del wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 7:53 am
Wasn't aware that Step stepped back which would clearly have been an impact. Imo AOR was indeed a mistake. Yes the strategy was clearly there from WTMN yes the singles were a success and yes they kept coming but the success reduced and the world moved on. If they had been closer to upcoming trends they would have seen the Ramones etc. Picking that up earlier would have been the masterstroke not just following what was already a big wave of soft AOR. I stayed a fan right through AOR land as there was something still there from the old world. I so nearly lost it after DA DA because I felt it was all rather desperate and effectively going up a dark alley. In more ways than one as it turned out...
WTMN was a great record, except for DOY and Escape, which seemed juvenile for a 27 year old man. The first time I saw the GTH album, I thought it was a bootleg because of the recycled B$B photo. It wasn't a bad LP, but it felt like an inferior WTMN. Had a couple of songs from GTH been grafted into WTMN, that would have been cool to me.
L&W is one of my favorites, because it felt AC was maturing and maybe going to have a career as a mainstream artist. It's kind of like MOL - good for what it is. You can't listen to either expecting the old Alice, because you won't get that. I loved the tour for L&W - you had to be there to understand.
FTI was polished, but kind of flat, owing to David Foster and Toto. But, Foster was the right guy for the record - and Toto were the right band. Jackknife Johnny was surprisingly mature and one of his best songs ever. I loved that tour as well, but the band was so loud and they were playing so coked up sounding that it left me cold. For me, it was the last solid AC album until BP (which was the industrial equivalent of MOL - and was the basis of his last great stage show).
I love all the quirky albums along the way, otherwise, we'd be listening to the same handful of music ad nauseum.
My opinion, YMMV.