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Slip of the Tongue as many points as "1987" and ONE MORE than Slide It In? A pox on you, sir! I'm a big Coverdale fan, and I'd give the 3 chronologically 8-7.5-4, objectively a 7-6.5-4; I think the second side of Slide It In is catchy as hell, with Give Me More Time and Standng in the Shadow. I agree that there was a bit of filler on 1987, and as far as I'm concerned, it was at this time that DC decided he wanted to be Robert Plant and at that point it was all over. Slip Of The Tongue featured the ill-conceived Vai-Snake fit, and except for Sailing Ships and Wings of the Storm sounded like an overblown spandex-and-hair self-parody. Fool For Your Lovin was a cheesy mousse-abusing bastardization of the original (sorry, spandex queens!) Slow-Poke Music may be the absolute low point of this band, and this album a fitting epitaph for 80s metal (not for the band, though - Restless Heart was rather good). Ready an' Willing is the best Snake in my opinion, and anyone who can find the pre-Slide reissues should definitely check them out.
(reviewed by Nick Karn)
Nowadays, Slide It In effort is widely considered Whitesnake's debut (of course it isn't, but since the records in the band's original incarnation are now out of print, it may as well be for most people), as it showcases David Coverdale and crew as a raw, blues metal Led Zeppelin inspired unit, without as much in the way of commercial polish as later. It's within the record's opening three songs that the formula really works well, as all of them rule. The title track starts things off as an uncompromisingly raunchy rocker to open things, featuring a fantastic catchy riff and chorus, and it's a hilariously entertaining guilty pleasure, while "Slow An' Easy", is a killer bluesy epic, from the ominous slide guitar opening to the gripping buildup to the chorus handclaps and perfectly executed ending, and "Love Ain't No Stranger" boasts fine airy opening verses and an excellent swagger that plays throughout the rest of the song.
Unfortunately, the rest of the record can't even hope to come halfway close to those heights, although "Gambler" is a respectable Rainbow-esque number (with cool keyboard work) and the minor single "Guilty Of Love" is kinda catchy, though generic. The remaining numbers are almost totally filler, particularly "Hungry For Love" and "Spit It Out", which are practically the same obnoxious generic cock rocker. "All Or Nothing" and "Give Me More Time" don't rise up from 'enjoyable while they're on but disposable' status either, and neither does the closing "Standing In The Shadow", despite a mildly pleasing chorus. In all, the highlights of this record are quite fine and even impressive, but since all three of them can be found on the band's hits package, it renders the album itself (which is a sea of filler otherwise) unnecessary.
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
One of the biggest 80's metal records ever, at least in terms of commercial success (I bet it's at least 8 million - mark that down... this fact is of critical importance to the quality of the music!). In terms of things like.. um, artistic integrity and front to back consistently awesome songwriting, it kind of comes up short, but still, at its' best, this album shows David Coverdale and the gang really getting it right. Supposedly, like the surrounding albums, it reworks now out of print early 80's material into something resembling mainstream production, which I guess turn off both enthusiasts of older Whitesnake and hard rock purists in general, but in any case, I think material like this generally really works in a big, overproduced arena rock setting - just like, say, Def Leppard's Hysteria, there's no real message to the often banal lyrics, but the blues tinged commercial pop metal energy combined with infectious melodies really gets under my skin. At times, anyway.
Let's get to the highlights. The opening "Crying In The Rain" is probably where the older blues influence creeps in the most, as this slow, but still fairly heavy, number serves as a vehicle for an impressive range of vocal wailings here - and I've also gotta love the harmonized chorus, too (no one ever sheds a teaaaaaar, when you're CRYING IN THE RAIN'). But of course, that can't compare to the hit 6-1/2 minute epic "Still Of The Night", which (warning: incoming sacrilege) is one of the best Zeppelin ripoffs I've ever heard. Yes, you heard that right - Coverdale takes the often annoying stop-start whining tendencies of "Black Dog" and actually turns it into something absolutely fantastic. I don't know, the arrangement just seems much more tasteful to me, as the song features an excellent power melody that just cruises along effortlessly, and while I can see the 'wailing followed by a symphonic part' middle portion grate on some people, I honestly have no problem with it. I'd personally much rather hear Coverdale whine than Plant - at least his voice is more technically suited for that stuff.
