Trollheart

Seriously? That's pretty cool. I think I made it clear in my review though that I'm not saying Visage are a bad band, just their particular brand of what I'd call soulless electronica is not for me. Mind you, I was pleasantly surprised (eventually) with how rounded Gary Numan's music turned out to be...

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

last-night-in-sodom

Aye, many years ago! As for Gary Numan, I was a wee bit surprised to stumble upon my eldest son listening to Splinter (Songs from a Broken Mind) around a month ago because he'd always been staunchly anti Newman for some reason. Anyway I was blown away by it, definitely on of the finer hours of his career in my opinion, in particular I'd say 'I Am Dust'. Rather a heavy track but by God it's powerful.

The Batlord

Wait a minute. Whatever happened to the Carcass review?

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Trollheart

I was going to laugh at you and say you really should stop masturbating, Batty but instead WHERE THE FUCK IS MY CARCASS REVIEW?? I put it up, I saw it be posted and now it's gone, so far as I can see!!! I now have to check if other albums have also disappeared!

Mods, can you please see if something weird has happened or if someone has deleted entries from my journal, deliberately or accidentally? Thanks!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Powerstars

Hey Trollheart, you willing to look at The Killers? They're new wavy, '80s inspired rock. I reccomend Hot Fuss, their debut, which should be on Spotify if you're interested.

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Trollheart

Sorry for the late reply man, been trying to track down that disappeared post!


As it goes, I reviewed "Hot fuss" already. It was ok but I wasn't blown away by it and I doubt I would be in too much of a hurry to check out any other albums by them. I've a massive backlog which I'm adding to every day, and so much happening with specials, features, lists and ideas all over the place, I just don't have time for "meh" albums.

Thanks for the thought though!

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Trollheart

Hai hai --- Roger Hodgson --- 1987 (A&M)


After his amazing debut solo album "In the eye of the storm", released three years prior, it looked like big things could happen for this man. After all, he was the voice of Supertramp: it's not like people didn't recognise him when he sang. All the boppy, uptempo hit singles Supertramp released had him on vocals --- "The logical song", "Breakfast in America", "Dreamer", even the later hit "It's raining again", just before his departure from the band he had spent over a decade with, had his dulcet tones on it --- but he sort of shot himself in the foot a little by releasing an album that, while truly excellent, had only six tracks and none of those anything under five minutes. Didn't quite make for singles material, did it? So no hit singles from the debut. Had he learned a lesson? Well, perhaps. 1987 and back he came with his second solo effort, this time a more balanced album in terms of tracks, with ten in all, and nothing much over five minutes. More commerically appealing stuff too, with the heavy progressive rock feel that characterised the debut largely jettisoned in favour or shorter, more accessible songs, something similar to what Marillion did on "Fugazi", though they didn't change their sound, just the length and number of tracks, which worked for them, gaining them a hit single.

There is however a problem with this album. Unlike Marillion, who stuck for four or five years at least to their core sound, Roger Hodgson decided the time had come to change things up, so he mostly abandoned the clearly Supertramp-lite sound that had run all the way through "In the eye of the storm" and seems to have actively tried to write hit singles. Bad idea, Rog! Nobody out there who wasn't a fan of Supertramp knew him, despite his being gone solo in the game for three years at this stage, and those that did know him wanted --- demanded --- the Supertramp sound. He basically seems to have ignored this, and went his own way, resulting in an album that's not at all bad, but quite hit and miss, and not what you'd call a worthy successor to his first.

It starts off well, with the characterisic sound of Supertramp, the harmonica, and a bouncy beat as "Right place" gets us started, little tinkly synthesisers and a soaring guitar, but it's lighter than anything on the previous album. The lyric is a little lightweight and over-clever --- "Put it in the right place/ Get into the right space/ Don't turn into a headcase/ Move it at your own pace" and lots of other words rhyming with "ace". Thick growling snappy synth peppers the song but it's a good opener. Not so much so for "My magazine", where Rog tries to go all hard rock, with a snarling guitar (what? Supertamp never had snarling guitars!) and a sort of bluesy feel, and not a harmonica in sight. On this one I feel Roger tries to be Robert Plant, but fails utterly. Mind you, it's nowhere near as bad as the godawful "London", where he tries his hand at (oh no!) reggae! Now I don't like reggae as a genre, but even I know when it's done well it can sound really effective and this, well, just doesn't. It's almost like he said to himself, "we should have a reggae song on the album". Why? There's no justification for it, but that doesn't stop him, and he proceeds to perform one of the worst hatchet jobs on the music of the islands I have ever had the misfortune to hear.

