Back to Mystery City

Well that was generic

Crap

Couldn’t listen to this

The instrumentals were decent, the lyrics and the vocals were so far. Felt like I was trying to copy major bands, but missed the mark.

by what metric this was judged one of the 1001 albums you must hear before you die.

An other fucking 80's album in this white ass list. You mean you rather put this than any album of C. Berry even if every single guitar's riffs in this album are widely inspired by him... Trafic.... It's not worth than an other but I'm not in the mood..

Another one I never needed to hear. Gains a point for not being from England or the USA and having this sort of gloom hanging over it. Edit: No, sorry, it’s a deserved 1.

I've never enjoyed this band or their albums. Not an essential band or album at all. The writers have it wrong. They have very much so over estimated their influence on anyone. Hair metal, or as it is more often called today, glam rock, was really more inspired more by Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, David Bowie, and Kiss than by bands like Hanoi Rocks. Throw out this cynical album and instead embrace the pure vapid joy and escape that they offered U.S. audiences in the 80s bands of Motley Crue, Poison, Whitesnake, Warrant, Extreme, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Mr. Big, Cinderella, Firehose, Nelson, Skid Row, and Guns N' Roses. I use vapid not as an insult but as a celebration, because it offered relief to U.S. audiences who were exhausted by Vietnam War, stagflation, and Watergate of the 1970s. They were also exhausted with the overly serious tone of the music industry from the 1970s and just wanted a bit of fun for once. You will get more out of it, if you enjoy it as the pure Dionysian expression it was intended to be, and not as music critics treat it, as some sort of failure because it didn't express enough outrage or virtue signaling to please the critics who seem to incorrectly view themselves as the proper gatekeepers of music.

Somehow listening to this made me dislike hair metal / glam rock even more than I already did. Shallow, vapid lyrics, cheap sounding 80s production, boring songwriting. I guess there are some moments that are kinda fun but this isn’t something I’ll be returning to.

80s New Wave trash. No melody. Pussyfoot themes. No toughness at all in any of these guys.

It really is just another glam metal 80s album. A bunch of trendy for the time dudes trying to be awesome and get the spotlight. The lead guitarist is really the thing holding them together at all. The rhythm section is pretty good on their own. But the singer can't sing, which can work with some bands, but he really just doesn't fit at all and rips. It's like he's trying too hard to have bite and ferociousness, but it either sounds like a random, weird animal or exactly what he looks like on the cover. The production, I think, is the real let down. I feel like they would be a lot more listenable if the sound had any substance. Just sounds hollow and shallow. Not a great album, but it has a few listenable, fun moments

I really don't know why this album of tired old rock tropes and cliches has made it on to this list.

Tried to give this another listen, but I really just don't like it. The first three tracks have an energy and playfulness I can almost get into, and when she interesting instrumentation, but then it devolves.

Not on Amazon Music

I really can't stand this hair metal type of music

Vocals, instrumentation, lyrics, and production were just cringy bad. We are all worse for having heard this. Still better than anything by Oasis.

When your crowning achievement is influencing Ratt and Motley Crue, you especially can't have a song about fucking a virgin into submission. I was most offended by the 50s rock pastiche.

this was actually unpleasant to listen to.

Three songs was too much, travesty on the ears.

Hanoi Sucks. 80's junk punk. Mediocre production value.

Nothing different to any other band like this around at the time. Not sure why it's in the list!

Just wasn’t it for me. I found myself drowning it out early on and through the rest of the album. Next pls

Ass

How did the costoms at the border acept this?

Not really that good, to be honest.

First listen

Ist die Band so schlecht oder tut sie einfach so als wäre sie eine neu gegründete Schülerband in den 70ern? Aber ok, in einem kleinen Club mit genügend Schnaps on top waren die vielleicht ganz lustig.

Boring

Thoroughly not-good. I hear nothing that even gives me a hint as to why this would be included on this list. From the years of their releases and their cover photos I'd guess that they are somehow credited for being on the vanguard of hair metal? But David Lee Roth had copied the New York Dolls look years before, and his little band was great. The music here is abysmal. Not only VH, but also Billy Squire were doing the "sexy-strut" thing far better at the same time, and without the jarring tendency of drifting into Bay City Roller's-esque bubble gum pop.

