Post by Jesse on Feb 17, 2009 11:33:21 GMT -5
I had written this up awhile ago for fun and was saving it for when things got slow here........well, things are slow here, so here it is: I rank my favorite band's studio albums. I hope folks find the time and effort to respond to this thread either in telling me how wrong I am or in ranking your own favorite bands' studio efforts. In, fact, i'd prefer the latter as I'd love to hear how Sandi ranks Aerosmith or Frank with Cheap Trick, Kim telling me which Status Quo albums to buy and avoid, Jim's opinions on Pat Travers Band, and so on.
So anyways, here's how I rank the various Molly Hatchet studio albums from best to worst. Enjoy!
“Jesse Ranks Hatchet”
1- “Devil’s Canyon” 1996 ~ 7 years removed from their last new material (which was crap), only 2 holdovers from that album and ZERO holdovers from the original Molly Hatchet line up, oh my! I’m really surprised I even bought this CD, let alone gave it an objective listen. Well, fuck me! This is one fine slab of Southern Rock/ Metal if there ever was one. More aggressive than any Southern Rockers other than maybe Blackfoot… and HEAVY! Sounding like a pissed-off Skynyrd or perhaps Metallica with a cheek full of tobacco and a belly full of grits, Hatchet ‘96 finally rocks out enough to justify their Heavy Metal artwork. Couple of turds on here, but the collective sonic boom of “Tatanka”, “Rolling Thunder”, “Down From The Mountain”, “Heartless Land” and the title song more than make up for them. Nice touch with the GNR-ish ballad “The Look In Your Eyes” too. Woulda been a huge hit if radio even pretended to be fair anymore. No, it don’t quite sound like the Hatchet of the first 2 albums, but then again, it sure sounds closer than what we got in ‘84 and ‘89 when there actually WERE original members left in the band.
2- “Silent Reign Of Heroes” 1998 ~ I’ll be damned if the Bobby Ingram Band doesn’t do it again! Blasting out of the gates in pretty much the same fashion as “Devil’s Canyon” before it, “Silent Reign Of Heroes” manages to sport the second best performances in the MH catalog without really breaking any new ground. Even uses pretty much the same song order as “Devil’s Canyon”: Swamp Rocker intro, hard rocker next, followed by an epic title song, some boogie, flat out metal, a ballad, more boogie, more metal, and an acoustic version of an old hit to close it out. But, hey, if you got a good thing going, why change it?
3- “No Guts…No Glory” 1983 ~ The return of one original member (Danny Joe Brown) and the exit of two original members (Banner Thomas and Bruce Crump) find Molly Hatchet more focused here than either “Take No Prisoners” or Danny Joe Brown’s solo effort. Streamlined and “Pop”-ed up a bit for the masses, MH loses virtually none of their power nor energy for this release. “What’s It Gonna Take”, “What Does It Matter”, “On The Prowl” and the epic “Fall Of The Peacemakers” prove to be stand out tracks, not only on the album, but in the MH catalog as well. “Both Sides”, “Ain’t Even Close” and “Under The Gun” aren’t far behind. I dunno, seems to me, the only stinker here is the chummy, semi-Country number “Kinda Like Love” which wasn’t even written by anyone in the band. Heavy, yet somewhat Pop conscious, a style I wish the band would’ve mined beyond this album.
4- “Flirtin’ With Disaster” 1979 ~ Without a doubt, the album that almost anyone who knows about Molly Hatchet, identifies with Molly Hatchet. Hatchet’s sophomore effort is quite a good one indeed and if anyone wants to argue with me that this should be #1, it wouldn’t take much for me to concede. (Really, these 1st 4 are interchangeable IMO.) Still a band who’s hungry for attention, but mature enough to pay attention to detail. Couple of snoozers here as “Jukin City” and “Let The Good Times Roll” never did a damn thing for me, but, shit, if the rest don’t get your head bangin’, your foot tappin’, make you slap your thigh to the beat of the snare or get ya playing air guitar to some of these licks, you better have someone check your pulse.
5- “Beatin’ The Odds” 1980 ~ Title song being my first taste of Hatchet, I’m a little biased towards this album, but I think it’s a solid effort nonetheless. A few obvious fillers on this one as I think the creative juice was starting to run low, but who can argue with the likes of “Beatin’ The Odds”, “Double Talker”, “The Rambler”, “Dead And Gone” and their version of CCR’s “Penthouse Pauper”? I can’t.
