Turn Of The Decade Playlist
From the eighties to the nineties, when rock still ruled, before MTV went totally big budget pop.
That’s right, rock used to dominate on TV, and TV dominated the airwaves, determined what we heard on radio too. And although Michael Jackson broke the color line, rap/hip-hop didn’t start to infiltrate the mainstream until the nineties, that’s when “Yo! MTV Raps” really gained traction.
And then the entire landscape was muddied at the turn of the next decade, from the nineties to the aughts, because of file-trading, people were combing for the favorites they never owned and the obscurities, the live and alternative tracks, that titillated them.
And now we live in an African-American dominated culture, rap/hip-hop is even bigger online, in streaming, than it is in sales. And all those white people…they’re wondering where their rock has gone! Even their children have gravitated to the urban sound.
Except for the whites listening to country. Hootie may have crossed over, but that’s a lily-white empire. It’s Trump versus… That’s right, the musical landscape mirrors the political landscape. The young ‘uns who have no problem with gay marriage or intermarriage have glommed on to a polyglot sound that plays internationally. And the older whites, raised on rock, despise this music and hold on ever more closely to what once was.
Interesting.
Now grunge came along and replaced the music listed below. But since grunge, no white sound has dominated. Rock has become marginalized. Even worse, the sound itself is no longer mainstream. Once upon a time Led Zeppelin was considered heavy metal, Black Sabbath was at the bleeding edge, but their sound resembles the Partridge Family compared to what’s metal today. And the old rockers were all about great singing frontmen with a dollop of melodicism… Melodicism takes a back seat in today’s rock. If you’re looking for something you can sing along to, migrate to country, it’ll embrace you with open arms.
But for a brief period we were all in it together, on MTV. And the below sounds had their heyday back then.
“Paradise City”
Guns N’ Roses
“Sweet Child O’ Mine” was the initial hit, but “Paradise City” is the heart and soul of “Appetite For Destruction.”
GNR had been banging around L.A. for years, the hype was tiresome, the album eventually came out and then…not much. It wasn’t a stiff, but it didn’t burgeon. I kept it at arm’s length until I heard it over the in-store sound system at Tower Records in Westwood. It was undeniable, I bought it. This only happened twice in my life, the other time with Genesis’s “Wind & Wuthering,” which I heard at Licorice Pizza on Wilshire and purchased.
But eventually MTV played “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” and the band built and built, “Welcome To The Jungle” came back from the dead, but the apotheosis was “Paradise City,” with its almost seven minute live video with Axl in that white jacket…
“Dust N’ Bones”
Guns N’ Roses
From the follow-up, the two CD “Use Your Illusion,” “Lies” didn’t count.
This is an Izzy Stradlin song, he was the glue that kept the band together, he leavened the sound, he added the soul, and the act hasn’t been the same since he left, this year’s so-called “reunion” is ersatz.
“Youth Gone Wild”
Skid Row
I remember Sebastian Bach had this tattooed on his arm.
This track introduced the band with the impossibly good-looking frontman. Before the rap wars, there was an east coast/west coast rock war, between not only the acts, but the labels, between Atlantic and Geffen…
“18 And Life”
Skid Row
Even better than “Youth Gone Wild,” this song and its dark video dominated on MTV. Not exactly a sell-out hair band ballad, this was “meaningful” and its melodic chorus hooked you.
“I Remember You”
Skid Row
The last hurrah, before Skid Row devolved into in-fighting and fell apart.
And the reason I’m including Skid Row, other than this great track, my favorite of theirs, with a chorus I sing to myself all the time when I not only think of old friends but how they don’t seem to remember me, is because they opened for GNR at that famous week-long run at the Forum after “Appetite.”
It was the hottest ticket in town. Staples Center didn’t exist. The Forum had not been redone. There were no cell phone cameras, but there were big screens, it was the first concert where the women bared their breasts, it was positively Dionysian.
And Skid Row opened and…
GNR took forever to come on next.
