Deep Cuts

Music writing for the long play

  1. Long Plays

    The Hottest Cold Streak: Foreigner's Unusual Heat and the End of an Era

    After thirteen years and seven multi-platinum albums, Foreigner's voice walked out. The band that remained — Mick Jones, three sidemen, and an Atlantic Records frontman named Johnny Edwards — made a record that should have worked. It peaked at number 117 on the Billboard 200, the worst chart position of the band's career, and effectively ended Foreigner's run as a commercial force. A long play on the album that exposed exactly what Foreigner had always been — and what it could not be without Lou Gramm.

    By Deep Cuts · Issue 02 · · 18 min read

  2. Retrospective

    The Crumbling Empire: Queensrÿche After 1990

    In 1990, Queensrÿche made the album most progressive metal bands spend their careers chasing. Triple platinum, a top-ten single, Grammy nominations, and the kind of critical respect their genre rarely earned. Then, for the next two decades, they slowly came apart. A retrospective on the long unraveling of a band that did everything right at the wrong moment — and never recovered from being good enough to succeed.

    By Deep Cuts · Issue 02 · · 28 min read

  3. Long Plays

    Their Heaviest Mistake: The Story of Mötley Crüe's Self-Titled Album

    In 1994, the biggest glam metal band in America fired their lead singer, hired a stranger with a different voice, and made the most ambitious record of their career. It debuted at number seven on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold within seven weeks. Then the audience walked away, the tour collapsed into half-filled clubs, and within three years the experiment was over. A long play on the album that was supposed to save Mötley Crüe and instead got quietly written out of their own history.

    By Deep Cuts · Issue 02 · · 18 min read

  4. Retrospective

    What Warrant Did After the Party Ended

    Most hair metal bands of their tier released two or three albums in the 1990s and then disappeared. Warrant released eight, played every genre the decade offered, fought constantly, and produced one of the strangest discographies of any band that came out of the Sunset Strip. A retrospective on the post-Cherry Pie decade — and on three studio records that deserve to be heard for what they actually are, rather than for what their commercial trajectory suggested.

    By Deep Cuts · Issue 02 · · 31 min read

  5. Long Plays

    Scorpions and the Robot War: A Defense of Humanity: Hour I

    In 2007, four decades into their career, Scorpions made the strangest album of their lives — a concept record about a war between humans and machines, co-written with Bon Jovi's hitmaker, featuring Billy Corgan singing about Jesus and John 5 playing guitar on the opening track. Almost nobody bought it. This is the case for taking it seriously anyway.

    By Deep Cuts · Issue 01 · · 17 min read

  6. Retrospective

    Lillian Axe and the Long Pursuit of a Hit

    They had Ratt's manager. They had Ratt's guitarist as their producer. They were nearly fronted by Warrant's Jani Lane. For seven years across four albums, Lillian Axe were the band the industry kept handing the right introductions to, and the audience kept walking past.

    By Deep Cuts · Issue 01 · · 18 min read

  7. Retrospective

    The Cockroach Problem: How Danger Danger Lost Five Years to a Lawsuit

    A gold debut, a respectable follow-up, and then the strangest stretch of legal and creative chaos in late hair metal. A retrospective on a band who recorded their third album twice, released the wrong version of it, and missed the only window they had left.

    By Deep Cuts · Issue 01 · · 16 min read

  8. Retrospective

    Vain Saw It Coming: A Band Watching the Door Close in Real Time

    They had the songs, the look, the magazine covers, and a debut album that critics still call a lost classic. Then their label collapsed, an ex-Guns N' Roses drummer walked into the picture, and the 1990s happened. A retrospective on a San Francisco band who kept making records nobody was listening for.

    By Deep Cuts · Issue 01 · · 16 min read