By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

GREAT WHITE – …TWICE SHY (1989)

When I first decided that I was going to write about Great White albums in back-to-back articles, I was planning it as a tribute to singer Jack Russell. And while the first article (on the Once Bitten album) certainly came out that way, I think part of why I kept the plan to write about …Twice Shy this time around was because of the group’s manager Alan Niven.

The streaming service Paramount+ released a 3-part documentary back on September 17th, 2024 called Nothin’ But a Good Time: The Uncensored Story of ’80s Hair Metal. While the documentary series had plenty of talking head appearances from people that were in bands back in the day, I thought it was Alan Niven who made the biggest impression for me. Because he didn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about looking back at the 1980s decade with rose-colored glasses at all. He was witty and profane and didn’t hold back all that much it seemed. There were a couple times when I burst out laughing at something he said.

Take that and add in the fact that along with being the band’s manager, he also co-wrote and co-produced the album (with keyboardist Michael Lardie) and it seems fitting that writing about the album can be seen in part due to his involvement.

(By the way, Jack Russell was in the documentary as well. I’m not quite sure when his parts were filmed but of all the rockers featured in the series, he just looked and sounded awful. Seeing him like that reminds you of his passing and how it came about.)

The first thing I noticed when I was looking up information about the album is that the track listing online for the standard version includes the song “Wasted Rock Ranger” as the album’s closing track. Well, I don’t know what happened but the cassette copy of the album that I’ve had since it was originally released doesn’t have that song on the album. It ends after nine songs, not ten. I don’t know if that is a mistake online or not.

The …Twice Shy album featured three songs that were released as singles. And the first two ended up being the two most successful charting songs of the band’s career.

The 2nd single was the ballad “The Angel Song”. While I don’t think it has quite the staying power that the song “Save Your Love” does, it did end up hitting #30 on the singles chart. The piano-based ballad has a soft pedal delivery through the first part of the song. It combines quite nicely with a great vocal turn from Jack Russell. The song’s tempo picks up at the point of the guitar solo when the band comes in fully then. It’s a good song and in 1989 definitely fit the mold of the “power ballad”.

Of course, I mentioned “The Angel Song” first despite it being the 2nd single (and side One closing track” because anyone who was listening back in the day knows that the cover of Ian Hunter’s “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” became one of the biggest hits of the decade. It hit #5 on the singles chart and when I first heard it back then I really liked the song. It was quite a lively delivery and had that killer hook that drew you in. But like a lot of hits, it became less of a favored song for me because it was being played to death! Between radio play and MTV putting the video in rotation so heavily, I don’t mind saying that I ended up being sick of the song. In fact, it’s been a while since I listened to the …Twice Shy album and it is probably because I just didn’t want to listen to this song close out the album’s second side.

However, I will say that as I listened to the album in order to write about it, that deliberate distance I put between me and the album ended up allowing me to enjoy the song again for the first time in a while. I’m not going to be putting the song into a regular rotation or anything but I had that same initial thrill of hearing the song as I did back in 1989.

Going back to the first side of the album, the song “Move It” opens up the album and it is a pretty vibrant rocker that made me think of it as a driving kind of song…a road trip track if you will. That rocking vibe continued on “Heart the Hunter”, which pretty much bleeds in from “Move It” without that expected brief pause in between tracks.

Great White really brought the higher intensity rocking soundtrack to open up …Twice Shy as the album’s third track “Hiway Nights” doubled down on that road trip driving song feel and intent that I mentioned with “Move It”.

On the second side of the album, you get “Mista Bone” as the opening song. It’s a got a down and dirty kind of bluesy and grittier edge to it. It doesn’t quite go full throttle in terms of pacing but I have always liked the way the song (including Russell’s vocal) draws you into the song.

The guitar playing is pretty good throughout the album but I liked the way the song “Baby’s On Fire” was heavy on the guitar in the intro of the song and then kept those six-string fireworks going on throughout the rocker! Mark Kendall was on fire with this song.

“House of Broken Love”, which was about the break-ups Kendall and Russell were going through at the time, is a bluesy slow ballad that once again opens up musically when the band hits the guitar solo portion of the song.

For a more straight up ballad that keeps the slower and more dramatic presentation from start to finish, you get the song “She Only”. In all honesty, I kind of forgot about this song. I liked it when I listened to it for this piece but it you’d asked me to name all of the songs on the …Twice Shy album, I probably never would’ve been able to remember this one.

I was graduating from high school in 1989, so this album which was released a little more than a month before I was out of school was probably very important to me when it came out. I mean, it is filled with some great songs, whether my own personal favorites or the ones that Great White’s fan base have embraced at some of the band’s best work. Given that the ’80s metal movement was still at its peak during 1989, Great White gave fans a heck of an album to represent that time and era.

NOTES OF INTEREST: The …Twice Shy album went double platinum, officially recognized so in September 1989.  The Japan and UK editions of the album at the time included two bonus tracks. One of them is “Wasted Rock Ranger”, so I don’t know what’s going on with it being listed as a track on the standard version for the US edition. The other song was called “Bitches and Other Women” which is a medley of The Rolling Stones song “Bitch” and the Foreigner track “Women”. The 2005 Japanese remaster features the bonus track “Slow Ride”.

While he appeared in a video during the Once Bitten album promotional period, this album was the first to feature contributions from bassist Tony Montana. He is credited with co-writing the song “Mista Bone”.

The models featured on the …Twice Shy album art were Traci Martinson (who was on the Once Bitten album cover) and Bobbie Brown, who we all probably best remember for being in Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” video.