For me the worst Scott project was Happy in Galoshes by a mile. That album is just booooring. A mish mash of non committal, wishy washy crap with a few terrible covers thrown in. Compared to 12BB, it is an absolute dog. But I think a lot of that came down to the difference between working with people like Daniel Lanois, Victor Indrizzo and Martyn LeNoble, as opposed to working with the likes of Doug Grean. The 1 disc is a little mroe bearable than the deluxe edition, but still only has a handful of interesting tracks on it.
Man, I love HIG. It's maybe not on the same level of 12BB but there are a lot of interesting songs on there. Agreed on some of the covers (looking at you, Fame) and it's a bit long but some of my favorite Scott work is on there (Paralysis, The Man I Didn't Know, Sometimes Chicken Soup). It also felt like a true passion project for him, everything from the music to the videos, the Paralysis vid is a true work of art. Love the overall mood of it too, which the title captures perfectly.
I think if he had made it a 12 track single album, trimmed some of the fat and knocked off the covers it would have been better received. Unfortunately only Disc 1 is on Spotify, leaving off some of my favorites.
I began to have issues with what Scott and the Deleos were doing sometime after SLDD. The music from both ends just began to feel very different, and while I understand the group and Scott were changing, I thought 12BB was a superior musical effort when compared to HIG. With 12BB, I would say MOST of the songs are fantastic: Divider, Son, Where's The Man? The Date, and Barbarella are among my favorites. However, with HIG, I had the same issue I had with the S/T: I found myself in a position where I was talking myself into liking it simply because it had Scott's name on it. As others have said, there are SOME good songs there, but that remains my issue exactly. We get two discs and with them comes a few good tracks? I had the opposite problem with 12BB.
Growing up listening to STP, I immediately loved everything they wrote upon first listen and there was no debate about it. Today, whether it's Blaster, the S/T, or even the new songs, I have to listen to them over and over again just to sort of like them. To me, that's an issue.
Loungefly90, that is pretty much exactly how I feel regarding everything after SLDD. Did you enjoy Scott’s work with Velvet Revolver at all? I remember hearing ‘Slither’ first and thinking it was awesome and then being a bit underwhelmed by ‘Contraband’ on the whole, although after repeated listens it did grow on me. Also they were AMAZING live when I saw them in 2005, Scott was really in the zone. I’d still rate the first 5 STP albums a lot higher than the 2 VR albums though. Scott & The Deleo’s 92-2002 were just magical.
As far as VR goes, I will admit I got very caught up in the Supergroup idea. In other words, when I saw that Scott and Slash were playing together, I just about lost my mind in a positive way. I hadn't been that excited for a project Scott was a part of since I heard SLDD may be a double album. When I finally saw that they were recording an album with a tour to follow, my excitement and interest grew for sure.
For the band itself, part of me thinks it's a sad GN'R ripoff, and the other part of me thinks, "Well, aren't these the guys from GN'R though?" So, of course there's a GN'R feel. It's probably like saying Army of Anyone is a bit similar to STP. The reason why isn't difficult to find. The name of the group was good, but that was the real blatant GN'R ripoff part.
All I know was that I was very happy the band toured extensively and was playing these mega festivals and some very large venues. I felt like Scott had not been in that type of atmosphere in a while, and the small details matter too. For example, prior to each show, the band played (via recording) the opening to A Clockwork Orange, something STP would have likely never done as it just didn't fit their group. In a way, it was interesting to see Scott around the whole sex, drugs, and rock and roll (not that he hadn't had enough of that already), but everything about VR was so different than STP, but somehow, our chameleon Scott wore it like a glove.
Another important aspect was concert time. When I saw them in 2007 touring Libertad, the concert ran close to two hours when most of the STP concerts I saw in the same exact venue in 2000 and 2008 ran about 80 minutes. I'm unsure if the expectations were different since it was guys from GN'R or something, but the shows just felt fuller if that makes any sense. I often watch this bootleg I have from Purple and at the end of filming, the band ends the show 70 minutes in and the guy filming goes, "That's it?" VR shows just felt really fulfilling.
For the music itself, most of it delivered. I enjoyed Contraband, but think the band fell apart on Libertad. From Contraband, "Do It for the Kids", "Illegal i Song", "Set Me Free", "You Got No Right", and "Loving the Alien" are all terrific. All in all, I think the group was great, but it was obvious it wouldn't last and I am often shocked it lasted as long as it did.
