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Post by Sheriff John Stone on May 20, 2020 12:16:22 GMT
Other than Whitesnake's hits/videos, I wasn't familiar with the band's music. I like David Coverdale's voice, and this song is one of my favorites from that era:
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Post by kds on May 20, 2020 12:18:50 GMT
It's unfortunate that when most rock fans think of David Coverdale, the images of the puffy hair and Tawny Katian come to mind.
But, he's been the lead singer on some absolute classic albums, starting with Deep Purple's Burn, the Whitesnake albums mentioned, and the Coverdale / Page album. But, like many other artists, due to his association (fair or unfair) with so-called hair metal, he'll never get the credit he deserves.
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Post by kds on May 20, 2020 12:31:40 GMT
35 Years ago today, Hear N Aid recorded Stars, the hard rock / heavy metal answer to "We Are the World."
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Post by Kapitan on May 20, 2020 12:59:39 GMT
It's unfortunate that when most rock fans think of David Coverdale, the images of the puffy hair and Tawny Katian come to mind. But, he's been the lead singer on some absolute classic albums, starting with Deep Purple's Burn, the Whitesnake albums mentioned, and the Coverdale / Page album. But, like many other artists, due to his association (fair or unfair) with so-called hair metal, he'll never get the credit he deserves. He is one of the greats in terms of the blues-influenced hard rock singers, no question about it. I remember back in the Slip of the Tongue tour era when Steve Vai talked about his history working with prominent frontmen, from Frank Zappa to David Lee Roth to David Coverdale. He talked about how amazing it was to see Coverdale go out and perform every single night, nailing the high notes.
However, while I agree he has been slighted to some degree, I think Coverdale has to some degree dug his own grave in a way we could compare to none other than Mike Love.
Just as Love often gets stuck in this increasingly awkward perspective of teenage life and self-referential lyrics that over time became pretty embarrassing for a 30-something, 40-something, all the way to 70-something man, Coverdale has written almost exclusively in the hypersexual double entendres that don't necessarily age well. They're the sort of lyrics that are great when you're a teenage boy, and still occasionally clever or sexy, but increasingly just kind of awkward or cringeworthy.
Coupled with that, the songs themselves have almost always been pretty firmly in the same basic heavy blues-rock subgenre. Without more diversity, it's hard to really keep casual fans engaged or bring in new fans.
I still mostly agree with you, KDS, that Coverdale (and Whitesnake) is underappreciated. But it's not entirely on unfair, anti-hair bias.
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Post by kds on May 20, 2020 13:16:37 GMT
It's unfortunate that when most rock fans think of David Coverdale, the images of the puffy hair and Tawny Katian come to mind. But, he's been the lead singer on some absolute classic albums, starting with Deep Purple's Burn, the Whitesnake albums mentioned, and the Coverdale / Page album. But, like many other artists, due to his association (fair or unfair) with so-called hair metal, he'll never get the credit he deserves. He is one of the greats in terms of the blues-influenced hard rock singers, no question about it. I remember back in the Slip of the Tongue tour era when Steve Vai talked about his history working with prominent frontmen, from Frank Zappa to David Lee Roth to David Coverdale. He talked about how amazing it was to see Coverdale go out and perform every single night, nailing the high notes.
However, while I agree he has been slighted to some degree, I think Coverdale has to some degree dug his own grave in a way we could compare to none other than Mike Love.
Just as Love often gets stuck in this increasingly awkward perspective of teenage life and self-referential lyrics that over time became pretty embarrassing for a 30-something, 40-something, all the way to 70-something man, Coverdale has written almost exclusively in the hypersexual double entendres that don't necessarily age well. They're the sort of lyrics that are great when you're a teenage boy, and still occasionally clever or sexy, but increasingly just kind of awkward or cringeworthy.
Coupled with that, the songs themselves have almost always been pretty firmly in the same basic heavy blues-rock subgenre. Without more diversity, it's hard to really keep casual fans engaged or bring in new fans.
I still mostly agree with you, KDS, that Coverdale (and Whitesnake) is underappreciated. But it's not entirely on unfair, anti-hair bias.
I do agree about the lyrical perspective to a degree. But, DC is also a much better singer and frontman than Mike could ever dream. However, old dogs don't learn new tricks, David still likes showing off his significant others' "assets" in his videos.
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Post by Kapitan on May 20, 2020 15:38:24 GMT
To some degree it's apples and oranges with Coverdale's blues and hard rock style and Love's doo-wop and early RnB-style rock and roll. But Coverdale's range was (hell, is) probably more than double Mike's. So in that, there is no question he's got an advantage.
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Post by kds on May 20, 2020 15:54:14 GMT
Although, at least we know that Coverdale would never release an album full of self covers
Oh
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Post by Kapitan on May 22, 2020 18:52:13 GMT
...continuing discussion begun in the shoutbox.
Skid Row and Extreme were definitely two of the more interesting "hair metal" bands. Extreme was just technically so, so good, and were good songwriters as well. Their love of Queen was obvious from the diversity of their songs, their use of harmonies ... very good. And Skid Row felt like they were the sweet spot between the rougher GnR and the prettier and poppier Bon Jovi. Maybe metal, but not quite. Just (sometimes very) hard blues rock--and Sebastian Bach was a powerhouse of a singer.
Because of that, I think you're right that they COULD have led harder rock through the 90s.
But maybe not. We know Skid Row had personal issues and haven't been able to bury the hatchet with Bach even to this day. So they might have just broken up (that iteration) regardless. And no Bach, no hits. They've been at it ever since, and 99.9% of fans probably don't even know it.
