It would seem that Led Zeppelin's success in the early 1970s would have made the coming of a band like Heart inevitable. Similar to how Kiss made the gender-bending confusions of glam rock safe for American children by making themselves into cartoon monsters instead of faux transsexuals, Heart would seem to have made the overt feminization of hard-rock machismo embodied by Plant and Page safer for teenage male consumption by putting actual hot chicks (in this case, Ann and Nancy Wilson) in the place of the wispy long-haired men the boys were likely lusting to be (and, unconsciously, to have). But this substitution automatically undermined the band's authority; if boys could openly desire to have the women in the band, then they couldn't simultaneously respect them and want to be like them -- that is, worship them. And the presence of palpable female sexuality was probably much too threatening for boys to handle anyway. In that paradoxical teenage universe, it's manly to be a fanatic for shirtless men in tight pants but suspiciously wussy to like a band with girls in it. In truth, Heart borrowed much of their approach from Aerosmith, the first American band to copy Zeppelin. The favor was later repaid, when Heart became pathfinders for Aerosmith's abhorrent post-career career as schlocky Michael Bolton balladeers with their 1985 "comeback", which contained the bathetic anthems "What About Love" and "These Dreams".
Regardless of what horrors their later career would unveil, the allure of Heart's first and best album, Dreamboat Annie, was undeniable. It included two of the greatest FM-rock-radio songs ever recorded, the sublime, suite-like "Magic Man" and the positively lordotic "Crazy on You." The warm blend of guitars, equal parts primitive riffing and pyrotechnic fret-board trickery, and Ann Wilson's throaty vocals, just as powerful whether she's warbling like a minstrel or shrieking like an unhinged harpy, were both perfect for the medium; they both could cut through engine noise and wind through open windows to sound great on a car stereo. And though the sexuality was submissive and men were depicted as mythical sensual superheroes, there was still something revolutionary for the genre about these songs, which shamelessly proclaimed female lust, and took for granted the normalcy of female libido while fleshing out the human being behind such feelings. Most hard rock, if it acknowledged the existence of women at all, only did so to assure its insecure audiences of their one-dimensionality, of their being inexplicably cruel heartbreakers or compliant sexual objects. The advent of Heart seemed to promise a correction, with women evincing confidence and command, entirely comfortable with leading a rock band and expressing the female point of view.
But on subsequent albums, Heart never really followed through with that. Instead the band was satisfied with playing methodical, journeyman-like boogie rock with occasional renaissance-festival overtones. Just check the cover of Little Queen, where the Wilson sisters are in full gypsy regalia (Nancy even holds a crystal ball) and the rest of the band sport accoutrements like leather chaps and crossbows. While this album does include "Barracuda," the stutter-riffed harmonic-hooked killer which completes the triumvirate of massive Heart rock classics, the rest of the album drifts a bit aimlessly. Record-company disputes forced the band to include some of the material destined for this album on Magazine, and you get the feeling this record had to be padded out as a consequence. Exhibit A: the introduction of the mandolin-heavy, "Battle of Evermore" wannabe "Dream of the Archer" is listed as a separate track, "Sylvan Song". Exhibit B: the refusal to fade out the underwritten title track, allowing it instead to plod on to a five-minute plus running time. Exhibit C: the closing two tracks, "Cry to Me" and "Go On Cry", betray exactly the lack of imagination their titles suggest: the former is a generic ballad and the latter is essentially an instrumental jam outro. But there are highlights: "Love Alive" has an ambitious arrangement that works, and calypso experiment "Say Hello" is surprisingly winning, sharing some of the exuberance and carefree spirit of the early Sweet singles. A live version of "Stairway to Heaven" included on this reissue is an interesting curiosity, worth hearing once. But far more typical of what was to come is "Kick It Out," a rote rocker with trite lyrics that read like a string of non sequiturs, on which the band seems as blandly efficient as a cash machine. The production is pristine and the band's chops are unquestionable, but the results are uninspired.
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