Serpens Albus

I'm not sure if any album was better suited to launch me into a lifetime of enjoying hard rock and metal music than Whitesnake's 1987 release.  I had already been enjoying the sounds of Stryper and Bon Jovi, but in the late spring of my senior year in high school, Whitesnake released their self-titled seventh album, and  the soundtrack of my life would be changed forever.  Described in the Columbia Record and Tape Club's monthly catalogue as being "Zeppelinesque," I had to give it a try.  As soon as it played through my jam box once, I was hooked.

It is a minor point to some, but the Latin phrase serpens albus at the base of the amulet caught my attention.  I was a Latin student back then with plans to become a Latin teacher, so that was, in my mind at least, immediately cool.  Still, it is all about the music, so let's get back to that.

The opening track, "Crying In The Rain," reaches out with a fist of iron, grabs you by the neck, and then passes you on to the next song, with each successive track manhandling you as if you were a rag doll to be left spent at the end of an album that you can't wait to replay from the start.  The whole thing is a tsunami of sonic aggression, and the lyrics have a pure blues-rock pedigree.  It has been said that David Coverdale could not write a song if the word "love" were removed from his vocabulary, and tales of needing love, losing love, and seeking love fill this album.  There are the ballads, of course, such as "Is This Love" and "Looking For Love," which was originally released only on the European version of the album, but what sold the album for me were Coverdale's vocals.  He remains one of my all-time favorite singers, and his vocals here are strong, soaring at times into the hair metal scream zone, but clear and able to carry the emotional freight of the songs.

A few months after purchasing the cassette, I found myself a freshman in college and soon discovered that I only had the tip of the iceberg, for there were six other Whitesnake albums I had never heard of.  I quickly began acquiring those and going absolutely nuts for their blues-rock roots.  Still, it was the granite-fist-in-a-steel-glove-smashing-me-in-the-face sound of the '87 album that made me wish I actually had speakers that could be cranked to eleven, and nothing captures that better than "Still Of The Night."  I remember once walking with a friend past a dorm on campus and hearing the sounds of this album blasting from one of the rooms.  I shouted up, "Hey, Whitesnake dude, is that a CD?"  Compact discs were still new, and I was impressed with the sound making its way down to the sidewalk.  He stuck his head out the window and said that it was, then asked if there were a track I wanted to hear.  I shouted, "Still Of The Night!"  Moments later my buddy and I were rocking out, and I knew that a CD player would be in my near future, and in fact it was this album that was my very first CD to accompany the Sony Discman that I got just a few months later.  Although I never had the album on white vinyl, I did have this poster in my apartment my senior year, and it will always be one of those songs that I turn up to ear-bleeding level whenever it comes on the radio.

I have been fortunate to see Whitesnake in concert three times, twice in the '80s and once in 2016, and through this band I came to know the music of Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and the rest of the rock legends, and their 1987 album was the start of it all.

For all these reasons, I had to get the 30th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition that was just released.  And yes, I tracked its shipment on Amazon, hardly able to wait to get home from work the day it arrived, which was also the day of its release.

When they say "super deluxe," they aren't kidding with this item.  It all comes in a handsome, hefty, well-made box that  feels in the hand as if you are holding a tome of literature. In fact, David Coverdale himself said it felt like holding The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and from a rock perspective it is just as epic.

As you can see from the picture I took moments after taking off the cellophane as eagerly as a kid at Christmas, there are lots of goodies.  There is a handsome poster of the album cover that will soon be framed and hanging with my other favorite rock posters.  Now, working our way counterclockwise from the top left of the photo, we see the exquisite 60-page, hardback book chock full of photos from the era and text detailing everything you could want to know about the meteoric rise of this multi-platinum stunnner.

