Loud And Clear - Autograph

Provenance: In my mid-teens I made a series of compilation CDs that consisted wholly of stuff I'd downloaded from Napster. They bounced all over the place in terms of genre, there were five of them all told, and I'm very sorry that I can't locate them any longer.

Disc three had 'Turn Up The Radio' by Autograph as the lead off track, a real fizzer. Anyway, some years later one of the many smooth-brained fuckwits that post on the message board I used to frequent convinced me to invest in a few Autograph albums, as apparently the material was of a uniformly high quality.

Our survey said...

Review: ...EEEH-EEEURGH!

Apparently, I'm lucky enough to be in possession of a 'remastered and reloaded' edition of Loud And Clear, according to the Rock Candy blurb. I guess that's analogous to gazing at a turd on an ultra-high definition TV set. Where the turd wins out is that, mercifully, it makes no sound. Ironically, the remastered Loud And Clear sounds like it was recorded at the bottom of my toilet, so it's anybody's guess just how wretched this bilge was back in 1987 the first time around.

It's difficult for me to say much, clever or otherwise, about Loud And Clear because melodic hard-rock this generic almost defies description. I recall that in a When Saturday Comes review of benighted reality show Wayne Rooney's Street Striker, Simon Tyers described the set layout as "an advertising copywriter's view of what constitutes a back street"; and there are parallels here. If you asked a competent session musician unburdened by too much knowledge of 1980s rock to knock out a few tunes reminiscent of the era, it would sound an awful lot like Loud And Clear.

Also, I know this seems gratuitously sneery, but in an age where frontmen had cool fucking names (if nothing else), Steve Plunkett just don't do it. Steve Plunkett sounds like the guy who organises the office rugby world cup sweepstake. Steve Plunkett makes everyone a coffee, even if he doesn't drink it himself. Steve Plunkett writes a column for the programme of his local non-league football team. Steve Plunkett is a massive dweeb. The bar that Autograph had to step over to have an acceptable 1980s frontman nom-de-guerre was not high - you make the cut by finding one better than Steve 'Sex' Summers in my estimation - so it's almost impressive that they managed to limbo spectacularly beneath it.

I don't even feel like describing the music at any length; it almost feels sufficient to say that I prefer Bad English. All the up-tempo songs are moronic, and feature the same uninspired freeze-dried guitar work that is mildly admirable from a technical standpoint and utterly forgettable. If I was forced to be charitable (oxymoron, I know, I know) I might actually pick the ballad-y 'Everytime I Dream' as a not particularly shit piece of music. Also, I am not entirely ill-disposed towards 'Just Got Back From Heaven', which boasts some cute keyboard work. It's a shame that they don't use the keyboard with a bit more flair, as it's mostly deployed to parp unimaginatively underneath equally pedestrian chord sequences.

Just some variety, that's all I crave. I don't know why Autograph even bothered with a drummer on Loud And Clear because some kind of machine would've been more than capable at replicating the dull, potatoes 'n' potatoes percussion. This is a problem endemic to much 1980s arena rock; they took the wallop from big the previous decade's big hitters like John Bonham and Cozy Powell but discarded the attendant skill and creativity. Perhaps it was a conscious decision; I remember a documentary where Def Leppard talked about stripping down riffs and fills to their basics to ensure clarity in cavernous venues. I find myself speculating as to whether this was also the thought-process behind Loud And Clear - uncomplicated, no rough edges, choruses that could be sung by the most tin-eared amongst us - but unlike the Leps, they forgot to write anything memorable. Def Leppard? They're not even vying with Loverboy.

So, yeah, that's Autograph's Loud And Clear I suppose. Not the most thrilling review, but I'm not working with much here. This one's destined to gather dust, although now it'll go back on top of the pile and I'm worried that a houseguest will see it and think I like Autograph. On a final note; I mentioned in my intro that I paid for three Autograph albums. Only two showed up. At the time I was vexed, but now I look back and see nothing less than a small act of mercy on the part of the vendor. Once upon a time, Autograph exhorted me to 'turn up the radio', and if that's the alternative to actually listening to Autograph's dreadful music it's an invitation I'd be more than happy to accept, even if the dial was stuck on a talkSPORT Danny Mills marathon.

