When creating a list of an artist’s best love songs, there is usually some sort of rubric that goes into the creation and mix of the writing. However, with an artist like Alice Cooper, you can pretty much throw that rubric right out the window because a love song from Alice Cooper is not the same as a love song from the majority of musical artists out there. If you’re not really sure what I mean, well, the first song on this list will explain it.
# 10 – I Love The Dead
Come on now, have a sense of humor. “I Love the Dead” serves as the macabre finale to Alice Cooper’s 1973 album Billion Dollar Babies, a project that achieved significant commercial success, reaching number one on both the U.S. and UK charts.The album was recorded between August 1972 and January 1973 across various studios, including the Galesi Estate in Greenwich, Connecticut, Record Plant in New York City, and Morgan Studios in London.Produced by Bob Ezrin, the track features the classic lineup: Alice Cooper on vocals, Glen Buxton and Michael Bruce on guitars, Dennis Dunaway on bass, and Neal Smith on drums.Additional guitar work was contributed by Steve Hunter, Dick Wagner, and Mick Mashbir.“I Love the Dead” delves into themes of necrophilia with a blend of dark humor and theatricality, exemplifying the shock rock genre that Cooper helped pioneer.
# 9 – Hell Is Living Without You
“Hell Is Living Without You” is a powerful track from Alice Cooper’s 1989 album Trash, showcasing his ability to blend hard rock with emotive storytelling. Recorded in 1989 across various studios including Right Track Recording in New York City and The Hit Factory in New York, the song was produced by Desmond Child, known for his work with Bon Jovi and Aerosmith. The track features Alice Cooper on vocals, supported by a lineup that includes Richie Sambora on guitar, Steve Lukather on guitar, Hugh McDonald on bass, Bobby Chouinard on drums, and Alan St. John on keyboards. The song’s lyrics explore themes of longing and despair, wrapped in a melodic rock arrangement that reflects the polished, radio-friendly style of the Trash album.
# 8 – Killed By Love
“Killed by Love” is a standout track from Alice Cooper’s 25th studio album, Along Came a Spider, released on July 29, 2008.This concept album narrates the chilling tale of a serial killer named Spider, with “Killed by Love” delving into the complexities of his emotions as he grapples with unexpected feelings for his intended victim.The song was co-written by Cooper, bassist Chuck Garric, guitarist Keri Kelli, and Jeremy Rubolino, showcasing a collaborative effort that blends melodic hard rock with introspective lyrics.Recorded between 2007 and 2008 at Wonderland Studios, Hampton Hacienda Lab, and Undercity Recordings, the track features Cooper’s signature vocals, Keri Kelli on guitar, Chuck Garric on bass, and Eric Singer on drums.Produced by Greg Hampton, Danny Saber, and Alice Cooper himself, the album received mixed to positive reviews, with critics praising its thematic ambition and musical execution.
# 7 – Baby Please Don’t Go
“Baby Please Don’t Go,” featured on Alice Cooper’s 2023 album Road, is a poignant ballad that delves into the emotional turmoil of parting ways with a loved one.The lyrics vividly depict the struggle of leaving in the early hours, with the protagonist torn between duty and the heartfelt plea of their partner to stay.This track was recorded live in the studio, capturing the raw energy and cohesion of Cooper’s touring band: guitarists Nita Strauss, Ryan Roxie, and Tommy Henriksen; bassist Chuck Garric; and drummer Glen Sobel.Notably, Nita Strauss’s evocative guitar work adds depth to the song’s emotional narrative.Produced by longtime collaborator Bob Ezrin, the album Road was released on August 25, 2023, through Earmusic.
# 6 – Be My Lover
“Be My Lover” from Alice Cooper’s 1971 album Killer offers a sly, rock-infused take on love, blending attitude with self-aware storytelling. Unlike many traditional love songs, this track doesn’t lean into sentimentality but instead captures the spontaneous, unpredictable nature of romantic encounters on the road. Written by guitarist Michael Bruce, the lyrics narrate a casual encounter between a rock musician and a curious woman, where the protagonist candidly shares details about his life, including the iconic question about why the singer’s name is Alice. Recorded in 1971 and produced by Bob Ezrin, the song features Alice Cooper on vocals, Glen Buxton on lead guitar, Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar and keyboards, Dennis Dunaway on bass, and Neal Smith on drums. With its straightforward rock riff and conversational lyrics, “Be My Lover” became a fan favorite, reaching number 49 on the Billboard Hot 100.
# 5 – Might As Well Be On Mars
“Might as Well Be on Mars,” was released on Alice Cooper’s 1991 album Hey Stoopid, Co-written with longtime collaborator Dick Wagner and renowned songwriter Desmond Child, this ballad delves into themes of isolation and longing.The song was recorded between January and February 1991 at Bearsville Studios in New York and The Complex in Los Angeles, under the production of Peter Collins. The album featured an array of guest musicians, including Slash, Ozzy Osbourne, and Joe Satriani.
# 4 – How You Gonna See Me Now
Alice Cooper wasn’t trying to scare anyone when he recorded “How You Gonna See Me Now”—he was just hoping to be seen at all. Behind the song’s smooth, almost tender rock ballad sound lies a man wrestling with the fallout of his own demons. Released in 1978 on the album From the Inside, it’s not just a love song—it’s an anxious letter from a man who’s unsure whether sobriety will make him a stranger to the people he loves. The song was born from Cooper’s real-life struggle with alcoholism, penned with the help of guitarist Dick Wagner and lyricist Bernie Taupin.
Recorded at a string of top studios across Los Angeles, including Sound City, Davlen, Cherokee, Hollywood Sound Recorders, Kendun, and Studio 55, the track was produced by David Foster. Backed by the skilled musicianship of Wagner, Davey Johnstone on guitars, Dee Murray on bass, and Dennis Conway on drums, Cooper’s vocal performance brings a raw sincerity rarely seen in his catalog. Charting at number 12 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and hitting the top 10 internationally, it’s a song that resonates not because of theatrics, but because of its stark humanity.
# 3 – I Never Cry
When Alice Cooper decided to bare his soul in song, “I Never Cry” became the unexpected confession that resonated far beyond the stage. Released in 1976 as part of the album Alice Cooper Goes to Hell, the track reflects Cooper’s battle with alcoholism, portraying vulnerability through its heartfelt lyrics. Co-written by Cooper and guitarist Dick Wagner, the song was recorded at Soundstage Studios in Toronto, Cherokee Studios in Hollywood, Record Plant Studios in New York, and RCA Studios in Los Angeles, produced by Bob Ezrin. Featuring Cooper on vocals, Wagner and Steve Hunter on guitars, Tony Levin on bass, and Allan Schwartzberg on drums, the track’s melodic structure gave it a mainstream appeal. “I Never Cry” struck a chord with listeners, reaching number 12 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number five on the Canadian RPM Top Singles chart. The ballad’s sincere delivery and introspective tone marked it as one of Cooper’s most enduring hits, contributing to the album’s overall success on the US Billboard 200.
# 2 – You And Me
“You and Me” from Alice Cooper’s 1977 album Lace and Whiskey became one of his most successful ballads, blending rock elements with a softer, more melodic touch. Recorded at Soundstage Studios in Toronto, Cherokee Studios in Hollywood, Record Plant Studios in New York, and RCA Studios and Producer’s Workshop in Los Angeles, the song was produced by Bob Ezrin. Cooper collaborated with guitarist Dick Wagner on the songwriting, while the recording featured Cooper on vocals, Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter on guitars, Tony Levin on bass, and Allan Schwartzberg on drums. Released as a single, it reached number nine on the US Billboard Hot 100, number three in Canada, and number two in Australia, making it one of Cooper’s highest-charting hits.