6- “Molly Hatchet” 1978 ~I got some confessions here: After the initial novelty wore off, I’ve found I can take or leave “Gator Country”, and “Dreams I’ll Never See”, while 100xs better than the Allman’s Version, never did much for me until I heard the live version. “Trust Your Old Friend” and “Big Apple” were always throwaways IMO. If you like those songs more than I do, this album could easily be in the #5 or above spot as the rest of the album is really great. Pretty much Skynyrd without as many Country references the way I see it. Always an enjoyable listen.
7- “Warriors Of The Rainbow Bridge” 2005 ~ Damn, not sure what to do with this album. There really ain’t a bad song on the thing, but at the same time, there is no one song that sticks in my mind to keep me coming back to it either (Something even their horrible ‘80’s experiments had). A good case could be made for this album being both first on the list and last because of this., but I’m gonna put it smack dab in the middle for MY list. Good songs, a few great ones, I guess. I’ve noticed that this is the first studio album where they really mixed Phil McCormack’s vocals up front and……..They get kinda grating by about song #6 or 7. The guy ain’t got a bad voice, but it’s not like he’s friggin’ Steve Perry either. I don’t think they ever even mixed Danny Joe this loud. I dunno, no one song is bad and this IS probably the only MH album I can listen to straight through, but 2 years after it’s release, I’m basically bored with it.
8- “Kingdom Of XII” 2001 ~Ok, it’s getting old now! The formula worked great for “Devil’s Canyon” and “Silent Reign Of Heroes” but here? Seems forced to me a bit. “Heart Of The USA” is as good an opener as you can get and it shoulda been a huge hit, along with “Why Won’t You Take Me Home”, if radio would play it. “Dreams Of Life” ain’t bad either and they did a good job on the Rolling Stones’ “Tumblin’ Dice”. However, “One Last Ride”, “Turn My Back On Yesterday”, and the acoustic reworking of “Edge Of Sundown” seem like they were done SOLEY because they needed an epic, a ballad and a reworked acoustic classic song as none have any hint of pure inspiration or originality. “Angel In Dixie” is another one that seems forced, like they NEEDED to do an acoustic ballad or something. The rest really ain’t bad, but nothing stands out, ‘cept the aforementioned 4 tunes and maybe “Gypsy Trail”. Thank God they changed things up a bit for “Warriors Of The Rainbow Bridge”.
9- “Danny Joe Brown And The Danny Joe Brown Band” 1981 ~Not exactly a MH album per se, but being that Danny Joe was the voice for nearly half the catalog and future MH members John Galvin, Bobby Ingram and Buzzy Meekins played on this record, I think it deserves mention. Good songs, great performances, HORRIBLE production. Whole thing’s kinda muddy and Danny Joe is mixed WAY back and reverbed. Otherwise, it really coulda been the 3rd Hatchet record, hell they kept playing “Edge Of Sundown” from this record for years when Danny Joe rejoined MH! Great guitar work from the trio of Ingram, Steve Wheeler and Kenny McVay and outstanding keyboard parts from Mr. Galvin.
10- “Take No Prisoners” 1981 ~ 2nd and last album featuring Jimmy Farrar on vocals and, well, let’s start with the good: “Bloody Reunion” and “Power Play” are both instant classics. “Don’t Leave Me Lonely Tonight” and “Lady Luck” are nearly as good and always make my “Best Of Hatchet” mix tapes. The rest? Pretty much sounds like “Beatin’ The Odds” outtakes to me. Awful version of “Long Tall Sally”, pretty well the only time Hatchet ever fucked up a cover song IMO.
11- “Lightning Strikes Twice” 1989 ~Eek! Not sure what happened here. A new label, a new look (check ‘em out on the back cover, cripes!) and a new sound. Actually the sound is not all that new as it is similar to that of ‘84’s “The Deed Is Done”, but without all the reverb effects and with better drum and guitar sounds. Though it improves upon the album preceding it, “Lightning Strikes Twice” is STILL one big hunk of ‘80’s cheese. Mostly a mishmash of shit, apparently, thrown against the wall to see what would stick (none of it!) A couple good rockers here with “Find Somebody New” and the remake of Kiss’ “Hide Your Heart”. For the first time we get Danny Joe singing a true blue ballad, actually we get TWO, “Goodbye To Love” and the more powerful “Heart Of My Soul”. Beyond that, you got some of the worst and LEAST Hatchet sounding tunes in the catalog (Latter description is really saying something when you consider that they’ve done 4 albums now which feature ZERO original members! On here we have 3). “Take Miss Lucy Home”, “What’s The Story Old Glory” and “There Goes The Neighborhood” are all hokey, “aw-shucks” lyrics set to a decent beat, but, geez, who listens to this shit? Any or all 3 could easily become a Country hit today if some schmuck like Alan Jackson would redo ‘em using Telecasters, throw in some fiddle and give ‘em an extra twang, but for Hatchet? No. No, no, no. Then you got “The Big Payback” and “I Can’t Be Watching You”. They have got to be 2 of the dopiest songs ever and latter they actually wasted the time to do a video for! “No Room On The Crew” is a decent attempt at getting back to their Southern Rock roots that pre-dates what the Allman Brothers would do a year later with the “Seven Turns“ album, but by this time who cares?
