• AllMyVinyl #73
• Band: Billy Squier
• Album Title: Don’t Say No
• Release Date: 13 Apr 1981
• Date purchased: 22 May 2021
• Location purchased: Half Price Books
• Color of vinyl: black
• Number of discs: 1
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website | Complete album on Youtube ]

Like most people who were into rock music when this came out – they knew Billy Squier.  They loved him.  Then after awhile they forgot.  So many people I talk to about music when Squier turns up, it’s some version of “Oh yeah, I remember him”.  Frequently with “Whatever happened to him?”

What I din’t remember in 2024 is having ever bought this album in the past – in any format.  Part of it is because Squier was RED HOT – you heard him all over the radio, he was in high rotation constantly on MTV.  You had a hard time stepping out of the shower without hearing one of his songs.  While it’s quite possible I bought this back in the day, that copy no longer exists if I did – and I have zero memory of it anyway.  Thing is I do still have a copy of his next album after this, so it’s likely I bought this, I just don’t remember it.  The copy I have today I found one day when I was randomly shuffling through vinyl in Half Price Books.  Nine times out of ten that activity turns up nothing, but this time – I found a good one.  Was in fair shape at a fair price, so I jumped on it. It was hard not to as this album has multiple really good tracks.

It was produced (and engineered) by Reinhold Mack (more popularly known as just “Mack”).  He was the producer for many other albums you’d know, and several I have.  He worked as an engineer on Deep Purple’s Stormbringer & Come Taste the Band, six albums by ELO, four live albums by Queen, & Rainbow Rising.  He was a producer on a crap ton of albums including several by Queen and their respective solo members, Extreme, a few by the Stones, Meat Loaf, David Coverdale, and Black Sabbath’s “Dehumanizer”. There’s a huge list on his Wikipedia page.

The album went triple platinum in roughly a year after it was released, so I wasn’t the only one who liked the songs on this one.  It remains his top selling album of all time.  To that, he has a total of 9 studio albums going anywhere from his first in 1980 through the last in 1998. Nothing since.  This is probably the high point of his career – on his second album.  Although Squier himself might feel differently about that statement.

As I don’t have a ton of memories about the past with this one, I’ll just get into the music here.

In the Dark – The album starts off with a solid guitar sound in your face.  Once the vocals start the guitar takes a little of a back seat and is replaced with a sound that’s driven by keys.  That doesn’t mean the guitar is gone – it’s still there, but the keys take over as the primary instrument.  It has a LITTLE of the sound of that era’s keys, but not too bad.  There’s still a lot of guitar in here too.  I guess I never stopped to think about the song – I generally just got into it as with most of Billy’s hits it’s super catchy.  There’s a bit about 3/4 of the way through the song that reminds me of Led Zeppelin a bit.  Which wouldn’t be a HUGE shock, as this album came out less than a year after the death of Bonzo.

The Stroke – I’d say this is PROBABLY the song most people know of Squier.  Always liked the beat and the guitar riffs here.  While the song sounds like it would be obscene lyrically, I don’t think it is really (this article says it’s not).  The song has great guitar work, but says “Stroke” rather a lot.  There’s a bit of orchestration towards the end of the song which reminds me a little bit of a Pink Floyd sound, but it doesn’t last long, the main thing here is the bottom line that runs through this whole thing.

My Kinda Lover – The third of the three big hits that open this album.  This is another catchy as hell song, but isn’t as in your face with its guitar work as the other two are.  Oh, there’s some of it here, but a lot of the song is repeating the title phrase over and over.  I do like the background guitar riff that plays during the verses – kind of hard to describe in text, it almost has a bass guitar kind of feel to it if that makes any sense. You can hear this from 0:59 through 1:16 (and a couple other times).  Now that I’m pointing at it, is it a bass guitar?  Now I’m not sure, but either way I like what it adds to the song.

You Know What I Like – Now we move past the big hits that everyone knows into the rest of the album, which is also good, but not as remembered from the past I would imagine.  This has a beat that is faster, and the word I can think of to describe is “galloping”.  It’s got a fast beat which I always tend to gravitate to.  Not the biggest guitar riff song, but the overall beat was solid, so I liked it.

Too Daze Gone – I always thought this was “Two days gone”.  But if you read through the lyrics “daze” is more accurate for sure.  This has a solid beat, but overall, probably my least favorite track to this point.  I like the chorus, but the song as a whole feels like it’s missing something.  Not BAD, tho.

Lonely Is the Night – Other than the three songs that open the album, this is the one that I remember most.  If they put it fourth on the first side it would be one unbeatable way to start an album. I love the opening riff for this song. Yet another super catchy track. Like the drums on this one – some nice fills I can’t recall hearing in the tracks before this on the album.

Whadda You Want From Me – This also starts off with a drum intro, something I always loved (hello Cozy!).  Really nice guitar riff that runs through this song.  This is another song that as I listen to it I’m sure I’ve heard somewhere else.  Not that I think he’s ripping off someone, but the general tone, speed, and guitar work sounds familiar.  The drum intro reappears towards the end of the song too.  It’s a good song, but I get the feeling I’ve heard parts of it elsewhere – just can’t place it.

Nobody Knows – We finally get the to the ballad on the album.  It didn’t do much for me, honestly. Eight songs in and that being the first I can say that about is a pretty good ratio.

I Need You – This a bit of a slower song, but not ballad level  It’s got its bass more noticeable, but that’s probably cuz over the overall more quiet sound the song has.  A catchy track (again no surprise) with some nice background vocals.  The overall vibe of this song reminds me of the band Nazareth for some reason.

Don’t Say No – The title track is one I recall being more in your face than it was when I listened today.  The song fakes you out – you get a sequence with keyboards playing the song out to a fade making you think the song is over.  Those keys here really felt like they didn’t belong stylistically.  It fades to end, but then kicks back after about a 2 second blank spot with the full band and the full on rock sound from earlier in the album that takes you out to the actual end of the song.  Interesting idea with a fake ending.

It’s easy to see having just listened to the whole album why this was super popular. It still works 40+ years later, too.  Only small parts sound dated and of the era they came from.   There’s four songs which were monster hits that were all over the place and a lot of people would know even if they don’t know the album.  The album songs are quite good too (except one), and overall, this was a better album from to back than I thought it would be.  Figured this would be “mega hits and some other stuff that was OK”, but the “other stuff” was more than just there or “ok”.  It was damn good too.

Quite glad again that I found this at Half Price Books – had I not picked it up on vinyl, it probably would have remained as one of those things you remembered from the past but didn’t actively listen to anymore because it was “of the past”.  This brought it back into the present, and that’s great because there’s a lot of good stuff on here to listen to.