It has been interesting to do this project. I’m discovering things that may not have been so obvious as they unfolded in real time back in the 1980’s. For example, I can see my interest in Heavy Metal waning a lot faster than I remembered it. Originally it seemed that The Metal Years lasted so much longer than they actually did. It was still a fairly long time and the end of The Metal Years didn’t mean I stopped listening to metal music completely. It just became a smaller portion of the listening and the active acquiring of new metal albums would all but cease.
I can feel it as I write. with each metal album to discuss, there seems to be less enthusiasm and in many cases, I cannot remember listening to them much. Compare that to the albums at the beginning ofThe Metal Yearswhere every song was committed to memory and associated with so manyremember whenevents.
The Last Command is firmly on that stack of albums that mark the beginning of the end of The Metal Years. I don’t wish to demean it, it has some good stuff on it and even MTV was playing W*A*S*P videos from this album. You could tell that the record company told Blackie Lawless toclean it up a little to make it more marketable.
The Last Command is one of the few albums I had on vinyl that I had not replaced on Compact Disc. It is on the list and it will happen someday. I like it enough to put it on the someday list.
Wild Child
Ballcrusher
Jack Action