Without Love (album)
| Without love | ||||
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| Black 'n Blue studio album | ||||
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Publication |
October 1985 |
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| Label (s) | Geffen | |||
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Format (s) |
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Title (number) |
10 |
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running time |
35:38 |
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| occupation |
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Studio (s) |
Little Mountain Sound Studios , Mushroom Studios, Ocean Sound Studio, Vancouver , Canada |
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Without Love is the 1985 second studio album by the Portland , Oregon , Los Angeles , California based hard rock band Black 'n Blue . In Germany , the album was only available as an imported product for almost half a year .
History of origin
After the debut album with Dieter Dierks was created in Cologne , the band would have liked to work with him again. However, there was no time to set it up. The same problem existed with their sponsor Don Dokken . In addition to the time aspect, a financial aspect was also cited, and finally the desire to change. That is why they chose Bruce Fairbairn , owner of Little Mountain Sound Studios in Vancouver, Canada .
They had worked intensively on songs for almost a dozen weeks and took around 15 rough versions into the studio, including no old pimped-up material, only current new creations. Since Fairbairn was working with the musician and composer Jim Vallance (e.g. Summer of '69 ) on various levels and Vallance was just asking him to help him work out an idea, St. James stepped in and the theme song was created without Love , the second as decoupled was. Taking advantage of the creative hour, the band Vallance presented a song that was basically finished, but lacked that certain something. Vallance took care of that immediately, and at the same moment the first single was determined, namely that Miss Mystery . Fine-tuning was also done by guitarist Thayer, who often sat lost in a corner for hours to optimize a solo .
Regarding the result, which was available after only ten weeks, St. James commented: “All songs follow a certain line that runs through the entire album. It's heavy and yet melodic. I think it's important that an album has variety. It is also necessary to work with very different styles. We learned that from our first album. ”And Thayer:“ We want to surprise our fans with constant new ideas! ”“ We wanted to exhaust the whole spectrum of our possibilities, experiment with different styles and at the same time interesting elements, instead of just stubborn, straight rock To hammer 'n'Roll like on the first album. ”According to St. James, the band, producer and record company were extremely satisfied.
The cover artwork , a close-up of blue roses in front of a close-meshed grid, was done by Andy Janson, the group photos on the back and the inner cover were made by Moshe Brakha , who previously worked for Sammy Hagar , but also for the band Devo , who represented a completely different musical direction . Blue roses are a symbol of love and loyalty in Japan . In Japan, in contrast to the United States , Black 'n Blue had fanatical, grateful fans. After the release in October 1985, they went on tour with Kiss for over two months from the end of November.
Guest musician
Producer Bruce Fairbairn was Loverboy's house producer . Two of their members were actively involved in the album, and two more were mentioned in the acknowledgments. Mike Reno sang the backing vocals on We Got the Fire and Doug Johnson played the keyboards on some tracks . Loverboy drummer Matt Frenette and bassist "Spider" were thanked for jam sessions . A product of these sessions, in which sound engineer Bob Rock also took part as guitarist, is the cover version of the Aerosmith song Same Old Song and Dance , released only in Japan . Steve Porcaro from Toto and the Bryan Adams studio musician Dave Pickell were available for further keyboard assignments. Adam Bomb, who had recorded albums as a guitarist as a soloist and with various well-known bands, also worked alongside Jim Vallance, who used electronic drums .
Track list
Page 1:
- Rockin'n on Heaven's Door (Thayer / St. James) - 3:27
- Without Love (Vallance / St. James) - 3:34
- Stop the Lightning (Thayer / St. James) - 4:04
- Nature of the Beach (Thayer / St. James) - 3:45
- Miss Mystery (Thayer / St. James / Vallance) - 4:00
Page 2:
- Swing Time (Warner / St. James) - 3:16
- Bombastic Plastic (St. James) - 3:38
- We Got the Fire (Warner / St. James / Thayer) - 3:05
- Strange Things (Warner / St. James / Thayer) - 3:25
- Two Wrongs (Don't Make It Love) (Thayer / St. James) - 3:49
Japanese CD from 1994 only:
- Same Old Song and Dance ( Joe Perry / Steven Tyler ) - 4:14
reception
Mike Blim ( Metal Hammer ) didn't approve of the newly released album: "It couldn't be more sterile." In the rock hard of those days, Joachim Prein dropped the stimulus word “ commerce ” and awarded (without having heard it) 4 out of 10 points.
Later opinions were more positive. Ten years later, Oliver Klemm repeated the commercial charge in Rock Hard , but granted some titles the rank of “Classics of the original LA scene”. On the Internet, allmusic .com gave the album 2.5 points out of a possible 5, while the two editors who reviewed it for metalreviews.com gave it 83 and 86 out of 100 points, respectively.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Anonymous: Black'n'Blue only via import . In: Metal Hammer . January 1986, p. 6 .
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Petra Becker: Black 'n Blue . In: Metal Hammer . March 1986, p. 88 f .
- ↑ a b c Arlett Vereecke: Black N Blue . Naughty as dirt. In: Metal Hammer . December 1986, p. 80 .
- ^ A b Paul Suter: Black And Blue . Spots. In: Crash . February 1986, p. 56 .
- ↑ Mike Blim: Black 'n Blue . Without love. In: Metal Hammer . January 1986, p. 82 .
- ^ Joachim Prein: Black 'n Blue . Without love. In: Rock Hard . No. 14 (December / January, 1985/86), pp. ? . Also on: Rock Hard Review Archive
- ↑ Oliver Klemm: CD imports . Black'n'Blue. In: Rock Hard . No. 92 , January 1995, p. 90 .
- ↑ Without Love on Allmusic (English)
- ↑ Mike: Black 'n Blue - Without Love. Majestic Rock Records. Melodic hard rock. In: metalreviews.com. MetalReviews, October 13, 2003, accessed March 17, 2014 .