Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Magnum
Label: Polydor Records
Released: 1990
Rating: 2.5/5
“Goodnight L.A.”, easily the weakest chapter in the Magnum story, was a side effect of a way-too-long stay in Los Angeles, America’s famous mecca of kitsch, and the surrender to the usual rock-star excesses that came with it. Those excesses ultimately proved a death sentence for the creative, imaginative gray matter of the once unstoppable champions of British melodic rock. Endless days in sunglasses, rustling Hawaiian shirts, rides in Cadillacs and limos, cozy get-togethers with ladies of easy virtue with lush, mostly silicone-enhanced curves, and the general consumption of every other trademark Californian folkloric element in the heart of “paradise on Earth” could do nothing good for the once modest lads from Birmingham, devoted to music to the core. American post-Reagan consumerist kitsch totally blinded a band who were still basking in the glow of the massive success of the masterpiece “Wings Of Heaven” (1988), long before this product came to life, inspired from top to bottom by that very experience.
It was perfectly understandable that Magnum’s creative path would slowly head downhill after that artistic and commercial peak, so it wasn’t exactly a shock. But the blame for “Goodnight L.A.” being such a jaw-droppingly mediocre follow-up to “Wings Of Heaven” can’t be pinned on the band alone. The main responsibility for the all-pervading Americanization of their trademark sound, which was meant to bring them closer to the popular hair metal acts of the day, lies with their label at the time, Polydor, which wanted to conquer the American market the easy way. That was a market that had always bred on lipstick-and-scandal circuses, with the music coming in somewhere around third place.
To that end, they were practically forced to work with the renowned American producer Keith Olsen, who knew exactly how to serve up this stuff, having become famous mostly as the producer of Whitesnake’s monstrously successful album “1987”. “Goodnight L.A.” (luckily) didn’t become another “1987”, but it did a good job of denting the reputation of a once thoroughly British band, who only a few years earlier had been writing lyrics about ancient battles with unmistakably pacifist messages and wowing music fans with their sophisticated blend of art rock and AOR. Even the eternal pacifist storyteller Tony Clarkin gave in to the corporate trend of the time and wrote some of the most transparent lyrics of his career, where the mystical themes were mostly replaced by Cadillacs and scantily clad plastic bimbos with fake smiles.
Still, despite all this merciless criticism of the “sold-out” band’s seriously reduced creative potential and intelligence, not everything on “Goodnight L.A.” is that bad. Even though they’re grafted onto typical American hair metal production (Stanway’s keyboard sound suffers from it the most), individual arrangements are still recognizable as this band’s. Most of the songs were built, as usual, around Clarkin’s characteristic hard rock riffs, while Catley’s vocals, excellent as ever, still carried a satisfying dose of epic grandeur. Even though he had to make a fool of himself with lyrics along the lines of “oh, baby, I cry for you”. Here and there you even find a few bright moments that recall the Magnum of old, but there are too few of them to change the verdict on this album as a stylistic misfire. If this had been their debut, or if they’d previously been known as a typical hair metal band, you could even say it’s one of the better releases of the genre. As it stands, though, it pretty much amounts to an artistic burial for the former champions of melodic art rock.
There isn’t much else to say about most of the tracks on the album, except that they’re pretty similar to one another, with their simple, hyper-melodic arrangements, repetitive hard rock motifs and the dominant, already mentioned shallow lyrics. Typical representatives of this hair metal Americanization are the sugar-coated “Rockin’ Chair”, where the center of the repeating chorus is the merry goings-on in the back seat of a Cadillac, the boring “Mama”, where the central heavy-rock motif and monotonous rhythm go absolutely nowhere, the even more boring “What Kind Of Love Is This” with its plastic synthesizer lines and infantile lyrics, and “No Way Out”, which, thanks to its chorus, could easily be declared a tragicomic attempt at copying the Van Halen classic “Jump”.
The other creations on the album fare noticeably better, since Olsen’s influence didn’t manage to infect them. The seven-plus-minute “Only A Memory”, a rather botched attempt at recreating the Magnum of old, with a bit of Queen magic thrown in (mostly thanks to the backing harmonies, which feature Saga singer Michael Sadler), best symbolizes the band’s sudden creative slump. Despite the excellent riff and singing, it lacks that fire and the grandiose arrangements (the keyboards completely fail here) that used to adorn this kind of epic experiment. The very solid hard rocker “Reckless Man”, with its juicy central guitar riff and socially critical lyrics, could easily have fit on “Wings Of Heaven” too.
The same goes for “Matter Of Survival”, which has a very pretty, romantic chorus, seductive keyboard textures and even tasteful saxophone arrangements. The latter for a brief moment even recall the Magnum of old, those mystical Anglo-Saxon romantics. “Shoot” is a good piece too, winning you over with a classic Magnum rousing chorus and a strong central motif. The most delightful moment, the one that reminds us of the good old classic Magnum, is the last track, the epic treat “Born To Be King”, the only real classic on the album and fully worthy of their past masterpieces, where ancient legends came to life. Their trademark mystique and art rock magic bloom again here, filling the listener with hope for a better future.
No wonder, then, that after this studio experience, which ended in miserable sales and disappointment (longtime fans were seriously let down by “Goodnight L.A.”, while the hair metal crowd, despite Whitesnake’s success, kept trusting the American champions of lipstick rock over some “British eccentrics”), Magnum ended their partnership with Polydor. It’s far from the case that “Goodnight L.A.” is a total disaster, since it has its bright moments, but next to most other Magnum releases its good sides fade pretty fast. Most hair metal bands, meanwhile, would have done anything for a record like this back then. So I recommend it mostly to fans of that kind of scene, while those looking for their representative work should rather look back to the ’80s. Magnum did recover pretty quickly from this creative and commercial slip and somehow found their groove and sound again, the one that adorned their best releases, but they never managed to reach their evergreen depth again.
Line-up
Bob Catley – vocals
Tony Clarkin – guitar
Wally Lowe – bass
Mark Stanway – keyboards
Mickey Barker – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Michael Sadler (Saga) – backing vocals
Tommy Funderburk – backing vocals
Paulinho da Costa – percussion
Deric Dyer – saxophone
Production
Keith Olsen
Track list
1. Rockin’ Chair (4:10)
2. Mama (4:34)
3. Only A Memory (7:04)
4. Reckless Man (3:11)
5. Matter Of Survival (4:19)
6. What Kind Of Love Is This (4:35)
7. Heartbroke and Busted (3:37)
8. Shoot (3:34)
9. No Way Out (3:59)
10. Cry For You (3:57)
11. Born To Be King (5:33)
Album length: 48:40
