Discover Top Posts Tagged with #jim vallance

Pretty Woman (1990, Garry Marshall)

18/03/2025

Thunder Machine

How about a Battle of the Monster Songs contest in the super heavyweight class? Alright, you can have it: Gene vs Gene. God of Thunder (1976) vs. War Machine (1982).

Hence today, I think it's safe to say that there's no need to ramble on about musical similarities in the direct sense when it comes to these two behemoths, probably the only two true candidates, at least considering their live presence, for the definitive Demon song.

Of course, in addition to the 70s and the 80s, Unholy (1992) could also be brought on board for the 90s without hesitation, but unfortunately it never worked as well live as its fantastic studio version, and was played equally rarely. So let's forget it and save it for another constellation. And today I feel more like a demonic duel than an insanely evil threesome anyway.

So, Ladies and Gentlemen, In the left corner we'd have God of Thunder, the most likely Godfather of Death Metal, which of course sounds quite impressive and makes quite an entrance, if you are capable of developing enough euphoria towards this style of music. War Machine, for its part, is something like the forgotten nasty great-uncle who has emerged from nowhere to take up his forgotten rightful legacy and won't accept any other regent next to him. Which somehow works out quite well if you take a look at Kiss' setlist from the 80s.

If I imagine God of Thunder as a slow, but immensely stomping and shockwave-inducing mythological and monstrous beast that has existed since the beginning of time unstoppably making its way through its realm, War Machine reveals itself to me as one of those heavily armored vehicles from the Terminator movies that seem to constantly move over mountains of human skulls and crush everything that dares to crawl in front of them, but only somehow more massive and possessed of an evil spirit, firing to the beat from its gigantic cannon barrels.

And against War Machine and its reduced to the lowest minimalist, not exactly high-spirited instinct, God of Thunder still sounds complex, even if it isn't. But then again, the simpler the heavier, and War Machine is downright insanely simple (1). If we were talking about classical music here, I would describe God of Thunder best as epic and War Machine as expressionistic, in the broadest sense of the terms of course.

You could also equate the relationship between the two with a nice vintage movie, something like Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, in which the two of those giant creatures decide to have a good old fashioned one-on-one fight with fists and claws, and, if you like, their super rays, whether natural or technological, and beat each other up diligently.

So what's the bottom line? I mean, I can't really say, after all this one's a no brainer and just for the fun of it. But let's see, who always won in the movies? The original Godzilla, right? In the case of Kiss, I'd put my money on War Machine, but I vehemently refuse to give a machine the edge over a god.

But that's just a matter of principle.

Side Note:

(1) So incredibly simple in fact that it was the first song I ever managed to play on guitar.

God of Thunder (1976)

War Machine (1982)

Scorpions: Savage Amusement (1988)

Talk about albums that look better than they sound!

This stunning electric blue reissue of the Scorpions' hair metal fiasco, Savage Amusement, arrived just in time (courtesy of a loyal friend) to spare my wallet from disbursing another cent for an album I hated in 1988, but was tempted to revisit to "complete the set," as they say.

So allow me to repurpose some words I put together for Ultimate Classic Rock, a few years ago, since I was at least forced to be civil by my editors, when I wrote that "the Scorpions lost their venom with the disappointing Savage Amusement."

Until then, Germany’s favorite hard-rock sons had enjoyed considerable success since the start of the decade, going toe-to-toe with America's biggest contenders thanks to hit-filled, platinum-selling albums like 1982's Blackout and '84's Love at First Sting.

Not bad for a band formed way back in 1965 by the guitar-playing Schenker brothers, Rudolf and Michael (later poached by British rockers UFO), and that, with vocalist Klaus Meine and guitar wizard, Uli Jon Roth, spent the entire '70s establishing a solid career in Europe and Japan.

But the commercial rise of heavy metal in the 1980s really blew America's doors open for the Scorpions, who started packing arenas and blazing up the charts with heavy rock anthems like "No One Like You," "Rock You Like a Hurricane," and "Big City Nights."

Along the way, they became Germany's best-selling rock export ever!

There seemed to be no reason to tinker with this prosperous formula when the band began work on its tenth studio album, Savage Amusement, with longtime producer Dieter Dierks faithfully directing things from behind the studio console.

The only problem was that uber-producer Robert John 'Mutt' Lange had just raised the pop metal bar with Def Leppard's Hysteria, which quite literally redefined the state-of-the-art for hard rock production on its way to selling an astounding 10 million copies.

