FTV: Albums of 1986

 

     According to an article entitled The Class of 1986 in Guitar World magazine (Vol 47 Issue 3 March 2026), ‘86 was a pivotal year for iconic albums.  In this issue, GW Editor-in-Chief Damian Fanelli recounted some of the recent losses (deaths) the music world has already had this year and then he cut to the chase.  He noted that GW‘s banner headline stated, “This issue’s main attractions;  a guide to some of the greatest and most interesting guitar albums of 1986.  I say ‘some of’ because, obviously, there are so many other albums we could’ve – and still could – cover.  The year is young!  Whether you love them or hate them (or have never heard of them), they are mementos and reminders of an already-distant time that is slipping further and further away with every passing second.”  For space purposes, we can’t look at all twelve of GW’s choices (which span 22 pages of the magazine), so we will direct our attention to seven of the albums cited.  The backstories from the guitar players involved in the creation of these albums add some interesting highlights to what we remember about 1986.  That makes sense as it is a guitar magazine, after all.

     First out of the blocks, we find Aerosmith’s Joe Perry sharing his memories of recording one of their most famous tracks, Walk This Way.  Okay, Walk This Way was originally released as the second single off their 1975 album Toys in the Attic.  The version Perry talked to GW’s Andrew Daly about was the revamped version Perry and Steven Tyler recorded with hip-hop act Run-D.M.C in 1985.  Aerosmith’s fortunes had taken a decided downturn due in part to the lack of commercial success of their comeback album, 1985’s Done With Mirrors.  Well, that and the on-going personal tensions in the band coupled with their use of mind altering substances.  They weren’t referred to as ‘the Toxic Twins’ for no reason.  It was producer Rick Rubin who had the idea to revisit the track and after he convinced the skeptical Run-D.M.C. guys, the Aerosmith boys were all in:  “Let’s try it!”

     Perry and Tyler flew into Queens, NY (they were on tour in North Carolina at the time).  Rubin said to Run-D.M.C., “You’re using the drums to rap to anyway, you might as well take it all the way.  Let’s try it.”  He was right and with the drums laid down, the rest of the track fell together quickly.  After listening to the mix, they decided Perry should add a bass part, but there wasn’t a bass guitar at the studio.  One of three younger guys hanging out in the studio offered to run to his apartment a few blocks away to get his bass.”  The ‘guys’ turned out to be The Beastie Boys. 

      There are a couple of reasons Perry still likes what they did with the track:  “We’re just proud to say it was a meeting of two styles of music.  We got Black rappers on MTV.   The only Black cat on MTV at that point was Michael Jackson, at least, that is what we heard.  I’m proud of that.”

     GW’s Bill DeMain sat down with The Bangles guitarist Vicki Peterson to hear her thoughts about their Different Light album.  The LP produced five charting singles but the one they opened their conversation with was the third release, Walk Like an Egyptian.  Peterson told DeMain, “Those moves [from the video] still follow us.  But fun as it is, I remember thinking the label would never release it as a single, because it’s just too weird.”  Some criticize The Bangles for recording songs for the album that they didn’t write.   Peterson says they were touring so much behind their 1984 album (All Over the Place) that they just didn’t have the time to write new material.  The record buying public apparently didn’t care and sent their sophomore album to No. 2 on The Billboard and Cash Box Top 200 charts.

     The single that got the most tabloid space was Manic Monday because everybody wanted the rumours of a romance between Susanna Hoffs and Prince to be true (they were not).  Prince had penned the song for a project he was producing (Apollonia 6) but gifted it to The Bangles after seeing them perform.  Prince passed a cassette on to the band but instead of simply adding their vocals to his recorded track, they worked up their own arrangement.  He ventured into the studio only one time to check how it was going.  Upon hearing how Peterson adapted the opening keyboard riff to guitar, he gave them a thumbs up and left.  Whenever their paths crossed, Prince made it a point to show up at one of their gigs and play a few songs with them.  In our continuing battle against relying on A.I. too much, be aware that a web search for Manic Monday attributes the ‘song and lyrics’ to The Bangles).  As I always told my students, “Never rely on only one source when researching a topic!”

     GW’s Henry Yates visited with Europe guitarist John Norum about their first big album to cross the Atlantic, The Final Countdown.  Slow album sales of their first two records made them the unlikely ‘next big thing’ destined for the American market, but Norum said all of a sudden, “Everything clicked with The Final Countdown.”  They signed with Epic Records, hooked up with Journey producer Kevin Elson, and saw the album rise to No. 8 on the Billboard charts behind a string of singles.  The album included Rock the Night and Carrie, but forty years down the road, the one track everybody wants to talk about is the title track.  People either love it or mock it, but the 753 million streams prove it to be a song with legs.

