All Out Songs

Recently I have been downloading lots of my old music collection from vinyl and tape, onto my Apple Mac. Most of the music that ever really meant anything to me, I have already bought on CD or from itunes, but some of it I didn’t as I forgot all about it or it cost over £30 on Ebay. Some of it holds up very well and it’s been great to hear some fine music and ‘songs’ again. Indeed, the art of songwriting is the key to all contemporary music. Twiddle away to your heart’s content, but if there ain’t no song, it’s all for shit.

That said, Unruly Child wrote 3 of the best Hair-Metal songs you will ever hear, all arising on side one of their eponymous album. But they were dropped and bombed. Just for those who don’t know, Unruly Child were an early 90’s hard rock band, highly regarded and groomed to be the next Winger. The debut 1992 album was produced by the esteemed figure of Beau Hill.

The 3 songs in question are ‘On The Rise’ (a fantastic and magical rock n’ roll song in the vein of Lynch Mob’s ‘Jungle Of Love’ – but waaaay better!), ‘When Love Is Gone’ (sublime) and ‘Who Cries Now?’ (absolutely perfect). Anyway, I have these 3 songs on my ipod now and sod you Cobain!

Now, I also downloaded the 10 minute masterpiece ‘Ice’ by Camel (from the album ‘I Can See Your House From Here’). I admit that it holds all sorts of sentimental attachments for me, but this is surely the most beautiful instrumental ‘guitar’ track ever recorded. It is epic and genius.

Andy Latimers’s control and sensual touch is second to none – especially back in 1979. The song takes us through a journey of every romantic emotion. Only Joe Satriani has managed to record ‘guitar’ music that is as inspiring and wondrous (well a bit sometimes).

This takes me back to the ‘song’ theory, which Joe is great at and consequently more successful than his ‘instrumentalist’ peers.

Another album that still sounds great, but as if it were a dissertation on making the perfect Hair-Metal album, is Treat’s ‘Organized Crime’. I love it as much now as I did in 1989. I have never known if they actually intended to sound like their contempories to such a degree of perfection. One minute it’s ‘Still Of The Night’, the next it’s ‘Operation Mindcrime’. Either way, Scandinavian Rock at it’s finest – brilliantly executed and wonderfully contrived!

What can I say about Southern Sons. At the time, Owen (AOG) and myself used to listen to their ‘Nothing But The Truth’ album and would wonder why we even bothered to try and make music. Everything still holds up today. Southern Sons were a young Australian band from the early 90’s and their leader, Jack Jones had the most beautiful voice imaginable. Like the Elvis of Hard Rock. He was presumably highly trained and to add to his vocal talent, he also played guitar like Dan Huff. He deserved so much more. The drummer was the highly credited Virgil Donati. The song writing on this album (plus another single ‘Hold Me In Your Arms’) is just phenomenal. I think people pooh-poohed them a bit for being too ‘soft’ – that whole Winger theory that happened in the US. Every guy and girl I ever knew, loved this album without knowing anything about the band – that speaks volumes for the songwriting, the production and the arrangements – 10 out of 10.

I also found the power ballad of all power ballads ‘I Will Be Here For You’ by Michael W. Smith. It was a huge hit in the US in the early 90’s. It was co-written with the Queen of songwriting, Dianne Warren. He went onto to become a leading Christian star in the US, but this is a pleasure to behold. It’s like they wrote it as a case study for a ‘cheesy, over-produced power ballad with a Lukather styled solo et al’. Just fantastic and what a chorous!

Other tapes of note that I have enjoyed downloading and the ‘songs’ still sound great are Robin Beck’s ‘Trouble Or Nothing’, It Bites ‘Eat Me In St. Louis’ and ‘Once Around The World’, John Norum’s ‘Face The Truth’ and The Very Best Of Barry Manilow – and for your information, I am not joking.

One other thing, how did Winger’s ‘Written In The Wind’ (from the recent Demo Anthology) become excluded from any major album release? If ever a song was Winger, this is it – it is a lost treasure.