12- “The Deed Is Done” 1984 ~ Terry Manning did wonders producing ZZ Top, so he was brought in to take another Southern Rock band to the top. Not so fast. This really ain’t THAT bad of an album if you look past the horrible ‘80’s production given to it. Extremely too much reverb, too many pointless chorus repeats and Bruce Crump is regulated down to beats that a retarded monkey with a drum machine could accomplish. But the songs are there for the most part. I have a bootleg recording of one of their shows promoting the album, and played live, I’ll be damned if these songs don’t come to life. “Stone In Your Heart” and “Satisfied Man” were obvious attempts at hits, but they really weren’t bad and “Straight Shooter” , given better treatment (rougher production, more guitary mix) could be as good as anything they’ve ever done IMO. But, hey, cut the band some slack, EVERYONE had a record like this in the ‘80’s.
13- “China Sky” 1988 ~Again, I’m extending my definition of Molly Hatchet to include this album (By the band of the same name) as this was Bobby Ingram’s project in between his stint in the Danny Joe Brown Band and when he would join MH for good in 1987 (he had been contacted several times before that only to find out they worked out their problems with Duane Roland or Dave Hlubek). Really no worse than “The Deed Is Done” ‘cept Ron Perry is not as distinctive a vocalist as Danny Joe Brown. It’s basically your typical ‘80’s AOR album that could’ve been released by anybody. Solid album if you like that sort of thing, but definitely not for the average Hatchet fan. Shit, there ain’t even a real drummer on the thing. All keyboard and drum machine programs! It is worth checking out for the song “The Last Romantic Warrior” (whatever the hell THAT means) a nice little love ballad that turns into an even nicer guitar jam at the end. Really one of Bobby Ingram’s best solos, it’s just a shame it’s stuck on this pile of cheese. Also funny to see a skinny Ingram pictured on the back cover and inside sleeves with poofy hair and dressed in leather as if he were a member of fucking Ratt!
So anyways, here's how I rank the various Molly Hatchet studio albums from best to worst. Enjoy!
“Jesse Ranks Hatchet”
1- “Devil’s Canyon” 1996 ~ 7 years removed from their last new material (which was crap), only 2 holdovers from that album and ZERO holdovers from the original Molly Hatchet line up, oh my! I’m really surprised I even bought this CD, let alone gave it an objective listen. Well, fuck me! This is one fine slab of Southern Rock/ Metal if there ever was one. More aggressive than any Southern Rockers other than maybe Blackfoot… and HEAVY! Sounding like a pissed-off Skynyrd or perhaps Metallica with a cheek full of tobacco and a belly full of grits, Hatchet ‘96 finally rocks out enough to justify their Heavy Metal artwork. Couple of turds on here, but the collective sonic boom of “Tatanka”, “Rolling Thunder”, “Down From The Mountain”, “Heartless Land” and the title song more than make up for them. Nice touch with the GNR-ish ballad “The Look In Your Eyes” too. Woulda been a huge hit if radio even pretended to be fair anymore. No, it don’t quite sound like the Hatchet of the first 2 albums, but then again, it sure sounds closer than what we got in ‘84 and ‘89 when there actually WERE original members left in the band.
2- “Silent Reign Of Heroes” 1998 ~ I’ll be damned if the Bobby Ingram Band doesn’t do it again! Blasting out of the gates in pretty much the same fashion as “Devil’s Canyon” before it, “Silent Reign Of Heroes” manages to sport the second best performances in the MH catalog without really breaking any new ground. Even uses pretty much the same song order as “Devil’s Canyon”: Swamp Rocker intro, hard rocker next, followed by an epic title song, some boogie, flat out metal, a ballad, more boogie, more metal, and an acoustic version of an old hit to close it out. But, hey, if you got a good thing going, why change it?
