Let me take you back about 30 years in time, . . . . to the early 1990’s.
Before or after you read this article, just close your eyes, and start listening to the first song i will post, and just listen.
You just listened to the title track of the love/hate debut album, blackout in the red room. This album is recorded in the days right before the big grunge explosion that would change the face of rock music forever.
If you look at the video, you see the clothes and hear the funky influences some bands took from bands like the red hot chili peppers, living colour, fishbone etc
Love/Hate was one of those bands working, gigging around LA for years in the 80’s, until they finally signed a record deal in late 1988,
They recorded their debut in 1989 and released the debut early in the new decade.
Their music was a mix from hair and glam metal to raw rock, pop and funk.
Tongue in cheek lyrics with a catchy chorus to sing or scream along to.
As you can hear, the production of the songs was really good, the bass is actually sounding great, and to be honest, the whole debut is catchy as fk.
Last week i listened to it for the first time in 25 years and the songs got stuck instantly in my head. Which was also the reason why i decided to write an underrated article about Blackout in the Red Room.
But even though they had all that, good production, major label backing, catchy songs, good looks, they did not have one very important thing
.... momentum
The album never made a better chart position then 154 in the US, and they never charted with this album in the UK (though the two follow ups both made it there in the top 20 charts)
In retrospect it is easy to understand that Blackout in the Red Room was not released in the right time frame to really shine and get the credit they deserved, because with their music sounding different as usual, but nothing like the underground grunge movement which was at that time, coming to a world wide chart explosion. They already lost before the battle even started
- In 1992 the band released Wasted in America, an album that was initially rejected by the label, and they needed months to re-record the album, hostory says that the creative differences with the Columbia label started here.
In 1993 Love/Hate was dropped from their major label Columbia records, and bass player Skidd sold his car to finance their third album Let’s Rumble. And from that moment on the bands career started to decay. They had some succes in Europe, and toured as support for A list acts, they supposedly gave and brought nice live performances but their career never really broke, and at home in the USA they really had failure to launch.
In the decade after the release of Blackout in the Red Room, Love/Hate have released 5 more albums and a compilation. In 2017 they released Before the Blackout, which were just remastered demotapes.
In April 2020, it was announced that Goldon Robot Records had signed Jizzy Pearl's Love/Hate with a new record due later the same year. As part of this announcement, the band is also expected to play the Black out in the Red Room (1990) album in its entirety to celebrate its 30 year anniversary.
