Ok, before you laugh your ass off, hear me out. This is a fucking monstrous album. When this album was release back in 1988, they were one of the coolest new bands on the metal scene. After releasing their first single “Smooth Up In Ya”, the band made a huge splash in the hard rock world with their video showing in regular rotation on MTV. I remember being floored by these guys because they really had something different.
“Smooth Up In Ya”
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF5LBTJwpl8″]
They were like a funky Van Halen with a singer that acted like David Lee Roth but sang better (in my opinion). The next single off the album was a cover of the O’Jay’s classic “For The Love Of Money” and this is what really sold the album for me.
“For The Love Of Money”
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5ZX49hKXic”]
It was just one of those records that was a “no filler” album. For one, this was a pretty rare thing for their genre in the glam metal/hard rock world. From start to finish it’s a strong record. One of the things I remember was them being billed somewhat as a more modernized Van Halen for the time which to be honest, there’s plenty of terrible bands from that era that sounded like each other so if you’re gonna sound like someone, at least sound like someone classic and good. I even caught them live opening for Winger and Cinderella back in the day and I thought they were a great live band that never really got their due.
Even now almost 20 years after it’s release it’s a surprisingly strong record. Certain tracks stand out more now to me than before. Songs like “F#9” and “Owed To Joe” showed the bands creativeness and ability to craft really good sleaze rock yet showcasing more talent in the actual songwriting than many of their peers such as Poison, Winger and many others.
All in all, this is an album that stood the test of time REALLY well. I still enjoy listening to it to this day and I can see this being one that will pop up on occasion and remind me of the old days when the hair was big and the bands were larger than life!
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