic albums, not least their hugely influential debut. However, my first listen to WACF was so memorable. I can still recall bringing home the twelve incher and placing it on the deck in my room, putting on the headphones, dropping the needle to the groove and lying back to be truly astonished by what I heard. I played the record three times in quick succession (it’s not long), wondering how to describe the new songs to my friends later that evening, when we were off to see Pat Travers Band and Girl at the Apollo.

Talking of gigs, the 1980 Invasion Tour that supported the album arrived in the UK three months later. My best friends and I were fortunate enough to be able to attend four of the shows: Manchester Apollo, Leicester De Montfort Hall and both nights at the London Rainbow, which for me were the culmination of nine gigs in ten nights.

The lighting rig was so humungous that it could light up the sky. Easily the largest I had seen at that point: they didn’t have the option of using (the about to be invented) Vari-lites. The rig was so big that at De Monfort, where the stage is quite shallow, much of it was hanging over the audience. No wonder they chose to cover Jimmy Reed’s Bright Lights, Big City. The setlist also featured six of the nine tracks on WACF.

The album itself represented a progression for the band, after their debut’s heavy metal onslaught and it’s slightly lighter, more commercial sounding follow-up. The brilliant Ted Templeman and his able engineer Don Landee remained at the production helm. They chose to give the band a more sophisticated sound, but this was no Doobie Brothers’ record: the Van Halen brothers provided heavy duty riffs and beats, whilst Michael Anthony’s bass gained more prominence in the mix. Meanwhile David Lee Roth sang like a cross between Robert Plant and Al Jolson and truly brought his master of ceremonies schtick to the recording studio.

The disc opens not with the sound of a guitar being tortured by EVH but of a Wurlitzer electric piano being played through an MXR Flanger and 100-watt Marshall. And the Cradle Will Rock… was the first track to feature Eddie playing keyboards, a form of instrument that he was somewhat of a child prodigy on. His guitar work on this sorry tale of a wayward youth with poor grades provides colour rather driving the song; his guitar solo is short but spectacular, apparently inspired by Allan Holdsworth’s work.

On Everybody Wants Some!!, Alex Van Halen pounds the jungle drums and Diamond Dave talks dirty while Eddie and Mike explode around them.

Fools is the album’s longest track. On an extended intro, Eddie noodles, shreds and generally shows off before morphing the music into a juddering riff. DLR described the tune as a heavy-duty Broadway shuffle that sounds like the city streets at night.

Side one ends with show opener Romeo Delight - a pulsing hard rocker where Michael Anthony’s bass throbs like an idling dodge charger.

Tora Tora is basically a Sabbathesque intro to Loss of Control, which is VH’s version of speed metal.

Take Your Whiskey Home starts with some acoustic blues before turning into a midtempo rocker on which Alex stomps like Bonham and swings like Charlie Watts and Dave sips from a bottle of JD filled with iced tea.

Could This Be Magic? is essentially the album’s title track. It’s an acoustic folk foot-tapper laid down in one take that brings sunshine to a rainy day, with David on rhythm guitar and Edward using a bottleneck given to him by Ted Templeman just a few days earlier. Eddie had never previously played slide but still conjures up something to give Ry Cooder a run for his money.

In A Simple Rhyme closes the album in fine style. The track is not quite a simple as it might first appear. It’s one of the few songs on the album to feature the band’s joyous surf boy harmonies – described by David Fricke of Rolling Stone as the sound of The Byrds singing through a sewer pipe. However, like the rest of the record it is the sound of Amercia’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band having fun. Well, ain’t life grand when you finally hit it? Might as well Jump.

That is such an enjoyable read @OB1.
This was the album that brought VH into my life.
Like all old releases we should apply a retrospective thought to it.
I thought it was brilliant at the time with Tora Tora/Loss of Control unique to me.
Cradle is an iconic song too.
Good very good memories of spinning this one.

 

[OB1]

That is such an enjoyable read @OB1.
This was the album that brought VH into my life.
Like all old releases we should apply a retrospective thought to it.
I thought it was brilliant at the time with Tora Tora/Loss of Control unique to me.
Cradle is an iconic song too.
Good very good memories of spinning this one.

Cheers.

 

[BimboBob]

I have this album!

The last time I listened to it I thought it was poor compared to the previous 2.

