Let's get this out of the way, Contraband was not meant to be something serious or groundbreaking when they released their only album. It's simply a disc (or in my case, an audio cassette) full of hard rock songs, meant to be played loud.
The supergroup consisted of Tracii Guns (LA Guns), Bobby Blotzer (Ratt), Michael Schenker (MSG, Scorpions), Share Pederson (Vixen) and Richard Black (Shark Island). The lead singer Richard Black was the only one I wasn't familiar with when they came together.
The song that obviously got me to pick up the album was of course All The Way From Memphis, originally done by Mott The Hoople. This is by far the best track and my personal fave. The dueling guitar solo's between Tracii and Michael will leave you wanting more. But it's not the only song on here. It's actually a great collection of rock songs with a couple of power ballads thrown in for good measure. The album does have that definitive Glam Metal sound as they were comprised from some of the biggest in the genre at the time. So there isn't going to be something new all together here.
I've heard other peoples reviews of this album. Most give it an average grade. They don't know what the fuck they are talking about. They most likely picked it up thinking it was going to be this mega opus concept album with the players involved. They were barking up the wrong tree. This is nothing more than a straight ahead rock record, and a mighty fine one at that.
Fave Songs: Intimate Outrage, If This Is Love and Stand. MVP goes to All The Way From Memphis
I don't know if it even exist, but I sure would like to have a full concert performance from this band on DVD, VHS or whatever.
Rating: 5 Stars out of 5
Review by Chiprocks1
Contraband Music Videos
Contraband - All The Way From Memphis
Contraband - Loud Guitars, Fast Cars And Wild Wild Livin`
Slash, his Self-Titled album is just so fucking good. There's really no other words to describe it. Awesome? Yes. Fantastic? Absolutely. Kick ass? You betcha. This is like the ultimate mix CD/Party album. I've been listening to this pretty regularly for awhile now. The entire album is full of guest singers and it's what I would call the closest thing to a Guns N' Roses "reunion" album we will get since 4 of the 5 former GN'R members are present here. Welcome back home Izzy Stradlin, Duff McKagan and Steven Adler. No, they don't all play together at the same time, but they each contribute to their respective songs. The only one missing of course is Axl Rose. Duh.
Izzy Stradlin can be found performing rhythm guitar on Ghost featuring Ian Astbury, which is a great opening track to this album.
Duff McKagan along with Dave Grohl can be found on Watch This, a full-fledge instrumental for Slash to shred. And boy, does he ever!!
Steven Adler can be found on the Deluxe Edition on the song for Baby Can't Drive, which also features Alice Cooper, Nicole Scherzinger and Flea. The song can also be found on the Vinyl version as well.
Normally I'm not a fan of these kinds of records. I prefer to have consistency throughout an album, i.e. same band and singer from song to song, top to bottom. But with this one I gladly make an exception. It's clear that Slash must have had a blast putting it together. The songs and the track order is about as close to perfection you can get. There isn't one wasted minute here. Stand out performances for me are Ian Astbury, Ozzy Osbourne, Fergie, Chris Cornell and Myles Kennedy.
I have to point out Fergie's contribution here. She really knocked it out of the park here. I knew she could sing but I was absolutely stunned by what came out of the speakers the first time I heard Beautiful Dangerous. She really should ditch the Black Eyed Peas. Her vocal chops are being wasted in that genre and that band if you ask me. She really could be a big addition to the Rock world if she did a full album of kick ass rock songs. Also, Fergie looks so damn hot in leather. Yoyzza!!!!! Fergie ftw!! :)
Fave Songs: Every last one of 'em. Co-MVP, hands down goes to Beautiful Dangerous featuring Fergie. The other MVP goes to Promise with Chris Cornell. So fucking good! So many guest vocals here, it deserves a full track list run down. If your too lazy to look at the back of the cover up above, then look down below here.