Never heard of them. After listening to their music, I know why. Not good.

On first impressions, this album was fine but one of the weaker rock entries in the list so far. Upon revisiting the album for this review, I liked it less. It's not really bad, but it gets the bottom spot. I could've lived without this one. Favorite track: maybe "Ice Cream Summer"

Look, I’m no music critic or an expert in what is good, but I for the life of me can’t figure out why this album is on here.

Two duds in a row. The production on this is so flat that it's easy to forget you're actually listening to it. It just pretty much happened in the same room as me and I can't really recall anything of note about it other than the in sax in _ Malibu Beach Nightmare_ which adds some much needed dynamics to an otherwise utterly forgettable album.

Another album, I have no idea why this is on this list. There may be millions of other records that would deserve a place here over this. Heck, most of the records that have been removed from the current book are better than this.

20

Absolutely dreadful

Does it though?

nothing mysterious about this.

sometimes i ask myself why certain albums are on this list…

The 80s were a rough time

One black mark against Finland.

Finsk glamrock? Förvånansvärt svängigt. Men inget som lämnar något bestående intryck. Varför spelar trummisen genomgående för ishockey-klscken. Var beredd att ge detta en mycket svag 2:.a, men titelspåret drog ned helhetsintrycket till en 1:a.

no

“Important” because this was basically proto-hair metal, but lyrically and musically a whole lotta what.ever. Not really worth the time.

Twin guitar glam rock bordering on hair metal (but a very soft metal, like aluminum). Pretty generic mid-tempo beats, no real riffs or gnarly solos or any of the sheer absurd excess that would make this fun, instead it’s random harmonicas, reverse delay effects, and chugging nothingness. An 80s Finnish Cheap Trick that’s barely a weak copy of the Scorpions. “Until I get You” is pretty good TBH

Not the best side of the 80s

A vortex of every rock sound that had come before and the emerging baby synth tech of the early 80s. New Wave party music by cheeky Brits sneaking obvious masturbation references past oblivious censors. Musically: kitchen sink-core. There’s some cool sounds in here. Tooting Bec Wreck is a highlight, a singalong with Beefheartian lunacy hiding at the center. Lots of Big Hair sound in the middle of the record. Pub and Stadium rock linked by increasingly fading Oingo Boingo weirdisms. Bret Michaels crawled out of this shit like Athena from Zeus’s noggin. At its best recalls Mr Bungle. At its worst, Warrant.

1 stern

The singer shouts not sings. Is that because they need to be heard above the noise.

It didn't take long to figure out this was from the 80's. Pretty generic pop rock with absolutely nothing that would lead me to believe this would be on anyone's "must" listen list. I won't say it was terrible but I don't think I would hang around very long even if it was a free concert. I save my 1's for the brutal, but this one not much above. 1.5

Boring and unoriginal

Have you ever watched a show or a movie and the subtitles say something like "wet squelching" and you immediately plug your ears because you don't want to hear goddamn wet squelching? That was me when I saw "Metal/Hard Rock" and "Hanoi Rocks" appeared on my screen. Absolutely disgusting

Do they? Big hair business!

Bad glam metal. Why is this here?

Absolutely not

Fuck off. EDIT: ok you know what, I was gonna go easy on this album, but why is this on the list?? Like, this isn’t particularly early for this style of music, it isn’t remotely good, I gave it a two at first because it’s listenable, but no. Fuck it. This gets a one for sheer bewilderment that it’s on the list

Boring as hell.

Did not like

puta q pariu glam é ruim demais vsf corno que fez essa lista banda horrorosa

Tight band. Their music just doesn't do anything for me.

Not a fan of glam/hair metal so this will be a long listen... yeah 1 song in and ive got a headache.... Pathetic. Bland.

80s pop rock, my favourite genre. Let's just forget that I have ever listened to this album.

"Annoy" Rocks, am I right??

"Oh, finally a rock album outside of the UK or the US in this list..." * Hanoi Rocks * "ARRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHH"

As forgettable an album as I’ve heard.