The song’s introspective lyrics and heartfelt delivery struck a chord with both rock and mainstream audiences. Cooper’s performance of the song on The Muppet Show in 1978 showcased its broad appeal, highlighting his ability to connect with diverse audiences beyond his shock rock image. The track’s success bolstered the album’s performance, with Lace and Whiskey reaching number 42 on the US Billboard 200 and number 33 on the UK Albums Chart.
# 1 – Muscle Of Love
“Muscle of Love” is Alice Cooper at his most daring, pushing the boundaries of what a love song can be by blending rock bravado with awkward adolescent discovery. As the title track from the 1973 album Muscle of Love, it stands out for its tongue-in-cheek take on desire and confusion, capturing a young man’s bewildered confrontation with his own emotions. The lyrics weave humor and vulnerability as Cooper sings about his coming-of-age experiences, cleverly twisting the love song trope into something uniquely raw and honest. Recorded at Sunset Sound in Hollywood, Record Plant in New York, and The Cooper Mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut, the song was produced by Jack Richardson and Jack Douglas.
The lineup features Alice Cooper on vocals, Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar and keyboards, Dennis Dunaway on bass, Neal Smith on drums, with additional guitar contributions from Dick Wagner and Mick Mashbir. The track’s gritty rock feel and rebellious energy align perfectly with the album’s overall vibe, making it a bold, unconventional love song that only Cooper could pull off. The album itself reached number 10 on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold, reinforcing Cooper’s reputation for blending rock theatrics with surprising thematic twists.
Check out our other articles on the great Alice Cooper
From Ice-T to the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones, Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine isn’t averse to inviting outside musicians to appear on his band’s albums.
But there was one unlikely high-profile collaborator whose appearance on a classic Megadeth song fell apart at the very last minute.
In 1994, Megadeth were riding high on the success of albums such as Rust In Peace and Countdown To Extinction, the latter entering the Billboard charts at Number 2 – their highest ever chart position.
The band’s sixth album, Youthanasia, was their most commercial-sounding record yet, to the point where Dave Mustaine later complained that producer Max Norman pushed the band to slow down their songs to make them more palatable for radio.
“When you listen to those songs, they’re all really slow,” said Mustaine in 2024. “We’re a metal band, you can’t have everything at 120 BPM. It’s obvious that that’s a radio tempo.”
Despite his reservations, Youthanasia featured several classic tracks, including one that would be widely recognised as one of Megadeth’s greatest songs: A Tout Le Monde.
The version of A Tout Le Monde that appears on Youthanasia was sung by Mustaine alone, but the band would revisit it 13 years later with the intention of re-recording it as a duet.
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The updated version of the song, retitled A Tout Le Monde (Set Me Free), appeared on 2007’s United Abominations album and featured Mustaine trading lines with Cristina Scabbia, singer with Italian goth metal band Lacuna Coil.
“That song was never respected by the record company [Capitol], or by anyone except myself and the fans,” Mustaine told Metal Hammer in 2007. “Being one of my most beautiful songs, I thought it deserved a better chance before I went into retirement.”
But Scabbia wasn’t the first person that Mustaine approached to appear on the new version of the song. The Megadeth man had considered two unnamed singers who failed to work out, before reaching out to a third: Lisa Marie Presley.
Presley, who died in 2023, was the daughter of rock’n’roll legend Elvis Presley and a singer in her own right. But sadly, the mooted team-up with Megadeth fell through at the eleventh hour.
“She was literally getting onto the plane,” Mustaine told Metal Hammer, adding cryptically: “I felt awkward about it, but I’ve got a bad enough reputation and so has she.”
In another interview with Straight.com, the Megadeth frontman explained: “We had to call and say, ‘Sorry, we changed our minds. I would have loved to have heard what Lisa Marie Presley would have done,.”
The exact reason for Presley’s non-appearance on A Tout Le Monde (Set Me Free) has never been revealed. Instead, Mustaine enlisted Cristina Scabbia as his duet partner on the song.
“Cristina is the best of all the female singers around at the moment and I hope it helps her band’s career,” Mustaine told Metal Hammer.
Fittingly, given the Megadeth singer’s issues with Youthanasia’s radio-friendly approach, the new version of the song was faster than the original. As for what it would have sounded like with Lisa Marie Presley? We can only imagine.
Feature Photo: Concerttour, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Godsmack was formed in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1995 by vocalist and guitarist Sully Erna. Originally, Erna had been a drummer in several bands before deciding to front his own project. The band began by playing local venues across Massachusetts and quickly gained attention for their powerful stage presence and aggressive yet melodic sound. The original lineup included Erna, bassist Robbie Merrill, guitarist Lee Richards, and drummer Tommy Stewart, although Tony Rombola soon replaced Richards, solidifying the classic lineup alongside drummer Shannon Larkin, who joined later.
The band’s breakthrough came with their self-titled debut album, Godsmack, released independently in 1997 and then re-released by Universal Records in 1998. This album featured hit singles like “Whatever,” “Keep Away,” and “Voodoo,” propelling the band into mainstream rock radio and eventually achieving quadruple platinum certification. The raw energy and relatable angst expressed in these tracks resonated deeply with fans, making Godsmack an immediate and lasting presence in the hard rock and alternative metal scenes.
Since their debut, Godsmack has released eight studio albums. Following their debut, they released Awake (2000), which debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 and furthered their popularity with hits such as the title track “Awake” and “Greed.” Their subsequent albums included Faceless (2003), which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and IV (2006), another number-one debut, highlighting their continued commercial success. Additional albums like The Oracle (2010), 1000hp (2014), When Legends Rise (2018), and Lighting Up the Sky (2023) continued their impressive chart performances, securing Godsmack’s reputation as one of rock music’s enduring forces.
Throughout their career, Godsmack has produced numerous hit singles that have dominated rock radio, such as “I Stand Alone,” “Straight Out of Line,” “Speak,” and “Bulletproof.” “I Stand Alone” notably served as the theme for the film The Scorpion King, further cementing their cultural impact. Their consistent ability to deliver memorable and emotionally charged songs has been a significant factor in their sustained popularity and critical acclaim.
Godsmack has received substantial recognition within the industry, including multiple Grammy Award nominations, most notably for Best Rock Song and Best Hard Rock Performance. They have also won a Billboard Music Award for Rock Artist of the Year in 2001. The accolades reflect the band’s considerable influence on modern rock music, reinforced by their unwavering dedication to authenticity and connection with their fans.
Outside of music, Godsmack has been actively involved in various charitable activities, reflecting their commitment to giving back to the community. The band established the Scars Foundation in 2019, a nonprofit organization dedicated to addressing mental health issues, depression, suicide prevention, bullying, and substance abuse. This initiative highlights their dedication not just to their artistry but also to impactful advocacy and social responsibility.
The band’s enduring appeal lies in their genuine connection with their audience, combining intense musicality with emotional honesty. Godsmack’s relentless energy, thoughtful lyricism, and strong commitment to both their fans and social causes underscore why they continue to be deeply respected and loved in the rock music community.
