Your favorite pre-1987 Whitesnake album?

[Kum Ruzvelt]

My fave is Live ... in the Heart of the City.
What's yours?

[miamiscot]

Slide It In

[Zappathustra]

Easy. Ready 'n' Willin'. If the Live doesn't count.

Although I haven't listened to this in ages, I don't even have to. This record has a special place in my heart.

[SteveSly]

I would go with the live one too. I saw the original version of Whitesnake open for Jethro Tull somewhere around 1980-ish. They were really good and much different from what they became later.

[Zaragon]

Ready an' Willing has a generous share of standout cuts.

[JKL2000]

I just love the Tipper Gore-worthy cover art!

[GuitarGeek]

I just love the Tipper Gore-worthy cover art!

Classic cover artwork.
To be honest, the only albums I'm really familiar with are Saints & Sinners and Live...From The Heart Of The City. Good records, both of them. I should have Slide It In, but I think that wast he one where they remixed the record for the US release, and I was always holding out for the UK version, which I never came across (though honestly, I really wasn't looking that hard).

[Mister Triscuits]

I just love the Tipper Gore-worthy cover art!

Herpetologically incorrect.

[GuitarGeek]

Herpetologically incorrect.

Say what now?

[Halmyre]

I just love the Tipper Gore-worthy cover art!

I wouldn't go looking too closely at the cover of Come and Get It either:

[JKL2000]

^ I’d tap that!

[Facelift]

I can't see the upside in listening to any Whitesnake album.

[Trane]

Easy. Ready 'n' Willin'. If the Live doesn't count.

Although I haven't listened to this in ages, I don't even have to. This record has a special place in my heart.

Lord, Paice, Birch, Coverdale... this WS period sounded like the Stormbringer continuity

I'd go for the Live album as well, if only becauseit acts like some kind of "best of".

Haven't owned an album of theirs since the 80's... Couldn't possibly listen to one nowadays too.

Last one I bothered with was Slide It in (with Coz inimitable drum banging on it).

I just realized that Coverdale had some fantastic 70's drummers for a while in the 80's: Paice, Powell, Dunbar, Aldridge...

[iguana]

yep, this thread makes sense, with 1987 being such a watershed year/album for WHiTESNAKE. i have always liked that band and its many incarnations.

currently a draw between “ready an’ willing” and “saints & sinners”. honourable mention to “live … in the heart of the city”, one of the finest live albums i know.

[Fracktured]

I never got into them. Were they reminiscent of 80’s DP?


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[Scrotum Scissor]

Were they reminiscent of 80’s DP?

Not at all.

They were Coverdale's vision of a modern r&b-infused drinking group playing melodic rock and roll, and I suppose to that end it even worked. If anything, they sounded uncannily like Free (Paul Rodgers' band) at times, and like them they were lumped into the 'hard rock' bin for commercial convenience. I loved Whitesnake back when I was 11-14 years old, i.e. before discovering "experimental" rock music. I can't listen to them anymore, though. Too much painful pre-pubalescent reminiscence to be had.

By 1987 and their multi million-selling Whitesnake, the band was essentially a mid-life-crisis-founded shampoodle-metal endeavour, pretty well documented by their abominable rerecording of "Here I Go Again" and some of the worst music videos known to man.

[Trane]

I never got into them. Were they reminiscent of 80’s DP?

Despite what Scrot says above, I tend to think they did sound a bit like Purple (not just because of Lord and Paice), but iron Maiden did as well from Killers onwards

The culprit is of course Martin Birch which in those years turned to goldleaves every album he produced... But one had to be very strong to not sound 'Purplish" under his control knobs.... Balck Sabbath (H&H and Mob Rules) and BÖC sounded less Birchy and more Oaky
Rainbow and Priest sort of escaped to that once they had Glover at producing their album (not that JP ever went to MB).

Not at all.

They were Coverdale's vision of a modern r&b-infused drinking group playing melodic rock and roll, and I suppose to that end it even worked. If anything, they sounded uncannily like Free (Paul Rodgers' band) at times, and like them they were lumped into the 'hard rock' bin for commercial convenience.
I loved Whitesnake back when I was 11-14 years old, i.e. before discovering "experimental" rock music. I can't listen to them anymore, though. Too much painful pre-pubalescent reminiscence to be had.

