Nevertheless, Oriental Beat remains one of Hanoi’s most commercially successful albums to date, despite much of the band not being happy with the quality of production on it. The band famously replaced him with Warwickshire boy ‘ Razzle’, who tragically died in a drunk driving accident at the hands of Motley Crue’s Vince Neil some years later. It was also the last Hanoi record to feature original drummer Gyp Casino, who was later fired as a result of his heroin addiction. Originally put out in 1982, Oriental Beat was recorded at Advision Studios in London, and was the record that started to open the group up to the British market. Not content with just re-releasing Hanoi’s debut offering, Dissonance are also putting in a shift on their second album, Oriental Beat. The album closes on an appropriate note for the upcoming decade of glam rock carnage that was about to be released – “The Pretender” is every bit as wild as it is menacing and it’s a fitting end to what really is an astonishing (and very underrated) debut album. It’s certainly clear that the band are musically deft enough to tackle a breadth of genres with relative ease and finesse. The live performance of “11 th Street Kidzz “ that follows it sounds almost too flawless to be recorded live, and the short and sweet cover of Bobby Vee’s “Walking With My Angel” works surprisingly well. Now we’re onto the 6 th track, and “Cheyenne” opens like a classic rock power ballad – only to be interrupted by Michael’s voice exclaiming ‘hey, come here with the guitar’ before launching into a classic rock n roll tune – one that was clearly influenced by greats such as Elvis Presley and Little Richard. The pace continues on follow-up song “First Timer”, which offers a ska-punk influenced feel. It’s also the first song on the album where we are treated to Michael’s skills with the saxophone – something that sounds odd to a modern day listener on the first go, but close your eyes and you’re at the Whisky A-Go-Go in ’82, not giving a flying fuck. The vibe is picked back up again with next offering “Lost In The City”, perhaps a reference to the years the band spent sleeping rough on the streets of New York (Michael, of course, ditching any warm outerwear in favour of his beloved leather jacket). Third offering “ Stop Cryin” continues this vibe, although the song itself is a little more forgettable than its precursors.Īll this changes, however, when “Don’t You Ever Leave Me” kicks in, a singalong record that almost could have been a power ballad – in fact, it pretty much was when the band remade the single with a slower tempo for 1984 album Two Steps From The Move. That doesn’t mean to say that Village Girl doesn’t pack a punch though – the tune fades out to the kind of guitar solo that was set to dominate the Sunset Strip for the next decade, at the hands of many other bands. Bowie did it (and did it well), Dee did it (maybe not so well) – but Michael undoubtedly did it first. Monroe was, and still is, famed for his glamorous appearance, blurring the lines between what were, in the early 80’s, very rigid gender boundaries. Follow up “Village Girl” gives extravagant singer Michael Monroe the chance to show off some slightly flashier and more risqué vocals – fitting really, for a man of his image. It is a song that, in retrospect, was way ahead of its time, the opening bars reminiscent of new-wave bands like Blondie.
Opener “Tragedy” remains one of Hanoi’s biggest hits, written by primary song master Andy McCoy when just in his early teens. This ten-track stonker first saw the cruel light of day in 1981 – long before Axl and Slash had even met. The first of the three albums to be re-released is the group’s debut record – the slightly wordily titled ‘ Bangkok Shocks, Saigon Shakes, Hanoi Rocks’. But now that UK based label Dissonance Productions has released reissues of some of Hanoi’s classic albums, it may well be the time that rock fans finally give this flamboyant, daring band the credit they deserve. As the saying goes, hindsight is a beautiful thing. They are a group who never quite broke through into commercial success, selling most of their records in Scandinavia and (unsurprisingly) Asia. Motley Crue, Twisted Sister, Poison, Guns N Roses… but the band that started it all is most definitely Finland’s Hanoi Rocks. Ask anyone – even huge classic metal fans – where the glam scene began, and most will put it down to the obvious culprits.
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