Complete List Of Godsmack Songs From A to Z
1000hp – 1000hp – 2014
Asleep – The Other Side – 2004
Awake – Awake – 2000
Awake (Live) – Faceless – 2003 (UK bonus track)
Bad Magick – Awake – 2000
Bad Magik – Godsmack – 1998 (Japanese edition bonus track)
Bad Religion – Godsmack – 1998
Best of Times – Lighting Up the Sky – 2023
Bleeding Me – IV – 2006
Bulletproof – When Legends Rise – 2018
Changes – Faceless – 2003
Cryin’ Like a Bitch – The Oracle – 2010
Dead and Broken – Faceless – 2003
Devil’s Swing – The Oracle – 2010
Every Part of Me – When Legends Rise – 2018
Eye of the Storm – When Legends Rise – 2018
Faceless – Faceless – 2003
FML – 1000hp – 2014
Forever Shamed – The Oracle – 2010
Forgive Me – Awake – 2000
Generation Day – 1000hp – 2014
Get Up, Get Out! – Godsmack – 1998
Goin’ Down – Godsmack – 1998 (Japanese edition bonus track)
Goin’ Down – Awake – 2000
Good Day to Die – The Oracle – 2010
Greed – Awake – 2000
Growing Old – Lighting Up the Sky – 2023
Hell’s Not Dead – Lighting Up the Sky – 2023
Hollow – IV – 2006
I Am – Faceless – 2003
I Blame You – The Oracle – 2010 (Deluxe/limited edition)
I Don’t Belong – 1000hp – 2014
I Fu*king Hate You – Faceless – 2003
I Stand Alone – Faceless – 2003
I Stand Alone (Live) – IV – 2006 (iTunes bonus track)
I Thought – IV – 2006 (Target bonus track/Special edition)
The Departed – The Oracle – 2010 (iTunes bonus track)
The Enemy – IV – 2006
The Journey – Awake – 2000
The Oracle – The Oracle – 2010
Time Bomb – Godsmack – 1998
Touché – The Other Side – 2004
Trippin’ – Awake – 2000
Truth – Lighting Up the Sky – 2023
Turning to Stone – 1000hp – 2014
Under Your Scars – When Legends Rise – 2018
Unforgettable – When Legends Rise – 2018
Vampires – Awake – 2000
Voices – The Other Side – 2004
Voodoo/Witch Hunt – Godsmack – 1998
Voodoo Too – IV – 2006
War and Peace – The Oracle – 2010
What About Me – Lighting Up the Sky – 2023
Whatever – Godsmack – 1998
What If? – The Oracle – 2010
What’s Next? – 1000hp – 2014
When Legends Rise – When Legends Rise – 2018
Whiskey Hangover – The Oracle – 2010 (Deluxe/limited edition)
Why – Awake – 2000 (Japanese edition bonus track)
You and I – Lighting Up the Sky – 2023
Albums
Godsmack (1998): 14 songs
Awake (2000): 13 songs
Faceless (2003): 14 songs
The Other Side (2004): 7 songs
IV (2006): 14 songs
The Oracle (2010): 13 songs
1000hp (2014): 11 songs
When Legends Rise (2018): 11 songs
Lighting Up the Sky (2023): 11 songs
Check out our fantastic and entertaining Godsmack articles, detailing in-depth the band’s albums, songs, band members, and more…all on ClassicRockHistory.com
Feature Photo: Jean-Luc, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
During the summer of 1977, I went to see ELP perform at Madison Square Garden with an 80-piece orchestra. This was the same summer that I saw Led Zeppelin’s Presence tour, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours tour, Pink Floyd’s AnimalS tour, and many other shows. The competition for the greatest concert of the summer was pretty fierce. Yet, that’s not what this article is about, even though watching ELP perform with an 80-piece Orchestra for the Works Tour was a jar-dropping as rock and roll shows ever get. No, here’s the point Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP) deserves a far more prominent place in the conversation surrounding the greatest bands in classic rock history, especially within the progressive rock genre.
Formed in 1970, ELP was not just another group of musicians coming together; they were a groundbreaking trio whose innovation reshaped what rock music could achieve.ELP wasn’t just another progressive rock band—they were genuine innovators who transformed what rock music could accomplish. When they took the stage at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970, performing to 600,000 people, they announced themselves as a new kind of musical force: a power trio that combined classical sophistication with the power of pure rock and roll. With Keith Emerson’s pioneering use of synthesizers and keyboards, Greg Lake’s beautiful vocals and underrated musicianship, and Carl Palmer’s skills as a drumming monster, ELP introduced classical compositions seamlessly into rock, captivating audiences in a manner few bands ever had before.
Despite their enormous popularity in the 1970s—selling approximately 48 million records worldwide and achieving nine RIAA-certified gold albums—today ELP is frequently overlooked in classic rock retrospectives, and inexplicably absent from institutions like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I mean WTF? What is wrong with the people who vote for the hall? This neglect is puzzling when considering how significantly they elevated the genre through their intricate adaptations of classical pieces, such as Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” and Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” bringing symphonic grandeur to arena-sized audiences. Their fusion of heavy riffs with classical sophistication wasn’t mere gimmickry; it redefined progressive rock entirely.
One factor that may explain their unjust neglect could be the absence of traditional radio-friendly hits. I mean, of course, there was “Lucky Man,” and “Father Christmas,” but not many others. Unlike other bands from the era who benefited from frequent airplay due to concise and catchy singles, ELP thrived in the realm of album-oriented rock. Their ambitious and lengthy compositions, like “Tarkus” and “Karn Evil 9,” challenged conventional radio formats, which unfortunately limited their exposure to newer generations. Consequently, younger listeners raised on streamlined playlists are largely unaware of their remarkable contributions, depriving ELP of the continued acclaim they deserve.
Furthermore, ELP’s groundbreaking stage show have received inadequate documentation over time. Unlike contemporaries whose legacies were bolstered by widely available concert films and documentaries, comprehensive visual documentation capturing ELP’s monumental performances remains scarce. Their legendary appearance at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970, their extravagant theatrics on tours throughout the 1970s, and their memorable California Jam performance of 1974—though monumental—haven’t been sufficiently preserved or promoted, limiting modern audiences’ access to ELP’s impressive live capabilities.
Another reason ELP deserves recognition is the uniqueness of their identity as a progressive rock power trio. Unlike other celebrated trios like Cream or the Jimi Hendrix Experience, who focused on blues-infused rock improvisations, ELP operated with meticulous musical precision. Each member brought equal weight, producing a complex, symphonic sound previously unheard of from just three musicians. This profound originality established new creative possibilities, inspiring countless musicians who followed but were often more visibly recognized due to simpler, digestible music or greater media presence.
Ultimately, the case for celebrating Emerson, Lake & Palmer rests upon their fearless creativity and undeniable influence. They transcended the expected boundaries of rock, pushed technological and musical innovation to unprecedented heights, and achieved immense popularity in their prime. If you graduated high school in the 1970s or early 1980s, you are very much aware of how popular and loved this band was. The ongoing lack of acknowledgment from institutions like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, classic rock radio stations, and current popular culture isn’t just a simple oversight—it’s an injustice that diminishes the historical record of progressive rock.
I can feel my blood pressure rising as I write this, so I have to wrap it up. For those of us who vividly recall the 1970s, Emerson, Lake & Palmer weren’t just another rock band; they defined an era, changed our perception of musical possibilities, and forever deserve to be celebrated as true pioneers of progressive rock. I know they’re not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and I may be wrong, but I don’t even think they’ve even been nominated, which, is incredibly stupid and just shows how these people who are voting just don’t know classic rock history. Are you listening HALL OF FAME VOTERS?????
