Billy Squier’s Signs Of Life (1984) found in the clearance bin at Record City on East Charleston in Las Vegas. If you are ever in Vegas, this store is a must-visit if only to talk about music, culture, and life with the manager Joey. Few record stores are as welcoming as Joey’s place.
“Signs of Life is one of the best pure rock and roll records I’ve heard in years.” – producer Jim Steinman
“I think there is the equivalent of four “Stairway To Heaven” tracks here.” – producer Jim Steinman
“I went from 15,000 and 20,000 people a night to 10,000 people. Everything I’d worked for my whole life was crumbling, and I couldn’t stop it.” – Billy Squier in I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Video Revolution (author’s note: one of the best books ever released!)
I think everyone who religiously watched MTV in the 1980s remembers Billy Squier’s unintentionally hilarious video for “Rock Me Tonight”. Directed by Kenny Ortega, Squier pranced and danced his way around a pink set that was far better suited to a Culture Club video. Squier wasn’t the first or last artist to struggle with the video medium but his misstep has grown into a cautionary tale that overshadows a very respectable career.
Coming off two successful albums, Squier seemed poised to become one of the biggest rock stars of the 1980s and deservedly so. Don’t Say No (1981) and Emotions In Motion (1982) remain some of the better rock and roll albums to emerge early in the decade. Entering the studio hot off a tour with Queen and his own headlining run in arenas, Squier switched producers. Enter Jim Steinman after Mutt Lange pulled out of the project at the last minute. In listening to Signs Of Life, this seems to be where the damage truly occurs.
There might be a concept album buried in Signs Of Life but it is hard to find. The opening sound effects of “All Night Long” are reminiscent of the previous album’s opener “Everybody Wants You” but this paint-by-numbers rocker lacks the same punch. By 1984, Bryan Adams was doing this sort of rock-n-roll more successfully and the synths that percolate around the guitars are a distraction.
For as much grief as “Rock Me Tonight” receives, it remains Squier’s most successful single and on the album, it stands tall above the rest of the songs. It is one of the few tracks that measure up to the previous albums and that, more than any video, is why Squier’s career stalled with this album. The production of Steinman attempts to turn every song into something larger than life which wasn’t who Billy Squier was.
The slow-moving “Eye On You” has fantastic verses that are hard to appreciate because an overblown chorus wipes away your patience. The first three songs were the three singles and the album loses momentum after that but “Take A Look Behind Ya” and “Can’t Get Next To You” are two worth finding. A little more stripped-down, the songs are more like the classic Squier we were expecting. It would have been interesting to see what Mutt Lange would have done as a producer.
Far worse than the video for “Rock Me Tonight” is the song “(Another) 1984” which is the type of sci-fi concept song that makes you cringe. The influence of touring with Queen is all over this song from name-checking “Keep Yourself Alive” to a guest appearance by Brian May for the guitar solo. The soaring background vocals, chugging guitar, and walls of synths turn this into an overblown mess. As much as I adore the music of the 1980s, when things went bad, as they do here, they really went bad.
Walking out of Record City last week, I felt certain that Signs Of Life would surprise me with a lot of great Billy Squier songs that were unjustly swept under pink satin sheets. While there are some solid songs scattered across the record, the production of Steinman ruins the listening experience. In 1984, popular music had Prince, Madonna, Springsteen, and many others releasing career-making albums. Squier’s album wasn’t on that level and no video, good or bad, could change that.