Style: hard rock, heavy metal
Label: Warner Bros.
Year: 1989
Home: Copenhagen, Denmark
Members: Jesper Binzer ~ lead vocals/rhythm guitar
Jacob "Cobber" Binzer ~ lead guitar
Stig Pedersen ~ bass/b. vocals
Peter Lundholm Jensen ~ drums
Most bands are experts at talking big on how they sound like no other band. But, let's be honest - talking & doing are different things & a lot of bands do a good job at sounding like a lot of other bands & there's absolutely nothing wrong with this if the end result rocks out. This is particularly true for the hair metal/80's bands which made it a habit to largely sound & look like each other. But, let's be honest again & say a fan of 80's hair metal largely loves a lot of bands of the era because they sound alike. Familiarity may breed contempt but it also breeds a ready made audience for the new band on the scene. Many will remember Denmark's D-A-D (or D.A.D. or D:A:D depending on what phase of their career it is, originally Disneyland After Dark) who made their international breakthrough with their third album No Fuel Left For The Pilgrims & spawned a couple hits including "Sleeping My Day Away" & the memorable MTV video of girls marching in sexy fatigues "Girl Nation". America would be left with this brief taste as the band found the scene too hard to crack & eventually returned to focusing their attentions primarily on Europe only to stake out a career that continues to the present day with albums coming every couple years. Yes, they follow the hair rock mold set by their across the ocean rock brothers in America. But, giving them more than a cursory listen D-A-D actually does sound different. No Fuel Left For The Pilgrims is a very strong release that should be much bigger than it is, with critics in general agreement, & great starting point for discovering the differences lying underneath the hard rock of D-A-D. I'm reminded a lot of a tame Danzig but with a bit of twang, particularly "Sleeping My Day Away" with its catchy three note Duane Eddy-esque riff. It also helps that bassist Stig Pedersen is known for his extremely large & oddly shaped basses, his own designs, that often only have 2 or 3 strings instead of the normal four, sometimes even limiting his playing to 1 string, giving the band a unique & often prominent low end. D-A-D is a riff lover's feast. While the lyrics are cliched they're also a little off kilter with a bit of non-sensical whimsiness to keep them falling into the same maudlin melodrama that so many of their hair metal peers churned out. Though, it's interesting how time can change things as there's one song that would surely raise eyebrows today if the band was better known - "Jihad" - with its chorus "Jihad, I'm getting mad/there's no fuel left for the pilgrims". Ah, how world events have killed some interesting song topics. The fact that this song isn't on a banned lists sadly demonstrates how forgotten the band has become in America ... a shame as they have a very strong & enjoyable catalog worth going back & hunting up. Or, you could just leave them as Denmark's secret & continue to wonder why American critics rave about this supposedly obscure 80's band. Your loss.
The fact that this song isn't on a banned lists sadly demonstrates how forgotten the band has become in America
ReplyDeleteI would rather say this shows how sad America is, it was never intended to be offensive, so why would they ban it?
Should they ban all songs that is about drugs and weapons then? I mean, they've done at least as much if not more harm than Jihads in USA.
That's a good point, BUT, if you look at the list of the 48 (suggested) banned songs (by ClearChannel) that came after 9-11 (you could even go back in time to Tipper Gore's banned profane songs and the point is the same) many of them have nothing offensive about them and are completely unrelated to terrorism/Islam/Middle East but they 'imply' something 'bad'. So, though "Jihad" is JUST a word and has really no Islamic context in the lyrics ... someone might hear it out of context and think the song is about something it isn't. Even considering the fact that this isn't an American band. That's the way this works.
ReplyDeleteAs for guns/weapons ... 9/11 was a rallying call of nationalist pride that continues to this day. Nobody was out there supporting the actions of the terrorists ... the opposite the guns movement where there are some that want to ban guns and others that want them. Same with drugs.
So, 9-11 is a different situation politically than guns or drugs. It's completely hypocritical to ban something that's bad even though it isn't and not ban something else (uh, Ice-T's "Cop Killer" anyone?), but that's the way society works.
Going back to banned songs ... for those that might be curious ... it includes "all songs" by Rage Against The Machine, AC/DC's "Safe In NYC", Metallica "Enter Sandman", Queen's "Killer Queen" (which is a song about a high society woman!!!!????), Alice In Chain's "Rooster", Van Halen's "Jump" & "Dancing In The Stret" (but the original Motown version & the Jagger/Bowie is still alloowed!), GNR's "Knockin On Heaven's Door" (Bob Dylan's version was still allowed!), Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven" (considering Plant has said he doesn't know what the lyrics are really about), Hendrix's "Hey Joe", Alien Ant Farm's "Smooth Criminal" (but not Michael Jackson's original!), Megadeth's "Sweating Bullets" & "Dread & The Fugitive Mind"!
So, as you said, yes, "this show how sad America is" ... they ban songs that have nothing to do with nothing but only particular versions and have missed out on some great bands.