Our Music Year #25: Alcatrazz, "Disturbing the Peace"

Artist: Alcatrazz
Album: Disturbing the Peace
Year: 1985
Format: Spotify
Grade: D+

Roger Ebert once wrote that he tries to judge films by the choices they make, not the ones they don't.

That sounds impossible — by questioning the choices made, aren't you really asking about the ones that weren't? — but I hope it's possible.

In this context, Disturbing the Peace makes me wonder how a band with Steve Vai on guitar and Graham Bonnet on vox settled for so little.

Disturbing has all the hallmarks of an '80s glam rock album — keyboards where there should be bass, dynamic singer, power chords. You can picture the band with flowing manes of hair, wearing tight leather pants in a video for "Stripper" that features cutaways to a woman being PG sleazy.

"Will You Be Home Tonight" is an adult-oriented rock nightmare that recalls a less committed Journey.

Bonnet does everything he can to sell "God Blessed Video." He tries hard to do so on many tracks on Disturbing, but there just isn't much memorable.

There aren't many moments when Alcatrazz transcends the generation in which it was created, but that's owed more to the material than the performers.

Disturbing the Peace didn't make good choices for 1985 and, thus, has not aged particularly well.

Tomorrow's entry: Gogol Bordello, Trans-Continental Hustle

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