Everything wrong with the 80's in one album. It's just a bad version of Bon Jovi. Why the hell is this album even close to this list, just no!

No

Crap.

yea hair metal is just rough man

In a nutshell: uniquely 80s Sounds like a mashup of New York Dolls, Sweet, Mötley Crüe and Poison. Could be inspiration for The Hives. Not for everyone. Overall: 2/10

It’s a 1.5 —- it’d be a 2.5 or 2 — there’s a few songs that are a tad catchy and fun, but I found it obnoxious to listen to and will not revisit.

More like Hanoi Sucks. Getting through this was tough. Every song plays like super rubbishy, not at all glamorous early glam punk metal but they’re all like 5 minutes long and I wanted to get the first plane ticket out of this Mystery City pretty much instantly.

Inte min typ av pudelrock

No thanks.

Couldn’t even access it on Apple Music so had to go on YouTube, gotta love the ads too. Anyway, not a good album. Just no clue how this ended up on this list.

So instead of Ram, Toxicity, Discovery, Pinkerton, The Black Parade, and absolutely no Ween we get this laughably bad shitty generic 80s glam record. Great.

no no no no

Just don’t get and really didn’t enjoy it at all. Even reading about the album, I still don’t understand how it mad the list. Seems like there are some better choices.

Maybe periodically updating this list isn't what's needed anymore. Maybe it's time to just scrap it and start from scratch because like this album, there's a lot of fluff/filler on here that just doesn't need to be. There's nothing remarkable about this album at all. From off-key, whiny vocals to generic, uninspired performances (that awful flute in the intro track). Heck, this isn't even a popular album among their listeners on Spotify..

We already had Rio when this came out

Tja geen idee. Niks aan Hanoi Rocks is naar mijn idee nieuw of vernieuwend. Hooguit het land van herkomst, maarja boeie! Het is stomme 70-s Glamrock ver in de jaren 80. Het klinkt niet slecht of saai maar kan ook geen enkele vezel in m'n lichaam beroeren. 3,5/10

This was bad

Bit of a tick box exercise here I think to get Finland onto the list. Nothing against Finland at all but I could say a lot about how bad this album is. Wiki states they have now broken up. Thank goodness for that. 1/5 31/7/24

Nope.

So glad I'll never have to listen to this again. Even the band sound like they're dialling this in. Just awful, one star awful.

As far as 80's hair bands go, this one suuuuux. Cool name tho. But that's about where it ends. Singer struggles to hit pitches, guitar work is ok, lyrics are straight out of a rhyming dictionary. Themes are idiotic. Beats are sophomoric.

No, I don't need to listen to this before I die.

Ice Cream Summer

These bands need to stop making intro songs so good that they then cannot deliver on making the rest of the album even close to as good Intro song was a 5 but the rest was just so boring that I'm giving it a 1 because I am disappointed

Bag of shite

Terrible lyrics, big hair, generic guitar sounds; this was all a bit of an accident. Nothing to see here, move along please.

Why was this in anyone's list of music to listen to?

I tried to listen to this but I’m not convinced it exists in the form it’s supposed to be listened too. Could I have tried harder? Yes but I went by probably a year to just write this.

This was not good. At all. 2/10

This kinda glam hair metal classic rock stuff just does nothing for me.

The one album not on apple music, after the last two really great albums, I'm glad I don't have to listen to this one.

Why is this album on the list?

It's a collection of tracks, but not something I needed to hear before I died.

The Clash without any soul

an album that i'm not into that apparently inspired many other artists that i'm also not into

I don't understand why this is on the list, but read some articles explaining their influence. I need a movie about this band starring Joaquin Phoenix or Jamie Foxx to revisit my rating.

I'm just baffled at the inclusion of this album on this list. Fuck off

that was definitely a thing that happened could i write poetry to this? n (and i was trying)

1.5 Hanoi Rocks, more like Hanoi Sucks, am I right!?!? I thought this might be a tongue-in-cheek glam rock album. Turns out they are just Finnish. Still 1.3 better than Elbow

God this is bad..............

