Whitesnake-Slide it in, 1984

After the break-up of Deep Purple in 1976, vocalist David Coverdale recorded a solo album and then decided to form his own band called Whitesnake. He went through numerous band members over the next few years. Generally the first few Whitesnake albums were not quite as hard rock as the material that Coverdale did with Deep Purple in the mid-70's. However, by 1984 I think that either the band or the label saw the rising metal scene and figured that maybe it was time for Whitesnake to join in. The album starts off with the title track and it's a good representation of the overall sound of the album. It's a straight forward hard rock tune with little build-up, but certainly solid enough. Next up are the two radio songs "Slow and easy" and "Love ain't no stranger". Slow and easy is about what you think it is about and again it's just a good, simple yet solid hard rock song. "Love ain't no stranger" is a slow song, but not sappy as the band pulls quite a bit out of this track. Lyrically they aren't breaking any new ground and it may even be a bit silly at times, but the music is so strong that it doesn't matter that much. A few years later, the band would be known for their videos and Dave Coverdale was often accused of ripping off Robert Plant. However, the truth that Coverdale has a very good rock voice and you can't take that away from him. It's obvious that he puts his voice to good use on this album. Songs like the Gambler, Standing in the shadow and the great Guilty of love are good examples of how strong this band could be. I think this album is a good blend of the kind of hard rock that was prevalent in the late 1970's and the kind of hard rock that was starting to take hold in the 1980's. I don't think a lot of other bands were doing that style at the time. This is the album that this band should be remembered for. Oh and as a teenage boy I giggled at the dirty album title.