Thankfully, things pick up after that, with the sublime semi-ballad "You make me love you", which has all the characteristics of the classic Supertramp melded with the best of the Cars. His mellifluous voice really comes through on this song, and the backing vocals (mostly his own) give a nice solid flavour to the track. The title is the close this album comes to progressive rock, with a big roaring vocal opening which recalls the opening of his debut album, then the welcome return of harmonica and some great Fairlight programming that sounds like fast, laboured breathing with bouncing synth bass hopping all over the place. Somewhat unfortunately though, after the promising opening the song breaks down into a fairly basic pop song, with all the prog rock --- or indeed, any rock --- removed from it. Well, that's not fair: the guitar is pretty rockin', but the synth really takes over the tune. It does however bop along nicely, even if the chorus is a little lacking, just the title repeated. There's some nice brass-like synthwork and the vocal is good, and there does at least seem like there's some real emotion in it.

The same can't sadly be said of "Who's afraid?", which is really quite weak, a soft pop ditty with an almost nursery-rhyme shape to it. Listening to this album, it's almost, though not quite, like witnessing Genesis slide ever deeper into pop as they abandoned their rock roots. Even the rhythm here is kind of a cross of Steve Miller's "Abracadabra" and Chris Rea's "I can hear your heartbeat". Again I stress, it's not a bad song, not at all. It's just a little fluffy and lightweight compared to what I had come to expect from this powerhouse of progressive rock. Mind you, one place where Hodgson will always excel is in writing beautiful ballads. The previous album had the lovely "Lovers in the wind" and the spectacular epic "Only because of you", and this time out we get two more, perhaps not of the calibre of the latter, but certainly superb songs. The first is "Desert love", which opens on a nice strummed guitar with a satisfied exhalation like "Ahh!" then brings in soft, silvery synth and trilling guitar as Roger launches into another great solo love song. The chorus, set against a grinding guitar and high-pitched synth, reeks of desperation and yearning.

"Land ho!" sounds just like a Supertramp song, and indeed it is. Written in 1974 with his then-songwriting partner Rick Davies, it's a boppy, happy, upbeat song that really lifts the mood after "Desert love" and even the lacklustre "Who's afraid?", but you have to ask yourself the question: if he's trying to make it on his own, put to some extent his Supertramp past behind him, why use an old song he wrote over fifteen years ago? Is he just playing to the Supertramp crowd here, or paying respect back to his origins? Either way, it's a great little track, replete with the hallmarks of his erstwhile band --- jumping, jangling piano, saxophone and killer hooks --- you can almost hear Davies singing it with him, and the quality just gets better with the standout of the album, in "House on the corner". Utilising a basic melody or rhythm I've heard somewhere before, but still haven't been able to identify to this day, it's a powerful, radio-friendly song that really should have been a single, and has a great chorus, with the verses almost elongated as Hodgson sings them. It just makes you want to move your feet, and the whistling keyboard running through it just adds the final touch. It could however finish much better.

After all that, the album winds down in somewhat of a low-key fashion with the second ballad, the morose and I would have to say bitter "Puppet dance", driven on piano and synthesiser which certainly recalls the Supertramp sound, though this is more a song I would expect to hear Davies sing, were it a Supertramp one. For an album that is generally more full of upbeat songs, it's something of a shock to hear this as the thing comes to a close, leaving you with something of a conflict in your emotions; the last few songs have put you in a good mood and you're ready to go out on a high, then the big comedown arrives in the form of this sad little ballad. Odd choice.

TRACKLISTING

1. Right place
2. My magazine
3. London
4. You make me love you
5. Hai hai
6. Who's afraid?
7. Desert love
8. Land ho!
9. House on the corner
10. Puppet dance

I wouldn't say I was disappointed with this album, but it does confuse. The debut was pure prog rock and hung together really well, whereas this jumps from pop to rock to pop and back, making it hard to get a real handle on it. I suppose in some ways it must have been an attempt to really get his career off the ground, after three years of nothing much happening, but if so then Roger Hodgson went the wrong way, in my opinion. His fanbase had come from Supertramp and they did not want to hear pop songs and love songs; he abandoned the basis Supertramp sound and tried to spread his wings, perhaps too far too soon, and sort of came crashing down. He didn't release another album until 2001, which surely tells its own story.