Next is the disc called "87 Versions," which starts out with four remixes of "Still Of The Night," "Is This Love," "Give Me All Your Love," and "Here I Go Again."  I listened to these alongside the original releases and the 2017 remasters (more on these later), and I can honestly say the remixes bring something fresh.  You can hear individual tracks and instruments more sharply, and often the low-end sounds are clarified, which contrasts them with the high-end vocals.  It is as if the lines of a sculpture have been chiseled anew, not differently, but to make the cuts deeper and to bring the details into sharper relief.  The disc goes on to include "Standing In The Shadows," "Looking For Love," "You're Gonna Break My Heart Again," and "Need Your Love So Bad" from the Japan mini album.  This last track is a true gem, one that may be unknown, criminally and tragically so, to many.

At the bottom left you can see the DVD, which is the first item I played in this treasure box.  It starts off with the four MTV videos restored and remastered in 5.1 of "Still Of The Night," "Here I Go Again," "Is This Love," and "Give Me All Your Love."  For some of us, this is how we want our music videos...lots of shots of the band in action and a bit of the story line dramatized.  Watching these takes you back to that golden age of rock videos and music television.  Next comes  "Video Memories - The Making Of The 1987 Album."  Coverdale narrates in that rich voice of his, and coming in at a full half hour, this is a great look at what took place.  It examines everything from Hugh Syme's design of the now iconic Whitesnake amulet, Tawny Kitaen's replacement of Claudia Schiffer in the videos, and of course the making of the music.  After this is the Purplesnake Video Jam of "Here I Go Again," which for me was simply the most wonderful gift. Backstage and behind-the-scenes clips are interlaced with footage from various concerts on that tour, and the effect is that you are reminded just how much fun rock was in those days.  The hair is big, the costumes are flashy, and taking me back to the days of my youth as it did, it darn near brought a happy tear to my eye.  The DVD concludes with actual tour footage of "Crying In The Rain," intros of the band members, and "Still Of The Night."  It was if it I were back in Louisville, Kentucky's Freedom Hall on February 14, 1988, when I saw Whitesnake for the first time.  The showmanship of David Coverdale, Adrian Vandenberg, Vivian Campbell, Rudy Sarzo, and Tommy Aldridge really shine through in these glimpses from the 213-date tour that tore through the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Puerto Rico.

Next in the picture you see the disc of "Snakeskin Boots," which was the second disc I couldn't wait to open.  It contains twelve tracks recorded live in June of 1988 in Tokyo.  This is the mighty Whitesnake at the height of their hair-metal glory.  Songs are mostly from the '87 album, with "Slide It In," "Slow An' Easy," and "Love Ain't No Stranger" from their preceding album Slide It In.  Listening to the disc in 2017, the track I couldn't wait to hear was "Ain't No Love In The Heart Of The City."  Their cover of the 1974 Bobby Bland song appeared on their debut album Snakebite back in 1978 and became the featured song on all their tours.  I once asked David on the old Whitesnake bulletin board whether he had sung it or Deep Purple's "Mistreated" more often, and he replied that it would be hard to tell.  I love all of the countless versions I have listened to, and it is indeed one for the famous Whitesnake Choir that David loves and appreciates so much to join in on with full-throated abandon.  Of course the track that gets the crowd to blow the roof off the place is Track 10, "Still Of The Night."  There is nothing like this song, and nothing like it played live.

On on the bottom right is the disc "87 Evolutions," filled with demos and rehearsals.  I love this kind of thing.  It's like unearthing an original manuscript of a famous work and seeing how it changed over time.  We hear alternative arrangements and lyrics, and by gaining access to these works in progress, we are taken deep into the creative process.  If you are the kind of person who loves rockumentaries and the nitty-gritty of music development as I do, you will enjoy this disc.

The last disc in the picture is the complete '87 album remastered.  It includes the full eleven tracks from the European edition, but in a different order from either the U.S. or European release.  The sounds are a bit cleaner than the original, and anything that opens with "Still Of The Night" is going to be a scorcher.

In the upper right corner of the picture, you will notice a small, purple booklet.  It includes all the lyrics to the songs along with David Coverdale's own handwriting, including the crossing out of words he decided against.

So there you have it, a look at the 30th anniversary super deluxe edition of an album that truly shattered the darkness in rock and will always have a special place in the discography of this Roman Rocker.