Night Ranger “Somewhere in California”
In 1983, for the first time in recorded music history, cassette tapes outsold vinyl LPs. The newer format was neither sonically nor aesthetically superior to its predecessor, but it was lighter and cheaper, which meant savings for record labels, distributors, stores and — theoretically — customers. However, the reduction in scale — a cassette being roughly ten square inches to the one hundred and forty four of an LP — also meant that stores now had a real estate problem. How should they display all of these small, flimsy cassettes? What could they do with all of those old vinyl crates and bins? And, most of all, what would they do with all the space that was left over?
For many stores, a central aisle remained dedicated to LPs while the surrounding walls were affixed with cassette racks. Records needed storage volume and bins for exploring. Tapes, on the other hand, were tailor made for walls. Customers simply needed to look at the product’s spine to locate artist name, album title and price. Records required time and consideration. Tapes were built for speed and mobility. And so, by 1984, most record stores were redesigned around the prevailing new format. But, even after those innovations, there was excess space. And so, in the years right after video killed the radio star, many music merchants did the sensible thing. They purchased and installed massive, free standing displays with swinging panels to frame and sell dozens upon dozens of glorious Rock and Roll posters.
Between 1983 and 1990 — the year that compact disc sales eclipsed cassette sales and upended the prevailing retail footprint once again — these gargantuan poster contraptions could be found at most any record store. But they were especially popular at mall chains like Camelot, Sam Goody, Coconuts, Strawberries and Peaches, where teens wanted more than ten songs on magnetic tape inside five ounces of either white or clear plastic. They wanted more than the skeletons and leather of Heavy Metal and more than the rocketships and moonscapes of Arena Rock. They wanted what MTV promised them —they wanted to see their favorite stars, up close and personal.
Which is why — just after vinyl but right before CDs, when style and image were everything and when we all pretended to love cassette tapes because they were cheap and portable — Rock and Roll posters were a very big deal. Case in point, the single greatest teen bedroom in the history of history, occupied by one Ferris J. Bueller. Ferris’ bedroom walls featured oversized posters for (among many others) Bryan Ferry, The Damned, Cabaret Voltaire, Killing Joke and Simple Minds. But that was Ferris, who was, of course, the coolest. Not all of us were so worldly in 1986. He was the sausage king of Chicago. We were fledgling little leaguers desperate to get to first base. Given limited wall space and even more limited budgets, the rest of us had some very tough choices to make.
So, let’s say you are a twelve year old boy in 1986. You’ve got your own bedroom and you’ve got your MTV and you’ve got your ten bucks and you’re at Sam Goody and you are ready to Rock. Who makes it onto your walls? What statement are you prepared to make? The Police? Well, maybe, but also they just broke up. Duran Duran? I guess, but also they’re kind of for girls. R.E.O. Speedwagon look permed and soft. Foreigner look completely uncool. Journey looks like they are really trying to be cool (but aren’t). Men at Work are too Australian. Loverboy too Canadian. Def Leppard too English. Van Halen looks like they will definitely steal your (imaginary) girlfriend. AC/DC looks like they might murder your kid sister. The Rolling Stones are too old. Chicago is too old and too feathered. So that basically leaves you with Night Ranger. And by you, I obviously mean me.
Night Ranger — really? How did I end up with Night Ranger? How is it that this is the band that I’m going to drop $9.99 on? How is that the band who’s ending up on my bedroom wall? Well, for one thing they check a lot of boxes. Not murderous. Not old. Not English. They’ve got New Wave hallmarks — teal blazers, sleeves rolled up, red bandana armbands, longish hair, caught between mullet and hippie, a guy with a beard who wears shades and a cowboy hat, and a guy who looks like he’s there for comic relief. They toe a line between kind of cool and kind of funny. Girls might think they’re cute. Guys might take them seriously. But, mostly, I can’t find any real objections. Oh — and “Sister Christian.” That song rules.
So that was how, in 1986, I ended up with a Night Ranger poster in my room — through their un-objectionability. It was how millions of us ended up with Night Ranger in our lives. They were a much better than proficient Hard Rock band that was never too weird or too scary or too pretty and who never rocked too hard. They were a mostly good looking, mostly All American looking bunch of guys who appeared a dash too silly to be dangerous. They were aware of the New Wave but not particularly fashionable. They had two — sometimes three — lead singers, which meant that they really had no frontman. And, similarly, they had two lead guitarists which meant that they had no lead guitarist. Night Ranger loved Van Halen but they could never be Van Halen. They had three guys who were each a quarter D.L.R. and two guys who were maybe each an eighth of E.VH. But, taken together, they were just enough.