These days it seems he makes his money by returning to playing to the gallery, covering his own songs and other Supertramp ones in his concerts, and has issued albums of such material. Maybe it's best he stay doing that. For me, when I want to hear the Roger Hodgson who was at the time in my opinion on the cusp of greatness, with the world at his feet, I'll put on the debut album, and though I'll listen to this on and off, it will always be "In the eye of the storm" I return to.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Powerstars

Ah okay. Sorry.

I'll be tracking that review down.

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Trollheart

… then why make it so hard to link to?

Goddamn it, in the past I’ve just found the image I wanted via Google and selected “Copy image location”, pasted that into my WP and away I go. Now it seems that two things are happening more and more frequently with images posted online. The first thing that bugs the living crap out of me is GI-NORMOUS images! I mean, who in the name of all things holy needs a picture to be more than 2000 DPI?? But more and more now when I go looking for a picture I’m coming across resolutions that are just ridiculous. Not only can most monitors not display such an image without resizing it --- in which case you’re not going to get the detail you would have wanted when you created/scanned it originally, so why bother? --- the files themselves are huge, so if you download one or try to paste it into a forum, like here, it annoys everyone because it slows down the less speedy computers and also takes up way too much space. There’s no need to make an image that big. The human eye can only cope with so much detail, and although YOU might want to see the sweat on every pore on Springsteen’s nose, or every individual blade of grass on a field, I don’t, and I suspect most of us are the same. As long as you can see the image in reasonable clarity, I’m happy with a smaller size. It’s almost like a pissing contest now though: I can make my image bigger than yours! Who the **** cares? Other people may want to use these images you’re uploading, and while yes, many people don’t like or agree with hotlinking (the practice of linking to an image on the site on which it’s hosted rather than downloading it and reuploading it to where you want it and then linking to there), you know, it’s a fact of life here on the internet. Most of us ain’t got the time or patience to redistribute your pictures, and anyway it’s only one picture so what are you bitching about? Not to mention that it could end up getting you visitors to your site, if you want them, as people may follow the link if they really want to. So what’s the deal?

Well, that’s bad enough. But then you have the real problem, the “invisible problem”, the one that only shows up AFTER you’ve tried to paste in the link on an increasingly large number of images. Most times you’ll get something like this

“https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/i...a46-VeCghD8”
which is fine, but then a lot of the time you’ll get this

“data:image/jpeg;base64,/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQAAAQABAAD/2wCEAAkGBhQSEBQUExQVFRQWGBoaGBgVGBcXFxsVFBgVGhgYGR oaHCYfGxkjGhgUHy8gIycpLCwtGh8xNTAqNSYrLCkBCQoKDgwO Gg8PGiokHyQsLCwtLzApLC00NCwsKSwpKSosLS8sLCwsLCwsKS wsLCwsLCopNCwsLCwqLCwsLCwsLP/AABEIALQBGAMBIgACEQEDEQH/xAAbAAABBQEBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAgMEBQYBB//EAEMQAAIBAgMFBQUECAQGAwAAAAECEQADEiExBAVBUWETIjJxg QZCUpGhB2JysRQjgpKiwdHwM7LC4RUkQ2OT8RZU0v/EABsBAAIDAQEBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEAgMFAQYH/8QANBEAAQQABAQDBgYCAwAAAAAAAQACAxEEEiExBRNBUTJx8CJ hgZGhwRQVQlKx4TPxBiTR/9oADAMBAAIRAxEAPwDw2iiihCKKKKEIooooQiiiihCKKKKEIoo ooQiiiihCKKKKEIorqrNXO7tzKwDM2QzIGkdTNcJpVySNjFuVO qE6ClnZ2+E/KtnuTdpvsy2EGFILuQcIJmNJJbX5Hzqfs3s7tD3r9pcGK1ZN0E AwwkYRme6zAtEjUR1rlnsk/wAbbywDXfUrzrszyrhFaLbt0XBbs3WM9vjwc/1bBT/Ecqib13M9i4UuphYeRBHMEZEa5g1200JRsVT0U9cs8qZrqtBtF FFFC6iiiihCKKKKEIorpNcoQiiiihCKKKKEIooooQiiiihCKKK KEIooooQiiiihCKKKKEIooooQiiiuqsmhCmbq3e166ltBLMQB5 n+5rQ7V7Lut+1ZtuLhuZDIouMEgiSSCBkcQOhGhypv2HfBtQjx G3dCH (And it goes on for about five pages, but you get the idea I'm sure).

