“Women and Children First” was the third studio album by the American rock band Van Halen, released on March 26, 1980 on Warner Bros. Records. Generally speaking, the third album of a band it’s crucial, while the first might be an accident and the second a sequel of that, the third generally proves if that band have something to say or they never really had. In the particular case of Van Halen, “Women and Children First” was really a turning point of their career and the moment when the boys grown up and became men. “Women and Children First” rocks your s*it off. Literally. And their both previous albums were hard as a rock!
Kerrang! magazine listed the album at #30 among the “100 Greatest Heavy Metal Albums of All Time”. If you never heard the duo of “Tora! Tora!”/”Loss Of Control” you have definitively wasted your life or you’re in the wrong place! Or if you never had partying on “Could This Be Magic?”. “Tora! Tora!” it’s blacker then Black Sabbath and “Take Your Whiskey Home” bring the blues to a brand new level of… aggression. Not to mention “And The Cradle Will Rock…” which is an absolutely rock classic!
My mom had this one on vinyl, “Loss Of Control” and “Everybody Wants Some!!” were among my favorite songs beside “Rapid Fire” (by Judas Priest) and “Ace of Spades” (by Motorhead) – all of them songs of 1980!! Afterward I bought “Fair Warning” as well. The rest is history! Read more Van Halen – Women And Children First (1980) (Remastered 2015)
Who would believed that there will be a fifteenth AC/DC album in 2014 on 19 February 1980? With a serious six year gap since the release of their previous album, “Black Ice”, and repeated rumors regarding their eminent retirement, nobody really expected one more AC/DC album. But damn, if Rolling Stones managed to celebrated their 50th anniversary in the summer of 2012, it would be a serious treason if the Australian rockers would not have their 40th anniversary with a world tour in 2015! Still in school-uniform outfit, Angus is 59 years old!!
This was a series of concerts started on October 31, 2012 by Guns N’ Roses celebrating 25 years from the release of their 28 million copies worldwide selling album “Appetite for Destruction” (1987), album which reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200, including the super-hit “Sweet Child o’ Mine”, their only single to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100; and four years since the release of their latest album “Chinese Democracy” (2008). The last of this shows was on June 7, 2014 in The Joint at Las Vegas, also part of their second residency at The Joint titled “No Trickery! An Evening of Destruction” consisted in 9 shows.
While AC/DC is about retirement, Australia seems to find – finally – their new rock’n’roll Gods. In a world of hybrid and alternative musics, a world of fakes and imitations, a world of consume and (tasteless) products, it’s both eccentric and refreshing to hear some good old fashioned guitar riffs and neat, but goddamn exciting rock’n’roll grooves, screams and pounding drums.
A band formed 45 years ago are getting to their 19th studio album and have sold over 100 million albums worldwide, including 7.5 million certified units in the US. If this isn’t a true hard rock legend, don’t know what it is.
If I say this is the best Kiss album in decades, nobody will believe me, but folks, this is the naked, monstrous, true. And what it’s even more monstrous it’s the fact that Kiss are still more ferocious then 99.9% of the self proclaimed Metal-whatever, mainly “core”, bands nowadays. And dudes, we’re talking about a band active since 1973 and this is their 20th studio album so far. And honestly, their previous “Sonic Boom”, released 3 years ago, was also an absolutely fair and classy Kiss material, an ass-kicker mixture of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal. “Monster” sounds even better, sounds as a perfect mix between two of their classic albums, the 1976’s “Destroyer”, respectively the 1992’s “Revenge”.
