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Big Game

White Lion - Big Game Audio CD

A fair review of the White Lion "Big Game" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all White Lion reviews here, or go back to the White Lion tabs.

Band: White Lion
Title: Big Game
Rating:

Release Date: 1989-06-08
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Goin' Home Tonight 2: Dirty Woman 3: Little Fighter 4: Broken Home 5: Baby Be Mine 6: Living on the Edge 7: Let's Get Crazy 8: Don't Say It's Over 9: If My Mind Is Evil 10: Radar Love 11: Cry for Freedom

Great sound and guitar licks.
Say what you want about this type of Rock, you'd be hard pressed to find better guitar work than on "Goin' Home Tonight" and "Livin' on the edge".

Heavy AOR funsters
With precise playing and lush production by 'Michael Wagener for Double Trouble Productions' this is a rock 'n' roll album full of uplifting tunes. Kicking off with the fun boys night out songs Goin' Home Tonight and Dirty Woman the scene is set for White Lions sophomore effort to be a brilliant highway cruiser of an album. And due to some mystical X factor White Lion were an accepted entity by AOR lovers AND hard rock fans in a way that some other bands of equal heaviness weren't (Firehouse anyone?).

As the album unfolds Mike Tramps raspy voice guides the listener through the highs and lows of the discs journey. And there are some dodgy tunes here - Broken Home not really interesting me. Or maybe it cuts too close to the bone for me (someone get me Dr Phil on line 2). But the breezy highs are way more numerous and it's hard not to rate this as a guilty pleasure. Let's Get Crazy, Don't Say It's Over and the much touted cover of Radar Love stacking on the cheese but in a backwardly acceptable way.

And that's without mentioning the all guns blazing If My Mind Is Evil. Wow, funny how this band didn't address this musical direction more given their obvious ability to court it brilliantly. Sort of spiritual cousin to Warsong from their Mane Attraction album.

Four stars for what it is - fun time AOR played with passion and not money making cynicism as it's driving force.

The absolute best (and worst) of White Lion
Fight to Survive and Pride are classic 80's rock albums, and I had high hopes for Big Game as well. 1989's Big Game was album #3 from White Lion, one of my favorite bands from the hair metal era. Unfortunately, despite containing some of the band's absolute best songs, it also has some of their worst songs.

Songs like Goin' Home Tonight, Little Fighter, Cry for Freedom and the cover of Golden Earring's Radar Love are some of the best White Lion songs ever. If the whole album was this good, it would be one of the era's best albums. These songs showcase the best aspects of the Mike Tramp/Vito (you can call me Eddie Van Halen if you want to) Bratta partnership.

Sadly, the rest of the album is nowhere near as good. Broken Home, Living on the Edge, Let's Get Crazy, and Don't Say It's Over aren't bad per se, but they're definitely filler tracks, and Dirty Woman, Baby Be Mine, and If My Mind Is Evil may just be the worst White Lion songs ever.

It may not be my favorite White Lion album, but there are enough great songs on Big Game to make it well worth owning, though you may find yourself reaching for the skip button a few times.
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A Heavy Metal Diamond, OR Go Bratta, Go! Go! Go! Go, Vito, Go!!!
I say they tried, because they didn't quite get there. THE GOOD: Michael Wagener and White Lion attempted to balance the band's hard rock beginnings (nearly completely lost in the second WL cd) in their third outing, 1989's Big Game. But the effort made this cd more lasting if not more popular than 1987's Pride. And Vito Bratta took that proverbial inch for a mile and ran completely guitar hot-rod for miles and miles and miles on this album. Everybody knows about drum fills, but Bratta proves that there are such things as guitar fills and that they're a magic art for the best of shredders. His opening to "Little Fighter" is forever, unforgettingly memorable: a melodious, almost tropical (Calypso, if you will) instrumental piece that seguays into hard-rock rhythm music that keeps ascending until you get to the chorus and are about jumping out of your head. It's Bratta that makes a great melody in "Goin' Home Tonight" an absolutely awesome song. It's his whining and moaning guitar that keeps you listening to "Dirty Woman" (which is hard to get past due to lines like "Every time I'm near your candy store, I know for sure that I'll be back for more"). And I don't know how many players could keep up with the complex time changes in "Baby Be Mine" and actually pull them off with great skill without a second, rhythm guitarist to help out. (Bratta, by the way, does all the fret chores on the cd, like he did on all the original WL cds,: by himself. ) And the way he absolutely tears loose from the beginning to end of "Let's Get Crazy" is to die for; it's one long cut-loose, ten-finger blazing solo. There's more, but I don't want to spend the whole review talking only about Vito. Suffice it to say that this cd stands as a shrine to his talent. It's also good to see WL getting back to their serious mode. "If My Mind Is Evil" is a stoked fire of a song against those who try to use religion for no other purpose than to prove how fallen and evil and worthless they think other people are. "Broken Home" can honestly make you cry. It did me. And more than once. When it asks "Have you forgot the reason why this little child was born? Cause if you go on fighting, you'll destroy this family . . . ," you can't be human and not feel for anyone who's dealt with divorce and abuse and broken people giving up on the love that first made them a family. And it suggests this heartwarming, truly soulful hope: "Just hold him and love him, touch this child of love. And try your best to save this broken home. Stop fighting, stop hurting, try to love again, and do your best to save this broken home. " The words of a suffering and bleeding and crying kid trying to change adults back into the loving Mom and Dad they use to be. Powerful, powerful stuff. THE WEIRD: The cd's transition from a song about true love and returning to the one you love to a second song in which a woman's greatest virtue is the fact that "I don't know your name" and whose only purpose is to "show me the way . . . to play . . . sex!" is just, well, weird. And then in "Living on the Edge," which is a great song, Mike Tramp creates this College Not-Dropout (because the song tells you that he finished college!?) who "ain't got a job" and "don't want no one telling [him] what to do" who has a "bad reputation" (like, uh, going to college) and "a story to match" who rides off in the "sunset" like a cowboy (on, uh, a college campus!?) and shouts with all his bad grammar: "I'm gonna do what I want, and I don't change for no one!" Bizarre. THE BEST: This cd should get six stars. Having annoyed their original hardcore, heavy metal fans by going all MTV Top 40, White Lion got back to basics in a big way. At the risk of losing millions of pop fans, they blew the roof off and destroyed the ceiling that record executives were trying to hold them down with. With this cd, White Lion proved that they are much, much more than glam rockers, and they turned out a cd that's a heavy metal diamond to this day.
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Still my favorite White Lion album
Formed in New York City by Tramp (having just moved to NYC from Denmark) and Bratta (from Staten Island, NY). THE BAND: Mike Tramp (vocals), Vito Bratta (guitars), James Lomenzo (bass), Greg D'Angelo (drums & percussion).