     Originally, Norum wasn’t all that impressed when singer Joey Tempest first played them a demo of the song:  “I thought it was dreadful and was irritated by hearing that keys lick over and over again.”  He worried that the hard rock band he co-founded in 1979 was, “turning into Depeche Mode.”  What changed his mind?  He told Yates, “I’m a huge UFO fan so that galloping feel came from Michael Schenker’s playing on Lights Out.”  As for the blistering solo, Norum says, “The technique comes from Ritchie Blackmore and I was friends with Yngwie Malmsteen.  My guitar style was a lot more frantic back then.”  I do not know that you will remember Norum’s solo off the top of your head, but I am sure by now you are humming the synth riff that opens The Final Countdown and repeats many times down the line.

     A quick guitarist quiz – Can you name the guitarist who replaced Warren Cuccurillo in Frank Zappa’s band, Yngwie Malmsteen in Alcatraz, became David Lee Roth’s guitarist when the singer broke away from Van Halen, and replaced a slew of six-stringers who came before him in Whitesnake?  Note the use of the singular word ‘guitarist’ in the question.  The answer is Steve Vai.  Not only did he help propel Roth’s 1986 solo debut Eat ‘em and Smile album up the charts, he also gained a lot of props as the devil’s hand picked picker in the guitar battle from the 1986 movie release Crossroads.  Truth be told, Vai’s devilish guitar player muffed a passage and lost the battle to Ralph Macchio’s character, but he really won the battle – Vai had also performed the licks that Ralph ‘played’.  For the record, Ry Cooder is credited with the slide guitar parts used in other parts of the movie.

     Vai told GW’s Andrew Daly that he had been lucky enough to join bands on the heels of some fantastic players, but he never got any backlash.  Of course, people were going to compare him with Edward Van Halen when Roth brought him into his solo band (along with bassist Billy Sheehan and drummer Greg Bissonette).  Vai said, “I adored Edward’s playing, so from a fan’s standpoint, I understood that people would be skeptical.  But competing with Eddie Van Halen?  You don’t compete with Mount Everest – you just admire it.  My mindset was simply to contribute something authentic, be myself, and let that speak for itself.”  Diamond Dave had a  knack for presenting his music and manic persona in over the top MTV videos.  Songs like Yankee Rose (and later Just Like Paradise) became the music channel’s favorites and made Steve Vai a very famous guitar player in a very short time.

     Christ Hayes has fond memories of putting together the album Fore! With Huey Lewis and the News.  The only problem they had in 1986 was coming up with an album to top what they had already done.  Their third album (Sports – 1983) was loaded with four Top Ten Singles on the Billboard 200 chart (Heart and Soul, I Want a New Drug, The Heart of Rock & Roll, and If This Is It).  They spent so much time on the road promoting Sports, they had a hard time getting songs together for album number four.  I can vouch for that because we happened to catch Huey Lewis and The News at Lakeview Arena in Marquette the week the album went to No. 1.  To add just a little more pressure, they also scored their first number one single with The Power of Love, a song featured in the 1985 blockbuster film Back to the Future.  Pressure?  Yes indeed!

     Hayes recalled, “We realized we were going to have to make another record so we started writing in earnest.  At one point, our manager Bob Brown came to me and said, ‘Hayes, I need you to write another hit!’ And it’s not like I could just do it whenever.”  He credits Donald Fagan’s Nightfly album, and particularly the track I.G.Y, for getting him started on what would become Stuck With You.   He told interviewer Joe Matera, “I wanted to write something with that kind of groove.  Stuck With You is kind of poppy –  kind of a sappy song.  I wrote the music and then Huey wrote the lyrics.  Some of the guys made fun of it, but it ended up giving us our second number one record.”  It took a while to record Fore! as they hopped back and forth between touring and the studio.  Hayes views Fore! as their last really great guitar record:  “By albums five and six, radio stations were kind of moving away from guitar oriented music.  All these metal guys were doing acoustic versions of their songs, so electric guitars were kind of going out of favor.”  Hayes would continue with The News until 2000 when he decided to get off the road and concentrate on his family and solo work.  After fourteen more years in the band, Fore! wasn’t exactly his swan song with the News.  Last time we checked, he was living in Springfield, Oregon and enjoying life as a soccer dad.

