Night Ranger: Dawn Patrol CD Track Listing

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Night Ranger Dawn Patrol (1982)
Originally Released 1982\nCD Edition Released \n\nAMG EXPERT REVIEW: Unlike many of their pop-metal contemporaries, Night Ranger's early work has aged quite well, and this excellent 1982 debut is a well-kept secret of the genre. Dripping with hooks and irresistible choruses, "Don't Tell Me You Love Me," "Sing Me Away," and "Young Girl in Love" are simply outstanding songs. Anyone doubting the band's ability to rock out need only listen to the vicious bursts of "Eddie's Comin' Out Tonight" and "Play Rough." And despite offering the mandatory power ballad in "Call My Name" (which is actually quite good), the band rarely allow the album's intensity level to lag. -- Ed Rivadavia\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nAwesome debut from the pop-metal quintet, December 21, 2005\nReviewer: Darth Kommissar (Las Vegas, NV (USA)) - See all my reviews\n \nDawn Patrol (1982.) Night Ranger's first album. \n\nINTRODUCTION: \nIn the eighties, there were a number of hard rock groups dominating the music scene. These metal bands fell into two categories - the aggressive, straight-up angry thrash metal scene, and the lighter, more pop-oriented "hair" metal. Both camps had their share of excellent bands. In the former camp, one of the most popular groups was Night Ranger. The group descended from Stereo, a threesome consisting of bassist Jack Blades, drummer Kelly Keagy, and guitarist Brad Gillis. The band eventually grew to include second guitarist Jeff Watson and keyboardist Alan "Fitz" Fitzgerald. The name changed to Ranger, and due to copyright infringement by that name, it changed again to Night Ranger. How does the band's debut album, Dawn Patrol, measure up? Read on and see! \n\nOVERVIEW: \nNight Ranger released their first album, Dawn Patrol, in 1982. The band consisted of guitarists Brad Gillis and Jeff Watson, Keyboardist Alan "Fitz" Fitzgerald, drummer Kelly Keagy, and bassist Jack Blades. The album's tracklist consists of Don't Tell Me You Love Me, Sing Me Away, At Night She Sleeps, Call My Name, Eddie's Comin' Out Tonight, Can't Find Me A Thrill, Young Girl In Love, Play Rough, Penny, and (the song) Night Ranger. \n\nREVIEW: \nAmong the metal bands of the eighties that fell more into the pop-metal side of things, Night Ranger definitely was one of the best. And they had an excellent sound from day one. Truly, they were an all-star cast of musicians who had limitless potential. It's a shame that they tend to get overlooked in favor of other pop metal bands who come off as very cheesy. But it's the music itself that counts, and Night Ranger serves up ten tracks of pure pop-metal goodness on their debut. Read on, and see what tracks the debut offers, and how they fare! \n\n-SIDE A- \n\n-Don't Tell Me You Love Me: The track that starts off the band's first album is also the one that would become the biggest hit off of the album. Essentially, this is straight-up hard rock, but with the addition of keyboards in the background, it takes on a slight eighties pop flavor. The end result is one of the finest songs in the band's catalogue, and isn't hard at all to see why it became the big hit that it did. This one's got it all. \n\n-Sing Me Away: Another fairly big hit for Night Ranger, and one of my all-time favorite songs the group ever recorded. Once again, the band takes a basic enough hard rock sound, but this time they combine it with some more melodic elements. The end result is a song that that combines the best elements of two musical extremes - hard and melodic alike. One of my favorite songs - ever. \n\n-At Night She Sleeps: Pop rock and hard rock combine - excellently. Night Ranger is one of those bands that could, with total expertise, take elements of pop rock and hard rock alike, and fuse them together into a universally-appealing sound. Most rock bands that used keyboards in this era overused them to the point that they became cheesy, but Night Ranger manages to put them to excellent use, without overdoing them. This song demonstrates that point perfectly. A solid song through and through. \n\n-Call My Name: This one is a power ballad of sorts - and a rather good one, too. It's not quite a ballad to the point that it comes off as boring if you're a fan of hard rock, but it's soft and melodic enough at times that if you're into power ballads, you'll enjoy it. Once again, the band has taken two musical extremes and combined them nicely. \n\n-Eddie's Comin' Out Tonight: Another excellent rocker - did you expect otherwise. Essentially, on this one, the band serves up some straight-up hard rock. There are less poppy elements here than it some of the band's other song, which will be good news for some. Guitars are the main instrument here all the way through, and keyboard use is minimized, and where it is, it's relegated to the background. Definitely a solid rocker deserving of its status as one of the band's popular songs. \n\n-SIDE B- \n\n-Can't Find Me A Thrill: Once again, the group serves up straight-up hard rock - an does a damn good job of it. With two virtuoso guitarists in the group, they