By 1987 and their multi million-selling Whitesnake, the band was essentially a mid-life-crisis-founded shampoodle-metal endeavour, pretty well documented by their abominable rerecording of "Here I Go Again" and some of the worst music videos known to man.

difficult not to be labelled hard rock (and therefore heavy metal) back then (where Free and Bad Co were also lumped in, BTW), and of course 87 saw they jump on the hair-metal bandwagon, as you say so well

But the reason why I couldn't listen to WS anymore today is more like "Fuck, I could also have horrible (read average) tastes as a late teen as well", much more than the "fuck, I puked all my booze and dinner all over her dress and never got to diddle her boobs & twat afterwards" type of thing

[Mister Triscuits]

The only time I've ever heard Whitesnake that I'm aware of was when I saw them opening for Jethro Tull in 1980. They sucked mightily. Jon Lord's keyboards were inaudible.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Despite what Scrot says above, I tend to think they did sound a bit like Purple (not just because of Lord and Paice), but iron Maiden did as well from Killers onwards

difficult not to be labelled hard rock (and therefore heavy metal) back then (where Free and Bad Co were also lumped in, BTW),

They sounded nothing like 80s Purple (the Perfect Strangers deal), and even less like Iron Maiden. Whitesnake were initiated as a melodic blues-rock group, and while they veered into hard rock-terrain eventually, there was preciously little "metal" until that dreadful '87 release.

And I already stated that Free (whom WS were heavily induced by) were also considered hard rock. Much to the frustration of this 'hard rock' fan who expected to hear just that but instead got songs like "Come Together In the Morning" and "My Brother Jake" on attempt. Both great tunes nowadays, btw...

The reason why I get shivers from the thought of venturing back into ultra-masculine propositions with the 'snake, Hugues, isn't because I puked over someone's dress. It's by and large because my dedication to hard rockin' rock in the pre-puberty days was singularly motivated by my intimate need for (over)compensation as a way of coping with absent pubic hair.

"Please, PLEASE bring on that hair!" I used to yell while tuffin' out to "Slide It In". By the time the 'snake got hair in '87, I'd already developed some hair on my snake. And that's why I abandoned them to never ever return again. Instead I took resort in the new macho-toughness of Jon Anderson, Geddy Lee et al.

[Progatron]

By 1987 and their multi million-selling Whitesnake, the band was essentially a mid-life-crisis-founded shampoodle-metal endeavour, pretty well documented by their abominable rerecording of "Here I Go Again" and some of the worst music videos known to man.

As a fourteen year-old watching Tawny Kitaen in a sexy white dress drape herself over the hood of a car, I would have disagreed with that assessment. However in 2018, Tawny Kitaen, like so many aging women in the spotlight, has had a ton of plastic surgery that makes her look like a cross between the Joker and a three month-old Jack O' Lantern.

[miamiscot]

As a fourteen year-old watching Tawny Kitaen in a sexy white dress drape herself over the hood of a car, I would have disagreed with that assessment. However in 2018, Tawny Kitaen, like so many aging women in the spotlight, has had a ton of plastic surgery that makes her look like a cross between the Joker and a three month-old Jack O' Lantern.

Yikes!!! And yes, why do they never leave the face alone.
LEAVE THE FACE ALONE!!!
That's the money-maker, dummy!

[Guitarplyrjvb]

The lyrics are so stupid, I can't get past them.

[Zappathustra]

If anything, they sounded uncannily like Free (Paul Rodgers' band) at times...

Of course they did, the music, the lyrics (there are too many examples). I discovered Free later than Whitesnake, and this discovery damaged somehow my love for the Snake. But it is moving the way Coverdale - against the tide of times - continued to carry the torch of blues-rock in the 80's. Almost on his own.

The s/t 1987 is a weird record. On the one hand the sacrilege of re-recording Here I Go Again as a soft-metal tune, the blatant copy of Led Zep, the AOR of Is This Love? constitute a black spot in Dave's career. But players like Dunbar and John Sykes (whose guitar aggression is one of the finest examples of metal guitar playing) make parts of the album very enjoyable and could have amounted to a great album, if the song-writing was different. But of course the intention was lacking. The intention was to finally breakthrough to the US market.

Still, a great and rare voice.

[progmatist]

I just love the Tipper Gore-worthy cover art!

In the late '80s, the first time I wore this t-shirt at my new job, a coworker said it was going to be his next tattoo. Our immediate supervisor, who was a woman about 15 years our senior, said "yeah, it's pretty cool."

[progmatist]

The s/t 1987 is a weird record. On the one hand the sacrilege of re-recording Here I Go Again as a soft-metal tune, the blatant copy of Led Zep, the AOR of Is This Love? constitute a black spot in Dave's career. But players like Dunbar and John Sykes (whose guitar aggression is one of the finest examples of metal guitar playing) make parts of the album very enjoyable and could have amounted to a great album, if the song-writing was different. But of course the intention was lacking. The intention was to finally breakthrough to the US market.

I agree that replacing Jon's keyboards with the cheesy, breathy '80s keyboards ruined Here I Go Again. Not to mention the metal guitars. On the other hand, replacing "like a hobo I was born to walk alone" with "like a drifter I was born to walk alone" did work better lyrically.

The only time I've ever heard Whitesnake that I'm aware of was when I saw them opening for Jethro Tull in 1980. They sucked mightily. Jon Lord's keyboards were inaudible.

Shortly after the DP reunion, Jon stated he was much happier that his fingers were moving again. Whitesnake used him as a portable orchestra.