Check out similar articles on ClassicRockHistory.com Just click on any of the links below……
The Darkness have just dropped their excellent new album, Dreams On Toast, a record that’s full of the kind of fist-in-the-air anthems that remind you why you fell in love with them in the first place.
But the Dreams On Toast also features an unexpected guest appearances from a bona fide Hollywood star. The album’s closing track, the blockbusting ballad Weekend In Rome, includes a spoken word section, in which a gravelly American voice intones the lines: “Meandering like the Tiber, gand in hand, we scaled the Spanish Steps, the night air thick and sultry, I kiss you beneath the Italian moonlight… This was my dream.”
And who exactly does the voice belong to? None other than actor Stephen Dorff, star of classic Beatles biopic Backbeat and, more recently, acclaimed TV series True Detective. We spoke to Dorff to find out just how he ended up on Dreams On Toast.
How did you get to know The Darkness?
Stephen Dorff: “I know their music from way back. I thought they were a great rock band with Justin’s [Hawkins, singer] voice and flair and the crazy sense of humour. I like a lot of bands out of England but The Darkness had an edge. About seven or eight years ago, Rufus [Taylor, Darkness drummer] and I met at a party and we hit it off and we’ve been good buddies ever since. I’ve seen them play a few times. I saw this great show they played live to the English veterans [the Royal Hospital Chelsea, home of the Chelsea Pensioners]. It was The Darkness and Toto – the wackiest show ever.
How did you end up doing the spoken word sections on Weekend In Rome?
“I was in London for something, and I ended up going out to Dan’s studio where they were recording the album. They were doing Weekend In Rome, and they asked if I wanted to do it. Justin was writing these words while we were there: ‘Can you say this, can you say it like this?’ They got me on a couple of other songs too, but I think Weekend In Rome is the one that worked best, so that‘s the one they kept.
Did Justin Hawkins give you any vocal direction for Weekend In Rome?
“Justin was saying: ‘Just think of it as a dream, you’re on an airplane and you’re kind of sleepy and sad.’ He’s got a crazy brain and he’s such a great writer, and he kept giving me all of these great lines.”
The next time you and The Darkness are in the same city, what are the chances of you getting on stage with them?
“Yeah, I’d love to do that. That’d be fun.”
To celebrate the release of Dreams On Toast, Classic Rock has teamed up with The Darkness to bring you two limited-edition physical versions of the album, both available as a ‘bundle’ with a special version of the new issue of Classic Rock magazine featuring the band on the front cover.
The first version features a hand-signed copy of Dreams On Toast on splatter vinyl, accompanied by a special Darkness edition of Classic Rock issue 339, featuring a brand new interview with the band.
The other version features a glow-in-the-dark cassette version of Dreams On Toast, also with the same edition of Classic Rock magazine.
Both versions are available to buy right now – here for vinyl and here for cassette. Order yours online and have it delivered straight to your door. And remember – you can’t pick these bundles up anywhere else other than the official Classic Rock store, so jump in and get yours while you can!
“Our manager said Mick Jagger and Jeff Beck were in the crowd. I had to put it out of my mind and play”: The epic story of Living Colour, the band that revolutionised 80s hard rock
(Image credit: Anthony Barboza/Getty Images)
Founded by guitarist Vernon Reid, a member of New York’s groundbreaking Black Rock Coalition, Living Colour were one of the most revolutionary rock bands of the late 80s. They notched up hit singles Cult Of Personality and Open Letter (To A Landlord) and acclaimed albums Vivid, Time’s Up and Stain before imploding. Classic Rock met the recently reunited band in 2003 on the eve of their comeback album, Collideøscope, to look back over a trailblazing career.
The lush green of the sodden Austrian Hills is so dense that it strains your eyes to look at it too long. It’s softened by the occasional heavy strands of white cloud and intermittent sheets of black rain that whip the flags in the hotel car park into a punchy tattoo. The overall effect is a dewy saturation that makes you think the colour is going to drain out of the landscape. It’s been raining here since both Classic Rock and Living Colour arrived.
Late last night at the Saalfelden Jazz Festival (‘Three days of deep impacted jazz, side shows, club, short cuts and Alpine vibes,’ trumpets the event poster) Living Colour roused a demonstratively demure and introspective jazz audience to its feet. Pushed back to a 1am start by the late inclusion of the inventive if somewhat histrionic three-piece Kroyt – keening female vocals twinned with a deeply serious and erratic guitarist who chose to stare down each member of the audience individually – Living Colour enlivened a sell-out crowd beneath the huge, white marquee, from a state of sedate politeness to an invigorated rabble resplendent in brightly coloured pullovers. Still a good month from release, the songs from their new album Collideøscope were met with an enthusiasm that only an audience who have spent the day watching artists play in 13/8 time could possibly muster. The crowd, a generous seven or eight thousand, danced and frugged as erratically as the intricate rhythms they’d enjoyed all day – possibly belying how they dance at home when the house is empty…
“Man, what a day,” says Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid the next morning, joining me briefly on the steps of the hotel as I take in the mountains and squalls of rain. “Shall we start?”
Reid formed the first version of Living Colour – then a trio – around 1983. Ten years later they would release their third studio album, Stain. Two years after that it was followed by the Pride best of; not too much later a pithy and rather prissy statement arrived from Reid announcing his decision to quit the band.
Living Colour in the late 80s: (from left) Muzz Skillings, Corey Glover, Will Calhoun, Vernon Reid (Image credit: Anthony Barboza/Getty Images)
Even though they’ve lived in the public consciousness since the Cult Of Personality single hit at the tail end of 1988, Collideøscope will be only the band’s fourth album proper. It says much for their new record and the band’s initial grace and endeavour that either end of their catalogue remains poised timelessly above trend or market forces. Their debut, Vivid, was remastered and reissued in 2002. Played back to back with Collideøscope, the two albums act as impressive musical bookends for a band who confronted stereotypes, social norms and a daily, almost indifferent kind of racism that cast a near-invisible pall – invisible to those not affected by it – across their lives.
This feature was originally published in Classic Rock magazine issue 60 (November 2003) (Image credit: Future)
Shoehorning them into a moral corner may have done them more harm than good in the long run, when a hook-hungry media began to cast them more as social observers than as a sentient rock band. Given that and the fact that in interviews they did around the time of Stain they sounded as though they were stepping down from the soapbox they had erected – they constantly insisted on a more human, less political slant to the album – it’s refreshing to hear vocalist Corey Glover refusing to shy away from the pointed stance the band has again adopted with their latest album.
“We’ve seen a lot of things go down that aren’t being addressed, and someone needs to talk about that,” Corey says, as Vernon nods, a pot of tea poised above his cup. “We had an obligation then and we have an obligation now to speak the truth, and we’re never going to be afraid of that.”
The three of us are seated in the hotel bar. Mountains rise up either side, their peaks obscured by a sky that threatens to keep on falling. “We didn’t want to make a record for the sake of making a record,” Corey continues. “We were never about that, ever. But it had to have a theme; it had to have something to say. We laboured over that idea for a long time, because we would write songs that came out of the creative process but they didn’t feel like they were thematically worked – ‘what is the genesis?’ you know? We tried really hard for it to mean something; we didn’t just want to make a record that said hey, we’re back. That’s not enough.”