3- “No Guts…No Glory” 1983 ~ The return of one original member (Danny Joe Brown) and the exit of two original members (Banner Thomas and Bruce Crump) find Molly Hatchet more focused here than either “Take No Prisoners” or Danny Joe Brown’s solo effort. Streamlined and “Pop”-ed up a bit for the masses, MH loses virtually none of their power nor energy for this release. “What’s It Gonna Take”, “What Does It Matter”, “On The Prowl” and the epic “Fall Of The Peacemakers” prove to be stand out tracks, not only on the album, but in the MH catalog as well. “Both Sides”, “Ain’t Even Close” and “Under The Gun” aren’t far behind. I dunno, seems to me, the only stinker here is the chummy, semi-Country number “Kinda Like Love” which wasn’t even written by anyone in the band. Heavy, yet somewhat Pop conscious, a style I wish the band would’ve mined beyond this album.
4- “Flirtin’ With Disaster” 1979 ~ Without a doubt, the album that almost anyone who knows about Molly Hatchet, identifies with Molly Hatchet. Hatchet’s sophomore effort is quite a good one indeed and if anyone wants to argue with me that this should be #1, it wouldn’t take much for me to concede. (Really, these 1st 4 are interchangeable IMO.) Still a band who’s hungry for attention, but mature enough to pay attention to detail. Couple of snoozers here as “Jukin City” and “Let The Good Times Roll” never did a damn thing for me, but, shit, if the rest don’t get your head bangin’, your foot tappin’, make you slap your thigh to the beat of the snare or get ya playing air guitar to some of these licks, you better have someone check your pulse.
5- “Beatin’ The Odds” 1980 ~ Title song being my first taste of Hatchet, I’m a little biased towards this album, but I think it’s a solid effort nonetheless. A few obvious fillers on this one as I think the creative juice was starting to run low, but who can argue with the likes of “Beatin’ The Odds”, “Double Talker”, “The Rambler”, “Dead And Gone” and their version of CCR’s “Penthouse Pauper”? I can’t.
6- “Molly Hatchet” 1978 ~I got some confessions here: After the initial novelty wore off, I’ve found I can take or leave “Gator Country”, and “Dreams I’ll Never See”, while 100xs better than the Allman’s Version, never did much for me until I heard the live version. “Trust Your Old Friend” and “Big Apple” were always throwaways IMO. If you like those songs more than I do, this album could easily be in the #5 or above spot as the rest of the album is really great. Pretty much Skynyrd without as many Country references the way I see it. Always an enjoyable listen.
7- “Warriors Of The Rainbow Bridge” 2005 ~ Damn, not sure what to do with this album. There really ain’t a bad song on the thing, but at the same time, there is no one song that sticks in my mind to keep me coming back to it either (Something even their horrible ‘80’s experiments had). A good case could be made for this album being both first on the list and last because of this., but I’m gonna put it smack dab in the middle for MY list. Good songs, a few great ones, I guess. I’ve noticed that this is the first studio album where they really mixed Phil McCormack’s vocals up front and……..They get kinda grating by about song #6 or 7. The guy ain’t got a bad voice, but it’s not like he’s friggin’ Steve Perry either. I don’t think they ever even mixed Danny Joe this loud. I dunno, no one song is bad and this IS probably the only MH album I can listen to straight through, but 2 years after it’s release, I’m basically bored with it.
8- “Kingdom Of XII” 2001 ~Ok, it’s getting old now! The formula worked great for “Devil’s Canyon” and “Silent Reign Of Heroes” but here? Seems forced to me a bit. “Heart Of The USA” is as good an opener as you can get and it shoulda been a huge hit, along with “Why Won’t You Take Me Home”, if radio would play it. “Dreams Of Life” ain’t bad either and they did a good job on the Rolling Stones’ “Tumblin’ Dice”. However, “One Last Ride”, “Turn My Back On Yesterday”, and the acoustic reworking of “Edge Of Sundown” seem like they were done SOLEY because they needed an epic, a ballad and a reworked acoustic classic song as none have any hint of pure inspiration or originality. “Angel In Dixie” is another one that seems forced, like they NEEDED to do an acoustic ballad or something. The rest really ain’t bad, but nothing stands out, ‘cept the aforementioned 4 tunes and maybe “Gypsy Trail”. Thank God they changed things up a bit for “Warriors Of The Rainbow Bridge”.