Bad English - Bad English

Provenance: I awoke one wintry morning in early 2008 with one of the worst headaches I have ever endured. I had been drinking, you see, as men are wont to do. Milky sunbeams streamed through my window as I attempted to gather myself together. The incessant jabbering of political talking heads on the radio irked me, so I groped towards one of the preset buttons and hoped for the best. Music is what my body and soul needed.

And sweet, sweet sounds filled the air. As I lay there with pounding head and cracked lips I drifted into a kind of reverie as first Little Steven's 'Los Desaparecidos' and then Bad English's 'Forget Me Not' washed over me. Not even Heaven's own choristers could compare with what I was hearing in that rare moment.

A couple of years later someone was selling the Bad English album for two quid at work. My thoughts were swallowed in an instant by that memory of mine back at university and so, with tears welling in my eyes, I sent an email: yes, I said, yes - I will buy your Bad English album.

Review: I like Journey. I don't love them, but I like them enough to own a couple of hours. I like them enough to roll my eyes when people go nuts over 'Don't Stop Believin' (hello, it's not even their best song - 'Who's Crying Now', right?). I also like The Babys to the extent that I have included 'Isn't It Time' on mixtapes for more than one love interest. So a band comprised of former Babys (John Waite, Ricky Phillips) and current Journeymen (Neal Schon, former Baby Jonathan Caine) should be superlative, right? Wrong.

As an aside, I should also add that Deen Castronovo, who would later drum for Journey, was also in the lineup. Castronovo would later be kicked out of Journey after being sentenced for domestic violence, and Wikipedia now use his mugshot as his picture.

This album has two redeeming features - John Waite's singing, which is good throughout, and 'Forget Me Not'. Even in a state of stupefaction it's heartening to know that my critical faculties still work. I guess opening track 'Best Of What I Got' isn't terrible, albeit it's a touch redolent of a song commissioned to be used as incidental music in a 1980s buddy cop movie. Imagine the kind of upbeat, formulaic rocker that starts up after the freeze-framed high-five at the end. Likewise, the mid-paced 'Heaven Is A 4 Letter Word' has a chorus that feels nicely anthemic without ever truly soaring.

The first true fly in the Aqua Net is 'Possession', which every now and again sounds like 'The Flame' by Cheap Trick. Which isn't surprising, as producer Richie Zito was responsible for the Cheap Trick album which featured, er, 'The Flame', released the year before this. 'Possession' sounds like virtually every other hair metal ballad of the period, which is synonymous with me saying it's a heap of lukewarm shite. Who did good ballads in the 80s anyway? Whitesnake were pretty decent, and Heart's 'Alone' is up there (I was blown away when I saw them do it live). As if to underline the point, Bad English outdoes itself in terrible balladry with 'When I See You Smile'. It makes 'Possession' sound like Slayer's 'Raining Blood'.

There's no real point in going song-by-song for the rest of the album. This will suffice: the more up-tempo tracks don't quite make me want to beat a puppy to death with my fists, the slower ones do. If you could picture the most generic freeze-dried, windswept, big hair stadium rock band in your head, the sound that they would make is Bad English. And that, for me, is their biggest crime.

As is the case with many of these 'supergroup' projects, there's no evidence that anyone involved tried to push the envelope. I am way more inclined to be charitable to a spectacular failure when it shows a hint of ambition, but everything on Bad English smacks of 'this'll do'. The sheer horror of Bad English is revealed in its crushingly bland competence. When the average episode of CSI: Miami contains more surprises you've got a problem.

On the plus side, at least 'Forget Me Not' still sounds good.