Tesla -
The Great Radio Controversy (CD)
ORIGINAL GEFFEN 1989 OUT OF PRINT RELEASE!!!
- UPC: 075992422420
- Catalog#:
M2G 24224
No Skips, No Freeze ups!!!
No Scratches, No Scuff Marks!!!
CD and all artwork included.
CD and Inserts in Excellent Like New condition.
Jewel Case has normal wear.
T
heir blues-influenced, grittier edge set Tesla apart from the bands
that littered the hard rock landscape from the late '80s to the early
'90s. The Great Radio Controversy is arguably their best album,
with enough hooks to catch the listener, and good, solid songwriting.
Songs like "Heaven's Trail (No Way Out)," "Flight to Nowhere," and
"Party's Over" show that Tesla is at their best when tackling anthems;
by avoiding the overblown riffs and musical posturing of their peers,
they keep these songs from sounding pretentious. Likewise, "Love Song"
lives up to its title, a straightforward ballad that doesn't drip with
treacle the way most hard rock power ballads do. A solid effort all
around.
Track
listing
1. Hang Tough
2. Lady Luck
3. Heaven's Trail (No Way Out)
4. Be a Man
5. Lazy Days, Crazy Nights
6. Did It for the
Money
7. Yesterdaze Gone
8. Makin' Magic
9. Way It Is, The
10. Flight to Nowhere
11. Love Song
12. Paradise
13. Party's
Over
Product Details
- Audio CD (February 1, 1989)
- Original Release Date: February 1, 1989
- Number of Discs: 1
- Label: Geffen Records
- UPC: 075992422420
- Catalog#: M2G 24224
- Format: AAD
Tesla Biography
Although Tesla emerged during the glory days of hair metal, the
band's music was equally indebted to contemporary blues and '70s-style
hard rock, a fusion that helped differentiate albums like The Great
Radio Controversy from its contemporaries. Despite the refreshing lack
of posturing, Tesla was hit just as hard as the rest of the pop-metal
world when grunge arrived in the early 1990s. They did produce one of
the era's more respectable bodies of work, however, including three
consecutive platinum-selling albums.
Although Tesla took shape in
1985 in Sacramento, CA, the musicians (vocalist Jeff Keith, the
underrated guitar tandem of Frank Hannon and Tommy Skeoch, bassist Brian
Wheat, and drummer Troy Luccketta) had logged several years together
under the name City Kidd. At their management's suggestion, the
bandmates renamed their group after the eccentric inventor Nikola Tesla,
who pioneered the radio but was given only belated credit for doing so.
After playing several showcases in Los Angeles, Tesla quickly scored a
deal with Geffen and released the debut album Mechanical Resonance in
1986. It produced a minor hard rock hit in "Modern Day Cowboy," reached
the Top 40 on the album charts, and eventually went platinum. However,
it was the 1989 follow-up effort, The Great Radio Controversy, that
truly broke the band. The first single, "Heaven's Trail (No Way Out),"
was another hit with hard rock audiences and set the stage for the
second single, a warm, comforting ballad named "Love Song" that
substituted a dash of hippie utopianism for the usual power ballad
histrionics. "Love Song" hit the pop Top Ten and pushed The Great Radio
Controversy into the Top 20. Double-platinum sales figures followed as
another single, "The Way It Is," also enjoyed some degree of airplay.
In
keeping with their unpretentious, blue-collar roots, Tesla responded to
stardom not by aping the glam theatrics of their tourmates, but by
stripping things down. The idea behind 1990s Five Man Acoustical Jam was
virtually unheard of -- a pop-metal band playing loose, informal
acoustic versions of their best-known songs in concert, plus a few
favorite covers ('60s classics by the Beatles, Stones, CCR, and others).
Fortunately, Tesla's music was sturdy enough to hold up when its roots
were exposed, and one of the covers -- "Signs," an idealistic bit of
hippie outrage by the Five Man Electrical Band -- became another Top Ten
hit, as well as the band's highest-charting single. Not only did Five
Man Acoustical Jam reach the Top 20 and go platinum, but it also helped
directly inspire MTV's Unplugged series, both with its relaxed vibe and
its reminder that acoustic music could sound vital and energetic.
The
studio follow-up to The Great Radio Controversy, Psychotic Supper,
arrived in 1991 and quickly became another platinum hit. It didn't
produce any singles quite as successful as "Love Song" or "Signs," but
it did spin off the greatest number of singles of any Tesla album:
"Edison's Medicine," "Call It What You Want," "What You Give," and "Song
and Emotion." Perhaps that was partly due to Tesla's workmanlike hard
rock, which didn't sound ridiculous if it was played on rock radio
alongside the new crop of Seattle bands. The winds of change were
blowing, however, and by the time Tesla returned with their 1994
follow-up, Bust a Nut, few bands from the pop-metal era had maintained
their popularity. Bust a Nut did sell over 800,000 copies -- an
extremely respectable showing given the musical climate of 1994, and a
testament to the fan base Tesla had managed to cultivate over the years.
Yet all was not well within the band, and Tommy Skeoch's addiction to
tranquilizers resulted in his dismissal from the band in 1995.
Tesla
attempted to forge ahead as a quartet, but the chemistry had been
irreparably altered by Skeoch's exit, and they broke up in 1996. Most of
the bandmembers began playing with smaller outfits, none of which moved
beyond a local level. When Skeoch's health improved, however, the band
staged a small-scale reunion in 2000, which quickly became a
full-fledged effort. In the fall of 2001, the group released a two-disc
live album, Replugged Live, which documented their reunion tour. Into
the Now, which was co-produced by Michael Rosen (Testament, AFI),
appeared in March 2004. A collection of '70s covers called Real to Reel
arrived in 2007, by which time Skeoch had left the band once more and
been replaced by Dave Rude. 2008 found the revised band releasing its
seventh studio album, Forever More, an all-new collection of songs that
saw the musicians reuniting with producer Terry Thomas, who had
previously helmed 1994's Bust a Nut.
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