Living Colour – Cult Of Personality (Official Video) – YouTube
“So now we’re trying to figure who each person is. On a level we’re still the same people… the same guys,” Vernon says, with an elongated pause. “But there’s another part of it in figuring out how could we be together, what do we have to say? That’s been a nagging question.”
As history has it, Vernon first heard Corey singing when he saw him perform Happy Birthday at a friend’s party. Vernon had already played with jazz drummer Ronald Jackson in his Decoding Society band, and the guitarist’s dazzling and eclectic reputation had already earned him gigs with artists as diverse as pop producer Kashif and the erratic and tough-sounding jazz/dance outfit Defunkt. But it wasn’t until 1986 that the line-up of Corey, Vernon, drummer Will Calhoun and bassist Muzz Skillings began to make a name for themselves in New York. Regulars – to the point of being something akin to the house band – at CBGB’s, one night Living Colour’s reputation in the city and a confluence of voices in one rock star’s ear saw Mick Jagger going to the club to see them play.
“What was that, 1987?” Vernon asks. “I knew he was there, and I didn’t tell anyone in the band. One of our managers at the time said that Mick Jagger and Jeff Beck are here. And I said, okay, and I didn’t say another word about it. And it was a deep thing, because I had to put it out of my mind and play. And that’s the thing about any of this. Our best moment, my best moment, is when I don’t have anything in my mind at all, I have nothing. If you had no expectations, how much better would your life be? I guess expectations must be built in to the design…
“And then I got the call, and I played on Jagger’s Primitive Cool album. Corey went with me to the audition. That was pretty wild.” He indicates the singer in his quiet reverie.
“I was working as an undercover security guard at Tower Records, and I got fired that day so I left. So we all went to see Mick,” Corey recalls with a grin. “So I was like, where you going? Fuck it, whatever. I got no job. He [Jagger] ended up producing our demo and getting in the ear of Epic [who would eventually sign the band], and then he produced Glamour Boys and Which Way To America? on the first album. He played harmonica on Broken Hearts, too.”
Living Colour with the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger in 1989 (Image credit: Paul Natkin/Getty Images)
Living Colour went with Ed Stasium as producer on their first two albums. And even though their debut Vivid (1988) took time to impact commercially by the time the band released Cult Of Personality at the end of that year, MTV had begun to take notice of the band and placed the video on heavy rotation.
Given the musical environment at the time – best sellers that year included Aerosmith’s Angel, Def Leppard’s Love Bites and Guns N’ Roses’ Sweet Child O’ Mine – the ascendancy of Cult Of Personality is all the more surprising. Uncompromising and ragged in tone and built on Vernon’s swaggering guitar, it angrily questions authority and the figures thereof. You could safely suggest that the song lacked compromise and that its bite, both philosophically and musically, was a unique one. A year later it would win the band a Grammy award for Best Hard Rock Performance.
“If a song is creepy, if a song is rabble-rousing, as long as it gets to that unspeakable thing…” Vernon says about their first and biggest hit. “If it does that – and Cult Of Personality did that – if it manages to speak to somebody… And it did, it spoke to somebody. There was something running through culture in the background, in media at that time, and Cult Of Personality seized on something that was set back there in the collective mind, you know? It spoke to people.”
Vivid would move people too, informed by the city from which it came and eventually rose to No.6 on the American chart.
“We’re a New York band, and the New York thing has been very much a part of the Living Colour story,” Vernon says. “Vivid is really an album about New York City as much as it’s an album about anything else. You know, like Glamour Boys, Funny Vibe, Open Letter (To A Landlord), all of those things are about the city we grew up in.”
“And more about where we grew up – it was more like Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens where the three of us grew up,” says Corey, nodding in agreement.
Living Colour’s working-class ethic – Muzz Skillings had to be dissuaded from becoming a fireman to join the band full-time – saw them jump at every opportunity that came their way. They toured incessantly, Jagger upholding the original faith he had in the band by offering them the support slot on the Rolling Stones’ Steel Wheels album tour of America in 1989.
Living Colour – Open Letter To A Landlord – YouTube
“We always worked. I think what we always felt, what we were a victim of to a degree, was our own work ethic,” Corey says. “Tastes in music are always going to change… We worked, like, almost 327 days in 1988 [laughs]. And that was to our own detriment. We thought that if we took a break they, the audience, were going to forget us. Basically, it was fear, completely. There was no letting up. We went from album to tour to album again.”
As part of the Stones’ tour, Guns N’ Roses ended up playing between the headliners and Living Colour at the Los Angeles shows. Much had been made in the press at the time about Axl Rose’s lyrics in the GN’R song One In A Million, with its contentious use of racial and homophobic insults. While being interviewed on radio, Vernon had responded to the reporter’s line of questioning by expressing concern over the lyric.
It was a brief passage in a longer conversation, but it was
pounced upon instantly by the media. Things escalated to such a point that stories abounded about an enraged Axl throwing Vernon up against a wall when both bands finally met backstage at the Stones’ shows. I mention all this to Vernon. When it comes to the so-called assault, he furrows his brow into an unusually complex shape and makes a slow shake of the head.
“That was odd; that is odd,” he says. “I would actually love to meet him. I never actually met him, because all the managers were keeping the bands apart because everybody – press, management, everyone – makes everything into a thing.” He emphasises the word with real disdain. “I’m sure he hasn’t had such a great time of it.”
Corey gives a sly grin. “He needs a hug.”
Living Colour’s Corey Glover onstage in the early 1990s (Image credit: Frans Schellekens/Redferns)
The band that Rolling Stone magazine credited for their ‘in-your-face-intelligence’ went back in to the studio to record what would become 1990’s Time’s Up. Much like its predecessor it charted respectably (No.13 on the Billboard chart), and the band won their second Grammy award. It caused a minor rumpus and a little outrage with Elvis Is Dead, but like their debut it spoke eloquently, especially in songs like the pointed Pride or the exasperated Time’s Up. The arch Love Rears Its Ugly Head (or the Soulpower remix, at least) gave them a hit in the UK.
The band toured on the inaugural Lollapalooza festival in summer 1991, and released the Biscuits EP the same year. Even their out-takes – in the form of the latter EP – bristled with invention, ideas and energy. It came as a surprise, then, to everyone not directly involved with the band when original bassist Muzz Skillings left at the tail end of the year.
Living Colour rarely skirt any question you might ask them, but bring up the subject of Muzz’s departure and, even though too polite to duck the query entirely, the band come closest to stonewalling. There’s a sense that there’s more in the unspoken than in what is being said.
“That was a painful chapter…” Vernon says. He pauses, until it’s clear that neither Corey nor I are about to break the silence.
“The thing with Muzz was really painful, and that was where we really should have just stopped to reassess things. The three of us needed to do that. You should get off sometimes. You don’t believe you can get out of that record, tour, work pattern that’s like a whip, you know?” he laughs. “It’s like, oh, you won’t be popular any more if you take a break now.”
“There were things that were happening that none of us – as Vernon has said before – had the language to deal with and to say anything about it,” Corey says. “It built to a certain point, to a fever pitch, and there was a head on it and something needed to happen.”
A number of journalists, musicians and producers had all conspired directly or otherwise to pique Mick Jagger’s early interest in Living Colour. Doug Wimbish – Tackhead bassist and extraordinary session player (he had worked with both Jagger and Jeff Beck) – had lent his voice to that emphatic chorus.