And unfortunately, despite his long and impressive career resume, Dierks was no Mutt, and so Savage Amusement ended up sounding like a pale imitation of this new standard for pristine song-smithing and synthetic technological wonders.

Ok, so lobotomized cock rock fans still heard something in chosen singles like "Passion Rules the Game," the big ballad "Believe in Love," and even the comatose "Rhythm of Love," whose lyrics were painfully banal even by the Scorps' charmingly cheesy standards.

But, for the band’s more discerning, oftentimes older faithful, synth-slathered robo-rock of this sort -- plus "Don’t Stop at the Top," "Walking on the Edge," and Hysteria wannabe "Media Overkill" -- felt more painful than, well, a real scorpion's sting.

Speaking for my teenage self, the only consolation for my wasted pocket money lay in the comparatively stripped-down "Every Minute, Every Day," and the ballsy head-banging of "We Let it Rock … You Let it Roll" and "Love on the Run," but these couldn't salvage what I like to call "Dieter Dierks' folly."

And there was no sugar-coating Savage Amusement's commercial performance, as it quickly plummeted from its Top 5 chart peak and achieved "merely" a Platinum sales certification, while its predecessor, Love at First Sting, had done triple the business.

More significantly, the album severed the Scorps' fruitful, decade-long relationship with Dierks, and saw him replaced by Keith Olsen (and noted song doctor Jim Vallance, of Bryan Adams fame) for 1990's much improved Crazy World.

More Scorpions: Lonesome Crow, Fly to the Rainbow, In Trance, Virgin Killer, Taken by Force, Tokyo Tapes, All Night Long EP, Lovedrive, Animal Magnetism, Blackout, Love at First Sting, World Wide Live, Crazy World, Rock Believer.

#scorpions #hard rock #heavy metal #hair metal #classic rock #klaus meine #rudolf schenker #matias jabs #Uli Jon Roth #Michael Schenker #def leppard #dieter dierks #mutt lange #bryan adams #jim vallance #UFO

Back Where You Started Tina Turner 📍 Le Zenith, Paris, France

#Tina Turner #Break Every Rule #Back where you started #Bryan Adams #Jim Vallance

Bryan Adams - Christmas Time

#bryan adams #christmas time #jim vallance #keith scott #mickey curry #rock #christmas #christmas music #music #music video #music is love #music is life #music is religion #raining music #80s #80s music

War of Not (Reprise Vol. 4)

War Machine is hitting the shit a lot harder than just about any other Kiss song before. Not only musically, because of its straight but brute heaviness, but most certainly to the same degree lyrically as well.

These more or less give free rein to a fantasy of violence lead by a call for regency of the fist over society, if of necessity, then even by pure forceful breaking the laws of nature in two. Demons or whatever merely make it in as a side note, but only to demonstrate the pure wickedness of the non-demonic spokesman of this song, who gets pure satisfaction by calling for the release of all demons, and finds pleasure in the midst of the chaos he creates.

So, someone please tell me that this is not hard stuff.

You could ask yourself if this could be a foreshadowing of a planned removal of the make-up for the release of Creatures of the Night, considering that War Machine's title character is only human, and not a demon or anything similar, thus demonstrating that this human protagonist of War Machine, a possibly unmasked Gene, is quite capable of not only competing with demons, but even being superior to them in pure attitude (1). If this were indeed the case, I would find it rather regrettable not to have been true to this line in the following years.

Apart from Lick It Up, of course.

If you wanted it that way you could include Not for the Innocent (2) in this attitude scheme, and more than just the attempt to express that one is dealing with really bad guys here. The world in which we move here is primarily concerned with the law of the jungle in an anarchic world from which there is no escape, because apparently no one is left to protect the innocent from the beasts on the loose. If Kiss were universe-building in their lyrics, one could assume this and the apocalyptic theme of the Lick it up videos was as a direct consequence of the intended world overthrow out of War Machine (3).

This concept would have at least provided a real opportunity for Gene to have a contemporary tough persona for himself during the unmasked era that he could have stayed true to. But I guess that new revolution just didn't work (4) .

And Asylum and that colorful drag were a pretty good concept, too.

Side Note:

(1) After all, War Machine was the legitimate God of Thunder of the 80s for unmasked Kiss.

(2) All Hell's Breakin' Loose, And on the 8th Day, Young and Wasted and whatever from Lick It Up also fitted in perfectly.

(3) Incidentally, the substantially longer original entry from which some of these words originate can be found right here.

(4) The apocalyptic theme at least made it onto the back cover of Animalize, but that was it.

War Machine (1982)