Crashdiet-Rest in Sleaze
Universal (2005)
Article Date: 27/04/2006
Universal (2005)
Article Date: 27/04/2006
This specific review and my first one aswell on rocking.gr comes abit or maybe quite late for the album of Crashdiet. The death of the bands' lead singer Dave Lepard, a few weeks ago, the subsequent shock and the end of the group's activities, the rumors and intense scenes, made me wonder about the usefulness of this review, on an album in which the title proved to be unhoped prophetic.
Today that i learned that Crashdiet still decide to continue, i'm sending this text to the director.
The Sweden group, Crashdiet were the first hard rock / sleaze band after a decade with a new release (August 2005), which gets into the European Top10 (Sweden) and poses in the first places of it. Many say, manufactured group, while others say views with playback. Crashdiet gain fanatic supporters and enemies (see the dozens of other notable hard rock / glam bands of Sweden remaining underground) and initiate a new generation of teens in hard rock and the standards of the 80's. With a huge package from Universal, TV Spots (Sony Ericsson), press conference and release parties, where everyone still waiting for Guns N' Roses or trying to love Velvet Revolver, Crashdiet seem like the new messiahs and rebel from within. Old product, modern approach.
Rebel-riot, sex, hairspray, doses of Skid Row, Pretty Boy Floyd, Poison, Faster Pussycat and Motley Crue, Jack Daniels, Sunset Boulevard, in an album with great moments ("Riot in Everyone", perhaps the new "Youth Gone Wild"...maybe even better), explosive party songs ("Queen Obscene/69 Shots"), the mid-tempo "It's a Miracle", a small dose of political messages and strong sing-along choruses. GREAT (first) album. "Rest In Sleaze" is a typical example of what can be achieved by a modern sound production on this kind, and the difference of the CD tracks from the leaked demos on the internet, the quality difference of "before" and "after". Loud guitars and volume by Lepard and Sweet, many channels, clean sound.
At this point a small parenthesis that if i don't make i'll burst. To the surprise of many friends of this scene in Greece, i can not leave apart that the musical things in sleaze / hard / melodic rock type never stopped in the 80's or 90's. A type of music dies only when good releases cease to exist, and when this music comes to a halt. Certainly all of us change musical tastes and some may have passed by, and talk about rock at the same way we talk about a childhood disease. We must understand however that the Greek metal forms and the guided promotion of authors and friends of friends excluded (until yesterday) groups of a huge stage of new glam bands that developed in Sweden, Finland, England among other countries, a scene of which the representatives don't execute debts of the ones that would continue the retro-revival, but produce high quality disks, know enormous success and tour in many countries in Europe, offering the opportunity to their fans, to enjoy them at the beginning or the peak of their careers. These media and these representatives are responsible for the phenomenon of the Greek rock / metal fans of the "two groups" (usually Maiden - Metallica), of their ignorance. They divided the Greek rock audience and marginalized many of us in the "old school / expired" and the "sufficiently unbriefed".
Regardless, however, with talent and musical value of the groups such as Crashdiet, these bands, with flawless image, better...clothes than the 80's, modern polished productions and the magic power of the internet and street teams, loom, and get loved with an updated mainstream and a new way.
Crashdiet lived all this very quickly and fairly hastily. Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll and a suicide for Lepard, after a period of depression and rumors (even from the members of the group) for his replacement / dismissal. With hesitant and cautious steps, only a few days after the death of Dave, the members of the group prepared the ground to show that what they had in their hands was "too much" to throw away.
Now that everyone discovers Lordi and Wig Wam -like adults that take the gift that never had as children or after receiving them like rock crusaders in a jubilation (Eurovision)- maybe its the best moment for someone to understand that this "new" scene, and others ignored, deserve our attention. In the modern music scene that everything old has been played by others...new, and everyone expects the pioneering, these bands come to remind us of a feeling of freshness and without guilt the things that grunge, the macho-metal, the mania for the "post-modern", removed from rock...namely the sex-appeal, the madness of it and having fun.
Today that i learned that Crashdiet still decide to continue, i'm sending this text to the director.
The Sweden group, Crashdiet were the first hard rock / sleaze band after a decade with a new release (August 2005), which gets into the European Top10 (Sweden) and poses in the first places of it. Many say, manufactured group, while others say views with playback. Crashdiet gain fanatic supporters and enemies (see the dozens of other notable hard rock / glam bands of Sweden remaining underground) and initiate a new generation of teens in hard rock and the standards of the 80's. With a huge package from Universal, TV Spots (Sony Ericsson), press conference and release parties, where everyone still waiting for Guns N' Roses or trying to love Velvet Revolver, Crashdiet seem like the new messiahs and rebel from within. Old product, modern approach.
Rebel-riot, sex, hairspray, doses of Skid Row, Pretty Boy Floyd, Poison, Faster Pussycat and Motley Crue, Jack Daniels, Sunset Boulevard, in an album with great moments ("Riot in Everyone", perhaps the new "Youth Gone Wild"...maybe even better), explosive party songs ("Queen Obscene/69 Shots"), the mid-tempo "It's a Miracle", a small dose of political messages and strong sing-along choruses. GREAT (first) album. "Rest In Sleaze" is a typical example of what can be achieved by a modern sound production on this kind, and the difference of the CD tracks from the leaked demos on the internet, the quality difference of "before" and "after". Loud guitars and volume by Lepard and Sweet, many channels, clean sound.
At this point a small parenthesis that if i don't make i'll burst. To the surprise of many friends of this scene in Greece, i can not leave apart that the musical things in sleaze / hard / melodic rock type never stopped in the 80's or 90's. A type of music dies only when good releases cease to exist, and when this music comes to a halt. Certainly all of us change musical tastes and some may have passed by, and talk about rock at the same way we talk about a childhood disease. We must understand however that the Greek metal forms and the guided promotion of authors and friends of friends excluded (until yesterday) groups of a huge stage of new glam bands that developed in Sweden, Finland, England among other countries, a scene of which the representatives don't execute debts of the ones that would continue the retro-revival, but produce high quality disks, know enormous success and tour in many countries in Europe, offering the opportunity to their fans, to enjoy them at the beginning or the peak of their careers. These media and these representatives are responsible for the phenomenon of the Greek rock / metal fans of the "two groups" (usually Maiden - Metallica), of their ignorance. They divided the Greek rock audience and marginalized many of us in the "old school / expired" and the "sufficiently unbriefed".
Regardless, however, with talent and musical value of the groups such as Crashdiet, these bands, with flawless image, better...clothes than the 80's, modern polished productions and the magic power of the internet and street teams, loom, and get loved with an updated mainstream and a new way.
Crashdiet lived all this very quickly and fairly hastily. Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll and a suicide for Lepard, after a period of depression and rumors (even from the members of the group) for his replacement / dismissal. With hesitant and cautious steps, only a few days after the death of Dave, the members of the group prepared the ground to show that what they had in their hands was "too much" to throw away.
Now that everyone discovers Lordi and Wig Wam -like adults that take the gift that never had as children or after receiving them like rock crusaders in a jubilation (Eurovision)- maybe its the best moment for someone to understand that this "new" scene, and others ignored, deserve our attention. In the modern music scene that everything old has been played by others...new, and everyone expects the pioneering, these bands come to remind us of a feeling of freshness and without guilt the things that grunge, the macho-metal, the mania for the "post-modern", removed from rock...namely the sex-appeal, the madness of it and having fun.