9- “Danny Joe Brown And The Danny Joe Brown Band” 1981 ~Not exactly a MH album per se, but being that Danny Joe was the voice for nearly half the catalog and future MH members John Galvin, Bobby Ingram and Buzzy Meekins played on this record, I think it deserves mention. Good songs, great performances, HORRIBLE production. Whole thing’s kinda muddy and Danny Joe is mixed WAY back and reverbed. Otherwise, it really coulda been the 3rd Hatchet record, hell they kept playing “Edge Of Sundown” from this record for years when Danny Joe rejoined MH! Great guitar work from the trio of Ingram, Steve Wheeler and Kenny McVay and outstanding keyboard parts from Mr. Galvin.
10- “Take No Prisoners” 1981 ~ 2nd and last album featuring Jimmy Farrar on vocals and, well, let’s start with the good: “Bloody Reunion” and “Power Play” are both instant classics. “Don’t Leave Me Lonely Tonight” and “Lady Luck” are nearly as good and always make my “Best Of Hatchet” mix tapes. The rest? Pretty much sounds like “Beatin’ The Odds” outtakes to me. Awful version of “Long Tall Sally”, pretty well the only time Hatchet ever fucked up a cover song IMO.
11- “Lightning Strikes Twice” 1989 ~Eek! Not sure what happened here. A new label, a new look (check ‘em out on the back cover, cripes!) and a new sound. Actually the sound is not all that new as it is similar to that of ‘84’s “The Deed Is Done”, but without all the reverb effects and with better drum and guitar sounds. Though it improves upon the album preceding it, “Lightning Strikes Twice” is STILL one big hunk of ‘80’s cheese. Mostly a mishmash of shit, apparently, thrown against the wall to see what would stick (none of it!) A couple good rockers here with “Find Somebody New” and the remake of Kiss’ “Hide Your Heart”. For the first time we get Danny Joe singing a true blue ballad, actually we get TWO, “Goodbye To Love” and the more powerful “Heart Of My Soul”. Beyond that, you got some of the worst and LEAST Hatchet sounding tunes in the catalog (Latter description is really saying something when you consider that they’ve done 4 albums now which feature ZERO original members! On here we have 3). “Take Miss Lucy Home”, “What’s The Story Old Glory” and “There Goes The Neighborhood” are all hokey, “aw-shucks” lyrics set to a decent beat, but, geez, who listens to this shit? Any or all 3 could easily become a Country hit today if some schmuck like Alan Jackson would redo ‘em using Telecasters, throw in some fiddle and give ‘em an extra twang, but for Hatchet? No. No, no, no. Then you got “The Big Payback” and “I Can’t Be Watching You”. They have got to be 2 of the dopiest songs ever and latter they actually wasted the time to do a video for! “No Room On The Crew” is a decent attempt at getting back to their Southern Rock roots that pre-dates what the Allman Brothers would do a year later with the “Seven Turns“ album, but by this time who cares?
12- “The Deed Is Done” 1984 ~ Terry Manning did wonders producing ZZ Top, so he was brought in to take another Southern Rock band to the top. Not so fast. This really ain’t THAT bad of an album if you look past the horrible ‘80’s production given to it. Extremely too much reverb, too many pointless chorus repeats and Bruce Crump is regulated down to beats that a retarded monkey with a drum machine could accomplish. But the songs are there for the most part. I have a bootleg recording of one of their shows promoting the album, and played live, I’ll be damned if these songs don’t come to life. “Stone In Your Heart” and “Satisfied Man” were obvious attempts at hits, but they really weren’t bad and “Straight Shooter” , given better treatment (rougher production, more guitary mix) could be as good as anything they’ve ever done IMO. But, hey, cut the band some slack, EVERYONE had a record like this in the ‘80’s.
13- “China Sky” 1988 ~Again, I’m extending my definition of Molly Hatchet to include this album (By the band of the same name) as this was Bobby Ingram’s project in between his stint in the Danny Joe Brown Band and when he would join MH for good in 1987 (he had been contacted several times before that only to find out they worked out their problems with Duane Roland or Dave Hlubek). Really no worse than “The Deed Is Done” ‘cept Ron Perry is not as distinctive a vocalist as Danny Joe Brown. It’s basically your typical ‘80’s AOR album that could’ve been released by anybody. Solid album if you like that sort of thing, but definitely not for the average Hatchet fan. Shit, there ain’t even a real drummer on the thing. All keyboard and drum machine programs! It is worth checking out for the song “The Last Romantic Warrior” (whatever the hell THAT means) a nice little love ballad that turns into an even nicer guitar jam at the end. Really one of Bobby Ingram’s best solos, it’s just a shame it’s stuck on this pile of cheese. Also funny to see a skinny Ingram pictured on the back cover and inside sleeves with poofy hair and dressed in leather as if he were a member of fucking Ratt!
