Lita Ford
Greatest Hits Live! (Deadline)
by Scott Hefflon
Nope, no naked pictures in the booklet… That and no liner notes or explanation (from Cleopatra? That’s a shock!), nor any kind of intros to the songs (I was kinda hoping for a Storytellers-type thing, seeing as VH-1 ain’t never gonna give her one) — there’s a lot left unsaid here. And while some’ll chuckle over “hits, as in plural?,” Lita Ford really hobknobbed with the hotshots of the time, even if she never did much spectacular herself.
As an ex-member of the Runaways (what’s that worth, really, and why do journalists utter it with reverance when it’s probably like saying “Formerly the second-from-the-left member of Menudo”?), her solo career never did seem to add up to much more than being a female hard rock guitarist at a time when it was even rarer than today who wrote one good song, “Kiss Me Deadly,” with a pre-Fiona roll-around video. I got the posters, sure, but I was like 14. Cindy Crawford can’t write great songs, so why is it surprising Lita Ford’s best were penned by others? Well, I guess she co-wrote “Hungry (for Your Sex),” and it seems she co-wrote “Falling In and Out of Love” with Nikki Sixx and “Close My Eyes Forever” with Ozzy… Thing is, her prime coincided with that low point in music history, the late ’80s, where Alice Cooper and Heart were writing some of the most embarrassing songs of their rapidly-failing careers, Vixen got time on MTV (hell, MTV actually played videos, metal videos even), and Sammy Hagar (who co-wrote “Rock Candy” with ’70s star Ronnie Montrose — I’ve made it through almost 20 years of rock record-buying without ever noticing that name, what’s that tell ya? — which appears here as a bonus/ovation) was allowed to sing for the biggest rock band in the world, Van Halen.
Greatest Hits Live! also has an exclusive studio track, “Nobody’s Child,” which I sure hope was written 10-15 years ago. Another interesting note is that with clunky live production, as opposed to the almost sterile production of the ’80s, you realize, “Hey, this is cheesy bar rock! Wait, I get it! Gimme a beer and a shot and let’s yell for Lita to show us her tits until we get thrown out!”
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