I was running late for a night downtown

[venta]

On Fridays this year, we ask...

What's in the Box?

The Box in question is the glovebox of my car, home to my extremely motley tape collection. By the time I owned a car with a tape player tapes were on the way out and most of my music was in CD format. However, charity shops were practically giving tapes away, which meant that I bought rapaciously and eclectically. A half-remembered 80s band who once released a single I'd liked a little ? A band I'd vaguely heard of ? An unknown group with good cover art ? Bring them on.

Of course, the net result is that I've ended up with a tape collection which any music-lover would be slightly ashamed of. There was a relatively narrow window (late 70s to later 80s) when tapes were big news, and my horde represents that. However, in amongst the terrible pop I've found some gems and I reckon its time to come clean about my guilty musical secrets.

Today in The Box we have:

Thunder - Backstreet Symphony

You must remember that the primary purpose of my tape collection is to keep me entertained on long car journeys. And, pretty much regardless of your opinions of hair metal, there's nothing like a bit of late 80s rock for a singalong as you charge up the motorway.

Backstreet Symphony has all "the" Thunder songs on it - in fact, I did just go to Wikipedia to check that it was a proper album and not a best-of. So I know now that it's their first album, and that it was released in 1990. I don't care. It's still late 80s music if you ask me.

I bought this album a while back, and, on its first playing, warbled along happily to She's So Fine, Dirty Love and the title track. Then a more ballady intro started, and I figured it was a song I didn't know. It trundled on for a while, and suddenly reached the chorus...

"That's when LOVE walked IN through my DOOR..."

Fortunately, I had no passengers. Love Walked In is an orgiastic excess of wanky guitar solo, big chorus and fat chords. Oh, and daft words:

That's when love walked in through my door,
That familiar feeling I'd had once before.

OK, so far. A bit contrived, but we'll let that pass.

Love walked in through my door,
And it felt so strange.

Eh? Is it strange, or is it familiar ?

Like a long-lost friend

Oh, make your bloody mind up. OK, so it's not up there with the great excesses of lyrical inconsistency, but it's always vaguely got on my nerves.

Thunder - Love Walked In [link expired]

[Poll #1229451]

The choice of band is to ensure I get at least one comment. You know who you are :)

Comments

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I couldn't bear to listen to it to find out if it was good or bad. Because I very strongly suspected the latter.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Coward :)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

You know who you are :)

Thanks! :D

Incidentally, I missed my first ever tutorial at Oxford because I was copying this album (on my oh-so-80s dual tape deck). It is missing one of their best tracks - Everybody Wants Her - but I agree it's more like a "Greatest Hits".

Like a long-lost friend

That does make a little bit more sense if you don't chop the line halfway through. "Like a long-lost friend who hadn't changed" - the strangeness being due to the sense of temporal dislocation. Or have you never felt that?

[venta.livejournal.com]

"Like a long-lost friend who hadn't changed"

Well, I'd be less inclined to chop the line if they didn't :) I've never made out the second half of it, to be honest.

I still maintain it's not one of literature's great epics ;)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I still maintain it's not one of literature's great epics

Hmm... even I might find that hard to defend.

It's epic literature compared with a lot of Whitesnake lyrics. But I guess that's kinda damning with faint praise!

[triskellian]

I loved this when it came out. Admittedly I was, like, thirteen, but still. I've downloaded it, but I can't quite bring myself to listen to it because I'm scared of finding that I think it's awful but have enough of the thirteen-year-old left to love it anyway ;-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I resigned myself to such things happening some time ago :)

[mrlloyd.livejournal.com]

I saw them live at Newcastle City Hall when I was about 16 (15?). They Rocked lots, in a big hair kind of way.

[glittertigger]

I loved Thunder as a teenager and still do :)