Episode #24 - 1992

Well, it had to happen. At some point the Gods (or, in this case, the Tico Torres Tombola of Topics and Themes) were going to decree that the lads had gorged on the swollen nipples of the Seventies and Eighties for long enough and the time had come to teach them that there was a dark and forbidding world beyond the mascara, moogs and mellotrons that had cocooned them on their circumnavigation of rock’s monuments thus far.

As the boys emerged onto the grunge-strewn uplands of 1992 they were grateful at least for the fact that the thunderous tumult of Tico’s testes had overshot 1991 and plunged them instead into a land that wasn’t wholly inhabited by the history-changing Nevermind.

1992 may only have been eight short years from 1984, but seven even shorter weeks over the summer of 1991 had been genre-altering to such a gargantuan extent that it may as well have belonged to a completely different space-time continuum.

Not only had Grunge all but eradicated the lesser-known species of rock bands in little over a year, it had also rendered the all-devouring apex predators of the world more or less exinct. Rattasaurus Mascarus? Gone. ZZ Triceratop? No trace. The mighty Sabbathaurus could occasionally be seen dragging itself through the undergrowth, injured and hideously deformed. Even the Dioraptor was no more. And let’s not even talk about the Crüedactyl.

As Queen so aptly put it: all dead, all dead.

In all the best films, like Barb Wire and Porky’s, the gallant heroes stick together and battle together to defeat whatever villainy is abroad.

Unfortunately, Richard obviously hadn’t seen Pamela Anderson’s critically acclaimed (by Mark) breast-fest or, for that matter, the thought-provoking and moving Fifties-based late-teen-sex-with-prostitutes adventure that gave the world the ‘Has anyone seen Mike Hunt?’ gag (oh, go on and YouTube it, then .. we’ll wait), because he immediately sold his soul to the fucking devil and appeared some days later on the arm of the Stone Temple Pilots like the shameless slut that he is.

Mark panicked like a water buffalo who’s accidentally stumbled into a leopard’s dinner party and having seen Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley skulking by the bike sheds disguised as a heavy rock band thought, Fuck it, that’ll do.

While Steve, who often takes on the mantle of superhero at such times, found the last known example of a hair metal band that had obviously been hibernating in a cave for a decade, and promptly saved the day.

Hardline - Double Eclipse (1992)

So, hands up who else thought Neal Schon’s guitar only sang the sweet songs that drift on AOR’s warm breeze? Yup, us too, so it was a bit of a surprise for Richard and Mark when they were met with the fruits of a lesser-known side project to his Journey day job and a collection of riffs and licks that deliver the same sort of blunt force trauma you’d get from being hit by a Mack truck going full tilt.

If, like our pair of adventurers, you haven’t already been introduced to the considerable charms of Double Eclipse, let us explain.

It’s a bit like thinking you’ve been invited to an elegant and tastefully garnished gourmet dinner hosted by Dr Jekyll, only to wake up stark bollock naked 12 hours later in the doorway of a local Sainsbury’s having spent the previous night drinking shots and doing lines with Mr Hyde in a Spearmint Rhino toilet.

Well, most of the album is like that. A small bit of it, though, is like thinking you’ve been invited to an elegant and tastefully garnished gourmet dinner hosted by Nigella Lawson, only to find yourself some hours later in the toilet of the Red Lion listening to Nigel Farage take a noisy dump whilst shouting into his phone at Ursula von der Leyen (America - you might want to copy and paste that last bit into Google).

A few days later we asked Mark what he thought of Double Eclipse, but unfortunately he was sitting slack-jawed in a chair listening to Rhythm From a Red Car while drool pooled into his lap.

KISS - Revenge (1992)

Yes, yes, we know … a good deal of post-Seventies KISS is considered by many to be a badly-drawn cartoon strip that tries gamely to capture the high-water-mark albums of the band’s early years but often ends up with the music as the punchline.

By 1992, KISS were music’s lost boys. Seventeen years after Alive began their march to world domination, the band had already been through two reinventions. One - the catastrophic experiment that was Music From The Elder - caused a slight tremor in 1981; the other, two years later, was of Richter-scale busting proportions as the band underwent their formal unmasking upon release of Lick It Up.

How Simmons and Stanley must have danced for joy at the collective early arrival of their Crazy Nights Christmases in 1987.

But it was a star that burned brightly only for the briefest of times. Just as an adoring new audience, drunk on the 100%-proof pop-rock of the title track and the sugar high of Reason to Live, screamed for Crazy Nights Part 2, the normally savvy Demon and Starchild stumbled with 1988’s greatest hits package, Smashes, Thrashes And Hits.

Any hard rock album title that requires punctuation is almost certainly a mistake that even a less than subtle opening salvo like Let’s Put the X in Sex and (You Make Me) Rock Hard can never quite correct. Ditto trying to convert your new teen worshippers to the Jurassic outpourings of your centuries-old back catalogue.

By the time Hot In The Shade rolled around in ‘88, the renaissance ship had sailed, and the old jokes had once again become the new jokes.

But, hey, even reinvention can be merchandised, so KISS did what every self-respecting heavy metal band would do. That’s right. They focus-grouped the problem. No, we’re not joking. They actually did. Unsurprisingly, the fans told them what almost everyone already knew: put more Gene on the next record.

And it’s a good job that’s what the fans wanted, because you can’t bloody move for the lizard-tongued skirt-conqueror on Revenge. A new look - leather, studs and more leather - and a harder sound proved what we also already knew: if it moves, KISS can and will monetise it.

The big question here was whether it was any good.

Stone Temple Pilots - Core (1992)

And so it came to the point in the podcast where Steve and Mark had to pull on their big boy pants, swap their distaste for a big old slice of objectivity and get to grips with the first proper encounter the show had had with the ‘G’ word.

Which is hard enough at the best of times given the bleak landscape of the lyricism at large in ‘92, but even more so when you’re dealing with songs that even the person who wrote them (in this case Scott Weiland) admitted weren’t “really about anything … it’s just stream of consciousness words. I mean, at 21, 22 I didn’t have a lot of life experiences”.

Didn’t stop him being righteously fucked off about stuff, mind.

And while both Steve and Mark were reluctantly forced to admit that Core boasts some absolutely cracking tunes, there’s not much subject matter here to soothe, quieten or satisfy the soul.

Rich, always the most open to hearing musicality where Steve and Mark just hear a dirge-like noise, was resolute in his view that there is a place for Core. Steve and Mark agreed - although the exact location was up for debate. Mark suggested some introspective emo goth pseud’s bedroom. Steve said the North York Moors in howling gale on a cold November night would be suitably bleak. Richard pushed for the Hall of Fame.

Wonder who was right?