To be clear, Night Ranger was one helluva Rock band. Between 1982 and 1985, they scored five top forty Pop hits and eight top forty Rock radio hits. FM stations had hours to fill and they needed something like Van Halen minus Foreigner plus R.E.O. Speedwagon to fill the minutes when they were not actually playing Van Halen, Foreigner or R.E.O. Speedwagon. And with Jack Blades, Brad Gillis, Alan Fitzgerald, Kelly Keagy and Jeff Watson, that’s almost exactly what they got. Night Ranger were Hard Rock-esque. Arena Rock-y. AOR Rock-ish. You could sandwich them in between Loverboy and AC/DC and no one would blink an eye. They served a valuable purpose as a first rate, second tier, major label Rock band. And they probably would have pulled off the act for many more years had it not been for the success of their one seismic Power Ballad.
“Sister Christian” makes no sense. Maybe not zero sense, but not much more than zero sense. It’s a coming of age story about a teenage girl (I think), sung by her brother (I’m sure) who’s worried that she doesn’t understand how the grown up world works. It’s roughly one third a naked piano ballad sung by a drummer and one half a soaring three part harmony over rhythm guitars. And those pieces are stitched together by a racing drum fill and an unnecessary guitar solo. It’s a song that has no business working, in part, because it sounds like two or three songs more than like one. And yet, it absolutely slays. It’s a bizarre masterpiece — the instance where a band’s most popular song is also their strangest song and also their greatest song. It’s a song that has had multiple lives — first with its graduation day, leaving town video for MTV that might have invented Kelly Kapowski from “Saved By the Bell” (rewatch the video and you tell me) and then, many years later, as the unforgettable soundtrack to Alfred Molina’s coked up meltdown in “Boogie Nights.”
It was also the beginning of the end for Night Ranger, who dwindled alongside the cassette tape. In early 1988, keyboardist, Alan Fitzgerald, left the band and, one year later, Jack Blades teamed up with Ted Nugent and Tommy Shaw to form Damn Yankees. In the seven years following their debut, Night Ranger released five albums, two of which were certified platinum and one of which was gold. They had a heck of a run. But “Sister Christian” obscured their existential flaw — they were not different enough. Their smash hit was aberrant. The rest of their material, meanwhile, was highly professional Hard Rock that verged on generic Hard Rock. Purely as musicians, they were far more competent than AC/DC. They could play alongside Van Halen or Aerosmith note for note. But they played it all just a bit too straight. Which is exactly why they were the most acceptable poster purchase for me in 1986 and also why I moved on from them almost immediately. Apparently, I was not alone.
But, like R.E.O. Speedwagon, Loverboy, Styx, Journey and that generation of Rockers who splintered and then fractured, Night Ranger soldiered on. First, as a trio — Keagy, Gillis and pinch singer Gary Moon released the completely forgettable and horrifically named “Feeding the Mojo” in 1995. And then, when Blades returned to the fold, the band made a couple of albums aimed at the Adult Contemporary market with CMC Records, the label who’d tried similar tacks with Styx, Loverboy, Eddie Money, Slaughter, Warrant and a laundry list of prestigious hanger-ons and has-beens. In the years between Grunge and Nu Metal, Night Ranger entered a new and inevitable phase of their career, touring alongside reconstituted versions of Eighties Rock greats on summer tours, appearing at state fairs, NASCAR events and Rock and Roll fantasy camps.
For years — more than a decade, really — Night Ranger operated as a reliable opening act in support of Journey, Foreigner, Whitesnake, Sammy Hagar, Rick Springfield and pretty much every other big name from the Eighties that was still active but in no way vital. For roughly fifty dates each year, they functioned as “Eighties filler” — a net positive on the marquee but never the main attraction. People came to see Journey, but they were delighted that Night Ranger was there to play “Sister Christian,” “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me,” and "(You Can Still) Rock in America". On their own, Night Ranger could fill out small halls and large rooms. But together with bigger names, they turned a concert into an event. Decades removed from that Sam Goody poster rack, Night Ranger were still neither too much nor too little. They were precisely good enough.
But also, they were different. They were ace players — experts on their instruments. Technically, they were not so far from Toto. However, whereas Toto loved to play music, Night Ranger loved to ROCK. Night Ranger’s ballads were happy accidents in a market starved for big feelings and mid tempos from R.E.O., Foreigner and the like. But, in their bones, Night Ranger were a Hard Rock band, closer to Van Halen or AC/DC than to Journey or Toto. Whereas Van Halen and AC/DC got to be exactly who they were born to be, though, Night Ranger were destined to land on posters at the Sam Goody in the mall. The conditions that made them also — and more so — supressed them.
And that thought made me kind of sad. I recalled “Dawn Patrol,” their debut album — it was absolutely Hard Rock. Fast. Loud. More melodic than Judas Priest but also much heavier than Loverboy. However, just a year later, “Sister Christian” changed everything. Their career. Their fortune, But also, of course, their sound. I couldn’t help wonder whether that was a blessing or a curse. There was a mountain of evidence that it was the former — the members of Night Ranger got to travel the world, filling arenas, making great music together. Their song had raced to the top of the charts and still survived decades later. But did they ever get to really ROCK again? Did they ever get to be the band they dreamed of being before they were merely the acceptable band on a poster adorning my childhood bedroom?