     Blues rock bands were on the rise in the early 1980s thanks to guitarists like Robert Cray,

Johnny Winter, Roy Buchanan, Albert Collins, and Stevie Ray Vaughn.  Meanwhile, SRV’s older brother Jimmy was toiling in the background with The Fabulous Thunderbirds.  Their four previous albums had gained them a cult-like following.  The Thunderbirds would see their fortunes rise swiftly into the mainstream in 1986 with the release of Tuff Enuff.  Recorded in London and produced by Dave Edmunds, it was definitely a turn toward a more commercial direction.  It also didn’t hurt one bit to have the title song featured in two popular ‘86 films, Gung Ho and Tough Guys. 

     Once they had captured a good share of the market, they released their second single, a cover of Sam & Dave’s Wrap it Up.  Lead singer Kim Wilson didn’t exactly look like MTV material, but their videos still played well.  Wilson eventually spun off on his own but that has not stopped him from touring with his own version of the T-Birds long after Jimmy also went out on his own.

When we saw Wilson and the FT’s at the Calumet Theater a few years ago, the songs off the 

Tuff Enuff album were still fan favorites.  They sounded a little ragged during the first couple of songs in Calumet and Wilson let the audience in on a little secret.  Once the sound was smoothed out, he commented, “Well, we aren’t going to skip our soundcheck again!”

     Having already discussed David Lee Roth’s escape from Van Halen, we will end our ‘86’ album tour with his old band.  Everybody was laying bets on what the future of Van Halen would be without Diamond Dave fronting the band.  Their last LP together (1984) gave them their only No. 1 hit single courtesy of Jump.  The event that signaled the end of the original VH lineup was a disagreement about the band’s future.  Eddie wanted to get the next album out in 1985 to ride the 1984 wave.  DD wanted to take a year off to do his own thing.  When Roth’s departure was announced four months after he and Eddie had their un-meeting of the minds, fans and the brothers VH figured Roth would come to his senses and come back.  He didn’t and the thinking in the music press went something like this:  “Okay, they hit the pinnacle in 1984, so the only way to go from there is down!”       

     Eddie considered a few options.  One was to record an album with different lead singers for each track.  “Fortunately, Alex talked me out of it,” he told GW.  The path forward came from a car dealership on L.A.’s Wilshire Boulevard owned by Claudio Zampolli.  Eddie had bought several Lamborghinis and in passing mentioned to Claudio he was looking for a new singer.  When Sammy Hagar stopped by later to look at Ferraris (no wonder he Can’t Drive 55), Zampolli mentioned his talk with Eddie.  He gave the car dealer permission to let Ed know he would be interested.  The VH brothers were fans of Hagar’s work with Montrose and it just so happened that their producer, Ted Templeman, had worked with Hager on the albums Montrose and Paper Money.

     It took until July of 1985 for Eddie to finally give up on having Roth return.  He invited Hagar to jam with them at his new 5150 studio.  As Van Halen told GW’s Chris Gill, “When we played the first song, Summer Nights, Hagar came up with the lyrics and melody on the spot.  In twenty minutes, we had a complete song.  We all freaked out.”  August would find Van Halen officially announcing Roth’s exit but Hagar was not confirmed to be his replacement until fall.  Sammy announced the big news in September at his final show with his own band at Farm Aid right after Eddie joined them on stage.

     The ‘Van Hagar’ guys wanted Templeman to produce their first record, but he had already committed to working with Roth on Eat ‘Em and Smile.  VH turned to Donn Landee (5150’s studio engineer) to help Eddie produce the first tracks.  By December, they had brought in Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones to produce (he had produced all of Foreigner’s albums). 

According to Eddie, “We were almost done with the album, but Mick helped us organize everything and polish it up.  He changed a few things, especially on Dreams.  

     The album would bear the studio’s name (5150) and it was notable for a couple of reasons.  It was the first VH album Eddie recorded without his ‘Frankenstrat’ guitar.  It also saw him insert more keyboards a la Jump from 1984.  Behind hit tracks like Why Can’t This Be Love, Dreams, and Love Walks In, 5150 became VH’s first album to go to the top of the charts.  It took the album eight years to reach the 5X platinum sales that Jump had amassed in just one year.  That didn’t keep the band from proving, as Gill states it, “Lightning can indeed strike twice.”  The music trades got a big boost from the “Sammy vs David feud” but that had less to do with selling records than magazines.  

     There are other pivotal years in music history that we need to examine, but make no mistake, there were a bunch of great albums released in 1986 that still resonate with fans to this day.

Top Piece Video:  Just in case this didn’t get stuck in your head at the mere mention of the title . . .