THE DISC: (1989) 11 tracks clocking in at approximately 53 minutes. Included with the disc is a 6-page booklet containing song titles/credits, song lyrics, band photos, and thank you's. This is the band's 3rd studio album. Recorded at Amigo Studios in Los Angeles. Label - Atlantic Records.

COMMENTS: In the mid to late 80's several of rock's biggest bands like Def Leppard, Guns 'N Roses, Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, Iron Maiden, and Van Halen were stealing the headlines. Grabbing some attention, but not nearly enough, were the other long-haired glam rock bands of the time - Dokken, Mr. Big, Y&T, Enuff Z'Nuff, Bulletboys, LA Guns, and White Lion. In the late 80's I was living just outside Los Angeles - and the California bands simply dominated the big hair scene. I had grown up on Long Island and had all ready moved west by the time White Lion made the scene. Since White Lion did not make a big splash in California (my opinion only). . . I sincerely hoped they were having more success in their native northeast. White Lion was all about emotion and melody. Tramp's throaty yet impassioned vocals, and Bratta's amazing guitar-work were always the highlights. Lomenzo in the background on bass and D'Angelo (ex-Anthrax) being the steady back bone - rivaling Sib Hashian (Boston), Hirsch Gardner (New England) or Bobby Rock (Vinny Vincent Invasion) for biggest afro behind the kit. I put Vito Bratta in the same category as John Sykes (Blue Murder, Whitesnake, Tygers Of Pan Tang, Thin Lizzy), Paul Gilbert (Racer X, Mr. Big, solo), Ritchie Kotzen (Poison, Mr. Big, solo) and Vinnie Vincent (Kiss, V. V. 's Invasion). . . simply a wizard on the guitar, but failing to achieve the major success and celebrated status they so justly deserved. After decades of only occasional spins in the CD player, I went back and revisited "Pride" (1987) and "Big Game" with the soul purpose of listening to Bratta's guitar (thank you Murat for the advise). Simply put, Bratta could shred. Sadly (as I've read), due to family obligations and a wrist injury, Bratta is all but out of the music business since the mid-to-late 90's. "Pride" may well be the band's best and most complete/varied work (charting higher at #11 and producing 2 decent hits with "Wait" and "When The Children Cry"), but I still favor "Big Game". To me, "Big Game" was a heavier album featuring crunchier tunes. As for the music on this disc - "Big Game" is full of great tracks, highlighted with 2 minor hits - "Little Fighter" and a remake of Golden Earring's "Radar Love" (dare I say it's as satisfying as the original). Since I lean to the heavier songs, the other gems include "Living On The Edge" (a great tale about a man with a car and only the clothes on his back, no job, looking for a break. . . riding into the sunset), "Let's Go Crazy" (and outstanding guitar piece - sounding like a fast-paced Van Halen tribute. . . complete with David Lee Roth-esque howls and whistles), the heaviest song on the album "If My Mind Is Evil" (with a biting story about a man questioning his beliefs and being persuaded by a late night televangelist - one of my favorite tunes in their entire catalog), and the political mid-tempo song about apartheid in Africa, "Cry For Freedom". White Lion was not just another 80's hair band - they were an exciting rock band with talented musicians and intriguing stories to tell. I like "Big Game" as much as "Pride". . . and because it rocks harder, I reach for this one first (5 stars).
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You can see a complete list of all White Lion discography, or go back to the White Lion tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.