really specialized at pulling off this guitar-heavy rockers - and this is a prime example. If you like eighties-style hard rock, this song is not to be missed. \n\n-Young Girl In Love: Night Ranger could do power ballads better than pretty much every other band of their era, because even their ballads rocked. This here is another example of that phenomenon the band frequently demonstrated. The song is very similar in its overall execution to the band's later hit, When You Close Your Eyes. I only wish THIS song would have been a bigger hit, as it was certainly deserving of it! \n\n-Play Rough: And here's another serving of that hard rock only Night Ranger could do, with that distinctive touch of an eighties sound. Once again keyboard usage is relegated to background music, and the dual guitars are the primary instrumentation present here. More of the solid hard rock you've come to know and love. \n\n-Penny: More hard rock. And once again, the band throws in their distinctive eighties sound, while once again, keeping the keyboard usage to a minimum. The guitar twosome serves up the primary instrumentation, and does a good job of it. One of my personal favorite songs on the album. \n\n-Night Ranger (the song): The band closes out their debut album with their eponymous track. The keyboard usage in this song is a bit more intensive than in some of the others on the album, but it doesn't at all detract from the overall experience of things. I think the band ended their debut on a high note. Give this one a listen, and you're likely to agree. \n\nOVERALL: \nIn the end, Night Ranger's debut is about as good as pop-flavored hard rock gets. It's a shame some of the more cheesy acts of the day tend to hog all the credit, and give this subgenre of hard rock a bad name, because Night Ranger was truly one of the most talented acts of their day. Over the course of the eighties, the band scored a number of pop hits and shelled out plenty of underrated masterpieces - and perhaps none of their albums epitomize that point like the first one. \n\nEDITION NOTES: \nNight Ranger's albums are tough to come by in stores, with the exception of their compilations. The albums are NOT out of print, they are just tough to come by. If you want them, you may have to do some major searching, or better yet, just order them online. They're worth getting if you like pop-flavored metal. \n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\npromising, June 8, 2005\nReviewer: Scott Rogers (Ga.) (Gainesville, Ga United States)\nI dusted this effort off recently while transferring a wealth of vinyl to digital. Musically the album, like you would expect from such a talented band, is very good. With a couple guitarslingers like Jeff Watson and the underrated Brad Gillis you expect a lot. The songs are hit and miss though. At times the band shows uncanny pop sensibility with songs such as "Don't Tell You Love Me" and "Young Girl in Love" and at other times can't seem to find a good melody such as "Play Rough" "Eddie's comin' out Tonight". Knowing the two heavyweights playing guitar makes one expect more from the band, but alas, they could never deliver a solid front to back album. I find it interesting to look back at videos from this era a see that "Fitz" Gerald and the keyboardist from Prince's "1999" era band band both mined the surgeon-in-scrubs look. LOL. The album is worth picking up though, just to get the epic "Don't Tell Me..." a rocker for the ages. This alone gets it an extra star.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nNight Ranger's Best Album, December 20, 2003\nReviewer: A music fan\nDAWN PATROL is Night Ranger's first- and overall best- album. Although their biggest hits would come later, this album is much more consistent musically than their other albums, excluding compilations. This album is the sound of a band just putting it all on the line and rocking out. The reason some of their later albums- such as BIG LIFE- were wanting in excitement is that they seemed to be trying too hard for the big hits. Here, however, they're just rocking like it's nobody's business. Get DAWN PATROL, MIDNIGHT MADNESS, 7 WISHES, and LIVE IN JAPAN, and you'll have the ultimate Night Ranger library.\n\nHalf.com Album Notes\nWhen guitarist Brad Gillis was named as the replacement for the just-deceased Randy Rhoads in Ozzy Osbourne's band, many figured that the young guitarist would be content joining an already established outfit. But this ultimately proved not to be the case. His heart lay with the band he was a part of when he took the Ozzy gig, Night Ranger, and returned to them after Osbourne's 1982 tour wrapped up.\nThe move proved to be a surprisingly sound one, since Night Ranger quickly established themselves as a rock force on their own with their debut, DAWN PATROL. Merging hard rock's power with melodic pop songwriting, the band scored an early MTV favorite with "Don't Tell Me You Love Me," as well as the underrated rockers "Sing Me Away," "Eddie's Comin' Out Tonight," "Play Rough," and "At Night She Sleeps."
This rock cd contains 10 tracks and runs 40min 38sec.
Freedb: 9609840a
Buy: from Amazon.com

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