Tracklist
1.Ghost (feat. Ian Astbury)
2.Crucify the Dead (feat. Ozzy Osbourne)
3.Beautiful Dangerous (feat. Fergie)
4.Back from Cali (feat. Myles Kennedy)
5.Promise (feat. Chris Cornell)
6.By the Sword (feat. Andrew Stockdale)
7.Gotten (feat. Adam Levine)
8.Doctor Alibi (feat. Lemmy)
9.Watch This (feat. Dave Grohl & Duff McKagan)
10.I Hold On (feat. Kid Rock)
11.Nothing to Say (feat. M. Shadows)
12.Starlight (feat. Myles Kennedy)
13.Saint Is a Sinner Too (feat. Rocco DeLuca)
14.We're All Gonna Die (feat. Iggy Pop)
Deluxe Edition Tracklist
15.Sahara (English version)" (feat. Koshi Inaba)
16.Paradise City (feat. Cypress Hill & Fergie)
17.Mother Maria (feat. Beth Hart)
18.Baby Can't Drive (feat. Alice Cooper & Nicole Scherzinger)
19.Sahara (feat. Koshi Inaba)
20.Beautiful Dangerous (Radio Mix) (feat. Fergie)
21.Demo #4
22.Demo #16
23.Back from Cali (Acoustic) (feat. Myles Kennedy)
24.Fall to Pieces (Acoustic) (feat. Myles Kennedy)
25.Sweet Child O' Mine (Acoustic) (feat. Myles Kennedy)
26.Watch This (Live) (feat. Myles Kennedy)
27.Nightrain (Live) (feat. Myles Kennedy)
28.(Bonus DVD) Making of the Album
29.(Bonus DVD) Back From Cali feat. Myles Kennedy (Live)
33.(Bonus DVD) Mean Bone feat. Myles Kennedy (Live)
34.(Bonus DVD) Track-By-Track Interview with Slash
Highly recommend this if your into Slash or Hard Rock in general. I can't say enough good things about this album and everyone involved. Wow. Just awesome stuff from start to finish.
Oh, and Slash. He's alright. ;-P
I love both version of the Album cover. The regular edition one with the skull and bones with Top Hat fits Slash to a T. But I'm pretty fond of the Deluxe Edition cover that was drawn by caricaturist artist Ralph Steadman.
Rating: 10 Stars out of 10 (Yep. Count 'em. 10 Stars! You must run out and pick this album up now!!)
I haven't listened to The Disregard of Timekeeping in years. Sure, every once in awhile, Wait For You would pop into my head and I'd give that song a spin. But as far as the entire album, probably 10 years ago was the last time I did so.
Man, I had forgotten how good this album truly is. Sure, the biggest knock against The Disregard of Timekeeping is that it's heavy on the Led Zeppelin influence. I've never had a problem with this at all, just because of Jason Bonham's background. There's a lot of LZ influence here, but I think it's done the right way because it also injects that 80's sound with it. There are a ton of bands that are blatant rip offs of LZ that take it too far over the top. I'm sure you can figure out who those bands are.
As for this album. Love it. Did back then and still do today. The thing I really like about this album now, more so then is that the band didn't bow down to the conventional format of 3 minute songs. So it's cool to get 3 songs that top 7 minutes. That was unheard of back then, and more so now.
More than half the songs on here are easy earworms for me. But the biggest offender would probably be Holding On Forever. And I mean that in a good way.
By all means, give this one a spin if you've never done so. You wont regret it.
Fave Songs: The Disregard Of Timekeeping / Wait For You, Holding On Forever, Dreams, Just Another Day, and Room For Us All.
Doing research to see where the band members are these days, I learned that the singer, Daniel MacMaster passed away a few years ago. :( He was only 39. Such a great voice. RIP.
Anthrax fans either are going to love this album or hate it. If they hate it, it's clear that they come from the Joey Belladonna camp. For this album, Joey was replaced by John Bush (Armored Saint).
This album is one of the greatest albums of all time in the Metal genre...period. I'm a huge fan of the Belladonna era. But unlike some fans, I'm not going to let my loyalty dictate that I automatically condemn any record as irrelevant just based on the fact there's a new singer. If I did that, Van Halen and AC/DC would have to suffer the same. Stupid, I know.
Not only is this one of my all time favorite albums of any band, it clearly is the best in the Anthrax history to me. I will put this album up against anything by Metallica, Guns N Roses, etc...
This is pure balls to walls sonic bliss for me and I just can't get enough of Sound Of White Noise. Every song is unique and doesn't sound anything like the last song that comes before it. If you want an album full of agressive playing and singing, this is definitely right up your alley and you can't go wrong here at all. I originally picked up the album when I saw the video for Only on MTV and I was like "damn, this is fucking awesome shit". When I heard the rest of the album I was just totally blown away with it and it's been a favorite of mine ever since.
