The 1981 Listening Post - Whitesnake - Come and Get It

 Whitesnake - Come and Get It

#216

By Rob Slater

April 11 1981

Whitesnake

Come and Get It 

Genre: Bluesy Hard Rock with a touch of Deep Purple.

Allen’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Rob’s Rating: Solid 3.25

Highlights: 

"Wine, Women an' Song"

Neither of the singles are memorable. 

Gotta say thank god that Adam Ant kept them out of the #1 spot in the U.K. I didn’t like Adam Ant at the time and I happened to be in the U.K. in July of 1981. This is not the album to be a number One! Not that it’s not decent.It’s fine.Good in parts. How’s that for damning with faint praise?

So, I’m gonna do one of them “Stream of Conscientiousness Reviews.” Because there are hardly any songs that jump out, so I’m giving a personal response. 

Nobody says MMmmmm like David coverdale, except maybe that guy from the crash test dummies who used the name of the song and the chorus to a song. David Coverdale is like the Michael Morcock of Metal. He keeps going back and redoing songs, usually making them popular, but also stronger and more produced. 

Come and Get it, was the White Snake album before the album that I got me into Whitesnake. My first whitesnake album was Slide It In, perfect for a horny 13 year old boy out in the sticks without TV. Songs with great hooks, impressive vocals, blues tinged hard rock with a touch of naughty like Bat Out of Hell.

And then of course there is the ubiquitous at the time, “Here I Go Again” and its video also ubiquitous on MTV with glimpses of Tawny Katain’s oops, slip of a nip as she dances across the hood of David Coverdale’s car. Again everything a 13-year-old boy could fantasize about. And at 14 or so, I found a DVD that I could freeze frame, because...

 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I often do living in the future as a science fiction author. I find that I enjoy to the listening post reviews that are more stream of consciousness emotional connections to the music, which is interesting for this review because I don't have the emotional context for the particular album. But I do have the emotional context for the band as a whole. (or is that as a hole?) Whitesnake has had as many members Spinal Tap had drummers, kind of like my second to last review of Krocus. The band has included such amazing artists as 

John Lord

Adrian Vandenberg

Steve Vai

John Sykes

Ian Paice

Bernie Marsden

Cozy Powell 

Aynsley Dunbar

Warren DeMartini 

Denny Carmassi 

Rudy Sarzo

Tommy Aldridge

Reb Beach 

Joel Hoekstra

 

But David Coverdale is the only real Whitesnake, which I imagine is part of the horny 13 year old inside of him.

 

Worthy of a listen and definitely more bluesy hard rock than the poppier hits of the later 80s. I checked out “Saints and Sinners,” because I had heart it was better .It has the original version of “Here I Go Again,” which is actually mediocre: “Like a hobo , I was born to walk alone,” instead of drifter. Yeah. I think “Slide it in is actually the best Whitesnake album!