The Best of 1985

In keeping with the now-recurring, bi-monthly theme, here's 1985's list of greatest and bestest albums. Well, from at least my point of view. This year has some rather odd subsections. With a little luck, I'll explain some of these oddities. I'm leaving out the favorite tracks and relying instead on the video for examples. Enjoy.

Rough Cutt: Rough Cutt
Simply stated, the best album of the year. Hands down. Unfortunately, I'm one of about ... oh, maybe a dozen or so ... that actually treasure this album that way. In retrospect, there were really two saving graces for this album. One was that it was something of a hidden treasure. The band was always something of a Ronnie/Wendy Dio side-project. His wife managed the band for at least a good chuck of time as they approached what little stardom they did. Dio took band members for his own project, as did just about every other band in the land. Ozzy would claim a guitar player. Like a lot of bands on the Sunset Strip, lineups were rather fluid. The second positive from this album was Paul Shortino's voice. Check the video for that. Not a lot of guys out there that can faithfully cover Janis Joplin.

The band's first album is perhaps nothing really unique for the era, but it encompasses a lot of the things I liked about it. The first side of the album was one that I'm sure I wore out over the course of this year. Not a bad track on it at all.

Steve Morse: Stand Up (Unity Gain)
Jeff Beck: Flash
Ry Cooder: Paris, Texas
Barbara Streisand: The Broadway Album
Yeah, I know the first question off of this list. Some guitar mag asked Steve Vai what five albums he thought were the best of the year and listed Babs. I took him up on the dare and saw a bit of what Vai saw in it. It remains the only Streisand album I have ... and yes, I did try to pick out the vocal melodies on guitar. Failed miserably at it, too.

Clearly, this is the oddball list. Aside from Jeff Beck's great comeback album - with an incredible version of "People Get Ready" with Rod Stewart - the rest are somewhat obscure. Take the Steve Morse album as an example. It's not even one that most Steve Morse fans would recall. What I recall was driving to work on a Sunday morning. KEGL had jazz music playing in that time slot. I was sorta in my "expanding horizons" mode of learning guitar. And yet, I simply do not get jazz. Not for the life of me. But when "Unity Gain" came on, I had to pull the car over to take that one in and make sure I got the name of the song & artist afterwards. Took me a week to locate a record store with an up-to-date Steve Morse catalog, but I managed. Not your typical southern-fried Steve Morse stuff, either. Which is what I loved about it. Words don't do it justice ... just dig up an old copy of the CD somewhere.

Ry Cooder is one that I probably only appreciate because of the movie it was attached to. Great movie, perfect music set to it, and another one of those "expanding horizons" type of deals. The video I run is from the movie that every guitar-playing kid of the 80s memorized note-for-note. Easily one of the funnest solos (Vai's part especially) to spend time learning.

Jeff Beck ... no commentary necessary. The man is a legend. 'nuff said.

Dokken: Under Lock & Key
Yngwie J. Malmsteen: Marching Out
Alcatrazz: Distubing the Peace
Pantera: I Am The Night
Vandenberg: Alibi
Loudness: Thunder In the East
Ratt: Invasion of Your Privacy
Dire Straits: Brothers in Arms
Visionquest Soundtrack
Everything that makes a kid play guitar in the 80s is present here. Steve Vai replacing Yngwie for the Alcatrazz album was a mere hint of things to come. But they were a reminder of why the guy was credited for "Impossible Guitar Parts" on Zappa's stuff. Yngwie, it was becoming clear that new ideas were at a premium. But there was still some good tunes on this more commercial release.

For some reason, I was probably more into the Dokken stuff than anything else. This album pushed me over the fence to go get the rest of their albums and rip off George Lynch as much as possible. "Alone Again" was a staple of whatever musical project I could put together at the time. Also probably the only song the garage band made it through without messing it up.

The Pantera album was actually the first one I heard. This was toward the end of their glam era, but the songs still fit the genre well. Visionquest had a wide range of tunes on there, but the one that made me buy it was Ronnie Dio's "Hungry for Heaven." Dire Straits was obviously shooting for more of a commercial vein, what with MTV and all. But the album did spark me to go back and get their first release in an even more futile effort to learn "Sultans of Swing." Needless to say, fingerpicking wasn't for me and I refused to do a disservice to Mark Knopfler by playing his music with a pick. I also refuse to add the predictable hit from the album into the video jukebox. I'll leave it to you to be a skosh surprised at my choice there.

Ratt, Vandenberg, Loudness ... what do I need to say?

Stryper: Soldiers Under Command
Darrell Mansfield: Revelation
Two entrants for the Christian metal scene. I didn't stumble onto Mansfield's CD until a few years later, actually. The draw of it is that a very young Paul Gilbert (we'll get to him next year!) plays on this album. Mansfield is, in reality, a blues guy doing his darndest to stay with the time here on a metal CD that has a nice Judas Priest-style cover. It's a shame the project never really took off, but I suppose it just would have made Mansfield loathe the years spent outside of his preferred genre. Sadly, no video of Mansfield that I'm finding to demonstrate this album with any justice.

Stryper, that one stands on it's own. And in a good way!

Jason & the Scorchers: Lost and Found
The Power Station: The Power Station
Starship: Knee Deep in the Hoopla
Michael Bolton: Everybody's Crazy
A little bit on the commercial side here. One asterisk for Jason & the Scorchers, though. While they were intended to be a cow-punk band and the purists appreciated them as such, they were packaged as a commercial entity. That didn't do them justice, but the music stood on its own. Lost & Found is another one of those I could play all the way through and enjoy.

With Power Station, we just learned that some of the musicians in Duran Duran were, in reality, good musicians. Actually, it was a solid band from top to bottom. And as an added bonus, it finally gave us metalheads something in common to talk about with the new wave girls in high school. Enough about me, though.

Starship and Bolton, I'm going to defend. Bolton actually got a good review in a guitar mag for this one. His guitarist? Bruce Kulick, who would leave for KISS shortly after recording. I recall the review's close as something along the lines of "Get this guy a guitar player!" And while I think his more popular followup, "The Hunger," was still a great album, you can guess how disappointed I was that he went down the road he chose afterwards. As for Starship, I will only add this: Craig Chaquico was - and still is - an incredibly unheralded guitar player. Save me the Grace Slick cracks, though ... Mickey Thomas kept this band afloat vocally.

And for the videos ...