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Post by kds on May 22, 2020 19:01:42 GMT
One thing that always struck me as odd during those early 90s, grunge dominated years was that it felt like only one type of rock music was allowed to dominate the scene. The way "hair" metal was headed, it probably wasn't destined to last. But, there's no reason why bands like Skid Row and Extreme could've have coexisted with the Nirvanas and Pearl James of the world. Everything in rock around 1993 became so grunge-centric and homogenized to the point that the genre itself kind of fell apart. I think we got robbed of some really good Extreme albums during that time period.
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Post by Kapitan on May 22, 2020 20:18:26 GMT
I agree. There is little reason to believe hair metal would have lasted as a fashion--and that's much of what it was, fashion, more than musical style--but hard rock music had existed for a few decades and could have continued on. Much of grunge WAS a sort of hard rock, in fact, just with a different fashion.
(And again, I mean FASHION. I'm talking about their hair and their clothes. It's actually very funny that these people mocked the hair metal bands for being all about a look, only to be all about their own, new look. Here's the new boss, same as the old boss. The king is dead, long live the king. And so on.)
It was largely a media invention that there couldn't be anything other than "grunge," as evidenced by the fact that they almost immediately changed the term to "alternative" and threw Sheryl Crow, Hootie & the Blowfish, the Gin Blossoms, the Wallflowers, and Beck in there with Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Stone Temple Pilots. What the hell is that? Marketing, that's what. The common denominator was a put-on display of non-glamor, that's what. Jeans, t-shirts, short or at least not-big hair.
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Post by kds on May 24, 2020 11:52:41 GMT
I agree. There is little reason to believe hair metal would have lasted as a fashion--and that's much of what it was, fashion, more than musical style--but hard rock music had existed for a few decades and could have continued on. Much of grunge WAS a sort of hard rock, in fact, just with a different fashion.
(And again, I mean FASHION. I'm talking about their hair and their clothes. It's actually very funny that these people mocked the hair metal bands for being all about a look, only to be all about their own, new look. Here's the new boss, same as the old boss. The king is dead, long live the king. And so on.)
It was largely a media invention that there couldn't be anything other than "grunge," as evidenced by the fact that they almost immediately changed the term to "alternative" and threw Sheryl Crow, Hootie & the Blowfish, the Gin Blossoms, the Wallflowers, and Beck in there with Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Stone Temple Pilots. What the hell is that? Marketing, that's what. The common denominator was a put-on display of non-glamor, that's what. Jeans, t-shirts, short or at least not-big hair.
And that mid 90s marketing effectively killed guitar based rock as a mainstream genre. It got to the point where Imagine Dragons are considered the top "active rock" band. Extreme actually released a pretty solid reunion album in 2008.
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Post by kds on May 28, 2020 12:12:00 GMT
I wanted to add a note about potential leaders of proper guitar rock in the 1990s.
The two biggest rock bands on Earth in the early 1990s were Metallica and Guns N Roses. They each had massive 1991 releases, and milked those through around 1993. I wonder if they'd followed up those releases around 1994, maybe things could've been a little different of terms of the relevancy of guitar rock. Instead, Metallica went on a hiatus, and by the time they returned in 1996, the whole genre was in shambles. GNR released an ill fated covers album in late 1993 called The Spaghetti Incident that pretty much sank like a stone, and pretty much disappeared until around 2002, albeit with Axl and a completely new band.
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Post by Kapitan on May 28, 2020 13:11:36 GMT
To this day I'm not entirely sure how the GnR collapse went down. I'd guess there are plenty of interviews about it out there, but I just didn't ever dig into it. I probably ought to.
But I do recall how by the time they released "Sympathy for the Devil" in 1994 how strange it felt. You'd hear rumors Slash was in or out of the band, Gilby was in or out (which admittedly wasn't so big a deal, considering he had only just joined), that Axl was getting even crazier...
It wasn't an especially good rendition, either. Coming off the weak covers album, it certainly wasn't a good sign. "Maybe the next one," we thought ... until there was no "next one" for 14 years or so!
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Post by kds on May 28, 2020 13:21:25 GMT
To this day I'm not entirely sure how the GnR collapse went down. I'd guess there are plenty of interviews about it out there, but I just didn't ever dig into it. I probably ought to.
But I do recall how by the time they released "Sympathy for the Devil" in 1994 how strange it felt. You'd hear rumors Slash was in or out of the band, Gilby was in or out (which admittedly wasn't so big a deal, considering he had only just joined), that Axl was getting even crazier...
It wasn't an especially good rendition, either. Coming off the weak covers album, it certainly wasn't a good sign. "Maybe the next one," we thought ... until there was no "next one" for 14 years or so!
Yeah, that was a pretty weak cover. I think it might have been a leftover from Use Your Illusion or The Spaghetti Incident, but I can't recall. From what I remember, Axl's ego got bigger and bigger, and Slash and company objected to the direction GNR was heading with pianos, Michael Kamen orchestration, and female backup singers. At some point, it might have been the tail end of the UYI touring cycle, Axl demanded full rights to the band name, and Slash, Duff, Gilby, and Matt let him have his way to keep the tour money coming in. Then, Axl sort of became a recluse and starting work on Chinese Democracy with an ever rotating group of musicians. At one point around 1996, Zakk Wylde was briefly in GNR, but I don't think he contributed anything to Chinese Democracy.
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Post by Kapitan on May 28, 2020 13:33:46 GMT
Zakk Wylde, Dave Navarro, Brian May, Roy Thomas Baker, Adrian Belew, Sebastian Bach--who wasn't a part of the project at one time or another?
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