Defiance Part 1

Product Information

Mott's three CBS-era albums, All The Young Dudes, Mott and The Hoople have been released in SACD format.

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He's 83, but save for the grizzled husk in his voice, Hunter tears into these 11 songs like someone less than half his age.

It’s another of Hunter’s solid piano-based pop rockers, taking on the divisive animus that fuels too much of our public discourse. Nobody but Hunter has the power, at this point in their career, to sound so fresh, so new and so exciting.

Ian Hunter, ‘Defiance Part 1′: Album Review

We finally get all the encores, including The Jean Genie/Love Me Do and Round And Round which both feature Jeff Beck. D.Andrew (from the Boxmasters), and Dean Delo, Robert de Leo and Eric Kretz (from Stone Temple Pilots).

But with quarantine rules still in effect, Hunter was unable to flesh them out further by hitting the studio with the Rant Band. There’s something a little E St Band-ish about “Guernica” and Joe Elliott’s harmonies are superb, while “I Hate Hate” is an example of the anger that burns. I’ve always had him down as a kind of British Bob Dylan, and “Bed Of Roses” (Ringo Starr and Mike Campbell on this one) underlines it with its glorious rambling poetry.

Ian Hunter - Defiance Part 1 - (Vinyl LP, CD) | Rough Trade Ian Hunter - Defiance Part 1 - (Vinyl LP, CD) | Rough Trade

Working with little more than a computer, guitar, V5 piano, and “a very small keyboard,” Hunter and York created a collection of bare bones demos but with quarantine rules still in effect, were unable to flesh them out further by hitting the studio with the Rant Band.Even the presence of a line-up of ridiculously famous star names, normally a bad sign (superstar contributors tend to act like a dead weight on albums, rather than a lift) doesn't detract from the sheer Ian Hunter-ness of Defiance. Working together with little more than a computer, guitar, V5 piano, and “a very small keyboard,” Hunter and York created bare bones demos which were then refined by engineer James Frazee at his Hobo Sound Studios in Weehawken, NJ. It also tells how Ian, at Mott's peak, found a friction with fame and jettisoned what he had achieved with a "Sod showbiz and schmoozing" attitude and an "I'll do my own thing" manifesto. It covers Ian's youth and formative rock 'n' roll years in the Sixties, Mott the Hoople's formation, David Bowie's intervention as "a fan" of the band and Mott's rise to international stardom. DEFIANCE PART 1 is a full-speed-ahead rock ‘n’ roll record rarely heard in this day and age, recorded with a crew of irrefutable rock ‘n’ roll all-stars and released on the definitive rock ‘n’ roll label.

Defiance Part 1 - Available Everywhere Now! | Ian Hunter

No Hard Feelings” is a slower song, with Hunter singing about how he’s “gonna make a man out of you,” with a strong example of stellar guitar playing from the now, late Jeff Beck, along with Johnny Depp adding to the track.Johnny Depp, who is a mate of mine, said ‘Jeff Beck’s with me and we’d like to do a couple of songs.