It’s been ages since I’ve given this Winger CD a dusting off the shelf.
Written by: gdmonline
ARTIST: Winger
ALBUM: In The Heart Of The Young
LABEL: Atlantic
SERIAL: 82103-2
YEAR: 1990
CD REISSUE: Discogs Reissue List
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: USA
LINEUP: Kip Winger – vocals, bass, keyboards * Reb Beach – guitars, vocals * Paul Taylor – guitars, keyboards, vocals * Rod Morgenstein – drums, percussion
TRACK LISTING: 01 Can’t Get Enuff * 02 Loosen Up * 03 Miles Away * 04 Easy Come Easy Go * 05 Rainbow In The Rose * 06 In The Day We’ll Never See * 07 Under One Condition * 08 Little Dirty Blonde * 09 Baptized By Fire * 10 You Are The Saint, I Am The Sinner * 11 In The Heart Of The Young
WEBLINKS: Site Link
Background
It’s been ages since I’ve given this Winger CD a dusting off the shelf. A commercial success back in the day but many years later I’m not convinced that this has stood the test of time to be honest. Giving this a shot on the CD player was part retribution and perhaps also trying to justify whether my opinion is correct or not.
The first two Winger albums I assume to be residents of any self-respecting melodic rocker’s CD collection, but where I can grab a bucketload of the debut (reviewed here by Alun many years ago), the second one falls off me like a weak Wallaby tackler trying to bring down a barnstorming All Blacks winger on Eden Park. I need to spend some quality time with this CD again, here goes,
The Songs
Things start out promisingly enough, with the heavy-handed and chunky riffing of ‘Can’t Get Enuff’. Big Leppard like choruses and L.A metal styled six-string polish from Reb Beach nicking a few ideas from Ratt and XYZ.
‘Loosen Up’ shakes and hustles and blows out candles but not a lot else. Truly for me, only a handful of tracks make the A-Grade. ‘Miles Away’ was one of those, the U.S Military’s theme song for all the soldier boys over in Iraq during 1990-91.
‘Easy Come Easy Go’ with Tesla like lyrics and a keyboard/brass like motif is a hair metal stomper, while ‘Rainbow In The Rose’ has a progressive streak that sees Winger and his troops try to elicit something intelligent out of the hair metal genre. For me, it sounds like Mr Mister doing metal (if you can imagine that).
‘Under One Condition’ was written about Kiwi model Rachel Hunter, who Kip was seeing briefly at the time, before she went uptown and married Rod Stewart a few years later. It’s a really well constructed song, and one I’ve enjoyed over the years.
‘Little Dirty Blonde’ is a mixture of sleaze, glam and melodic hard rock. Sort of like Danger Danger. Reb Beach has a mad case of guitar noodling on the intro to ‘Baptized By Fire’, kinda pointless really, while the song itself is all over the place, the godawful rap section in the middle a ‘face-palm’ of epic proportions.
Trying to make amends perhaps, ‘You Are The Saint, I Am The Sinner’ is a growling rocker which I’m assuming would sound great live. It has a menacing power that could make Winger sound like a million bucks on stage. The title track wraps things up in a majestic fashion. It takes awhile to get going, and is less throwaway than some of the other material here.
In Summary
The impression I get is if this band played more serious material in the vein of Queensryche circa ‘Rage For Order’ or ‘Operation Mindcrime’, rather than pop metal/arena rock, then they could’ve cracked a few eggs along the way to total respectability among the more discerning hard rockers and metallers out there. Certainly Beavis & Butthead gave this lot merry hell, lol.
Let’s be honest, the band was blessed with musical talent; all the players are world class, but the collective back-catalogue would not indicate that, despite a handful of excellent tracks. Reviewing this in 2013, one forgets that the album went platinum, produced a top 20 hit in ‘Miles Away’, the album itself made it to #15 on the album charts, and the band hit the road touring well into 1991 raking in the bucks.
Winger’s last album in the 90’s was 1993’s ‘Pull’, an enigma of an album which may well get the due treatment here at GDM. Worthy of re-listen, but I doubt memories will be truly long-lasting.
Winger on Video
Click to go to YTM album page.
