Various Artists - Mullets Rock (35 tracks) +Album Reviews +Used CD available for Swap

The Long and The Short Of It

Anthony G Pizza | FL | 04/17/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The mullet haircut at the root of this generous 2CD classic rock collection first appeared in the 1950s as a barber's mistake which became a regional, then nostalgic phenomenon. The illustrations gracing the front and inside covers (football, pro wrestlers, muscle cars and monster trucks, character rejects from "Beavis and Butthead") tell the whole story as to who wore and wears the cut called anything from "rattail" to "party in the back."Still, "Mullets Rock" is a surprisingly robust set which gets most of the bands if not always the songs right over three decades. Foreigner's "Dirty White Boy" might have been better chosen over "Hot Blooded," Foghat's "Fool For The City" over "Slow Ride," Judas Priest's "Breaking The Law" over "Living After Midnight." Moreover, Toto and the Hollies' polished rock had little to do with the hair or lifestyle of the time, and George Thoroughgood's "Bad To The Bone" and BTO's "Taking Care of Business" are commercial and cliche now more than rockers.But mullet wearers Journey, REO Speedwagon, and the late Stevie Ray Vaughn are well represented with album-length versions of songs often left out of collections like this. (Vaughn's epic 1984 take on Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Child" ducktails, um, dovetails nicely from the Allman Brothers chugging 1994 radio hit "No One Left To Run With." Southern rockers (the Doobie Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ram Jam's infamous hard rock take on Leadbelly's "Black Betty" get their due beside some early 80s metal hair bands (Twisted Sister, Quiet Riot, Billy Squier). Overall, "Mullet Rock" works as weekend barbeque or drive collection for those wanting to comb through some classic rock's highlights."

It is what it is.

John Truslow | Vestal, New York, United States | 03/15/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It's hard not to be a little Zen when reviewing this album. It doesn't exactly cover new ground, introduce you to a new way of living, or stretch your understanding of a particular type of music. Simply: It is what it is. It is culture-bound, enslaved in time, redneck rock and roll, and I really, really like it. Face it: You're not going to update your CD collection with very many of the original albums sampled here, but you do wish you had bought them at the time. In the end, you're going to get this and listen to it alone on long car trips, and then when your long lost college friends come over, and they are going to be SO jealous of the fact that you have this album, because YOU can relive a past that is never, ever coming back, and with good reason, but we can still enjoy what was, through this, that is. I think it's awesome."

A collection of classic hard classics from long haired dudes

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 07/15/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Mullets Rock!" is a 2-CD collection that decides that if you want a rationale for putting together 35 hard rock songs from the 1970s and early 1980s, then groups where guys wore the infamous mullet haircut makes as much sense as anything else. Were their actually guys wearing mullet haircuts in Journey, Toto, Argent, and the rest of these groups? Darned if I know because I was not paying attention to their hair and I am not really inclined to do a Google search to find pictures of all these groups to check their bone fides. What matters here is that this is a more than solid collection of the core classics of bombastic hard rock from his period: Mountain's "Mississippi Queen," Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water," Foghat's "Slow Ride," Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein," Kansas' "Carry on My Wayward Son," Grand Funk Railroad's "We're an American Band," Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "Takin' Care of Business," and Meat Loaf's magnum opus "Bat Out of Hell." Not everything here qualifies as hard rock and that includes some of the better tracks, such as REO Speedwagon's "Roll With the Changes," Cheap Trick's "Surrender," the Hollies' "Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)," and Argent's "Hold Your Head Up." You will also find a few tracks that you can live without, which only underscores the only serious problem with this album: how many of these classic tracks are you missing? Of course you have Alice Cooper's "School's Out" and "Bad to the Bone" by George Thorogood and the Destroyers. But I have over 1200 CDs and I did not have half the tracks on this one and there are certainly enough gems to make it worth the addition. Ultimately, "Mullets Rock!" is an album that requires to be played loud with the windows down (or open, whatever works best for you)."

Bad haircut + great music = terrific album

coachtim | Indiana, United States | 05/12/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"You don't have to admit that you wore a mullet (or still do) to enjoy the 35 cuts from "Mullets Rock". This 2-CD set is a great compilation of some of the finest head-banging music from the late '70s through the late '80s. Each selection (while not new to aficionados of Classic Rock) is a hit in its own right and memorable for more than a few reasons. Rarely, does a compilation like this have so many great songs one after another. There are no "filler" songs that simply take up space on "Mullets Rock"!

While it's true that most of the performers featured in this CD were not wearers of that infamous hairstyle, that's of little importance to the listener because it is the music that drives this album. Some of the biggest hits from Kansas ("Carry on My Wayward Son", Boston ("Smokin'"), BTO ("Takin' Care of Business"), The Doobie Brothers ("Roll On Down the Highway"), Deep Purple ("Smoke On the Water"), Stevie Ray Vaughan ("Voodoo Chile" and REO Speedwagon ("Roll With the Changes") just to mention a few are all present.

Meant to be played loud, this is one CD that you will crank up over and over."

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