HEART

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well i was kinda happy when heart appear in rolling stone's women who rock issue when the album littile queen is on the countdown but the queen of soul topped it! anyhow i still say the 2 sisters are so talented and they avoided the whole goddamn mtv trl shit that's been cluttering up the airwaves and i FUCKING HATE AVRIL LAVINGE!!!!!!!!!! THAT BITCH MUST DIE ! calm down okay avril is more debbie gibson than pat benetar i take ann wilson's powerful pipes over avril's squeeky whiny I'M WITH YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!! anyday AVRIL I WISH YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR GODDAMN SKATER SHIT THIS IS NOT 1991 YOU ARE NOT WEARING GRUNGE CLOTHES! ITHNK IT'S ABOUT TIME YOU SUCK OSAMA'A DICK YOU FUCKING CUNT! i better move on before i get ass kicked ann's got pwerful pipes from lovely caressing verses to howling shireking robert plant style wailing and nancy's guitar is so cool from hard electrics to lovely acoustics man i might say it could be better than avril lavinge like i say is more of a wilolam shatner she cannot sing at all thank you heart

DREAMBOAT ANNIE (1976)

(reviewed by Nick Karn)

Dreamboat Annie is of course a very significant release for women in rock, as the two dominating forces here are Ann and Nancy Wilson. It's also an incredibly impressive debut album, and it has all the makings of a classic - practically every song here is worthwhile, exciting, creative, or emotional in some way or another.  The key strength here lies in Ann Wilson, an unbelievable vocalist with an awesome range as well as an unexplainable presence that simply carries the record to great heights, although all the musicians give nice performances and hardly come off as a mere backing band.  

The opener "Magic Man" starts things off with an instantly memorable riff and chorus as well as a wonderful out of this world middle section - catchy and convincing, while "Crazy On You" starts off with an incredible acoustic intro and then explodes into a classic hard rock song. Even if it is a bit too light in the verses, Ann Wilson's vocal performance in the chorus and the ending section just cannot be beaten  The Led Zeppelin influenced epic "Soul Of The Sea", while not quite as breathtaking as one of that band's best epics, is still a great multi-part ride which comes to a gripping middle section and then quietly moves away, never stops short of being adventurous and entertaining.

As for other highlights, the quieter but emotion-packed "How Deep It Goes" has a sweet melody and never sounds too cloying, "Sing Child Sing" is another shot of infection and the very groovy (love that bassline here) and impressive hook of "White Lightning & Wine" really works. Also appearing three times are different variations of the soft ballad-like title track which create a relaxing mood and atmosphere with the nice acoustic guitars and beautiful vocals. "(Love Me Like Music) I'll Be Your Song", however, is a little generic but still has its' moments.  My original rating of 10 for this album in retrospect admittedly seems a bit too kind, as the songwriting isn't always top-notch, but at every corner the listener may turn in their journey through this album, it's always Ann Wilson who steals the show with an incredibly charismatic and powerful performance.  

OVERALL RATING: 9

(Casey Brennan's review)

HIGH POINTS: Crazy On You, Magic Man, Sing Child.  LOW POINTS: Dreamboat Annie (all three), (Love Me Like Music) I'll BeYour Song.

These hard-rockin' girls were clearly influenced by Led Zeppelin, as their band could boast incredible riffs, but it's even more apparent that they looked back to these guys for inspiration by the way they sang. Ann Wilson had (and still does - seeing her in concert a few weeks ago confirmed this) a powerful Hard Rock voice which could shrill and scream with the best of them. Along with a lesser-known rebel girl-group called the Runaway's, Heart were really the first group fronted by girls to ever engage in full-fledged hard Rock; females were only successful in the folkie/singer-songwriter movement a few years before (ie. Carole King, Joni Mitchell). Not only are they pigeon-holded as being innovative in this respect, but it's amazing how mature and self-assured Ann and Nancy Wilson sound on their very first album. These girls clearly had an ounce (or big ol' gallon) of talent.

Even so, there are a few slight problems I find with Dreamboat Annie that detracts from the listening experience a bit. Cleverly balanced between powerful Hard Rockers and reflective folksier material, the girls do in fact have a problem with making the quieter material memorable, mainly because the melodies aren't too striking. The title track, which makes the album flow like a concept release since it returns at three different points (as 'Fantasy Child', the main one, and a reprise), is soothing, emotionally-sung, and nice, but the melody just escapes me every time. It especially sounds slight coming in-between the two hits. The same can also be said for "(Love me Like Music) I'll be Your Song", the multi-part, and sometimes entertaining "Soul Of The Sea", and, to a lesser extent, "How Deep It Goes". Don't get me wrong, these ballads and/or quieter stuff is relaxing, nice, and often emotionally-evolving, but the melodies are just so utterly forgettable.