Gear: Hifiman Arya Mix: wie Kaffee für die Herzstation Musik: hat was, nicht viel, aber was. Wertung: 💇‍♀️(💇‍♀️)/5

This isn't something I'd willing listen to again not list worthy

This may well be the lowest 1 star rating I've awarded so far. Appalling stuff, of absolutely no merit whatsoever. Dimery must have been out of his mind to put this on the list.

Was expecting to hate this album. Didn't end up hating it, but still not really a fan. Just kind of feels like whatever, no real purpose to the album. Top tracks: Tooting Bec Wreck

Pretty smarmy

Keine Hits.

This is what a crap AI-generated album sounds like 40 years before AI. But it’s the same principle - unsurprising and ultimately just boring generic corporate rock. I can smell the hairspray and sweaty spandex, and it’s not pretty.

Their English is much better than my Finnish. I wish it wasn’t.

Thank-you, but no thank-you. Not a good way to start the day.

I was into hair bands when I was a teen in the 80s so I had higher hopes for this album. I couldn't finish it, stopped at track 5.

Only redeemable feature is it was mercifully short

Why is this on the list??

Oof this is as bad as it gets.

Not my genre.

THE ALBUMNING RETURNS BLESSED DAY I WISH MY CARD WOULD FUCKING WORK IM SWEATING MY TITS OFF ON A WEEKDAY BASIS IM DRESSING UP AS A CAVEMAN AND ITS ALL MY FAULT ANYWAY THIS ALBUM KIND OF BLOWS

You know... there are times when I wonder if I should write music. My own ideas always feel so hokey and simplistic. I feel like everyone will mock me out of the room for trying. And then I hear gems like this and remember that it's okay. Thank you Hanoi Rocks. If you're willing to put your name on this and release it to the public, I can have some courage too.

Inofensivo, palurdo, aburrido. Rock para gente que usa carritos de golf seguido.

1.5

Pretty bland and not interesting enough to listen past the first few tracks. Juvenile lyrics - like a high school band. Boring and can't believe it is on this list.

not sure about this one

Shitty generic 80's glam rock

Torture

Finnish rock band. Popular I early 80’s. I honestly didn’t like any of it.

Once more, I do not care for Glam Rock. 1.5/5

I came close to bailing during the first track. The saxaphone saved it. This is bar room brawl music. I'm not up for the fight. I wimped out at track two.

Why?

RIP Razzle

No thanks

No not for me

All style, no substance. Mediocre songs played by a mediocre band. And they're not even cool in a tongue-in-cheek way. Found on the Wikipedia page about the band: "Although musically closer to traditional rock n' roll and punk, Hanoi Rocks has been cited as a major influence in the glam metal genre for bands such as Guns N' Roses, Skid Row and Poison." That sure explains a few things. Next, please. Number of albums left to review: 528 Number of albums from the list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 226 Albums from the list I *might* include in mine later on: 109 Albums from the list I will certainly *not* include in mine (many others are more essential to me): 138 (including this one)

Simply awful. I don't understand the album selection, or what Genre is so denuded of choice that this would get in?

I get why the album is on the list, but the music really is laughable. Such a weird band (and a weird wiki article with an introduction ending on "Miriam Stockley on backing vocals, who had also sung with Pink Floyd". a) this is super weird to write in an introduction to an album, and b) it just seems to not be true). Hanoi Rocks were not native speakers of English and the lyrics show it. They are even more simplistic than the bands they inspired. I will admit that I got my hopes up after the cool 'Beating Gets Faster', only to be vastly disappointed by the childish 'Ice Cream Summer'.

get real

This was a really hard to find album and yet it’s somehow one of the 1001 albums I need to hear. Interesting. Overall it also was not that great to listen to. So I’d say this album was not that important. 3.4/10

This some kind of joke? FAIL

No.

Glam rock! Het kan goed uitpakken of het kan echt niks zijn.

