TS: Loverboy/ Turn Me Loose v. Styx/Too Much Time On My Hand

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Maybe it's because I was eight years old when I first heard it, but the whole "Rockin' the Paradise" intro b/w "Best of Times" bit still seems a little clever to me.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Monday, 10 April 2006 21:55 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm trying to download some Styx right now -- totally need to hear this shit.

― Mark (MarkR), Monday, 10 April 2006 21:56 (eighteen years ago) link

Has anyone else noticed uncanny similarities between "Turn Me Loose" and "Shock Teh Minkey"? I'm concerned here...

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Monday, 10 April 2006 21:56 (eighteen years ago) link

I get you, Dee. You either gotta do it your way, or no way at all.

Well, duh.

Has anyone else noticed uncanny similarities between "Turn Me Loose" and "Shock Teh Minkey"? I'm concerned here...

This actually explains why I used to like "Turn Me Loose"!!! I still love "Shock The Monkey" and I guess its similarity to the Loverboy song would be a real key in unlocking why it is I actually managed to find a Loverboy song to like.

― See Me, Repeat Me (Dee the Lurker), Monday, 10 April 2006 22:22 (eighteen years ago) link

Loverboy >>>> Styx

but

"Too Much Time On My Hands" (which I always thought sounded like something off Kraftewerk's *Computer World* >>>> "Turn Me Loose" (which is one of the lesser songs on Loverboy's first album, which was one of the best hard rock albums of the '80s.)

― xhuxk, Monday, 10 April 2006 23:15 (eighteen years ago) link

??I can't really hear the similarity between the two...

― Joe (Joe), Monday, 10 April 2006 23:17 (eighteen years ago) link

I've never owned a Loverboy record (I wish I could say the same about Styx, but c'est la guerre)...but "Turn Me Loose" is the winner here. "Too Much Time On My Hands" is just to....well...it's just too Tommy Shaw.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 10:55 (eighteen years ago) link

Christ, so much Styx love on this thread - and I thought I was the only ILMer who ever sticks up for 'em! Guess I'll have to find some other über-underdog to support, like Nightranger or Dokken (rhymes with "Rockin'"). (Anyways, I think the very EXISTENCE of "guilty pleasures" was debunked a long time ago.) With that in mind, I'll go with "...Time..." - Tommy Shaw's songs were always Styx's best anyways.

"The Kid Is Hot Tonite" woulda been a better Loverboy pick. But "Turn Me Loose" does have a great bassline. And the way Mike Reno screams out "pack my bags and FLYYYY-YY!" is worthy of William Shatner.

And I never noticed till now, but both of those songs begin with air-raid sirens

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 13:59 (eighteen years ago) link

Really memorable bass sound too, even if it's a synth.

On further review, it's not a synth, just heavily compressed. I'd completely forgotten how massive "Turn Me Loose" gets in the final two minutes - chord solo! wall of pitch-shifted Mike Renos! (at least I hope so, real female backup singers would be so... bourgeois) enormous, punishing kick drum!

The shadow of Foreigner 4 looms large, but "Turn Me Loose" crushes, and it's not as close as I thought.

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 15:40 (eighteen years ago) link

Sundar to Thread.

― Rufus 3000 (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 15:54 (eighteen years ago) link

Just listened to "Turn Me Loose" again. The solo is remarkably Gilmourish... I'd never noticed that before.

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 13 April 2006 06:28 (eighteen years ago) link

Loverboy came to my town of 9,000 people a couple days before my high school graduation. When they played "Turn Me Loose," I couldn't help but feel as though they were playing it just for ME.

― Aleeshie (Aleeshie), Thursday, 13 April 2006 15:19 (eighteen years ago) link

When I worked in a super-corporate mall record store as a punk/wave obsessed young'un, the store turntable was often spinning the Loverboy debut, which I grew to really like, if not love. I had no tolerance for Styx then, and have not gained any since.

― Daniel Peterson (polkaholic), Thursday, 13 April 2006 15:45 (eighteen years ago) link

Too Much Time, no question. Now if you'd listed some other Loverboy songs, that would have been tougher. And if you'd listed many other Styx hits with those other Loverboy songs, Loverboy no question.

― Carlos Keith (Buck_Wilde), Sunday, 23 April 2006 10:07 (eighteen years ago) link

Wow--I had no idea that the Loverboy bassist was declared dead/missing at sea six years ago.

― Joe (Joe), Sunday, 23 April 2006 14:46 (eighteen years ago) link

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