After the massive success of Private Dancer<\/i>, a world tour, four Grammy awards, and a blockbuster film (Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome<\/i>,) Tina Turner was on top of the world, and rightfully so. She had pulled off a remarkable comeback and was finally receiving the kudos she deserved.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The follow-up to Private Dancer<\/i> became another chart-busting, multi-million selling LP. A record-breaking tour followed as Turner cemented her place as the premier female rock performer of all time. The only glitch (with the wisdom of hindsight) is that Break Every Rule <\/i>is a really disappointing album, and where its predecessor still sounds fresh and edgy, this disc has dated dreadfully.<\/p>\n
To repeat the success of Private Dancer<\/i>, Tina and Roger Davies employed the song writing team of Britten and Lyle to once again work their magic; the first five tracks are theirs. Two of their contributions here are truly dismal. \u201cAfterglow\u201d is moody and Tina gives a great \u201chalf-assed\u201d reading of a clich\u00e9 lyric, but it\u2018s just too similar to \u201cWhat\u2019s Love Got To Do With It\u201d to break any new ground. \u201c\u2019Til The Right Man Comes Along\u201d is the second worst song here and really sounds as if no one had the nerve to tell them it sucked; even Tina, for once, sounds stone cold bored.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\u201cTwo People\u201d and \u201cWhat You Get Is What You See\u201d are much better, however, the former being a sweet love song that Tina clearly enjoyed singing. Meanwhile, the latter is a cheeky ode to the masculine sex sung by the decade\u2019s sexiest rocker, an up-tempo and fun pop-rocker that charted well and still packs a punch.<\/p>\n
The other Britten\/Lyle track is the opener, \u201cTypical Male,\u201d which became the LP\u2019s only #1 hit.\u00a0 It\u2019s fun and rocks in the right places, including Phil Collins on the drums. Mark Knopfler contributes a song (\u201cOvernight Sensation\u201d), which has Tina lamenting her past: \u201c<\/i>I had to beat the stage fright, had to cry all night \/ Tryin\u2019 to make the song fit, when you know it never was mine.\u201d Again, it\u2019s fun and rocks well, but it suffers heavily from the horrid \u201880s production, a little too <\/i>much gloss.<\/p>\n
The title track and \u201cI\u2019ll Be Thunder\u201d were both co-written by Rupert Hine. \u201c<\/i>Break Every Rule\u201d <\/i>is very pop in its execution as well as its lyrics; it\u2019s littered with beefy guitars (probably an attempt to rock it up) but it just comes off sounding confused and a bit messy really.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll Be Thunder\u201d is easily the worst song Tina has ever recorded; you would struggle to find a bigger turkey than this, even in the 1980\u2019s. The song is void of a melody, and any emotional pleading that Turner delivers is drowned out by a lush and insipid attempt at some sort of ambient arrangement.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Still, there are two absolute gems to be found here after all. The Bryan Adams\/Jim Vallance-penned \u201cBack Where You Started\u201d is the kind of stadium rocker that Tina does better than any woman and most men; this was definitely the way to go. If only \u201cThe Queen Of Rock\u201d actually recorded rock albums\u2026<\/p>\n
The other gem is easily the album\u2019s best and one of Turner\u2019s most pleasing ballads. \u201cParadise Is Here,\u201d written by Paul Brady, is an atmospheric and moody ballad that builds into a wonderful climax. Although the saxophone was the decade\u2019s most abused instrument, it is thankfully put to good use here and Tina\u2019s performance is effortlessly sublime and reminds us that she is an exceptional singer, given the right material.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
This is not her worst, but without a doubt, it is Tina\u2019s most disappointing album. It did its job, though, and sold well in support of the Break Every Rule <\/i>tour, which smashed records and sold out the world\u2019s biggest venues. The pop fluff here was again beefed up by her band and delivered with gusto, which when you are familiar with the power of her shows, listening to the originals here can be a rather unfulfilling experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":29399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7487],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-40971","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-tina-turner","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40971","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\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40971"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}