Yeah. Annoying isn’t it? Imagine trying to paste THAT into your document, or worse, into a forum. I’ve had image links like this that have, on their own, exceeded the maximum character count, and that’s twenty thousand characters! Twenty flaming thousand! In one image!

The question I pose is: why? What’s the point? Is it to stop hotlinking? If so, then it works perfectly. Nobody in their right mind would paste this into anything. But if not, then what is the reason for the ridiculously long text string? What does it represent, and how come other images, often from the same site, have something more manageable, as in the first example, as their code?

I truly don’t get it.

And, with images using codes like this, I truly don’t get it. The image, that is. It is unusable. But even if it IS unusable, why is there no way (that I know of) to ascertain this BEFORE copying the damn link and trying to paste it? Why is there no way to read the code or see it beforehand, to know if it’s worth even trying? So far as I can see, it’s just pot luck. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve looked for a certain image, then groaned, raged and fumed, getting angrier all the time as each successive link turns out to be one of the “long” ones. Sometimes I’ve run out of examples: every single image of the type I need has come up unusable. Sometimes that means I have to go to the trouble of saving, downloading, reupping and relinking to my own site. I mean, I can do this, sure, but it’s a pain and why should I have to? Most people using these images didn’t create them; they don’t hold the copyright on them. So what gives them the right --- if it is them doing it, and I assume it must be --- to prevent others from using these images?

A picture may paint a thousand words, but if it has more than a thousand characters in its link, you’re not going to be creating any masterpieces with it any time soon.


“Adapt and survive?”

This had been meant to focus, as it almost always does, on one thing that really bugged me, but hell, it’s called “Pet hates” and this week has seen the emergence of another thing that has really driven me mad. So welcome to part two!

If you buy something in a certain territory, I think it’s not expecting too much that you should be able to use the damn thing! I mean, if you bought an iphone in the US you’d think it would be taken as read that you could connect to US networks with it, if you buy a ticket for Wembley Stadium you don’t expect the concert to be held in Dubai, and if you invest in a diesel powered car then you shouldn’t expect it to run on petrol, now should you?

All, I would think, reasonable and not unattainable goals. So why is it that when I opened my new (although I had had it for over a year I had never opened it) Western Digital external hard drive this week I should find that, despite the fact it was bought in Ireland (well, on an Irish website) the mains plug on it should be a two-pin, “battery shaver” style? I can’t use that. Over here in Ireland we use the three-pin plug, and have since we got electricity I think. So where’s the adapter I ask? Every electrical product sold these days seems to come with a plastic connector you can snap on to the plug to make it the one you want to use, and I think it’s this way in the US too: if you get a three-pin and need a two, there’s the option of changing it with just a few clicks.

But no adapter could I see, as I searched through the box. Even though --- and this was the bit that really bugged me --- the bloody quickstart guide SHOWS you one being fitted! How is it that Western Digital, famed for totally overpricing their hard drives --- how they haven’t priced themselves out of the oversaturated market yet I don’t know --- could not be bothered to include a small piece of plastic and metal that would have made my life easier? They’re selling the damn thing to the Irish market: why not make sure it can be bloody well used when it’s been bought? But no. I had to go and buy one (only cost three euro but that’s beside the point; I had to go into the city and it added an extra day on to my project) before I could use their wonderful drive!

No point in me writing to them of course --- they couldn’t care less I’m sure --- but it really turned me off buying their products --- which I had always had an aversion to: this one was just too reasonably priced to pass up at the time --- and more to the point, has made me think twice before I buy another drive, or anything with an electrical lead. From now on, I’m not handing over my money until I know there’s a plug on the thing I can use! Thanks Western Digital: you’ve made me become a picky shopper, all because you’re too tight to include an adapter that would make your product work in the country in which it’s sold.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Possibly the worst criticism a reviewer can give of a movie is to say “The only good thing I can say about it is that I came out humming the theme tune”, and it can definitely be true more often than not. Sometimes a movie is just so bad that the only thing that even slightly rescues it is the soundtrack. Now of course if a movie is good and has a great soundtrack too then that’s perfect, and naturally not every great movie will have a great score, which of course leads us to the bottom of the barrel, the movies that are terrible and have awful music. But the one I want to discuss does not fall into that worst category, although in fairness without the music that supports it it would most certainly be down there.

Yeah, I’m sure you all remember this classic! Stallone does his best (read, worst) to emulate Eastwood and comes off looking more like Duh!-ty Harry . It’s a truly awful movie, as can be said of the vast majority of Stallone’s cinematographic output. It did at least have a half-decent tagline, which got absorbed somewhat into the popular consciousness, though most people who use it today would probably be hard-pressed to remember where they heard it. To be honest, I don’t even know if it was an original line: maybe the writer stole it from somewhere else. But that’s not important.