The one thing that you will immediately notice about White Noise is the change in music style as it incorporates more of a Hard Rock flavor to go along with the grunge element with thrash thrown in for good measure. I don't have a problem with this change at all as I find it to be something of a rebirth for the band rather sticking to the thrash metal playing that dominated their earlier stuff.
If you only pick up one album this year, and for whatever reason, you never got around to picking this one up, this is definitely the one to get. You absolutely will not regret it. Promise.
Fave songs: Only, Room For One More, Packaged Rebellion, Invisible, and Black Lodge. MVP for best song goes to Only.
Wicked Lester. This was the band that Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley were in for a couple of years in which they recorded their Self-Titled debut, before dissolving it and then morphing into KISS soon after. The album to this day has never been released. It's a must sought-after bootleg within' the KISS circuit. Well, it was till YouTube came along. The first time I ever actually heard the album was maybe 20 years ago. A friend of mine, who was way into bootleg this and bootleg that, somehow got his hands on this. I think he paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $45 for a copy on an audio cassette.
So, needless to say, I begged him to make me a duplicate. He did. When I got my copy and gave it a whirl, the quality was so piss poor you couldn't really make anything out of it with all the hissing and noise. He was saying that his copy was no worse than a 2nd generation loss. Mine sounded like it was 20 Gens. He let me listen to his copy at his house, and the quality was only slightly better. I gave him back my shitty copy. And that was the last I ever heard anything from the album.
But I remember liking some of the songs, especially She and Shout It Out Loud. The version of She was pretty much intact when it made it's way onto Dressed To Kill. But the version of Shout It Out Loud is nowhere near the same as what eventually made it's way onto Destroyer. The version on here is a hippie, flower power song. And for some strange reason, I like this version of it as well. This album is trippy to say the least when it comes to this very uneven and un-KISS-like project, even though technically there wasn't a KISS yet to make it "un-KISS-like".
I'll be the first to admit that I didn't really care for KISS' debut when I first picked it up. And that's only because I started with Rock And Roll Over and worked my way backwards. To me the newer stuff on RARO and Destroyer was fresher and definitely in the vein of that "wall of sound", which made everything on this album seem way to simplistic and dated IMO.
So when I first got KISS' selfi-titled album, to me it only had a couple of cool songs on it and the rest seemed nothing more than filler to me. I was an idiot back then. Stupid little kid I was. :slap:
Now and for what seems a life time, this is has been a personal fave of mine with some good fucking music on it. I definitely rank this in my top 5 of all KISS albums. Out of the 10 songs on here, 8 of them are still used as the bulk of their live set list. The only song not part of the set and from what I know of, to never have been played live is Love Theme From KISS, which is the only instrumental in their entire catalog of songs as well. And what seemed so "dated" back then is fresh and alive today. Me love this one long time. :)
Fave Songs: All of 'em. I love them all so much I'm gonna go ahead just name drop all the songs. Strutter, Nothin' To Lose, Firehouse, Cold Gin, Let Me Know, Kissin' Time, Deuce, Love Theme From Kiss, 100,000 Years and Black Diamond
Great fucking album cover too, even with the fucked up Cat makeup done by a "professional" artist.
As a whole, Hotter Than Hell is a pretty good album. But it's nowhere near the level of their debut album, even though a lot of KISS fans would say otherwise. It has some classic, kick ass songs that are still played to this day in their live sets. Even though this is a solid album, it's not one that I play a whole lot these days.
Fave Songs: Got To Choose, Parasite, Goin' Blind, Hotter Than Hell, Let Me Go Rock 'N' Roll, Watchin' You and Comin' Home. The title track Hotter Than Hell get's the MVP award for best song on the album.
Fun fact, in the made-for-TV movie KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park, they had to change the lyrics from "Hot, hot, hotter than hell" to "Rip, rip, rip and destroy" due to censors. Haha. :D
Dressed To Kill's biggest contribution here is the inclusion of Rock And Roll All Nite, their biggest hit as far as being the most well recognized song. Even your Mom knows this song. DTK has other notable songs that are still played live in their sets to this day. But overall DTK is slightly above average with a few fillers.
Fave Songs: Rock Bottom, C'mon And Love Me, She, Love Her All I Can and Rock And Roll All Nite, which of course gets the MVP nod here for the best song on the album.
Another killer cover that depicts the band wearing suits, which Gene, Paul and Ace didn't own. They were borrowed from their manager and that's why Gene's pants legs are far too short. Hahahaha.