Skid Row mostly sounded like noise. But GNR triumphed, they will never be that good again. They dominated the rock scene, it was a homecoming, a coronation, the youth had gone wild and taken over, certainly within the building!
“Seventeen”
Winger
They were a joke. But that did not mean they weren’t adored by those in flyover country, who couldn’t tell what was credible and what was not.
This is their version of “Youth Gone Wild,” only with a lot less danger and gravitas. Still, it’s hooky.
“Can’t Get Enough”
Winger
You’re probably listening through headphones, or crummy computer speakers.
But if you’ve got a big rig, if you have the original CD (I had the CD single and played it incessantly), put it on and crank it up and your whole house will shake.
This is Winger’s peak. Powerful.
But what I remember most is…
Going to my friend’s bachelor party at the Hollywood Tropicana. No, not the breakfast/lunch place attached to the motel, but the strip club which featured…mud wrestling.
It wasn’t really mud, but it was brown. And the women were topless, albeit surgically-enhanced. One of the more bizarre evenings of my life. But when this came over the stereo, and strip clubs are sonically-reinforced, it all worked, at least for four minutes.
“Modern Day Cowboy”
Tesla
Jeff Keith may not have the pipes of his east coast competitors, but Tesla was a much better band than Winger and White Lion and the rest.
The initial LP made an impact, but it did not go nuclear. It’s totally solid, this is probably the best-known cut, but if you want to go deeper listen to “Changes,” “Little Suzi” and “Cumin’ Atcha Live.”
“Love Song”
Tesla
The follow-up “The Great Radio Controversy” was not as consistent, but the peaks were higher. And this was the highest.
A minute plus intro led into a sunrise on a beautiful field, this was a softer number with an edge that both boys and girls could like. And when the “live” video hit MTV this went stratospheric.
Love is all around you, yeah
Love is knockin’ outside your door
Waitin’ for you is this love made just for two
Keep an open heart and you’ll find love again, I know
It’s true. You may feel lost and lonely, alone in your house, living your dreary life. But the truth is out there there’s someone just like you, just dying to connect. And if you can get over your preconceptions, your hang-ups, if you just go with the flow, don’t screw it up, you too can be happy.
You’re not too fat, too ugly or too poor. Just be honest and you’ll be stunned what doors open. Today’s society might be all about in-your-face marketing, with social media winners boasting, but the truth is we’re all insecure inside, and if you reach out…you’ll definitely touch someone.
“Lazy Days, Crazy Nights”
Tesla
This is much heavier, but not only does it get your head banging, you find yourself thrusting your arm in the air and singing along.
But I love those lazy days and crazy nights
It’s my way, it’s my life
Truly. Even now, during the height of the summer. I don’t really relax, don’t really feel comfortable until the sun goes down and the world becomes my own. When the hoi polloi stop working and we night owls can take over.
Back before the internet, before cell phone cameras, you went on the road and it was an adventure with only the stories left in the wake. That’s one of the reasons you wanted to make it, to go on the road and partake. But today you’re just too scared, it’s just endless gigs in search of dough. But yesterday…
“The Way It Is”
Tesla
CD players were programmable. But few rarely did, program that is. It was just too complicated, kind of like setting the VCR. But I did, program. The above three Tesla tracks on endless repeat.
“The Way It Is”
Tesla
From “Five Man Acoustical Jam,” the surprise hit, the inspiration for MTV “Unplugged,” then again, so many claim that title.
However, this is one of the most magical albums of all time. They say that “Live At Leeds” and “Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out” are the best live albums, I’d dispute that, “Five Man Acoustical Jam” is far superior.
The hit was the cover of the Five Man Electrical Band’s “Signs.”
But this is my favorite cut on the LP.
Even though we could never seem to work things out
I still love you just the same, I do
I miss your smile and that sparkle in your eyes
You’re so beautiful, never change
She’d left me. The following year was the hardest of my life. Then I found new love.
