After the consecutive disappointments All American Alien Boy<\/i> and Overnight Angels<\/i>, Ian Hunter all too suddenly found himself at a crossroads in his post-Mott The Hoople solo career.\u00a0 The initial promise of his self-titled debut having steadily dimmed, it was becoming not just important but perhaps essential for him to find a way to realize that potential again.<\/p>\n
Step one toward achieving that goal was to move to Chrysalis and reunite with his former musical partner in crime Mick Ronson, he of the prodigious guitar, production and arrangement talents.\u00a0 A mutual admiration society ever since David Bowie had brought Ronson in to help arrange Mott The Hoople\u2019s triumphant All The Young Dudes<\/i> album, over the years Hunter and Ronson consistently brought out the best in one another musically.<\/p>\n
Step two was to recruit a band of world-class players to back Hunter and Ronson in the studio — and you couldn\u2019t ask for better than pulling in Roy Bittan (keys), Garry Tallent (bass) and Max Weinberg (drums) from Bruce Springsteen\u2019s E Street Band.<\/p>\n
Step three was for Hunter to deliver a sharp, focused set of songs with strong hooks and memorable lyrics.\u00a0 Check that one off the list — top to bottom, this is one of the most consistently hooky sets of songs Hunter has ever written.<\/p>\n
The album, produced by Ronson and Hunter, with arrangements by Ronson, Hunter and Bittan, is tight and dynamic from the first \u201chere we go\u201d kick-drum hits of \u201cJust Another Night\u201d to the dramatic final fadeout of \u201cThe Outsider.\u201d\u00a0 In between, you get three of Hunter\u2019s most melodic and memorable rockers in \u201cJust Another Night,\u201d \u201cWild East\u201d and \u201cLife After Death,\u201d the requisite heartfelt ballad in \u201cShips,\u201d and the immortal singalong that is \u201cCleveland Rocks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The latter comes with a story of its own, as it was originally composed for Overnight Angels<\/i>, then left off that album, only to resurface soon afterwards as a standalone single retitled \u201cEngland Rocks.\u201d\u00a0 That version is an entertaining novelty, but the Schizo<\/i> version of \u201cCleveland Rocks\u201d is simply one of the most fun songs ever put to tape — just ask Drew Carey — not to mention one of many Hunter tributes to the American rock\u2019n\u2019roll he loves so well.<\/p>\n
The twist of Schizo<\/i> comes in the latter third when the album lives up to its title (which Ronson copped from graffiti he read on a bathroom wall), becoming distinctly unstable.\u00a0 \u201cStandin\u2019 In My Light\u201d and \u201dBastard\u201d tap into up-til-then hidden reserves of anger and aggression, the latter truly seething by the end, whereupon it drops into the almost-spooky theatrics of \u201cThe Outsider,\u201d a narrative of an Old West drifter that\u2019s arranged like a rock Phantom Of The Opera<\/i>.\u00a0 No, really.\u00a0 Right off the rails, they went\u2026<\/p>\n
The success of You\u2019re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic<\/i> — which hit #35 on the U.S. album charts — ensured that both Ian Hunter\u2019s solo career and the Hunter-Ronson partnership would endure.\u00a0 The subsequent tour was among the most successful of his career and was captured in all its glory on his very next release, the double-live LP Welcome To The Club<\/i>.\u00a0 To use a now-tainted phrase — mission accomplished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5920],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-41458","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-ian-hunter","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41458","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41458"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}