“After Muzz, Doug was the obvious and clear choice for the band because he had actually been, in a way, integral to what happened to the band in a lot of ways,” Vernon says. “There were voices in the ear of Mick Jagger, and Doug had been playing with him, and he knew that Living Colour were running around New York doing our thing, CBGB’s house band or whatever.
“And also Doug,” Vernon continues, “not to put too fine a point on it, is a motherfucker. When I first did a session with him I was blown away; I was, who is the cat playing bass? I didn’t see him, I was playing to the track. It was a Duke Bootie track for a session. I’m listening to the bass and my mind is being blown! I was like, who is this? Duke introduced me, and I was like, man, you are fucking really good.”
Wimbish joined Living Colour in time for a tour of Brazil in January 1992, and became a full-time member that summer. They decamped to upstate New York and rustic Massachusetts to work on their third album. The resulting Stain was released in spring 1993.
“The theme here is of outsiders, outcasts, of flawed characters, because a stain is a flaw,” Vernon said of the album at the time. Gone were the colourful flashes of collage and colour in the band’s artwork; instead, a stark portrait of a girl, her head caged, glared out from the cover.
On its release, the critical response was strong, while the band’s response to their surroundings seemed to suggest they were looking inward. Themes were less grand, solutions not so keenly sought. The record had a familiar beauty, but a troubled one. At the time, Corey sounded exasperated with the place in which the band found themselves, at the way that people’s perception of the band was overshadowing the band itself.
“A lot of times we got labelled good guys,” Corey says. “We were just really politically motivated, and we stood up on our soapbox and talked about the world and that’s what our gig was. We said there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Well, sometimes there ain’t. We are rounded individuals. We’re human beings; sometimes there’s good, sometimes there’s bad.
“We’re not Boy Scouts, we’re people. And as soon as people realise that we’re just people, and get off that whole thing that we’re always politically motivated, the sooner they’ll get closer to the music.”
Living Colour in 1993, with new bassist Doug Wimbish (second left) (Image credit: Paul Bergen/Redferns)
This fractured, overwhelmed world view was reflected in Stain songs like Go Away, which cast a man weary with global problems, worn down with them; Post Man painted a picture of a disgruntled, homicidal employee. Along with Ignorance Is Bliss, the songs suggested a darkening of the group’s outlook. Stain was an occasionally trying listen (although it has held up better than parts of both Vivid and Time’s Up). And in a market where the hard rock emphasis was slowly shifting underneath them, commercially it could only ever be an album of diminishing returns. They stuck to their old work ethic and toured diligently – and sometimes brilliantly. Ultimately, though, Living Colour could only struggle to attain the former glories now so tantalisingly out of reach.
“If you have high expectations for something to happen, and that thing doesn’t happen, then…” Vernon’s voice trails off. “Like we wanted Stain to be this bigger thing, you know, and then when that didn’t happen it becomes like, who’s responsible? And in a way you can lay it at this one’s doorstep, you can lay it at that one’s doorstep. But, you know, things happen, the world changes, the context that you occurred in changes.
“It’s not to accept that someone did this or didn’t do that, and even if they did then there’s no guarantee – there are never any guarantees – but when you don’t get what you were hoping for then a lot of times in families or relationships people turn on each other. It’s, you did this and that happened!”
““We needed a really long nap,” Corey says. “Will has said since that we should have taken a pause. And you know what? We should have taken several pauses.”
Tackling the problem head on, the band relocated to London with Adrian Sherwood, determined to begin work on their fourth album. The sessions proved fruitful, with the excellent Release The Pressure, These Are Happy Times and Sacred Ground finally appearing on 1995’s Pride compilation.
“Those sessions, that was the end, that was pretty much a meltdown,” says Corey.
Vernon nods and then breaks into startling and uproarious laughter. “Pretty much… yeah!”
His laughter is a long way from the sombre and reflective statement he released in 1995 to announce his decision to quit the band. Admitting that he’d been considering leaving for over a year, in it he claimed that the band’s ‘sense of unity and purpose was growing weaker and fuzzier, I was finding more and more creative satisfaction in my solo projects.’ It continued: ‘Finally, it became obvious that I had to give up the band and move on’.
“That’s hilarious,” Corey says, giggling when I read from the original statement.
Vernon looks less sure. “I started the band and I had a real idea of what I wanted it to be. And a lot of what I wanted it to be, it exceeded anything I’d hoped for on a certain level. But there was something that I always wanted from myself and I wanted from the band, and in my mind it was clear that no one else wanted to do that. Like, it’s okay that you want to do that thing, but I’m not there. And then it became a thing of, maybe they don’t want me?”
Corey: “You know, when I first read that statement I was pissed, I was real pissed because I didn’t know where it came from and I was…” He struggles to find the words. “I didn’t know what to say, I was… At the end of the day it was, well, great, if that’s the way he feels, more power to him. I never really felt that I had to forgive him. It wasn’t something he did, he didn’t personally slag me, and he didn’t say anything that wasn’t particularly true for him, from his viewpoint, so I had to really just say, cool, what’s next?”
For Vernon, it was the excellent and overlooked 1996 album Mistaken Identity, followed by a new, equally overlooked band named Masque. Corey suffered a similar fate with his soulful Hymns album in 1998. Both did sessions and wrote and played music. Corey started acting again (he had won favourable reviews for his part in Oliver Stone’s 1986 Vietnam movie Platoon before the band took off). Will Calhoun and Doug Wimbish kept their rhythmic partnership more or less intact as part of rapper Mos Def’s band, Jack Johnson. Will also has his own jazz outfit, and Doug will never want for work as a session player; they also found time to form the band Headfake.
The reunited Living Colour in 2003 (Image credit: Mychal Watts/WireImage)
But as glittering as the four individual parts might have been, the sum of those four parts, Living Colour, was never far from people’s minds. Even Mick Jagger asked Will when the band would re-form, and Will eventually found that he was fielding the same question all around the world.
“It was the persistence of Will Calhoun that helped make this happen, actually,” Corey. “We all put out our own solo records, all four of us have done stuff, but you still get that nagging question in the back of your mind and you still get outside of your head going, that’s great; how’s Living Colour doing? What about that band? So at some point we really had to challenge that idea and challenge that notion and take it to task, and if it didn’t work then we could say, hey, see, I told you.”
Corey started to occasionally sit in with Headfake at their shows in New York. And then, as Will admits, he didn’t want to be sitting around at 60, living with regrets. So he called Vernon in December 2000 and asked him if he wanted to sit in with the band at their home from home, CBGB’s.
“That was very interesting, very interesting,” Corey says. “You’re playing in a place you’re very familiar with, and you look to your left and right and behind you and you go, what year is this?”
“On one level it felt cool and great, and on another if felt strange,” Vernon agrees. “Like, Corey was talking one time about how the passage of time was just freaky, because ten years go by and you turn around and… What happened to
everything that took place in those ten years? You’re in this moment and you’re kind of in this place again. Our first gigs had been at CBGB’s and our last gigs were too.”
They toured together to emphatic acclaim, and signed a new deal on the back of it. They then went back into the studio and, by their own admission, spent the best part of 18 months recording roughly four albums’ worth of material. Vernon puts this down to the fact that the band were still only getting to know each another again in the studio. There was, he says, a good solid chunk of time when they simply weren’t talking to each other at all.
“We had our moments, but they were early on in the process for me,” the guitarist admits. “Actually, the first set of sessions were pretty cool, and then it was that next set of sessions that we were just like, what are we doing? Things didn’t click again the way they did the first time. The first sessions, every day there was something going on. Then the next time it just bogged down in the way it does.