But I still missed her.
“Up All Night”
Slaughter
A forgotten band. On Chrysalis, when John Sykes ran the label, before he became a radio majordomo.
Up all night
Sleep all day
That’s the life the rock stars used to live, me too. They didn’t get up for commercial appearances, to enhance their brand. The “Today Show”? That’s for pussies.
This is an anthem, and you’ll be stunned at how powerful it still is twenty five years removed.
“Fly To The Angels”
Slaughter
There are two versions of this on the CD, electric and acoustic, both good.
But the acoustic is the best. It makes me smile just listening to it, even though it’s a sad song. It’s just that Mark Slaughter’s vocal had such power and so much meaning, you’d crank it up and there’d be no space left for anything else in the world, and isn’t that the power of music? Forget the endless playlists in the background, what I want is one song in the foreground, turned up so high that I can just stand there and stare at the stereo in the belief that I’m a winner and my life works.
“Tangled In The Web”
Lynch Mob
This is from later, from the spring of ’92, Nirvana and Pearl Jam had wiped the slate clean, so this had less impact than it would have if it had come out a couple of years before.
George Lynch was a refugee from Dokken, back when how well you played the guitar determined where you were on the pecking order. And if you don’t find the intro to this song infectious, if it doesn’t make your body writhe like you’re a living funhouse mirror, you’re too uptight for me.
If you leave me lonely
If you take away the things that I love
Got a bad emotion
Tangled in the web of your love
Women rule the world, men are just putty in their hands.
Come on, Rupert Murdoch married Jerry Hall?
I’m not saying women aren’t underpaid, I’m not saying some bad actors don’t take liberties with women they shouldn’t, but I am saying most men need your support to survive, you can bend them to your will, because we’re tangled in the web of your love and lost without it.
“Miss Mystery”
Black ‘N Blue
If “Tangled In The Web” was a bit late, “Miss Mystery” was a bit early, it’s from ’85.
There’s a secret sauce here. The song was co-written by Jim Vallance, who was making his bones with Bryan Adams and it was produced by Bruce Fairbairn and engineered by Bob Rock, before they broke through big with “Slippery When Wet.”
Mutt Lange’s legend is receding, Fairbairn’s is almost completely forgotten, unjustly. Canada was and still is a hotbed of musical creativity and excellence. Fairbairn was its number one producer, starting with the for locals only Prism and then moving on to Loverboy and ultimately the aforementioned Bon Jovi and Aerosmith and Van Halen.
This is poppy, but it’s powerful, it walks a line that Def Leppard had established. And the truth is there are fifty year olds all over the world who live for this sound.
“Nobody’s Fool”
Cinderella
They were on Mercury, they were not photogenic, but Tom Keifer and his bandmates are underrated, to the degree they’re rated at all.
“Rock Me”
Great White
I’m not sure they belong. Truth is this came out at the same time as “Appetite For Destruction,” which skewed the whole sound. But, fans of this are probably fans of both.
“Round And Round”
Ratt
And if we want to go back even further, to ’84, we have this, Ratt’s breakout and peak all in one, with that famous Milton Berle video to boot.
This was the warning shot.
The old fogeys had ruled previously, those who’d made it in the seventies, from Rod Stewart to Tom Petty, MTV was an A&R station aware of its legacy. But then came Duran Duran from the U.K. and Ratt from Los Angeles. New acts were taking over. And they did. New sounds were constantly crippling old ones, putting them on the scrapheap. Don’t like today’s music? Just wait a couple of years and it will be completely different.
But not anymore. Music has been pretty similar this entire century. MTV doesn’t air music videos and radio is disconnected and fighting for its life. Used to be the media outlets needed new sounds to keep people tuned in, and there were acts all over the world fighting to dominate, when being a musician was the peak desire, before money became everything, before the models all wanted to date rich technologists.
“Why Hollywood babes are trying to bag a tech titan, not a rock star”
But change is coming.
