• AllMyVinyl #9
• Band: Night Ranger
• Album Title: 7 Wishes
• Release Date: 20 May 1985
• Date purchased: Likely right when released, don’t remember 40yrs later
• Location purchased: Lost to time
• Color of vinyl: black
• Number of discs: 1
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website ]

This is an album that I remember buying new because it was the third Night Ranger album.  After the stellar opening album, they followed with a darned good second, although it was cursed by the song “Sister Christian”.  I really hoped they wouldn’t go down that path.  While album 3 wasn’t filled with 10 Sister Christian clones, I felt it lacked something after the first two.  That’s not to say it’s a bad album – it’s not.  But when I sat  down to listen to the vinyl in 2024, probably for the first time SINCE the 80’s…   I can’t tell you any of the songs on the album beyond the two singles “Four in the Morning” & “Sentimental Street”.   So for this one, it’s mostly a blank slate in 2024’s listen.

The physical vinyl I have in 2024 is the same one I bought back in 1985.  Nearly 40 years has blurred where I bought it from – could have been anywhere.  Very few from back then do I remember the store.  :)   I do know this was one of the collection of vinyl that sat in my mom’s basement from 1992 till 2023, and it still plays.  Looks like it’s been sitting in a basement for decades, but can’t argue with an OG vinyl print from 4 decades later that still works.

7 Wishes had a good guitar solo. This Boy Needs to Rock – good rocker, nice change of pace from the slower Sentimental Street that preceded it on the album.  This is probably my favorite discovery in listening to the album again after decades.  I don’t remember this song at all, but really liked it. I Need a Woman – pretty typical mid 80’s song title.  Has a nice riff to open the track, but at that time of my life, I didn’t need to hear about other guys needing women – I needed one of my own, dammit.  Night Machine has a good guitar bit which really sounds like Brad Gillis’ playing from that live Ozzy solo album he was on.  Night Machine has Vince Neil & Tommy Lee from Motley Crue (amongst others) on background vocals.

A word about Sentimental Street. It really feels like an attempt to follow up Sister Christian from the previous album.  I really wish Night Ranger had never done Sister Christian.  I remember them as a rocker band from the first album, so that big single from Album 2 clouded people’s opinions of them.  Since it was mega popular, people wanted that vs the hard rockers which became fewer as time went on.  Listening to Sentimental now it really makes me feel like an attempt to do SC again.  Likewise, Goodbye (the third single) was a ballad, which means two of the three album singles were slower songs.  So yeah, Sister Christian had an influence here.  I really didn’t like Night Ranger’s ballads, I remember thinking then “Come on guys, you can do better than that!”

The album after this (Big Life, 1987) I probably bought, but I don’t own anymore and the fifth one (Man in Motion, 1988) was their last album for 7 years after that (don’t remember owning either).  Are the ballads at fault?  Don’t know, but they fell off a bit after this, although the modern band really has kicked it in the head and is excellent again.

Bottom line – I enjoyed this listen of 7 Wishes.  It’s better than I remembered, if perhaps not their best overall album.  Really liked “Boy Needs to Rock” – that felt like the song that belonged on the first Night Ranger album more than any other here.