Oh, and to bury me further into the rubble, the hugest hit of their career, "Here I Go Again", is, in my opinion, a simply excellent pop gem. The melody and keyboard part are just so well-written, and I don't think that heavier chorus will ever leave my head as long as I live. Plus, it's got one of the few hair metal guitar solos out there that's actually playing a melody meaningful to the song and actually adds to the power of it. Awesome song, and one of the fixtures in my '100 coolest singles of the 80's list' that I keep saying I'll make but never do. But before I get carried away, though, the rest of the album isn't really that great. For some reason, I used to like the last major hit, the power ballad "Is This Love?", quite a lot, but the slickness of it has kind of worn off on me over time. As for the other tracks, none of 'em are really vomit inducing or anything, which saves the rating from going down, but it almost epitomizes the typical filler of a singles album from the time period. There's some more worthy than others (the catchy choruses of "Bad Boys", "Children Of The Night" and "Straight For The Heart"), but none of them are really essential listens, instead ranging from forgettable but decent to enjoyable. Again, you don't really need this record because of the hits album, but hey, I still think it's good as a whole, and holds up to time a lot more than several of its' contemporaries.
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
Slip Of The Tongue is widely regarded as a rather stale swansong that merely repeats the last album's formula, and while I'll agree that there's no fine songwriting accomplishments as strong as "Here I Go Again", "Still Of The Night" or "Is This Love", the hits from the previous release, the material is still strong and reasonably consistent. The first two songs, "Slip Of The Tongue" and "Cheap An' Nasty", just kind of hang there, but other than that, I can't say there's too many obvious weak spots. The two 'hit' ballads are spectacular and breathtaking - "Now You're Gone" and "The Deeper The Love" have absolutely gorgeous hooks (especially the latter's bridge) and accomplished playing, and "Fool For Your Loving" is a powerful singalong track.
Elsewhere, "Wings Of The Storm" soars fairly well, "Slow Poke Music" is an entertaining romp, "Kittens Got Claws" is delightfully nasty (in the raunchy blues metal tradition of some of their finest songs), and to round out the album, "Judgement Day" is a pretty decent "Kashmir"-like majestic track and the closing "Sailing Ships" ends the album on kind of a disappointing note, as it has promise being structured like a dramatic epic, but it just doesn't quite get there, despite its' fine acoustic opening. Another minor flaw of this album is that all the songs seem out of order (for example, "Fool For Your Loving", a song that sounds like a blatant opener, just doesn't work third) and it's a little inconsistent as a result. In all, Slip Of The Tongue certainly isn't an essential release by any means, but I think it's somewhat better than many people say it is - your average very good album, and that works out fine.
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COMMENTS
Just thought I'd point out that perhaps the reason Coverdale did not use "Fool For Your Loving" as the album opener on Slip is because he already used it for the opener on Ready an' Willing several years back. On both the '87 self-titled album and Slip of the Tongue Coverdale opted to recycle tunes from Whitesnake albums that had not been released in the States. The original version, by the way, is much better that the gooey slick over-produced version on Slip. There was a time before Coverdale started bleaching his hair, dating supermodels, and changing band members every other week, that Whitesnake was pretty good. Of course, all those records are out of print in the States. (They were briefly made available here when Whitesnake had their 15 minutes.) And in case you hadn't guessed, I think Slip of the Tongue sucked.
(reviewed by Nick Karn)
Yay, another one of those 80's metal singles compilations. But despite the fact that Whitesnake really gets a lot of crap these days (understandably so, as they relied just as much on slick production and image as their contemporaries), that's not to say they didn't have their share of excellent, energetic, highly infectious material. Of course, I'm forced to admit that the percentage of such material here is far more than their regular studio albums that are actually still in print (now discussing the albums that aren't, that's another story that I'm unable to tell at this point, and probably won't any time soon), but hey, being a singles band isn't such a bad thing. Especially when the overall quality of them is pretty darn good, satisfying the pop sellout side of me that greatly enjoys this stuff. And unless you really wanna go searching for those out of print records, there's no better buy for the band than this - virtually all the big highlights (i.e. the singles) are collected here from Slide It In, the self-titled aka 1987 album, and Slip Of The Tongue.
Amongst the more well-known pop singalongs ("Here I Go Again"), Zep-metal workouts ("Still Of The Night", "Slow An' Easy"), the raunchy anthems ("Slide It In"), or the power ballads ("The Deeper The Love"), though, this package does contain two songs that can only otherwise be found on rarer editions of Whitesnake ("Looking For Love" and "You're Gonna Break My Heart Again") and one other non-album cut. None of these three are as good as the hits, but they're at least more substantially catchy than most of the filler-ish material used to pad the albums out - the first of these has a smoothly flowing, elaborately epic arrangement going for it, building rather nicely in the process, the second one is probably one of their better fast-paced generic rockers (with another good showing from David Coverdale's cool blues metal vox), and finally, the closer of this collection "Sweet Lady Luck" is a bit more generic and uninteresting, but still, the chorus is memorable, and I dig the guitar harmonics and fast synth intro. A fine guilty pleasure collection as a whole.
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