What If ... (album)
| What If ... | ||||
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| Studio album by Mr. Big | ||||
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Publication |
January 21, 2011 |
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admission |
2010 |
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| Label (s) | Frontiers Records | |||
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Format (s) |
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Title (number) |
12 |
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running time |
50:47 |
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| occupation | ||||
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Studio (s) |
Village Recorders, The Cave |
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What If… is the seventh studio album by the American hard rock band Mr. Big, produced by Kevin Shirley . It was the first studio album that the band recorded after their comeback , which they started with the live album Back to Budokan in 2009.
Emergence
Mr. Big had been a successful group in the 1990s who, with the help of a few radio-oriented titles, had managed to appeal to a wide audience and gain worldwide fame. Their most successful single was the song To Be with You , published on their second album Lean into It , with which the group reached number 1 in the charts in 1991 in Germany , Switzerland , Austria and the United States - only in Great Britain it only reached number one 3. Even if the band later couldn't reach such high chart positions, pieces like Just Take My Heart or the cover version of the Cat Stevens song Wild World became well-known titles of the group. By their breakup in 2002, the band had released six studio albums and achieved the greatest success in Japan. A live album was published there for practically every studio album.
In 2009, the founding members of the group decided to try a comeback. To this end, the group brought in Japan the best-of-album Next Time Around out and then went on the same tour , from the concert on 20 June 2009 at the Nippon Budokan (Tokyo) fully recorded and later under the title Back to Budokan was released on CD and DVD . The band found on this tour that the chemistry was still right. Billy Sheehan said in an interview with Rocks magazine :
"We were, however, a bit surprised that after all these years there is still a certain automatism that we switch to at certain points in the interaction."
The band decided to record a new studio album and met three months before the recording date to exchange ideas and write songs. However, this did not work, so that the group members could only work four or five hours concentrated. In total, the band put together 124 ideas, but finished songs did not result.
The group therefore went into the studio in September 2010 completely unprepared and let the album develop in a "spontaneous flow". The producer was Kevin Shirley, whose experience with productions for The Black Crowes , Iron Maiden , Rush and Led Zeppelin was decisive in choosing him. Video clips were produced for the title Undertow , which was released as the first single on November 27, 2010, and the song All the Way Up .
Cover
The scribbled surface of a drawing table, on which a compass and a brush can be seen, was chosen as the background for the What If … album cover . In the middle is a winged pig with its front legs in the air. A blurring suggests that the wings are moving and the animal will take off. The band's logo can be seen above the pig, and the album title, made up of letters in different fonts , can be read below the animal .
Manifestations
The album was released in Europe on 21 January 2011 and was available in three versions: as a simple audio CD, a digipak with DVD and a fan box set with CD, DVD, Vinyl - LP and mouse pad . The DVD contained the video clips mentioned above and a film entitled The Making of What If ...
reception
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Chart positions Explanation of the data |
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"Wild, sharp and snappy", said Rocks in his review of the album, and awarded five out of six possible points.
“Judging by the new studio work (the first with the guitar god Paul Gilbert since 1996), they never stopped giving concerts. What If… leaves no room for doubt about the functioning of these great musicians as a band, nor about the sincerity of their new start. Immediately with the driving 'Undertow' a remarkable statement succeeds [...] A very charming comeback of this extremely misunderstood hard rock formation. The natural sound of Kevin Shirley is irritating, at least in the ›All the way up‹ interspersed with vocal peaks. "
Rock Hard gave 8 points and said:
“This is a successful reunion album! After the divine tour, MR. BIG with What If ...? back and answer the question of their fans, who wondered for years whether the band would get together again and what the result might sound like. Now we know: In the great line-up of Martin / Sheehan / Gilbert / Torpey, the rock group, revered like heroes in Japan, rocks with the fast blasts American Beauty and Once Upon a Time , grooves with fiddly modern tracks like Nobody Left To Blame and Still Ain 't Enough For Me ' or gently prances through ballads like Stranger In My Life . With All the Way Up an international hit is inevitable, while I Get the Feeling almost exudes Lean into It -spirit. And above it all, Eric Martin's singing hovers, which shows the whole spectrum of the forever young at heart front man. "
The album reached number 50 in the charts in Germany, number 116 in Great Britain and number 7 in Japan.
Track list
- Undertow - 4:48
- American Beauty - 3:44
- Stranger in My Life - 4:25
- Nobody Left to Blame - 4:19
- Still Ain't Enough for Me - 3:04
- Once Upon a Time - 4:02
- As Far as I Can See - 3:54
- All the Way Up - 5:12
- I Won't Get in My Way - 4:39
- Around the World - 3:51
- I Get the Feeling - 4:34
Bonus tracks
- Europe: Unforgiven - 4:15
- Japan: Kill me With a Kiss - 5:59 (Japan / Korea)
Web links
- Official website (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rocks - The magazine for Classic Rock; Issue 01/2011, page 54.
- ↑ a b c "The Great Renewal" - Interview with Billy Sheehan. In: Rocks - The magazine for Classic Rock, issue 01/2011, pages 54/55.
- ↑ Mr. Big Hit the Studio. (No longer available online.) In: Gibson.com. Archived from the original on September 27, 2010 ; Retrieved September 24, 2010 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Charts DE Charts AT Charts CH
- ↑ Rocks - The magazine for Classic Rock; Issue 01/2011, page 97.
- ^ Rock Hard, Issue 285 (2011).
