Break
Like the Wind (Dead Faith/MCA, 1992): The bands 17th
album, released on March 17, 1992. It eventually reached the 61st
spot on the Billboard charts. The boys told Arsenio Hall soon
after that they considered the title of the album "sort of
ironic." David added that the album "is part of a new
maturity we find ourselves trapped in." The album was inspired
by the supposed death of despised former manager Ian Faith, hence
the label name tribute. Prompted a six-week, 21-city tour of the
United States and England that began on May 17, 1992, at an Air
Force base in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and culminated in a
sell-out on July 7 at Londons famed Royal Albert Hall. Also
inspired two music videos ("Bitch School" and "The
Majesty of Rock"), a television special and a concert film.
"Break Like the Wind" was originally conceived as a
three-album work, reminiscent of "Jap Habit," to be
sold 20 minutes apart a la Guns N Roses "Use Your Illusion
I" and "II." (SP) However, the masters for the
second and third albums disappeared under suspicious circumstances.
(IST) It eventually topped at No. 61 on the Billboard chart, and
more than any of their releases has been dissected and digested
in the press and by fans. Rated A by Entertainment Weekly and
given three of five stars by Rolling Stone, although there were
questions about whether Tap had sold-out because of the many cameos
on the album by talented musicians such as Cher and Jeff Beck.
The album includes new but familiar tunes such as "Bitch
School" (which has been compared to Specimens "The
Beauty of Poison" and features Jeff Beck, Slash and Joe Satriani)
and "Cash on Delivery" (with Derek on vocals and David
starting out with what Nigel calls a "fat woman tone"),
classics such as "The Sun Never Sweats," Nigels
"Clam Caravan" "All the Way Home" (the 1961
demo, remixed into fake stereo) and "Rainy Day Sun,"
and protest songs such as "Stinking Up the Great Outdoors"
and "Now Leaving on Track 13" (euthanasia)a genre
the band had at one time vowed never to write. Nigel: "What
were saying with this album is Were back. Join
us, wont you, in a consumer sense. " (RS) Nigel
also offers this: "To me, the whole record is like those
little dolls that you take apart, and theres a little doll
in it, and you take it apart, and theres another little
doll. And the mystery of course, is if you could take the smallest
doll apart, what would be inside it? Would there be another big
one? Thats really Break Like the Wind in a metaphor
masked as a parable posing as an allegory." (NYT) See also
All the Way Home; A
Spinal Tap Reunion; Back in the Saddle
Again; Bitch School; Burnett,
T-Bone; Cher; Christmas
with the Devil; Clam Caravan; Colander; Eight-Track;
Extra-Long Box; Lukather,
Steve; Seattle; Solos.