Neither is the movie. It’s a pretty bargain-basement cop revenge thriller trying to masquerade as something of higher quality and failing utterly. Probably the only line I recall from it is Stallone, as Cobra, throwing a lighted match down on top of a suspect who had been doused in petrol and muttering “You have the right to remain silent!” Oh, hilarity ensued! And this man would later play my favourite of all crimefighters, the fascist totalitarian future cop Judge Dredd. And screw that iconic role up in a way that still has me occasionally waking up bathed in sweat and screaming “He took his helmet off! Dredd never took his helmet off!”

But enough of such reminiscences. The thing that saves Cobra from being a total turd in all areas is the soundtrack. Peopled with the likes of John Cafferty, Jean Beauvoir and Miami Sound Machine, it’s a clear example of the adage, which I just made up and claim copyright to in perpetuity in all territories extant or to be discovered in the future, “Forget the movie, listen to the music” (Copyright Trollheart MMIII, all rights reserved). This movie has such a good soundtrack that you can almost --- almost --- forget how bad the actual film is. Of course, while watching it the one time I did, in the cinema, I was basically unaware of the music, as I tried to keep up with the plot --- bad mistake: there basically is no plot! But afterwards when I saw the album I thought sure why not? In fact, if I recall, I bought it for the song that becomes the opening track and in fact if I remember (and want to) closes the movie.

“Cobra” Original Motion Picture Soundtrack --- Various Artists --- 1988 (Scotti Brothers)


Now I believe I still have this somewhere in my record collection, but in 1988 I was mostly still buying vinyl, and truth to tell this didn’t see the light of digital release until four years later, so the vinyl copy is all I got. Sadly I no longer have a turntable, and though I got a USB one for Christmas last year (or was it the year before that?) I am too lazy to even open the box and so have never used it. Ah, don’t get me started!

So I’ve searched for it online but have had no luck. I’m therefore reduced to trying to recreate it, track by track, via YouTube, so if there are tracks I can’t get we’ll just have to muddle through as best we can. I’m sure you’ll be able to contain your disappointment. As it goes, I’ve noted in passing most of the better tracks are available, so we might just be missing one or two, perhaps instrumentals, but we’ll find out as we go.

That track I bought the album for initially is there. John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band rock us in with “Voice of America’s sons”, with a sort of John Cougar Mellencamp vibe melded to some heavy AOR, blasting keyboards and growling guitars, Cafferty’s voice a raspy growl as he laments the state of America for the ordinary workingman. A great hook in the song, punchy powerful and rocky, and indeed a good ending song for the movie --- I seem to recall Stallone riding off, stone-faced on a motorbike as the song played behind him, his mirror shades hiding the conflcting emotions that weren’t playing across his eyes as he departed with a grunt. Great guitar solo but in many ways it’s the peppy keyboards that carry the song with a real sense of upbeat, er, ness, and a nice little sax break there near the end.

You’d think after a powerful opener like that the chances of getting a good followup would be small, but you’d be wrong. Jean Beauvoir, known for his association with the Plasmatics and Little Steven from the E Street Band, hits us with a menacing, smouldering rocker in “Feel the heat”, which was in fact a hit for him, and you can see why he is so sought after, with the kind of voice that just screams AOR and hair metal. Slower than the opener certainly, more restrained and with a sort of oppressive feel about it, it’s still powerful and retains enough of the acceptable face of rock to have made it a hit for him.

Of course, every film (well, nearly every film) has a love scene and where would the ballad writers be without them? The “Cobra” OST has two, but I prefer the second one more, even though there are some fairly heavy hitters on “Loving on borrowed time”, with both Gladys Knight and Bill Medley taking vocals on the song. I don’t know who wrote it and I don’t much care; it’s fairly standard ballad materal, with a big shimmering digital piano opening and a melody that seems to evoke that other sugar-sweet movie ballad, “Somewhere out there”, but there’s no denying the talent of the two singers, who have both been around for a long time and really know how to turn it on, even if it is only for a crappy movie nobody will remember in five years time.

