ALBUM REVIEW: WHITESNAKE – 1987 [30th Anniversary Remaster]

Shane | 21 December 2017 | Reply

ALBUM REVIEW: WHITESNAKE – 1987 [30th Anniversary Remaster]
Warner Bros
October 2017
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
8/10

1987 (or self-titled, if you prefer) sold eight times platinum in America, as well as being a smash hit around the rest of the world, possibly saving David Coverdale’s career in the process. Before this, Whitesnake was a respectable blues-based rock band, more ’70s than ’80s, with a loyal following, but more cult than chart-toppers.

A makeover of the band itself, their image and – cliche though it is – his hair resulted in this: an album perfectly pitched to the hair metal zeitgeist, which remains Whitesnake’s biggest seller and crowning glory.

Mega power ballad Is This Love, Zeppelin-mimicking Still Of The Night, and remakes of Here I Go Again and Crying In The Rain – stripped of their blues foundation and injected full of botoxey bombast – ensured a new lease of life for the band and a new level of stardom for Cov – not to mention a new wife in Tawny Kitaen, voluptuous star of the videos from the album.

That marriage would go very badly indeed, and Whitesnake would not recapture the lightning in the bottle that made 1987 so great – least of all on its half-arsed follow-up, Slip Of The Tongue.

1987 was given the 20th anniversary re-release treatment, and is presented here as yet another remaster. There are 4CD packages with a live concert, demos, rehearsals, remixes and a DVD of video clips, but it’s hard to know who this is being marketed towards when any rock fan of the era will already own it. Kids too young to have been around for the original and updated releases, perhaps? In any case, we only received the single disc version to review, which contains the remastered album.

It still sounds great, though the ho hum lyrical nature of Bad Boys, Looking For Love, Children Of The Night et al, and the now-obvious premeditated copying of Led Zep and co is more glaringly obvious all these years later. Damn fine record in a very retro sense, undoubtedly – but will we need another remaster in another ten years?