Steppenwolf (Steppenwolf album)

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Steppenwolf
Studio album by Steppenwolf

Publication
(s)

1968

Label (s) ABC Records , Dunhill Records

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

Rock , blues rock , psychedelic rock

Title (number)

11

running time

46:10

production

Gabriel Mekler

Studio (s)

American Recording Co. Studio, Studio City , Los Angeles

chronology
- Steppenwolf The Second
(1968)

Steppenwolf is the debut album by the American-Canadian rock band Steppenwolf . It was released on ABC Records in January 1968 .

History of origin

After the band The Sparrows, originally from Canada, moved to California in 1966 , Steppenwolf formed from the group after minor changes in line-up. In the fall of 1967, the recordings for Steppenwolf took place for ABC Records. The album was completed in four days at the Americain Recording Co. Studios in Los Angeles and was released in January 1968. It contains two songs, The Pusher and Born to Be Wild , which were in the 1969 soundtrack of the film Easy Rider . Similarities are often mentioned between the riff of Everybody's Next One and the Doors song You Make Me Real , which was released on Morrison Hotel in 1970 . The single Born to Be Wild brought the group great commercial success, as it developed into a "worldwide youth anthem" about "freedom and adventure". The song was written by the drummer's brother under the pseudonym Mars Bonfire and was originally a slower ballad before Steppenwolf was arranged. Since a line of text in the second verse reads Heavy Metal Thunder , the song is also regarded as the eponym for the heavy metal music genre . The repeated text passage God Damn contained in the following single The Pusher led to problems in America in the late 1960s, although it is directed against the use of drugs.

Track list

Original album from 1968

page 1

  1. Sookie Sookie ( Don Covay , Steve Cropper ) - 3:12
  2. Everybody's Next One (Kay, Gabriel Mekler) - 2:53
  3. Berry Rides Again (Kay) - 2:45
  4. Hoochie Coochie Man ( Willie Dixon ) - 5:07
  5. Born to Be Wild (Mars Bonfire) - 3:28
  6. Your Wall'sToo High (Kay) - 5:40

Page 2

  1. Desperation (Kay) - 5:45
  2. The Pusher ( Hoyt Axton ) - 5:43
  3. A Girl I Knew (Morgan Cavett, Kay) - 2:39
  4. Take What You Need (Kay, Mekler) - 3:28
  5. The Ostrich (Kay) - 5:43
Bonus tracks from the remastered CD re-release from 2013
  2. Sookie Sookie (Mono Single Version)
  3. Take What You Need (Mono Single Version)
  4. Born To Be Wild (Mono Single Version)
  5. Everybody's Next One (Mono Single Version)

occupation

Chart successes

Steppenwolf reached number 6 on the Billboard 200 and Born To Be Wild reached number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 . The album reached number 59 and the single number 30 in the British charts.

reception

  • Bruce Eder wrote on Allmusic that the album was surprisingly strong for a debut because the group had extensive rehearsal experience before they were signed. Steppenwolf is louder and stronger than anything that was released by a major label in 1968 , although John Kay's songwriting could still be improved. The best material on the album was not written by band members, but on the following long player the writing and composing would be on par with the high musical ability. Eder highlighted Born to Be Wild as a chart-topping hit of the counterculture and hippie movement that would have coined the term heavy metal. The album was rated four out of five stars.
  • George Starostin wrote on his review page that Steppenwolf was probably one of the classic albums in rock history because the fame of Born to Be Wild had radiated onto the album. He mentioned the theory that the lyrics from the song I like smoke and lightning, heavy metal thunder would have given the heavy metal music genre its name. The remaining songs on the album would be unfresh offspring and already known, only Sookie Sookie , The Pusher and The Ostrich are the exception here. The latter would be faster than almost anything else on Steppenwolf and be an adrenaline-charged jam that shows great garage rock'n'roll. Before Motörhead , who had adopted this approach, it would not have been common to encounter such a thunderstorm. In the evaluation, the album received eleven out of fifteen points.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of the different versions
  2. ↑ Band biography at allmusic.com
  3. ↑ Steppenwolf at steppenwolf.com
  4. ↑ Review at classicrockreview.com
  5. ^ Band biography at rollingstone.com
  6. ↑ Review at sputnikmusic.com
  7. ^ A b Christian Graf: Rockmusik Lexikon . America. tape 2 , L - Z. Taurus Press, Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-922542-35-2 , Steppenwolf, p. 933-936 .
  8. ↑ Born to be Wild at allmusic.com
  9. ^ Billboard Magazin from May 10, 1986, Essay Metal by Philip Bashe, page 49 at books.google.de
  10. ↑ Album review at allmusic.com
  11. ↑ Classic Rock Stories: The Stories Behind the Greatest Songs of All Time by Tim Morse, page 75 at books.google.de
  12. ↑ CD re-release Japan 2013
  13. ↑ Chart successes at allmusic.com
  14. ↑ British chart successes
  15. ↑ Review at allmusic.com
  16. ↑ Review at starling.rinet.ru