Hidden Treasures - Where it all went wrong

[Scott]

Hind Sight is always 20/20

In a succesful bands career there are those head-scratcher albums. Albums that represent the beginning of troubled times ahead. But at the time they made them, they made total sense.  You know those albums where your favorite rock band scored a hit with a disco beat, incorporated keyboards, or changed something about their previous success.

These are the ones that came to my mind, take a listen, let me know what you think and what albums messed up a good thing from your perspective!

 

PLAYLIST --> http://snack.to/atk5b3nu

	RUSH - Grace Under Pressure 1984 1 - Red Sector A Might as well start with the more arguable album in this post. Some may say Permanent Waves, others Signals. In fact even Wikipedia says that Signals was the major shift. But for me this album was the beginning of a major shift into keyboardville for Rush because it was also a big stylistic change as well. They brought in the same Producer who had worked with Simple Minds and U2, which failed miserably when he ran out on them during the recording sessions to work with Simple Minds. We should probably be thankful he took off and Peter Henderson finished this as a co-producer with the band or this may have been even more weird. Today the album sounds much better than when it first came out, its actually a very decent album with some great songs but it took me years to reconcile my feelings about this album and give it a place of respect in the Rush catalog.
	JUDAS PRIEST - Turbo 1986 2 - Private Property Following the success of Screaming for Vengeance and Defenders of the Faith (AKA Screaming For Vengeance II) the band curiously added Guitar Synthesizers. Halford has said the band was into new technologies and experimenting with new sounds. Whatever the reason, the fans have a Love/Hate relationship with the album. For me its one of those albums I received very well when it came out but as time has passed it hasnt held up as well. I like about half of the tunes still, while the other half are just OK.
	VAN HALEN - Best of Van Halen, Vol. 1 1996 3 - Me Wise Magic So why limit our scope to albums when theres songs that have similar or even bigger impacts. Did this song make everything spiral out of control  with Van Halen or did it start them on the right path? It started the argument with Hagar, and then Roth was in then got kicked out again after acting like a fool on Mtv, and then we got Gary Cherone. UGH!!! Thankfully they came back last year with Roth and got it right! The future is bright ... or is it!

[Jon]

They lost me with Permanent Vacation, came back with the next two and just lost it again. This time forever. I like Draw The Line, Night In The Ruts, Rock In A Hard Place and Done With Mirrors.

[Gordon Williams]

I understand what you are saying about Kiss, RJHog. I too was upset when the original band parted ways. But I got over it. I do think the band should have come up with new make-up and characters for the replacements, but the music is still the most important thing to me.

And I think it's pretty good. I think both Sonic Boom and Monsters are the best thing they've done since Rock N Roll Over. I'm not including the Bruce Kulick "era" in that statement....as Revenge and Carnival of Souls are both solid releases. But still, I'm just surprised that more KISS fans don't like the last 2 records.

[Jon]

I like all these songs. "Turbo" isn't a horrible album, it was just an album of the time. So they experimented and fans hated it and revolted and turned over cars a lit stuff on fire. So what, they were young. It's expected. 

As for "Me Wise Magic", to me it's the best song from Van Halen since any of the songs on "1984". This song put all the Van Hagar stuff to shame.

[Scott]

Wouldn't you agree that the two Roth tunes on that greatest hits package pretty much started a firestorm in the VH camp for the next 15years?

[Jon]

I think so. There was so much hope after listening to those two songs about what was going to come next from VH with DLR finally back. And then they squabbled. And then came Cherone. And then all hopes were dashed. 

[Alan Christensen]

I used to really like Judas Priest Turbo. In fact, I probably still do. It was actually my favorite priest CD. I was really excited for the new Van Halen songs when I was in High School, but truth is, yeah, Me Wise Magic is just fair. I liked the CD with Gary Cherone when it first came out, I need to re-listen.

NP - Night Ranger - Hits, Acoustic and Rarities.

[Bren Jones]

I would throw in the Scorpions. They made some killer 70's stuff and then went more commercial in the 80's and became international stars. In the 90's they faded in popularity but most other hard rock bands did too, but they still have a fan base until they came out with Eye II Eye which had everyone scratching their heads.

I never could get into KISS.

[Scott]

Eye II Eye ... Good call!