A friend of mine on Facebook had a post about the band Dream Theatre and it made me wonder. Have any of my music friends checked out any of the last three Night Ranger albums?
2011’s “Somewhere in California”
2014’s “High Road”
2017’s “Don’t Let Up“
I have to confess, I started following Night Ranger originally because of Brad Gillis. Prior to the first Night Ranger album, Brad played with Ozzy, and that’s how I found out about Night Ranger. He left Ozzy’s band, and went and did NR, so that’s how they got my attention originally. Their first album (1982’s “Dawn Patrol”) was amazing. *LOVED* that one. Then came Sister Christian the next year.
Night Ranger is one of those bands that lost it’s way (IMO) after they had a mega hit with “Sister Christian”. Oh, they had output after that, but after Sister Christian, the “mega attention” waned. Sister Christian came from their second overall album (1983’s Midnight Madness). The album after that (1985’s “Seven Wishes”) got some attention, and the one after that (1987’s “Big Life”) was about the end of their run of “mega attention”.
In between 87’s album and the one in 2011 I mentioned above, they had a total of five other albums…
- 1988’s “Man in Motion”
- 1995’s “Feeding off the Mojo”
- 1997’s “Neverland”
- 1998’s “Seven”
- 2007’s “Hole in the Sun”
But most everyone has no idea they still were around, I’d wager.
IMO, they’ve had a renaissance with these last three. Had they made these three right after the Midnight Madness album, they probably would have never dropped off most people’s radar. If you ever liked Night Ranger in the past (“Don’t Tell Me You Love Me”, “Sing Me Away”, “You Can Still Rock in America”), you should check out these last three.
A few suggestions:
Somewhere in California
Growin’ Up in California
Lay it On Me
Coming of Age
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (AC/DC Cover)
High Road
High Road
Knock Knock Never Stop
I’m Coming Home
Don’t Let Up
Somehow Someway
Day and Night
Fool Again
We Can Work it Out
A couple of these have videos. I strongly suggest checking them out. Good stuff.
This last one is just AMAZING.. Virtually nobody knows about it.
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