The Originals a combo-pack that took the first 3 albums (LP's) and bundled them as a set along with a 16 page Booklet insert. This was the beginning of sick, sick, sick giveaways that KISS would utilized in future albums. As a kid, the ONLY reason why I got this was just to get the book since I needed to have everything with the KISS logo on it. :)
I give the booklet 5 stars as well as the idea of getting a 3 for 1 bundle deal.
You want the best, you got the best! The hottest band in the world...KISS!!! With those 15 words, their lives and mine would be forever changed. Normally I wouldn't include live albums as part of a "Best Album Of All Time" poll. But in this case, it is absolutely warranted.
Alive! saved the band from extinction as they were going nowhere and fast based on their first 3 albums. This is a double live concert album recorded at Cabo Hall in Detroit. A lot was made about how this was the best "Live" concert ever released on Vinyl. But for hardcore fans, we later learned that the album was in fact doctored with overdubs and sweetened to make the end product better. So technically not really a Live Concert as it was purported to be. Not cool.
I give it a full 5 Star rating in spite of being swindled by the band due to the significance of what it did for them. It's still a great listen and I hold a soft spot for it. This was the start of what unfortunately becomes a trend with the band constantly pulling a fast one on it's fans...i.e...me. And for that they get...
The interior gate-fold cover had 4 handwritten notes from each band member to the fans, signed in their own names. This is where I learned to forge their names with their signatures. I was so good that kids at school would constantly ask me to sign their books, etc...with their names. :)
I don't have to listen to anything after this to determine what I'm going to vote for. I already know that Destroyer is the Best Album Of All Time with the Original Lineup. It's their masterpiece. Destroyer is just worlds apart from anything they ever did before or after with Gene, Paul, Peter and Ace when it came to songwriting, recording and studio tricks for sound FX, etc....
First time I ever listened to this, I was floored. Just the opening to Detroit Rock City had me captivated with the car engine, radio and the crash that follows. I was sucked in. At the conclusion of DRC it segues right into King Of The Night Time World, which is a hell of a song. One of my all time faves.
God Of Thunder is next and is Gene's crown jewel both on record as well as live. What a lot of people don't know is that Paul wrote this for himself, but the albums producer Bob Ezrin said he just couldn't see him singing it and to give it to Gene. The rest is KISSTORY.
Great Expectations, Sweet Pain and Flaming Youth just kick so much ass too. I hear the knock against Great Expectations with the inclusion of using a kids choir as the reason why they don't rate it as high. Personally, I just think its a great song.
Shout It Out Loud finds it's way here from the Wicked Lester days in a completely different and better, i.e. classic version. Following this is Beth, their first top 10 hit.
But my personal favorite and the best song of the entire album is the last one: Do You Love Me? I put this right up there with Queen's We Will Rock You. These 2 songs are neck and neck for best drum song ever. The slow build to the chorus is full of tension, waiting to get to those power chords. And when you finally hear those chords....ah, the release is awesome.
Hidden track that follows is 1 minute of screaming fans at a KISS concert.
Fave Songs: All of 'em
Best album cover ever! Cover artist is Ken Kelly, who would also do the Love Gun cover as well. The inner sleeve had the KISS Army registration membership on one side and the lyrics to Detroit Rock City. The sleeve itself is hard stock cardboard. None of that flimsy paper that tears as soon as you put your vinyl back in.
Rating: 10 Stars out of 10 (That's right, 10 Stars which is to tell you it's an absolute must for your collection. Get it now!!!!!)
Full Size RARO Sticker, Order Form and Vinyl Sleeve
Rock And Roll Over was my first KISS album I ever got. I had to beg my Mom to buy it for me. She did. Thanks, Mom. :) RARO is a fantastic album and is only slightly behind that of Destroyer for Best Of All Time for the band. It's a shame they don't perform many of the songs from the album now (with the exception of the 1996 Reunion Tour). The only song that sees the light of day anywhere on the set list would be Calling Dr. Love. But during the aforementioned tour, they routinely brought out such classics as I Want You, Take Me and Calling Dr. Love.
Fave Songs: All of 'em. Even Peter Criss' sappy, country-ish Hard Luck Woman can't be ignored. MVP goes to I Want You.
RARO continued the trend of packing free stuff in the album covers. With this one you got a full size replica sticker of the cover, an order form for more KISS goodies. And the sleeve, not so much a freebie as it was just really cool to look at.
