Golden Earring - Prisoner of the Night
#408
by Chris Roberts
October 6 1980
Golden Earring
Prisoner of the Night
Genre: ….rock.
Allen’s Rating: 4 out of 5
Chris’s Rating: 2.888887 out of 5
Highlights:
My Town
Going Crazy
Again I think this might be the most generic rock album I have ever heard. Like all good Americans, I know The Golden Earrings from two songs. “Twilight Zone,” which I taped off KIIS-FM in the early 80’s, and “Radar Love,” which I remember hearring on KMET and KLOS around the same time. “Radar Love” a pretty good road trip song. “Twilight Zone” has a fun groove. I didn’t not put it together that these songs were from the same band, recorded 10 years apart, until much later, when it didn’t matter. I can tell you, it will never matter. These songs exist. Both are OK as far as mainstream rock hits. Not embarrassing, but pretty much just radio filler for most folks.
All this is to tell you that Prisoner of the Night, came out in 1980, between these two US hits. So you understand my expectations. I can find almost no reason to listen to this in 2020, and yet, it’s not bad music. If you still love classic rock radio, this might be your jam. They’re crisp and competent, the production isn’t overly dated. It sounds like they would have been fun live.
(Digression: During my review, I found out at that KISS opened for GE in the 70s. Some people say that their 1973 album Moontan is really good, and I just sat through their epic, sprawling early 70s cover of “Eight Miles High”... So maybe there’s something here, it’s just not this album.)
On the first side, the songs rock OK, like lesser Cheap Trick or Bon Jovi. The first two songs, “Long Blonde Animal” and “No For An Answer,” make me feel gross just typing the titles. Since neither of these GE songs passed into public consciousness, a cancel-call would only get GE more plays, but GE feels specifically creepy...Then I noticed their 2012 album was called T**ts N Ass, so I guess this is all baked into GE’s identity. So it’s fine... the main thing is that there’s just no need to listen to these two songs. Or, if this review has made you curious (seriously?) try the title track. It sounds a little like Spinal Tap but not as funny, but not terrible either.
The highlight of the first side is “My Town.” It had that ”Are you ready to rock, Springfield? How about that local sports team!” Generic kinda vibe. But then there was this lyric about big girls in the red light, and I discovered GE is Dutch, and this song is actually about The Hague, and has some The Hague-specific lines. I liked the song even more after that, because it still feels like they’re singing about Springfield.
On the second side, you might mistake GE for The Alarm, both on “Will & Mercy” or the closer, “Going Crazy Again.” That could be a trigger (my wife has barred Electric Folklore Live from our shared spaces since the 90s.) but “Going Crazy Again” is a crazy-perfect arena rock concert closer, and it made me miss all those mega-shows down at the local sports team arena. Or at least Electric Folklore Live.