They’re well matched, and indeed Medley contributes to the other ballad, taking another female partner this time. More of that later, but right now all I can say about this song is that it doesn’t suck, but it’s not something you’d listen to much or put on any special playlists. But, you know, as I said, it doesn’t suck. Totally. And if there’s a ballad, you can be sure there’ll be instrumentals. And there are. The thing is, some of them are really good, like Sylvester Leavy’s (yeah I don’t know who he is either) “Skyline”, which just plods along at the right pace while still retaining enough suspense to make it something you want to keep listening to. Even a few touches of “The Wall”-era Floyd in there, if you listen closely, though mostly it’s carried, again, on some pretty super synthwork. There is, it has to be said, a pretty searing guitar solo near the end.

Gary Wright is, according to Wiki, one of the members of sixties group Spooky Tooth, and whether he’s the same Gary Wright who pens “Hold on to your vision” or not I don’t know, but it’s the first point where the album diverts from what I would call rock and hits into electropop territory, and even the presence of some decent guitar can’t take from the lighter feel of this song, not helped by the whistling keyboard that runs though it. Sounds like something you’d hear on the soundtrack of a really crappy mov ---oh, wait… Yeah, about the first time I felt the quality of the album, such as it was, began to slip, and while I can certainly listen to Gloria Estefan, I’ve never been a big fan of her work with Miami Sound Machine. “Suave” is not the song that was ever going to change that stance, with its upbeat salsa rhythms, boppy brass and overall sense of fiesta. Pass.

That’s the last low point, for me anyway, of the album, the second of Sylvester Levay’s instrumentals recalls the dark tension of “Terminator”, grinding along on swishy wind sounds and a growling, menacing synth. It’s probably the one that opened the film credits, as it definitely has the sort of introduction sound to it, and I think I can remember this being the case. Things keep rocking for Robert Tepper’s superb “Angel of the city”, with its industrial, mechanical rock themes and its weary vocal somewhat reminiscent of Joe Cocker punches its way in on the back of some almost Genesisesque synth and then just takes off with some really nice female backing vocals. Interestingly, Tepper’s first big hit was from another Stallone movie, released in the same year, and which you’re all more likely to know: “Rocky IV”, so 1986 was obviously a good year for him. This is certainly one of the better tracks on the album, and it’s followed by the second, and final, instrumental. Our friend Mr. Levay, who holds the dubious distinction of having the same first name as the star of the show, returns to hit us with “Chase”, which turns out to be the only track I can’t find online, but with a name like that you can guess how it would have gone. All squibbly keyboards, screeching guitars and a sense of pursuit and capture. To be honest, I can’t remember myself how it goes but I’m sure that’s close enough. Probably some fiddling around with siren-like sounds too, I'm sure.

We end then on a high note, with the second ballad which, as already mentioned, features a return for Bill Medley, this time duetting with a lady by the name of Carmen Twillie, though who she is or was I couldn’t tell you. I do actually remember this one, as it did play over a love scene and I remember thinking what a good song it was. It may also have been a factor in my decision to buy the album when I saw it included, I don’t know. Again it opens with the dreaded digital piano, but somehow it’s more restrained this time, less as if it’s taking over the song. When Twillie’s voice joins the song you do have to wonder what happened to her, as she really has a nice voice, one that complements Medley’s well. Which is not to say that Gladys’s didn’t, but she’s a well-known and legendary figure in music. This lady, to my knowledge, is not, and bearing that in mind she does a great job.

There’s some real passion in the song, which makes me wonder if there was something between the two vocalists, though maybe not. Absolutely mind-blowing sax break then, which the piano works with very well and it all builds to a crescendo, but sadly fades out and rather too soon, but still it’s a great ending to the album.

TRACKLISTING

1. The voice of America’s sons (John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band)
2. Feel the heat (Jean Beauvoir)
3. Loving on borrowed time (Bill Medley and Gladys Knight)
4. Skyline (Sylvester Levay)
5. Hold on to your vision (Gary Wright)
6. Suave (Miami Sound Machine)
7. Cobra (Sylvester Levay)
8. Angel of the city (Robert Tepper)
9. Chase (Sylvester Levay)
10. Two into one (Bill Medley and Carmen Twillie)

I suppose I should in some ways not slag off the movie so badly, because I’m pretty sure that had I not endured --- sorry, watched it, I would most likely have passed this soundtrack by, and thereby missed a lot of really good music that should in fairness not have to be associated with such a turkey of a movie. But if sitting through an hour and a half of watching Stallone play tough and trying to struggle with his limited lines is the price I paid for getting this album, then it’s one I’m happy enough to have paid.

At least I can confidently say that something good came out of that movie for me, which is a claim I fear most others who went to see it can’t make.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018