The 30th edition of this particular exercise does have a theme, though I’m not entirely sure what it is. There’s a lot of “rock” going on here, spanning several decades, but centered on the early 90s, for no other reason besides the fact that that’s when I did the greatest volume of compact disc buying. In any case, it was a mostly enjoyable stretch of listening, with a few exceptions, though the biggest one was the disc I didn’t give it’s own entry, but it kind of got it’s own extended aside – consider this entry as covering four and a half discs; call the running total 126.5.

In any case, enjoy the rock, and occasional lack thereof:

♦- Boston –Walk On: This is another one of those record club infiltrators, I suspect, though it’s quite possible that I used it to fill out an order of free discs, because it’s something I probably would have gotten anyway – at the point in my musical life where I would have acquired this, I was coming out of the awkward country phase, and thanks to my 80 hour a week summer job, was listening to a *lot* of classic rock radio. Even so, this is Boston’s fourth record (without Brad Delp, the iconic lead singer), released in ’94; well past the late 70s classic rock heyday of “More Than A Feeling” and “Peace of Mind”. I’ve never been a huge Boston fan, but the idea that it’s the rock and roll equivalent of inventors tinkering in the basement appeals to my geek side. Although the band toured, Boston was always pretty much the baby of Tom Scholz, songwriter, guitarist, and MIT post-grad in electrical engineering. Scholz thinkered with pedals and effects boxes and amplifiers and stuff in his basement, and out came hit singles (and occasional guitar gear from Scholz’s electronics company, SR&D, like the Rockman headphone amplifier); with a variety of musicians floating in and out- many think of it as more a studio project than a “band”. As far as my reaction to this particular record, I like it. By the mid-90s, the polished classic rock sound was kind of a cliche or trope, but then, this band did a lot to invent that trope. It’s great to hear masterful perfectionists (they’d have to be, knocking out only five records in the band’s 30-odd years) work their craft. Every sound on this record is exactly where it’s intended to be, though at the same time, doesn’t have the kind of sterility you’d expect from that sort of exactness. The soaring vocals and intricate guitar lines on the “hit” “I Need Your Love” are technically perfect, though still manage to resonate on a level deeper than the technical; likewise, the organ on the “Walk On” medley are bombastic and majestic, and sound perfectly “Boston”. Also of note on this one is the “girl song”, “Magdeline” (which feels rather like a not-quite-as-good follow-up to Third Stage‘s “Amanda”) has a geographic connection to my youth – the tune was originally written and recorded by Danville PA based indie band Hybrid Ice in 1982; a few of whose former members I’ve run into in various venues and watering holes over the years.

♦- Bon Jovi –Cross Road: Cross Road is the first “best of” collection from Bon Jovi, covering the first five band records and Jon Bon Jovi’s solo record/movie soundtrack. The bulk of the record are the big hits from Slippery When Wet and New Jersey, filled out with token inclusions from the others, plus a couple of new tracks not really worth mentioning (except to say that they’re not very good, and presage the trend of the band’s latter-day change in musical direction). The good old stuff is, as always, the good old stuff. “Wanted Dead or Alive” and “Livin’ On A Prayer” still work as well as they used to; what surprised me about the stuff from SWW was the fact that Sambora’s guitar is more of a garnish than anything fundamental; it doesn’t play as big a part in the overall sound as does Bryan’s keys and, especially on “Prayer”, the iconic bassline (which is interesting, as the band hasn’t had an official, on-the-books bassist for like 15 years). All those heavily chorused harmonics and dive-bombs could be taken out of the mix, and Prayer would still work as a fully-constructed object. Take out the keys, and it wouldn’t be a song anymore. That’s not to say that the guitar wasn’t part of the sound – try doing “Lay Your Hands on Me” or “I’ll Be There For You” without it…

…which leads to a digression: I also listened to This Left Feels Right, in amongst this batch of discs; a 2003 disc of new versions of classic Bon Jovi tracks, which, frankly, is awful, and I didn’t feel like writing it up. As to why it’s awful, I can point to one signal – on the lead-off track, a re-recording of “Wanted”, full of synth drums and heavily compressed and digitally processed electric guitars, John Bon Jovi changes the lyric “I’ve Seen A Million Faces, and I’ve Rocked Them All” to “I’ve Seen a Million Faces…well, I’ve seen a lot of faces…”. Listener beware – despite the uptempo nature of track one, there is no rock at all for the rest of this record, in accordance with prophecy. There’s barely a guitar to be found. It’s all schmaltzy strings and low bpm. They tried “Lay Your Hands on Me” and “I’ll Be There For You” without the guitar, and it didn’t work. This was a disappointment when I bought it, and remains so today.

…anyway, unlike that last bit (which I guess I wrote up anyway, despite not wanting to), the listening experience, is pleasant, if uneven (given the newer stuff – feel free to skip “Always” and “Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night”) – listening to it was a nice jaunt down memory lane into the world of my early teens (which itself was uneven – a nice place to visit, but there’s no way you drag me back there full time), even if the tracks don’t resonate with me as much any more the way they did when I was a kid. I would have been happier if one or two of the new tracks hadn’t been bumped to make room for more “essentials” like “Born to Be My Baby” or “I’d Die For You”.

♦- The Badlees –See Me As A Picture: the best so far, 1990-2012: This disc was just released in the last couple of weeks, and more or less picks up my music super-fandom right where the previous disc left off. It’s a full-on career retrospective, with a really great package (yay for physical media) featuring a big booklet full of reminisces and remembrances from the band and others in the orbit. The selection of tracks is weighed, not surprisingly, a bit more heavily toward the era of River Songs forward, though catches a few highlights from the early discs, including one of my favorites, “Like A Rembrandt” from Diamonds in the Coal. It’s a good listen all around, and puts a few of the more recent tunes into a new context, allowing for greater appreciation; For example, “Drive Back Home” from Love is Rain kind of disappeared into the mix on that disc (for me, it’s all about “Radio at Night”), though here, in this package, it stands out as a really great piece of songwriting and studio engineering. There were only three songs on this package that I didn’t already own in one format or another, two new tracks (which are good, but not great), and a fun studio cover of Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May” circa 2004 from a soundtrack to a short story collection put out by MTV, which is an interesting artifact, and plays to all the band’s strengths. However, despite having almost all of it (and then some) already, there was no way I wasn’t snagging this one the moment it was available.

♦- Skid Row: Rounding out this edition of cutout is a disc that I picked up on a lark on Monday. I bought this, Skid Row’s first record, the first time when it came out on cassette. This CD I grabbed off the top of the Walmart $5 bin as I was picking up some groceries for the week on the way to the DC office. I’m not entirely sure why, but I’ve been in a bit of a hair-metal headspace lately; this five bucks was my way of scratching that itch. The disc itself is nicely bright and slinky, with lots of syncopated guitar riffs and a 20-something Sebastian Bach’s soaring, operatic vocals. Lyrically, it’s almost pure 80s Sunset Strip trash, but it’s fun trash – “Youth Gone Wild” was a great single, and deeper cuts like “Sweet Little Sister” and “Here I Am” betray a certain pop sensibility under all the slease. However, the track that sticks with me 20-odd years later is the cheesy power ballad “I Remember You”, love letters in the sand and all. Why? Because it’s got one of the greatest guitar solos of the 80s wedged in there amongst all the G9-C9-Dsus acoustic chords – those last three wailing notes are something to behold.