The good points of those preceding tracks, and the remaining spectacular rockers still guarantee this to be a fairly great album though. First off is the famous metallic rocker "Magic Man", a mid-tempo tune with an awesome and steady 'du-dumdum, du-dumdum' rhythm that doesn't let go through-out the length of the song, a bombastic chorus, and a truly captivating instrumental break where a few different guitar solos take place. I especially like when the neat synthesizer comes in to propel the song back into its' chorus. "Crazy On You" may even be stronger, as it contains an immaculate balance between the Robert Plant-influenced choruses and highly melodic 'softer' sections. Considering that it takes all the best elements from the album and ties them into one track, it is definitely the ideal Heart song (well, at least for me).

On a lower, but still frighteningly great level, is the melodic heaviness of "Sing Child", a track written by all four members of the band, and the straightforward "White Lightning & Wine". Pretty successful rockers. If it weren't for the forgetful nature of several tracks (which are spread all over the album), this could be one of the most self-assured debuts ever. Instead, it's just an all-around great debut from the lovely sisters and band-mates.

OVERALL RATING: 8

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LITTLE QUEEN (1977)

(reviewed by Nick Karn)

This one follows basically the same kind of formula as the debut, though predictably enough, it's not quite as good (yeah, that's a predictable cliche, I know). Actually, there are some differences here - the material seems to be shifted more to the folksy, quieter sort of things (nearly half the album, in fact, particularly side two) than the powerful hard rock sort of side. Unfortunately, while the material on Dreamboat Annie in this vein was just fine, I think it's quite obvious on this album that they don't handle it nearly as well as their harder, more dynamic stuff. In fact, I'd go as far to say they're pretty ordinary numbers that are only really brought to life by Ann Wilson's voice, always the biggest strength of the band.

I would also point out that this effort has kind of a mild case of Peter Gabriel 2 syndrome - the first couple tracks are great, but the rest of it just can't keep up.  Those first couple tracks, of course, are probably the most well known of the album. "Barracuda" is the most aggressive of these, with a good amount of biting lyrics toward the band's detractors (which only gives Ann the excuse to give the song even more conviction), a highly infectious vocal melody, and of course, an indescribably cool sounding guitar tone. But even better is "Love Alive", a song where they attempt to pull off an epic feel with the gorgeous acoustic verses merging into the shimmering Zeppelin-ish bombast of the fully brilliant middle section, all with a great dose of pop heaven. How can you not get that melody out of your head?

But as for the rest of the album? Well, it's all at least decent and enjoyable, except for the upbeat but somewhat irritating and simplistic pub-style song "Say Hello", but nothing all that special. The most stripped-down of them all, "Treat Me Well", is actually my favorite of the rest, since its' all-acoustic, pleasant nature has a couple fairly beautiful melodies, with more nice singing, though I will admit it can pass me by sometimes. A couple other songs are kinda recycling earlier ideas, whether it be Zeppelin ("Dream Of The Archer", as beautiful as it may be, is almost a total clone of "Battle Of Evermore") or themselves (the snappy arena rocker "Kick It Out" uses almost exactly the same verse melody as "Crazy On You", and it's not as conviction-filled either, though it is good).

Other good moments include the funkish title track, a fairly engaging little groove that's well complemented by a more somber middle section, and the somewhat ordinary but still nice "Cry To Me" (due to again, the vocals). The remaining two songs here, meanwhile, were probably designed as album fillers (the "Dream Of The Archer" lead-in "Sylvan Song" and the mainly instrumental closer "Go On Cry"), but they work well in the context of the album anyway, particularly the latter with its' repetitive hypnotizing guitar line and nice harmony vocals. Yeah, a step down from the debut, but hey, give it a shot for the first two songs (at least if you're not gonna go for a hits album).