Obviously I shall bang it out a few times during the week to see if my taste/ judgement has changed.

 

[Coatigan]

Heavy metal/hard rock is really not my thing at all but I will give it a good listen.

Just a question @OB1, how old were you when you first listened to this?

I am somewhat similar, at least when it comes to the big hitters. Including Van Halen. It Should be right up my street. There are plenty offshoot 'sub' genres either leading up to the true heavy metal and hard rock greats, and ones that came as a result of them, that I absolutely love. But the core ones, that defined it, I always struggled to get into, try as I might. Could never quite say why.

Let's see what this round brings.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

I was at Uni but my love of North American hard rock etc was already in place and remains undimmed. This was also Van Halen's third album and I was an early adopter of the band. I had their first album even before I saw them for the first time, supporting Black Sabbath. Consequently, I was au fait with the brilliance, and back then uniqueness, of Eddie Van Halen, whose influence was still in its infancy; now he is widely revered as on of the greatest and most influential of rock guitarists.

The album though is not just about Eddie. The rhythm section are brilliant and Roth is superb. Roth gets plenty of stick over his voice. VH wouldn't initially recruit him because they didn't think he could sing. His voice hasn't aged well but as Dave himself claimed he might not have been a great singer but he was a great vocalist and also has an immediately identifiable sound and style of his own. Just last night I was viewing some clips from the Taylor Hawkins Tribute in LA - I was lucky enough to go to the one at Wembley - and watching Wolfgang Van Halen perform a acouple of VH songs was a reminder of Roth's value. WVH did a spectacular job of playing his Dad's parts and on vocals he was accompanied by the talented Justin Hawkins (lead singer of the Darkness) at both gigs. Hawkins has a considerable vocal range but his delivery of the VH songs compared to Roth was vastly inferior.

Roth's shrieks are signature and unique, and his braggadocio and machismo and sex-symbol-itis is always delivered with a wink and a smile. He's regularly poking fun at himself (imagine another arena rock singer covering "Just A Gigolo" the way he did). He also always seemed like he was having the time of his life. VH did punk speed as well as country-blues speed and DLR could work with either.

For my money, maybe not the "greatest" front man in rock history, but my favo(u)rite one. And EVH is absolutely one of my top three favo(u)rite guitarists too (along with Bob Mould of Husker Du/Sugar and Angus Young).

 

[Saddleworth2]

I am somewhat similar, at least when it comes to the big hitters. Including Van Halen. It Should be right up my street. There are plenty offshoot 'sub' genres either leading up to the true heavy metal and hard rock greats, and ones that came as a result of them, that I absolutely love. But the core ones, that defined it, I always struggled to get into, try as I might. Could never quite say why.

Let's see what this round brings.

When I was around 14 I got into Led Zeppelin big time. Then to an extent Sabbath and Deep Purple but never to the same degree as I considered them vastly inferior to LZ. My peer group were not heavily into American bands with the exception of Frank Zappa and Hendrix, there was enough that was vibrant on the U.K. scene with the Who and Stones at the top of their game and the emerging prog scene with Yes, Genesis and Floyd at the top of theirs. Hard rock became less and less important to us. If someone tried to put Aerosmith on at a party for example, woof. It didn’t end well. For that reason, my prejudices (and they are prejudices) hardened by my early 20s and I have really not really listened much at all to that whole genre, Aerosmith, Guns n Roses, Rush, Van Halen. When I have listened it’s been, meh, Zeppelin or x band or y band are better. @OB1 last choice of Rush made me listen with an open mind and I have to say I did enjoy some of their stuff and appreciated the musicianship. Hopefully it will be the same with this.

 

[BlueHammer85]

I am somewhat similar, at least when it comes to the big hitters. Including Van Halen. It Should be right up my street. There are plenty offshoot 'sub' genres either leading up to the true heavy metal and hard rock greats, and ones that came as a result of them, that I absolutely love. But the core ones, that defined it, I always struggled to get into, try as I might. Could never quite say why.

Let's see what this round brings.

Always found ‘Jump’ a god awful song - liking a few of this so far but early days

 

[RobMCFC]

Always found ‘Jump’ a god awful song - liking a few of this so far but early days

The best keyboard riff ever and a fantastic song.

 

[BlueHammer85]

The best keyboard riff ever and a fantastic song.

maybe it's because it's played everytime i turn on radio