Never heard of this band before, but seeing THAT haircut, I had a rough idea what I was in for. This is pretty much everything I hate about 80s hair rock, not sure how it ended up on the list. Plenty of power chords and badly written lyrics. "Beating Gets Faster" is a prime example of that. Is "Lick Summer Love" written from the point of view of a rapist? Creepy AF

Ни один альбом ещё не сумел меня разозлить так сильно, как этот. Жалкое подражание звуку рока 80х, которое наскучивает уже на втором треке, потому что абсолютно никак не развивается и звучит совершенно неинтересно и забито до смерти. Чуть до смерти не был и забит и я, потому что этот альбом наскучивает так сильно, что мне в кои-то веки захотелось, чтобы альбом закончился побыстрее. Единственный хороший момент был, когда солист назвал кого-то сукой, я хихикнул. (3)

Shit 80s arena rock

hard to rank when half the album is missing

Shit was ass

мне вообще не понравился, какой-то очереднярский альбом в списке 1001 лучших, если тут есть он, и нет ни одного альбома плейбой карти, то я советую автору провести работу по реставрации своего искусства.

Everything I hate about 80s rock wrapped up in one easily demonstrable package

Not good at all.

Rough stuff idk

Don’t bother

Terrible album! How does this at all belong on this list. I don't care who it allegedly inspired. It is a badly badly mixed album and bad music. I can't understand why this is on here. These are the albums that make me consider if this project is even worth finishing. I mean it's so bad Spotify doesn't have half the songs and whoever made the YouTube playlist couldn't even be bothered enough to put playlist the right way up so I heard the first 5 seconds of each song at least twice. Xbox 360 headsets had better audio quality than the mics they used to record this album. I am still hesitant to give it a 1 because there are worse albums, but I am just so tired of getting so many bad albums so it gets what it gets.

It's interesting that, in Wikipedia, featured prominently in the lead paragraph of the review of this album is the fact that one of their (studio) back-up singers had also sang back-up on one of Pink Floyd's albums - wow!!! And the only reviews offered up are negative. The hooks are cliched, they are more pre-occupied with their looks than the music, the commercial rock sound was pretty dead by '83 and . Another questionable 1001 selection!

The album cover jarred me back to some bad 80s clubs and parties that involved dubious fashion choices. There were some moments in the 80s that are best forgotten and this album is on that list. Like WTF were they thinking back then? Cheesy, cliched lyrics and licks that add nothing to music history IMO and I can't understand for the life of me why this album is on this list.

This is the fourth album from the rock band Hanoi Rocks, and it was moderately successful. This band is from Finland so English is not their native tongue, and you can sorta tell by listening to the lyrics. The songs did not contain any memorable hooks, but did have some good guitar playing. This is a good album to listen to if you want to know what 80's hard rock sounds like through a Finnish filter. However, I will not listen to it again.

Nothing special and like half the songs were missing on spotify

Maybe it's a blessing that this full album wasn't available on Spotify. And maybe that means Neil Young and Joni Mitchell were involved with this band. I certainly know I heard enough that I didn't need to seek the full album elsewhere.

Da Da Da Da Da Uh! Da Da Da Da Da Uh! Dubček, Dubček, Dubček, Mao Tse-tung, King Kong etc. geben mehr als 1.1

Finnlands Antwort auf Mötley Crüe, ich hatte mich bisschen darauf gefreut, die auf der Bahnfahrt zur Arbeit zu hören. Schön raunchy/horny sich im Regionalexpress nach L.A. denken, den inneren Kajal am Anschlag und so. War aber Fehlanzeige wegen schlimmer Langeweile. Konventioneller hätten die Sounds nicht gehen können, und Texte wie aus ner Bravo-Fotolovestory. Totale Enttäuschung.

Tie back my cyst, Troy! This was woeful

Feels like these dudes really wanted to make fun of shitty 80's rock so they made an album of all shitty 80's rock. Respect. UPDATE: Ripping on glam rock by making parody glam rock still means you made glam rock.

Heavy rock, cercano al metal a veces. No me dice nada ni me atrae el sonido. Olvidable

This album is like a ridiculous self-parody of glam rock. The standard "Back to Mystery City" formula is awkward lyrics hurled over milquetoast guitar riffs with a surprising amount of passion and absolutely zero self-awareness.

Zu alter Rock.

Not my thing.

Gosh early 80s hair metal was terrible