“You’re not always going to hit the ball out of the park. It’s part of the idea of always being productive. Sometimes you have to be with each other and maybe nothing comes up. And to be cool with that is very difficult because we all have a certain work ethic. We all came up from working-class families, shoulder to the wheel – come on, let’s go – and if it doesn’t happen that way…”
Corey nods in agreement. “Part of the reason we broke up back then was because we had that kind of ethic and our personal creative juices were running dry. It started to become very ugly, because we started to blame each other instead of looking at ourselves, and that wasn’t cool at all.”
Collideoscope addresses familiar band issues: ecology, social injustice, totalitarianism (supposed or otherwise), total power and the corruption thereof. To the greatest degree, however, the record is informed by the events of September 11, 2001. The band who grew up and continue to live in New York City admit that day’s events brought a sharp focus to their endeavours.
“That and the so-called war on terror, that kind of refocused the band on a personal level, and we really began to connect again,” Vernon says.
Corey broadens the point: “There were so many things prior to and after September 11 that should have raised someone’s ire, never got spoken about, never got dealt with. And what can you say about Bush? You have to deal with the idea that there were things going on that no one talked about, that no one dealt with and no one gave a damn about it. No one said: ‘Excuse me, that doesn’t seem right’. No one’s looking behind the curtain to see who the real wizard is.
Collideoscope makes the listener realise how much poorer we’ve been in Living Colour’s absence, without experiencing their indomitable take on things. But let’s not forget the living, breathing souls at the heart of things, the sheer will of spirit made flesh.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen next,” Vernon says. “But I’m happy with Collideoscope, because to make it and to be here has meant that we’ve all made the journey, together and apart.”
Originally published in Classic Rock issue 60, November 2003
Outspoken guitar legend Ted Nugent didn’t pull any punches when discussing the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, accusing the institution of “pissing in the face” of rock history.
“It says ROCK and Roll Hall of Fame. And they basically pissed on Chuck Berry‘s grave, the way I look at it,” Nugent declared during a recent interview with Sirius XM’s Eddie Trunk. When the host asked specifically about Chubby Checker, an early rock pioneer on this year’s ballot, Nugent doubled down on his criticism.
“Chubby Checker, if he’s not in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but Grandmaster Flash [is]… I’m not knocking Grandmaster Flash. Maybe I am. But there’s a bunch of people that are in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame that is just sacrilege. It’s just rude. It’s dishonest. It’s pissing in the face of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley and Little Richard and all these magnificent, real rock and roll masters.”
Nugent proceeded to take aim at the Hall’s decision to include artists from other genres, most notably hip hop, country and pop.
“I’m referencing the difference between REAL rock and rollers and people who are in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame that have nothing to do with rock and roll, whether it’s Madonna or Grandmaster Flash,” the guitarist proclaimed, describing some of the Hall’s decisions as “inexcusable.”
Ted Nugent Wants to See These Artists in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
As his conversation with Trunk continued, Nugent named a handful of acts who he believes are worthy of the Hall. Among them, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, the ‘60s band known for such hits as “Jenny Take a Ride” and “Devil With a Blue Dress On,” as well as a trio of Nugent’s contemporaries.
“If you list the credentials of why any real rock and roller is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, I think we can come to the conclusion honestly that REO [Speedwagon] and Triumph and Styx should be in it,” Nugent noted. He also argued for Grand Funk Railroad’s induction, calling them “the definitive soundtrack of real American rock and roll.”
Despite an impressive career, Nugent himself has never been a nominee for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. While the guitarist spent most of his energy during the interview campaigning for other artists, he admitted to Trunk that he feels his own career is also worthy.
“If you just have a list of credentials, a list of accomplishments, I certainly should have been in before Madonna or Grandmaster Flash,” he insisted, “but I never make the case for me.”
145 Artists Not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Many have shared their thoughts on possible induction.
There was once an indelible tension between rock and disco, culminating in a so-called “disco demolition” night in 1979 that devolved into a riot. As the decades have rolled past, however, much of ’70s music has become playlisted into one big-tent genre.
That’s actually how it played on mainstream radio back then, too. Listeners hadn’t yet been herded into “classic rock” and “R&B” or “dance” silos. In Billboard‘s year-ending list of best-selling songs for 1975, the Bee Gees‘ “Jive Talkin'” finished at No. 12 while the Eagles‘ “Best of My Love” was No. 13. A year later, the Miracles’ “Love Machine” sat one spot abovePaul Simon‘s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.”
Even the most committed of rock music lovers ended up hearing plenty of disco songs – and, in time, many came to appreciate their booty-shaking sense of abandon. Whether you were around for the polyester ball or not, disco songs can be undeniably infectious.
Eventually, even classic rock bands began adding elements of disco into their tried-and-true approach – admittedly, to varying degrees of success – but as a new decade dawned, the genre’s popularity began to fade. Key elements of the disco sound continued to pop up for another decade or so (credit work by Nile Rodgers of Chic after a shift to the producer’s chair) before disco was largely relegated to history.
Well, history and retro dance nights. The following list of Top 10 Disco Songs should be requested at every one of them.
No. 10. The Miracles, “Love Machine” From: City of Angels (1975)
With Smokey Robinson gone, Motown’s Billy Griffin-led Miracles took a turn for the salacious. It made for a dance sensation – just don’t listen too closely. “To turn me on, just set my dial,” Griffin growls, “and let me love you a little while.” An inflamed beau comparing his stamina to that of, well, an electronic device? This is a priceless curio from a time when the music was as flammably over-the-top as the fabrics, but also a very long way from “Shop Around.” And it’s only “Part 1.”
No. 9. Brick, “Dazz” From: Good High (1976)
Leave it to the ’70s to combine jazz and disco. The result, as Brick, so deftly reminds in a champagne glass-shattering falsetto, is “Dazz.” Instantly forgettable lyrics concerning your booty and shaking couldn’t keep this convulsive, ‘fro-shiveringly funky track from reaching No. 3 on the pop charts, and going No. 1 R&B. Similarly, you might have come this far thinking that Jethro Tull was the only band with the nerve to chart a pop song featuring a flute. You would be wrong. Dude, lead singer Jimmy Brown rocks that stick.
They appeared in ersatz space outfits while singing about the world’s oldest profession. Nevertheless, “Lady Marmalade” would become the biggest hit in a two-year span for Labelle. Later remade for the soundtrack of 2001’s Moulin Rouge, the song’s familiar refrain of “voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir” translates into “do you want to sleep with me, this evening?” So, it allowed at least two generations of goofball lotharios-in-the-making to impress the ladies with a rudimentary knowledge of dirty French.
No. 7. ABBA, “Take a Chance On Me” From: The Album (1977)
“Take a Chance On Me” somehow found a way to feel both utterly delirious and somewhat desperate. (Same with a brown Trans Am!) This single didn’t top the charts like Abba’s ubiquitous “Dancing Queen,” though it actually sold more copies. Perhaps inadvertently, “Take a Chance On Me” also set the stage for the more sedentary lifestyle that followed for now-aging polyester night people: “We could go dancing,” our shimmering Swedes sing, then: “We could go walking.” What the heck, let’s just stay right here on the couch.
