Daily Archives: March 1, 2010

White Lion – Pride (1987, Atlantic Records)

1. “Hungry” – 3:55
2. “Lonely Nights” – 4:11
3. “Don’t Give Up” – 3:15
4. “Sweet Little Loving” – 4:02
5. “Lady Of The Valley” – 6:35
6. “Wait” – 4:00
7. “All You Need is Rock ‘N’ Roll” – 5:14
8. “Tell Me” – 4:28
9. “All Join Our Hands” – 4:11
10. “When the Children Cry” – 4:18

Band:
Mike Trap – Vocals
Vito Bratta – Guitar
James Lomenzo – Bass
Greg D’Angelo – Drums

Produced: Michael Wagener

I’ve owned White Lion’s greatest hits collection The Best of White Lion for over 10 years now and I was a big fan of it. I played it constantly. So why didn’t I ever bother to dig deeper? I’m not sure but once I saw this album at Barnes & Noble for only $5.99, I figured why the heck not?

Pride is regarded as the band’s best release and it’s no wonder with rockers like “Hungry”, “Lonely Nights”, “Wait”, “Lady of the Valley” (the band’s attempt at doing something epic and majestic), “Tell Me” and the band’s biggest hit “When the Children Cry”, which went to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles charts and helped propel this album to double platinum.

Visually, White Lion fits in with the rest of the pop metal bands of the day. The clothes, the pretty boy lead singer in Mike Tramp (who kind of reminds me of pro wrestler “Flyin’” Brian Pillman), guitar hero in Vito Bratta (particularly showing some fire here), etc. Where they differ though is through their lyrics which are a bit more heartfelt at times and have tackled serious social issues throughout their career. A song like “Don’t Give Up” is a perfect example of the positivity coming from this band. Most bands at this time were only positive that they wanted have sex and to party.

This is really a gem from this time period and as much as some bands are remembered, it seems like White Lion is one band that gets overlooked by hair metal enthusiasts these days. The only bad thing about this release is that I’m already way too familiar with six of these ten songs — they all were on the greatest hits release! I was really impressed by “Lonely Nights” though. I think it may actually be my favorite song on the album but “Sweet Little Loving” is pure filler.

Highlights: “Hungry”, “Lonely Nights”, “Lady of the Valley”, “Wait”, “Tell Me”, “When the Children Cry”

www.returnofthepride.com
www.myspace.com/returnofthepride

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