What happens to our dreams in middle age? Do they still matter? Were they silly to begin with? Along with doctors’ appointments, confusion over new technology and the prosperity of our children, these are the questions we wrestle with on the other side of forty. And, as much as Night Ranger were an Eighties Rock band, they were also a middle-aged Rock band. Strictly speaking, they were more the latter than the former. While they released five albums during their heyday, they — amazingly — have put out eight albums since. Their most recent album, from 2021, was “A.T.B.O.,” an acronym for “And The Band Played On.” Its predecessor, from 2017, was “Don’t Let Up.” My research suggested that I might be onto something. That Night Ranger wasn’t simply “hanging on.” That they were not content being “the Sister Christian guys.” That there was a destiny yet to be fulfilled.
After years of partial breakups and semi-reunions, of albums that embraced Adult Contemporary fare and accepted their past prime status, Jack Blades, Kelly Keagy and Brad Gillis made two important decisions. First, they separated from longtime guitarist Jeff Watson, replacing him with former Trans-Siberian Orchestra and future Whitesnake wunderkind Joel Hoekstra. Second, they went back to the source and recommitted to the sound that they’d forged way back when. Night Ranger’s tenth studio album, entitled “Somewhere in California,” is a direct homage to their roots. It’s the album that re-established their relevance in the Hard Rock community. And it is, above all else, completely and totally middle-aged.
Which is not necessarily a bad thing. “Somewhere in California” is not at all flaccid or tired or or bloated — it’s not that kind of middle age. It’s the desperate, holding on for dear life variety. It’s “carpe diem” and “never say goodbye.” It’s louder, faster and heavier than their previous albums — like early Night Ranger, with a dose of Viagra and a shot of Propecia for good measure. The playing is wildly impressive. Twin guitar fireworks. Lots of fret tapping and eruption. The singers may have lost some range, but none of their pitch or quality. And, together, their harmonies still soar. The hooks are solid and the riffs are tight. There is plenty to admire on the album. And yet, it misses the mark. In trying so hard to recapture their prime, they go just a little too far, landing on the well trodden road of the past prime.
Ultimately, the problems with “Somewhere in California” undermine the obvious musicianship and songcraft. And the biggest problem, to my ears, is the record’s production. Mixed by Anthony Focx — who’d worked with Blades before and who can be at least partially blamed for the sound of Buckcherry — Night Ranger’s Hard Rock comeback sounds flat and compressed. There’s no space between the instruments, The vocals are thin. And the relative scarcity of keyboards leaves us with walls of squeal and buzz that bury the bass and drums. In comparison to “Dawn Patrol” — its spiritual antecedent — “Somewhere in California” sounds like an obviously “digital album.” The distance between 1982 and 2011 is also the difference between analog recording and Pro Tools. Technically, it might be progress. But sonically, it’s a regression.
It’s not just the mix. It’s also the ideas. Or lack of ideas. More than half of the album is basically the same theme (“carpe diem”) dressed up with different hooks. Tracks four through nine are entitled (I’m not making this up): “Follow Your Heart,” “Time of Our Lives,” “No Time to Lose,” “Live for Today,” “It’s Not Over” and “End of the Day.” Yes, there are slight variations. Some are about relationships while others are more of an existential yearning. But, make no mistake, six consecutive songs could all have the exact same title and lyrics without any consequence on their meaning. In 2011, Night Ranger were consumed with never letting up, never letting go, and holding onto today, because there is no tomorrow.
The insistence of the sentiment is fine. In fact, most of the heavy middle of the album is just that — fine. “Time of our Lives,” their one foray into power balladry, is perhaps slightly less than fine. And “No Time to Lose” and “End of the Day,” which are both less hard charging, more dynamic and injected with a touch of keyboards, are better than fine. But between the dullness of its central obsession and the thinness of its sonic compression, “Somewhere in California” fails to deliver on the excitement of its effort. It’s an album desperate to thrust forward but fundamentally mired in the past.
While it was no revelation, “Somewhere in California” was more than just competent. It was, in its own ways, a success. It nudged the band out from the middle of the road to a faster, louder lane — a move slightly away from Journey and towards Whitesnake. It was also the first in a string of heavier albums that reintroduced Night Ranger to Hard Rock fans, kicking off a run of successively higher chart positions. But, most of all, it was a concerted group effort — a recommitment to the sound that — once upon a time — was their very own. It was less exciting than Van Halen. Less anthemic than Foreigner. Less impassioned than Journey. Less incendiary than AC/DC. It contained many of the things that made those bands so good but almost nothing that made them great. But it was theirs. Which is maybe why Night Ranger is still an actual band making actually new music while those other bands are not and do not. And also maybe why they were the poster I chose — not because they were the greatest or because I loved them the most but because I could tell that they would do the least amount of harm.