No. 6. Rose Royce, “Car Wash” From: Car Wash: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1976)
By brilliantly blending funk and pop, vocalist Gwen Dickey and Co. helped set the stage for later crossover successes like Michael Jackson‘s Off the Wall. The central theme about the car wash (“always cool, and the boss don’t mind sometimes if you act a fool“) was essentially what every current cube-farm burnout hoped their own job was going to be. Instead, there’s the cold comfort of this timeless truism: “You might not ever get rich but, let me tell ya, it’s better than digging a ditch.”
No. 5. Blondie, “Heart of Glass” From: Parallel Lines (1978)
Written by Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein, “Heart of Glass” laid around for years. (They referred to it simply as the Disco Song.) When finally released, Blondie zoomed to the top of the charts. An accompanying video was shot at the infamous Studio 54, and Harry exudes glassy-eyed detachment under a toss-off hairdo. (Maybe that was drug-induced, but more likely an embedded big-city disdain for you and every loser just like you.) They set the stage for the pasty retro-obsessed nihilism of the decade to follow.
No. 4. Love Unlimited Orchestra, “Love’s Theme” From: Under the Influence of … Love Unlimited (1973)
This instrumental track lumbered to No. 1 in 1974, creating the disco template along the way: “Love’s Theme” is somehow danceable but at the same time wide-lapel mellow. Then there’s that thunderous clackety-clack riff, soon to become a key element in every disco maven’s toolbox. Finally, the mahogany-voiced Barry White conducts a time-specific after-school-special type orchestration that sparks instant nostalgia. Rarely has a band’s name sounded so much like its biggest hit single.
No. 3. Heatwave, “The Grooveline” From: Central Heating (1978)
Heatwave already reached platinum sales with 1977’s “Boogie Nights,” which had boogie right there in the title. But perfectly named “The Grooveline” sold a million copies too – and time has shown that grooving is far preferable to any boogie. This song also gave the world that now-familiar hooah-hooah dance-floor call. Heatwave may have come and gone, but they’re never far away. Not as long as there is somebody, somewhere, who hoot-owls their way through a liquor-fueled hip-bumping retro night.
No. 2. Chic, “Good Times” From: Risque (1979)
Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards were the Babyfaces of their shag-carpeted day, talented musicians with a golden touch at producing. This was the second No. 1 (topping both the pop and R&B lists) for Chic, and it went on to become perhaps the most sampled song in hip-hop — starting with “Rapper’s Delight,” from later that same year. Meanwhile, the lyrics are a fun combination of the age-old (with references to Great Depression songs) and the hilariously contemporary: Clams on the half shell – and rollerskates. Rollerskates!
No. 1. Bee Gees, “Jive Talkin'” From: Main Course (1975)
Now indelibly associated with Saturday Night Fever, “Jive Talkin'” was actually the Bee Gees’ big comeback after a stint of chart inactivity following 1971’s “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?” John Travolta‘s film, with its zeitgeist/paint can-swinging cultural reverberations, was still two years away. This sleek Arif Mardin-helmed groover outshines all of what followed, starting with its memorable guitar riff – said to be an approximation of the sound cars make crossing the Biscayne Bay bridge into Miami.
It’s now been more than 20 years since Evanescence made their major label debut with 2003’s Fallen, an album which spawned hit singles like “Bring Me to Life” and “My Immortal.” It was a heady time, as the record eventually sold more than four million copies and snared two Grammy Awards.
For vocalist Amy Lee, it’s been an interesting ride, watching her band’s music find an audience with different generations, mirroring her own discovery process with classic rock as she was growing up. It’s something she couldn’t have imagined in the group’s early days, when there was an “urgent anxiety” which drove a unified hope that they could find a way somehow to survive. “To have stuck around throughout that time and written more music and done more albums, and been around the world a lot of times, and met all these people and have a chance to grow and ripen and just become layered and deeper and more storied, [means a lot],” she tells the UCR Podcast. “Now we’re at a point where when we make new music, it’s especially powerful.”
“Because when we go out on the road and we do our thing that we do, I feel like we have the power of [sharing with the audience], here’s something new,” she continues. “Here’s something that we’re more excited about than anything right now, but at the same time, we’re still that ‘Bring Me to Life’ band. We still get nostalgic with you, so we’re gonna go through this with all of that on our back. It’s cool because we’re at the point now where there isn’t a fear [of survival] — we did it and now it’s just fun. Now we can just keep making music and have it mean more.”
After several solid years of road work behind 2021’s The Bitter Truth, Lee and her bandmates have been hard at work on songs with producer Nick Raskulinecz (Rush, Alice in Chains, Foo Fighters), who also worked with them previously on that album. It’s a relationship that she values a lot and one that is beneficial on a number of levels. “I think a great producer is a lot of things at once. He’s a coach and like counselor, also just a real friend,” Lee explains. “Nick is also a multi-instrumentalist. I think being a musician in the first place is something that is such an asset when it comes to being a producer. Because they can not only tell you, ‘Oh, this is what’s wrong with this, or it needs this and that,’ but they can really spell it out or sing it or strum something on the guitar. He can be an idea man to push you in a direction or help you see what could be more about the song. He really gets his hands dirty and gets in there with us all of the way.”
While it won’t appear on the forthcoming album, fans can currently get a taste of where the band is presently thanks to “Afterlife,” a new song which was released earlier this week. The track is part of the soundtrack for Devil May Cry, a new Netflix animated series based on the Capcom video game franchise of the same name. It has an appropriately supernatural feel that will appeal to fans of not only the group, but those who loved similarly spooky music heard in the ’90s on movies and shows like The X-Files, Charmed and The Craft.
The whole thing was a happy accident as Lee shares. With the band already “in creative mode” for the next album, she got an invitation last year from Netflix, wanting to know if she wanted to work with collaborator Alex Seaver, who’d already started working on a song for the series. “It sounded really cool already,” she says now. “And it kind of was a snowball effect. It started out like, ‘Oh, maybe you could sing on this thing. Then, it was like, maybe this is an Evanescence song. It turned into something that we’re all so excited about and it feels so good to have new music.”
Watch Evanescence’s ‘Afterlife’ Video
The Best Rock Movie From Every Year
A look at the greatest biopics, documentaries, concert films and movies with awesome soundtracks.
It’s no secret that the members of Metallica love Motorhead. In 1995, the band even went so far as to dress up as frontman Lemmy to play a set of Motorhead covers to celebrate the iconic frontman’s 50th birthday as “The Lemmys”.
But with the band’s 50th anniversary coming this year, in a new interview with Metal Hammer, guitarist Kirk Hammett shared what Motorhead mean to him.
“Lemmy was the real deal, right to the fucking end,” Kirk says. “What a man. It’s hard for me to really single out a Motorhead song I like. I love Ace Of Spades, we actually cover that in the wedding band, but then you’ve got these absolutely insane songs like Motorhead and White Line Fever. What a band!”
“When I first saw the cover of Ace Of Spades, I just fucking //knew// man,” he continues. “I’d heard Overkill before that and remember thinking, ‘this is way faster than Scorpions or UFO. Overkill, cool!’ But then a week or whatever later I saw that Ace Of Spades cover and was just like, okay I’ve gotta buy this album. I got home and put it on… Oh my god. Lemmy opens up his voice and starts singing, my mind fucking exploded. Me and all my friends were into punk rock, right? Local San Francisco hardcore bands; me and my friends fucking loved it. The tone of Lemmy’s voice was like he’d got a distortion box in his throat. The sound of that bass too! I felt like I was in the mud with those guys. It’s so dirty and aggressive, so real!”
Metallica Lemmy Live in Nashville September 14, 2009 – YouTube
