In some ways, Extreme was a band who never got the recognition
\nthey truly deserved. Musically, they often proved themselves to be
\na sharp group, thanks in no small part to the work of vocalist Gary
\nCherone and guitarist Nuno Bettencourt. Maybe they were stigmatized
\nby the success they eventually had with two ballads, “More Than
\nWords” and “Hole Hearted” – a fate that sunk other bands of that
\ntime, like Mr. Big (who are still together) and Saigon Kick.<\/p>\n
But in other ways, Extreme might have been so much hype. They
\nnever were able to repeat the success they had with
\nExtreme II: Pornograffiti<\/i>, former members have had
\ndifficulties with post-Extreme work (I’m not commenting on drummer
\nPat Badger’s new project, only because I have yet to listen to it),
\nand most of their albums have disappeared into the realms of
\nobscurity.<\/p>\n
The group’s self-titled debut from 1989 has moments of
\nbrilliance, but to borrow a phrase a certain TV show once used,
\nExtreme often sounds like they’re not quite ready for prime
\ntime.<\/p>\n
In a way, this disc tries to mimic some of the biggest cliches
\nin rock at that time. You have your song that sounds like it was
\nlifted from Nazareth’s “Hair Of The Dog” (“Flesh ‘N’ Blood”), you
\nhave your stereotypical paeans to good ol’ T&A (“Teacher’s
\nPet”), you have your Van Halen-clone (uh, maybe we shouldn’t go
\nthere) in “Mutha (Don’t Want To Go To School Today)”, and you have
\nBettencourt proving he studied the Eddie Van Halen book on guitar
\nlicks. You even have the sign of things that were to come in the
\nballads department with tracks like “Watching, Waiting” and “Rock A
\nBye Bye”.<\/p>\n
Okay, sounds as if all I’m gonna do is piss and moan about this
\nalbum, right? Well, maybe for a little longer. Extreme’s
\nsongwriting shows that there is still some work that was needed on
\ntracks like “Big Boys Don’t Cry” and “Play With Me,” but it didn’t
\nseem like anything major needed to be tweaked. (This was confirmed
\none album later.)<\/p>\n
For all the weaknesses,
\nExtreme<\/i> does turn in some high-caliber performances and
\nefforts. “Kid Ego,” the song that first woke people up to this
\nband, has the chops that easily could have made it a hit single,
\nand offers a glimpse into the vein that they’d follow on songs like
\n“Decadence Dance” and “Get The Funk Out” on
\nExtreme II: Pornograffiti<\/i>. Likewise, “Wind Me Up,” a song
\nthat admittedly has to grow on you, proves itself to be a catchy
\ntrack that holds up to repeated listenings.<\/p>\n
Other tracks like “Little Girls” and “Smoke Signals” aren’t
\nquite as strong, but they eventually prove themselves to be as
\ndeserving of your attention as tracks like “Kid Ego”.<\/p>\n
The biggest problem that Extreme had at this time was that the
\nband was searching for its own unique voice – and had they found it
\nin their songwriting at this time, then
\nExtreme<\/i> might have been unstoppable. Sadly, this was not the
\ncase.<\/p>\n
\nExtreme<\/i> is the kind of album you occasionally pull out to
\nremind yourself just who these guys were before they hit the big
\ntime – and crashed to earth not long after. Is it required
\nlistening? With the recent release of an Extreme greatest hits
\ndisc, maybe not – and admittedly, some parts of the album are a
\nlittle painful to get through. But it’s still worth listening to at
\nleast once in order to understand who they were at the start of
\ntheir career, not where they would eventually go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5626],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-36535","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-extreme","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36535"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36535"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}