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!

The 1980 Listening Post - Whitesnake - Ready An' Willing

Whitesnake - Ready An' Willing


#219

May 31 1980

by Jon Rosenberg

Whitesnake 

Ready An’ Willing 

Genre: Rock

Allen’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Jon’s Rating: 2.75 out of 5

Highlights: Fool for Your Loving 

Sweet Talker 

Blindman 

She’s a Woman 

Gotta say, I was kind of dreading writing this review. Not that I have anything specifically against Whitesnake, but when they entered my consciousness with their 1987 MTV video “Here I Go Again,” they represented everything I hated about 80’s hair metal: flashy and over-produced with high school freshman poetry class macho lyrics, blow-dried hair and stuffed crotches. But, unlike Spinal Tap, they weren’t joking! I don’t wanna reopen the whole MTV can o’ worms, but apparently, before that became the only audience that mattered, Whitesnake had some actual rock cred. Lead singer David Coverdale had done a three-album stint with Deep Purple, and two of his old bandmates – Jon Lord on keys and Ian Paice on drums – join him on Ready An’ Willing. The rest of the band are competent journeymen who seem to know their way around a riff. Unfortunately, the riffs aren’t really that interesting. And the infrequent solos did not impress me much either. “Fool for Your Loving” is a good, stupid opener. “Sweet Talker” has the Noble Prize-winning lyric “The bitch is in heat, so you better run,” along with a nice organ break (seriously!). “Blindman” sounds like a Bad Company outtake. And “She’s a Woman” gets so synth-y towards the end that I thought I was listening to Yes for a second. But at least everyone seems to be having fun. And I guess fun is what this kind of music is all about. No deep, meaningful lyrics. No complex compositions with metre changes and polyrhythms. They’re the musical equivalent of drunken dry humping after the prom in your cousin’s van with the Frank Frazetta painting of a barbarian chick in a metal bikini on the side. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to finish my trigonometry homework. Mr. Duffy is such an asshole. I’ll be lucky if I get a D this semester. See you Friday night at the party in the woods. You bring the warm Bud Light and I’ll bring the Whitesnake!

https://open.spotify.com/album/7DVZdP0GpxvEfqL9DxTtB2?si=RAEkKzwGQ3qriIQAvAHE6g

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Whitesnake - Whitesnake

Whitesnake - Whitesnake - 1987

This is it for this part of the Listening Post. By this I mean that this corollary, this offshoot branch of the Purple Sabbath saga is ending here. There are many more Whitesnake records but my intention was never to follow them to their conclusion, just to divert for a while to see where they took us. I don't consider Coverdale an architect of modern metal any more than I consider Brian Setzer an architect of Rockabilly. His association with Deep Purple put him on the path of exploration and we will end that with this.
This album was a monster. Despite the fact that the opener, "Crying in the Rain" might as well be a rewrite of Toto's "Hold the Line". The slick as a nymphomaniac's nethers production is here in full force, as is the energy. "Bad Boys" is ready made to satisfy a legion of stadium fist pumpers.
(More Purple crossover! Guitarist Vivian Campbell was previously in Dio! He would later be introduced as Def Leppard's new guitarist as though he had been plucked from obscurity despite the fact that he was on this album and a member of Thin Lizzy. You'll recall that Def Leppard was the opening band for that Ozzy Osbourne concert I attended in 1980. Go ahead. Read it here)
This record was propelled by the redux of "Here I Go Again" and the ubiquitous ballad, "Is This Love". They sound as crisp and joyous as they do nostalgic and weathered. And I think they sounded that way 23 years ago!

I think Whitesnake was the last hair band to gasp, perhaps Def Leppard has a little more to say, but soon, just 4 years away, all the acid wash would be washed away by a little band from Seattle.
Still, there should be room in your heart for some good old fashioned glam metal.

Of the three classic Whitesnake albums (can you believe I actually wrote that sentence???) I still prefer Saints and Sinners but I understand why this was a smash.

Grade: A
ASide: Here I Go Again (although the original version is better), Is This Love
BlindSide: Still of the Night, Give Me All Your Love, Children of the Night
DownSide:

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Whitesnake - Slide It In

Whitesnake - Slide It In - 1984

Is this Kiss? The title track could have fallen off Dynasty. Or been interchangeable with any Paul Stanley rockers from the early 80s. Who knows? Maybe Kiss started copying Whitesnake. I doubt it, though. Everything that made Saints a great record is still here, though. Coverdale is in great voice and the songs are fabulous Pop-Zep Blues breakers and groove machines.
Get past that stupid double entendre of a single (and the obviousness of "Spit it Out"...sheesh) and the rest of the record spins nicely. But make no mistake, this is the David Coverdale show. It's his voice, his vision. He would fire the entire band after this album and replace them (and re-record it) with younger, prettier musicians. Make no mistake, Coverdale has his eyes on the prize and it's within his grasp on this album.

Grade: A-
ASide: Give Me More Time, Love Ain't No Stranger
BlindSide: Standing in the Shadows, Slow and Easy
DownSide:

Listening Post: Purple Sabbath - Whitesnake - Saints and Sinners

Whitesnake - Saints and Sinners - 1982

Okay, I admit it. This isn't really fair. I've set a precedent with myself that the Listening Post series is a completion series. I'm supposed to listen to one band's catalog from beginning to end and immerse myself in that chronology.
The task I set at hand was to explore the many tentacled tendrils of the roots of metal as started by Black Sabbath and Deep Purple.
So many of the players seem to bounce to other groups in this cluster. Ozzy leaves BS and Dio is brought in. Dio was a singer for Rainbow which was the band by the lead guitarist of DP. And so on....
Ian Gillan's replacement in Purple was David Coverdale. And it only made sense to follow his path as well. And that's where I break tradition with my own rules. I avoided the early records by Whitesnake. I didn't want to hunt them down, buy them, borrow them, anything. Who would want to devote THAT much time to David Coverdale besides Tawny Kitaen?
Maybe I should have. Because this record presents them with an unfair advantage: It skews the curve.
Saints and Sinners is a damn fine record. It's got the blues, the ballads, the shrieks, the harmonies, everything a band would need to succeed in the early days of MTV.
Straddling the delicate balance of Hair/Glam metal and Heavy Metal, S&S succeeds in every single song. I'm not sure what happens in a few years when the band tries its hand at ring grabbing glory but this record is a fantastic amalgam of Zeppelin, Aerosmith and Glam Metal.

Grade: A
ASide: Here I Go Again, Young Blood, Rough and Ready, Bloody Luxury
BlindSide: Love and Affection, Rock and Roll Angels, Dancing Girls, Crying in the Rain