At least there's melody.Once you get past the New Romantic fog/exhaust-poise of a sleeve, on which Andy and Mike appear to have accidentally stumbled onto the set of the Human League's 'Don't You Want Me' video - Mercedes Benz and all - everything is here: punk, summer pop, rock, rockabilly, pure billy, autumnal pop, Nigel again, general lurching things, winter pop and all of this kicked off with a hazy 'are we sure about this?' Medieval instrumental - that's how excited they were to have Mott the Hoople's Dale Griffin and Overend Watts producing this in Hastings in East Sussex, where old people live and die. To sum up: this sounds like a good high school band that played their dance in 1983 and then should have gone to college and gotten better at songwriting instead of becoming Poison a few years later.ģ/10 2 very dim and generous stars: early 80s "hard rock" for 13 year olds. "Sailing Down The Tears" sounds like a coke-fueled bash with Slash playing aside a drunk Alice Cooper. So why is this on the 1001 list? Influence? I could be mean and complain that bands that merely influenced some emerging trends but weren't any good themselves should probably not be on this list (.but then i'd just be talking about the horrific abomination that were the Velvet Underground and that's playing dirty). If that's your bag.Īside from the fact that this sounds like a demo (I'm reminded of Van Halen's unreleased mid-70s demo that sounds similar yet better than this) the album is filled with simple melodies and predictable if not bad good-time party hooks, it's. Ok cool music history moment but what about the music? Yes as it turns out this has a strong early 80s sound but it's more Bowie+New York Dolls+Poison. A bit of reading shows these guys (from Finland) were *hugely* influential on the early 80s hard rock scene, bringing a mix of glam and metal. The songs are glammy and trashy and tongue in cheek, all of it in good fun.įave Songs: Tooting Bec Wreck, Beating Gets Faster, Until I Get You, Ice Cream Summer, Mental Beat, Malibu Beach Nightmareįor years my only exposure to Hanoi Rocks was from the car accident with Motley Crue (I can only hope they're not on this list) that killed their drummer. This album has a Mott-Meets-Sweet-Meets-New York Dolls vibe to it, ramshackle but with a surprising pop sensibility. Hanoi Rocks gets associated so much with 80s glam metal that I was expecting not to like this, but they're better than a lot of those bands. In spite of the annoyance of having to find the right tracks, I really enjoyed listening to this. These are the actual songs Spotify shows as being on the album: 1) Strange Boys Play Weird Openings 2) Malibu Beach Nightmare 3) Mental Beat 4) Don't You Ever Leave Me (mislabeled) 5) Lost in the City (mislabeled) 6) First Timer (mislabeled) 7) Cheyenne (mislabeled) 8) Beating Gets Faster 9) Ice Cream Summer 10) Back to Mystery City. With a little digging on YouTube, you should be able to find the others. Well, I had a blast listening to this album, but it turns out if you're listening on Spotify, this is not Back to Mystery City. And after being exposed to some additional Hanoi Rocks through the misidentified mystery tracks, will follow up with some more of their albums.Īnother reviewer describes this album as "dumb glam." I mean, yeah. Nevertheless lots of fun now, the lyrics were interesting, and I will listen to this often. I wish I had discovered them in the 80s as I think it would have enhanced my adolescence. This is some of the best punk/rock/glam/50's style music around. Some wild fun sound-effect shenanigans in the opening and scattered here and there - like the farm animals in "Tooting Bec Wreck", the spacey echoey effects in "Until I Get You,” the bells in “Ice Cream Summer.” Well done without being overdone. The styles varied a bit but still felt like a cohesive album. There are touches of Queen, Meat Loaf, the B-52s, the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack - all have done some similar mixing before… What's great here is Hanoi Rocks has their own spin on these winning combinations. Some pretty strong rock tracks in here ("Malibu Beach Nightmare") with some punk and glam and 50s stuff - all blended together into BACK TO MYSTERY CITY. Whatever songs those were I listened to the first time sounded like Hanoi Rocks and I really liked them.Īfter re-listening with the correct tracks (than you YouTube): Seems Apple Music has the wrong songs associated with tracks 4-8 were the wrong songs. I loved this album, even though the first time I listened to it tracks 2-8 were not the correct songs.
0 kommentar(er)