OVERALL RATING: 7

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GREATEST HITS (1998)

(reviewed by Nick Karn)

The band's second attempt at a best-of package after their creatively titled Greatest Hits the year before (wait a minute...) is a slightly different version that doesn't include any of the hits after 1983 (as the first version does), so nothing from their most popular self-titled album is featured, which is a good thing, cause the songs I've heard from that one seem awfully forced and artificial. Unfortunately, what it really should have avoided is the pathetic excuse for an opening new track in "Strong, Strong Wind", a painfully generic cover of a bland piano ballad that might as well have been done by the soulless geniuses Celine Dion and Whitney Houston, and it  probably proves the Wilson sisters are incapable of performing music from the (pardon the pun) "heart" anymore.

Thankfully, most of the rest of the material here was recorded before things got totally out of control with their lack of inspiring songwriting, artificial change of image, and the like, as it's composed of a number of top quality hits, including the most excellent rant "Barracuda", the classic debut album cuts "Crazy On You", "Dreamboat Annie" and "Magic Man", "Bebe Le Strange", another nice ballad "Dog And Butterfly", the rolling "Straight On", and energetic rockers "Kick It Out" and "Heartless".  Their closing live cover of Led Zeppelin's "Rock And Roll" (from yet another hits package, 1980's Greatest Hits Live) is in particular a treat because of the incredible Ann Wilson vocals. This is overall a worthy compilation from the band, but it gets the rating it does for the above-mentioned faults (too many hits collections to begin with and the horrid opener).

OVERALL RATING: 7

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COMMENTS

[email protected] (Dishnet)

Ironically enough, I got into this band when I heard "What About Love?" on the tube - go ahead and throw your shoes at me, Dreamboat Annie fans, I've earned them! - but this stuff by far blows away most of the later material. Not that they couldn't do good songs post-1985 as some folks maintain ("Who Will You Run To?", "Alone" and "If Looks Could Kill") for example, but then they blew up a lot of goodwill with that terrible Mutt Lange cover ballad "All I Want To Do..." - I mean, listen to this: "I told him - 'I am the flower/You are the seed/We walked in the garden/We planted a tree'"??? Ladies and gentlemen, the buck for bad lyrics stops here. Screw that Mutt Lange. At least Heart aren't playing his garbage-filled male fantasy lyrics nowadays, so he has to give them to Shania Twain. Or whatever. Yay the Lovemongers! (There's a terrific Real Audio clip of Ann and Nancy covering "Wild Horses" with Chris Cornell on backup out there, but I can't remember where. Damn.) I guess the most obvious parallel is Van Halen pre- and post-Sammy Hagar.

Anyway, regarding "Strong, Strong Wind" - if you're thinking this sounds a lot like the wimp-out Aerosmith hit "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" (yes, it does), both were written by staff writer Diane Warren, who incidentally also wrote Milli Vanilli's "Blame It On The Rain". Impressive credentials, what? If you've bought this record, don't judge it by this track. Every other song that follows (except the soul-pop "This Man Is Mine") is amazing, showcasing this band's talents at various styles: hard rock ("Barracuda" and "Magic Man"), Stones-ish rock n' roll ("Kick It Out" - gotta love that lead guitar under the final chorus, "Even It Up" with its great horn section), atmospheric mood pieces ("Dreamboat Annie") and folk ballads (the excellent "Dog and Butterfly"). There's even a self-penned 80s rock tune here which sounds quite good ("How Can I Refuse?")! Why the heck did they need Mutt and Diane (hey, sounds like a John Mellenchump song...) to write this stuff for them when they could do it better?

A better collection if you want to avoid the boring opener, though it lacks a few crucial tracks, is Epic's Heart - Definitive Collection, which includes additional songs that shouldn't have been left off this: the epic mandolin ballad "Dream Of The Archer", the atmospheric "Johnny Moon" (which manages to sound quite like Pink Floyd at time), the moody power-ballad "Lighter Touch" and a great live rock song, "Cook With Fire". Ironically, there are Heart songs on here that sound like greater versions of their later watered-down material. For example, "Nada One" has a very dreamy feel and disjointed lyrics (like "These Dreams") but features great acoustic guitar work and loses the cheesy synths. "Perfect Stranger" is a good piano-driven ballad that sounds a lot like "Alone" without the electronica......well, I guess you lose something when you get staff writers to clone you. There is one pretty annoying track on this one ("Allies", which sounds like Meat Loaf meets early-80s Springsteen) and it's missing "Magic Man", "Annie", "Crazy On You" and "Heartless", but otherwise don't give this one a miss if you want a huge chunk of pre-1985 Heart.

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